<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Darius Miles had a one-word response when it was relayed to him that his coach secretly considers Miles -- not Ricky Davis or Zydrunas Ilgauskas or even LeBron James -- the key to Cleveland's season. That word? "Good." Only now, just hours before the Cavaliers play their fourth game on national television, we have seen them enough to say that it's time to relay some bad news to the kid who helped make punching himself in the forehead a national phenomenon. That news? He's not. With apologies to Paul Silas, Miles is not the trigger man for Cleveland making an honest playoff run -- only because the Cavs reside in the East, of course -- in LeBron's first season of manhood. It's Ricky-Ricky-Ricky-Ricky (shut up). The theory, as it was presented when the season started, suggested that the Cavs pretty much knew what to expect from Ilgauskas, Davis and Carlos Boozer. With total faith in James, even before he started exceeding expectations in his very first real game, Silas saw D-Miles as the X-factor. The guy who would have to be more consistent than he's ever been before, thereby lessening the burden on LeBron. Just a dozen games later, a revision is required. That's because Davis has come closer to meeting external expectations, which weren't quite so optimistic. In short, when Davis moves the ball and plays a team game, Cleveland is going to be competitive. The Cavs, of course, are 4-8, so you can surmise what happens when Davis doesn't. It'd be grossly unfair to pin all eight losses on him because Miles has not been as consistent as hoped and considering that Cleveland opened the season with a road trip that virtually assured an 0-3 start (at Sacramento, Phoenix and Portland). The past five games, though, illustrate the Ricky Effect pretty clearly. On Nov. 12, Cleveland followed Davis' sluggish lead to suffer a bad loss in Miami, which was the Heat's first win of the season. Two nights later, in Boston, Davis shot 4-for-16 and proved so uninterested in ball movement that Silas had to bench him for the final four minutes of a relatively close game that the Cavaliers would end up losing by nine. Just 24 hours later, Davis transformed himself into a selfless stopper, taking only six shots and hounding Allen Iverson all over the floor in Cleveland's 91-88 victory. Davis then scorched the Clippers for 27 points in a comfortable home win Tuesday night before morphing back into the me-first Ricky the next night in Washington. After making his first five shots against the Wiz, Davis missed seven of his next eight attempts until Silas pulled him with three minutes left in the third quarter. Davis did not return. So, in summary: Besides his unquestioned standing as the Cavs' best outside shooter, Davis is a gifted passer and an effective perimeter defender when he wants to be. He can get up on people and run the break like James does. Yet when Davis does none of that, Silas looks increasingly tempted to yank him off the floor and play Kevin Ollie or Ira Newble, who will play with more discipline. Problem is, the Cavs don't have enough talent -- and nowhere near sufficient outside shooting -- for Davis to be sitting. Ilgauskas also started the season in a shoot-every-touch mode but has gradually moved away from that, after a couple benchings of his own. Yet progress with Davis, sadly, never seems to last. That's why, according to more than one rival general manager, Cleveland is prepared to trade Davis, fearing that he simply won't be a team guy for them no matter what Silas tries. You suspect that the Cavs would jump at the chance now to revive those old Ricky-for-Wally Szczerbiak scenarios with Friday night's visitors from Minnesota. Szczerbiak is injured and won't play, but he was a collegian in Ohio and shoots the ball worlds better than anyone on Cleveland's present roster.</div> Full Story
