Baron Davis and 2016 Cavaliers Championship!

February 24th, 2011 is a date all Cavs fans need to remember. It’s the day Baron Davis became a Cavalier and set in motion the 2016 championship! 

 

The Players

Baron Davis, Point Guard, LA Clippers

Byron Scott, Coach of the Cavaliers

Chris Grant, GM of the Cavaliers

Mo Williams, Point Guard, Cavaliers

Kyrie Irving, Duke Point Guard

Donald Sterling, Owner LA Clippers

 

The Record 

The Cavaliers went 19-63, second worst record in the NBA. Only Minnesota was worse (even with Kevin Love on that roster!) If I told you that the Cavs were third in the league in attendance, would you believe me? Check out basketball-reference.com! Wow, so LeBron was still there, right? Nope.

 

This was the first year post LeBron in “South Beach.” Twenty-five different times the Cavs had to make roster moves for injured players. Mo, The Godfather, was the point guard but endured numerous injuries. The team was in the midst of a frustrating year. Life without the King!

 

Cavs 2010-2011 Roster

Photo from Basketball-Reference

Remember, this was the year the Cavs broke the record for the NBA’s longest losing streak with 26 consecutive losses. Heck, they were 0 for January! So, Chris Grant, who never gets enough praise for his foresight, decided to trade Mo Williams and Jamario Moon to the Clippers for Baron Davis.

 

Bringing in Davis was a somewhat skeptical move. He and Coach Byron Scott had been at odds in New Orleans. But that past summer, Davis reached out to Scott and apologized. 

 

According to the ESPN article, Scott was moved by Davis’ gesture.

“I was very touched,” he said, “to the point that I was speechless. From that point on, our relationship has been very good.”

Make no mistake. This trade was about the lottery pick. Cleveland wanted that Clipper pick. But the problem was the contracts and if LA would protect the pick. Moving Mo saved roughly $9 million but Davis was on for 2 years $28 mil. LA had started to gel with then-rookie Blake Griffin and Davis and the group they had. Why trade your starting PG? Salary cap worries.

 

The Impact of LA trading Baron Davis

Here’s a great piece on the impact and the decision to trade Davis from the Clippers perspective, thanks to clipsnation.com from 2020.

 

“The NBA was headed towards a lockout in the 2011 offseason, and there were rumors that the new collective bargaining agreement would have a one-time amnesty provision to rid an unwieldy contract from a team’s books. Davis would appear to be the perfect candidate for amnesty, as a past-his-prime player still being paid as a star.”

 

It was widely known that Kyrie wasn’t going to stay at Duke and if the NBA did strike, they would still have a draft and Irving would be #1. He would have been a good pick for LA, but Sterling demanded Davis out.

 

Kyrie Irving at Duke

 

 

So, the Cavs were able to take the Davis contact and gambled on the NBA making good on their amnesty claim. They still would have to pay him, but the contract would not count due to the amnesty clause. And more surprising was the Clippers putting NO protections on the pick! (According to clipsnation.com article.) It was a HUGE gamble by Grant!

 

Even though Kyrie only played 11 games for Duke, he was the consensus best player in college basketball. He came back for the NCAA tournament but Duke didn’t make it past the Sweet Sixteen, losing to Arizona.

 

NBA Lottery! Come on, Nick!

May 17th, Nick Gilbert stood in for his dad on the stage as the announcements were made for the NBA draft order. Sitting on the stage, the Cavaliers pick turned into the 4th one. But where would the Clipppers pick fall? #1, baby! Kyrie, come on down! Cue the conspiracy theorists!

 

Kyrie’s Rookie Year

Irving, from an individual standpoint, did not disappoint during his rookie campaign – he averaged 18.5 points, 5.4 assists and shot 46.9 percent from the field, including 39.9 percent on three-pointers.

Kyrie won the Rookie of the Year receiving 117 of a possible 120 first place votes. As it turned out, the Cavs won 21 games his rookie year. 2012-13 saw an improvement to 24 wins. Next year? 33 wins. The improvement was about the speed of an iceberg!

 

Baron Davis’ Career ends

 

Davis was waived in December with the amnesty clause, thus ending the short Cavalier career for the guard from UCLA. He played in only 29 more games with the Knicks as he retired at the end of the 2011-12 season.

 

With the drafting of Kyrie that June, the Cavs didn’t know then that he’d hit the triple that would win a championship. They were just trying to recover from the loss of LeBron.

Sometimes, the best trades ARE the ones you make!  And we know how that turned out! Thanks, Donald Sterling, for making Father’s Day, 2016 extremely memorable to all of Northeast Ohio!