<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'></p> <p class="inside-copy">The particulars:Baron Davis, 28, earns $16.4 million this season as part of a six-year $85 million contract that he can opt out of in its final year next season and become an unrestricted free agent this summer. The 6-3, 215-pound point guard has been plagued by various injuries, causing him to miss 130 games over the previous five seasons, but has yet to miss a game this season. He is one of the NBA's most visible humanitarians; he was one of the first professional athletes to give aid to Hurricane Katrina victims and has participated in the Clinton Global Initiative, visited the White House as part of First Lady Laura Bush's National Book Festival and has two non-profit foundations to help at-risk and underprivileged youths. He also has his own film financing company, Verso Entertainment.</p> <p class="inside-copy">Road to the Warriors:Drafted by the Charlotte Hornets in first round of 1999 NBA Draft (No. 3 overall) after his sophomore season at UCLA. Acquired by Golden State on Feb. 24, 2005, in exchange for Speedy Claxton and Dale Davis.</p> <p class="inside-copy">Style:He is strong and quick, a clever passer and a streak shooter with range. He is also explosive off the dribble and utilizes his strength well; can post up most point guards and run the offense from there. Defensively, he plays the passing lanes well and has quick, active hands; doesn't get bullied.</p> <p class="inside-copy">Go-to-move:Taking the ball all the way to the rim and daring anyone to try to stop him in the process; has posterized plenty of big men in his career.</p> <div id="tagCrumbs"><span class="tagListLabel">FIND MORE STORIES IN:</span>National Basketball Association | Suns | Shawn Marion | Amare Stoudemire | Baron Davis | David Dupree | Jed Jacobsohn</div> <p class="inside-copy">How to defend him:Run a second defender at him when he is in the post. When he is on the perimeter, crowd him and force him toward help. Every defender has to be aware of where he is at all times and be ready to help.</p> <p class="inside-copy">By the numbers:He is 11th in the league in scoring (career-high 23.1 points a game), second in steals (2.50) and sixth in assists (8.5). Has seven career triple-doubles, including one this season, and is the only player in the NBA averaging at least 20 points, five rebounds, five assists and two steals.</p> <p class="inside-copy">His peers:Is one of 10 former UCLA players currently in the NBA, including Jason Kapono of Toronto, Jordan Farmar of the Los Angeles Lakers and Warriors teammate Matt Barnes. Elton Brand and Steve Francis were the only players picked before him in the '99 draft, and Lamar Odom, Wally Szczerbiak, Richard Hamilton, Shawn Marion, Jason Terry, Ron Artest and Andrei Kirilenko were all picked after him.</p> <p class="inside-copy">Former player he is most readily compared to:Nate "Tiny" Archibald.</p> <p class="inside-copy">Says teammate Stephen Jackson:"He's close to a triple-double almost every night if you look at his stats. I think this year he's definitely going to get his respect as one of the best players and one of the best point guards in the NBA. He's been carrying us since last year."</div></p> <p class="inside-copy">Source: USA Today</p>
I love Baron Davis, but like all things we gotta take the good with the bad.</p> The good: -He's a vocal leader that knows what to do when rooks don't. He's like a QB. -He's got a football player's body with the speed/agility/strength to destroy somebody going one-on-one. -His arms are incredibly quick and long which allows him to play much bigger than 6'3. -High basketball IQ. He's an incredible playmaker when he puts his mind to distributing the ball rather than forcing offense. -Absolutely terrific ballhandling skills. He stays on the ball and has great control moving with it. -Very good defender when he isn't gambling for the steal and losing his defensive positioning or drawing avoidable fouls. -He wants to play in Oakland.</p> The bad: -Ego forces him into terrible, terrible momentum killing shot selections. -He's never available for at least 82 games. -He takes a lot of the team salary so it sacrifices being able to put stronger contributers around him. Take for instance: Tim Duncan taking less salary so that his team could be winners. -This guy can't shoot consistently and he shoots in volume like Antoine Walker. When he misses, he usually misses badly, which ties into his initial shot selection. -There's no reason why his free throw shooting should be as bad as it is. He's like Antoine Walker. -Gambles for steals and loses strong defensive positioning to play the ballhandler on the drive. Picks up a lot of reach-in fouls when he does.</p> The good definitely outweighs the bad, now let's get him some big men and a coach willing to play big men. Jeez... We got Ellis, Sjax, now let's find some way to put Harrington as a forward and not a center. Let's find a way to develop the power forwards and centers we drafted so we can grow! Then Baron hopefully, will play more efficiently in terms of %'s and also get more rest time because he isn't the one having to force double teams all the time.</p>
CR2 summed it up nicely. We desperately need him but the flaws are ugly ones. He should be an All-Star, but even apart from the injuries, that 41.2% career FG% and 68.5% career FT% make it very hard for him to step up to the truly elite level. That said, this year his minutes are up, turnovers are down, and he's improved his 3P%, FT%, rebounds, assists, and steals over last year. It's just those crazy long bomb (as CR2 says) ego-driven, no ball movement shots that really hurt him and the team. Then he will go and win a game with one like he did vs. the Lakers and it makes it hard to criticize, but it's still not helpful in most situations. He also needs to lighten up on the whining and fake grimacing after every call. That flop against Okur disgusted me. Yeah, he got the call, but that was unnecessary.</p>
I'm a big fan of Baron Davis, but he's not really much like Archibald so much. The similarities end with being injury prone. Archibald was nicknamed "tiny" because of his lack of size, while Davis is much stronger and can post up. Archibald showed what he could really do before injuries limited his game - he scored like Jordan and dished like Magic. He had one season where he scored 34+ PPG and dished out about 11.5 assists. At best, though, he grabbed 3 boards/game, while Davis is typically around 4/game and has a career high of 5/game. Archibald also shot near 47% for his career. In 13 seasons, he played 70+ games just 7 times.</p> I'm not sure who would be a good comparison, though I think if Ben Gordon became a point guard, people would be comparing him with Davis, and possibly favorably.</p> </p>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane)</div><div class='quotemain'></p> I'm a big fan of Baron Davis, but he's not really much like Archibald so much. The similarities end with being injury prone. Archibald was nicknamed "tiny" because of his lack of size, while Davis is much stronger and can post up. Archibald showed what he could really do before injuries limited his game - he scored like Jordan and dished like Magic. He had one season where he scored 34+ PPG and dished out about 11.5 assists. At best, though, he grabbed 3 boards/game, while Davis is typically around 4/game and has a career high of 5/game. Archibald also shot near 47% for his career. In 13 seasons, he played 70+ games just 7 times.</p> I'm not sure who would be a good comparison, though I think if Ben Gordon became a point guard, people would be comparing him with Davis, and possibly favorably.</p> </p> </div></p> </p> Closest thing I can think of is former Warrior great, Tim Hardaway. Both were great athletes, great at getting to the rim and finishing, had great court vision, monsters in the open floor. I think Tim Hardaway was more consistent and played with less risk but Baron at his best is better than Tim at his best.</p>
