The Cavaliers were desperate this summer. They needed another name to bring in hopes of keeping LeBron James in town. They talked to Toronto but Chris Bosh didn’t want to go to Cleveland. That was just one of the steps, they asked around everywhere.
The Cavs got desperate enough to look to Baron Davis as a savior, according to Mark Heisler of the Los Angeles Times.
An NBA source says the Cavaliers then offered Mo Williams and Jamario Moon for the Clippers’ Baron Davis, desperate to please James, who likes Baron and was down on Mo … even with newly hired Coach Byron Scott having clashed with Davis in New Orleans.
That has disaster written all over it for the Cavaliers — and I have no idea why the Clippers would turn it down.
If James liked Davis — likely for quality beard advice — then the Cavs ahd to try. But it would have good poorly. For starters, there is the personality issue Heisler mentioned: Davis and Scott are not a good mix. At all.
But on the court Davis and James are a bad fit. Both need the ball in their hands to be at all effective, but while James is efficient Davis is that only in spurts. He mentally checks out of games and starts jacking up threes six seconds into the shot clock. Davis put up solid numbers last season but he was not a leader, he was not the Baron that led Golden State to upset Dallas in the playoffs. You can argue that being on a contender with LeBron means “good Baron” would have shown up most nights, but history would beg to differ. Good Baron is a rare and special sighting these days, and the real Davis would have clashed with the coach and LeBron.
As for the Clippers… why did they not do this? Mo Williams is a solid staring point guard with numbers close to Davis; Moon a good guy to bring off the bench for the three, where the Clippers are weakest. What’s more, with the return of Blake Griffin, the biggest question about the Clippers is how much Davis holds the team back. Will he jack up threes rather than feed the quality front line the Clippers have? Davis will have more freedom under Vinny Del Negro and that could be bad for getting the ball to the Clippers strengths.
Mo Williams does not have the upside of Davis, but he is reliable night-to-night. Last season Williams shot 42 percent from three, Davis 27.7 percent. Their PERs are not that different, and Williams is consistent. He might listen to the coach, he might run the offense. And you get an athletic wing player in Moon to throw in the mix.
Not sure why this deal died, or how far along it got, but if it was the Clippers that killed it they made a mistake. If it was Cleveland, they wised up.
