Another shot with Ricky Davis?

[indeedproceed]

Ricky Davis has never in his NBA life helped turn a losing franchise into a winning franchise.

Not true.

03-04 - Boston Celtics - 36-46
Davis was traded to the Celtics midway through the 03-04 season.
04-05 - Boston Celtics - 45-37

Best as I can see, Ricky Davis's total win loss was 86-96 in his total tenure with the Celtics. Gotta look big picture.

[makaveli]

i'd rather see TA play those minutes or give the rooks a chance
JR Giddens reminds me of Josh Smith- those long long legs and steps
Walker has a potential of becoming new Carter - Pierce type of a guy

[BrickJames]

What was the last team that was able to trade him for a good return? 


Teams that get him seem to turn around relatively fast and get rid of him. 

Ricky Davis has never in his NBA life helped turn a losing franchise into a winning franchise.

Yes he did.   He helped Cleveland be bad enough to get Lebron. 

Touche.  Say NO to Tyree Ricardo "Sticky Ricky" Davis.

[MrsNumba17]

I loved him when he played for Boston but
I don't think it's a good idea to bring him back.

[Montrossity]

I loved Ricky Davis when we needed a big scorer, but hes never shown the maturity to play for the type of team that we are now.  He would fail for the same reasons everyone hated Cassell... except he is even more heavy on the shooting and is far less mature and intelligent.  Plus, he doesnt really fill one of our big needs and isnt good enough to overlook that fact.  Id prioritize a pure Center and a backup PG far above another swingman.  

[Kuberski33]

What is the relevance of the first round? No one wants him to carry a team.


That's exactly my point. Why in the world can he be labeled a loser when on a championship team, he's a role player at best? Marbury is different because he gets paid like a superstar. Davis, for all his talents, barely was paid above the mid-level. How anyone could blame him for his teams' lack of success is beyond me.

Let's see, doesn't pass.  Only plays defense when he feels like it and even then is below average.  Is difficult to coach.  By all reports isn't a great locker room guy.  Honestly, you're much better off bringing back Tony Allen until you can find a better option.

[Who]

Ricky Davis is too difficult to play alongside. His teammates never know what he's going to do on a game-by-game basis or on a play-by-play basis. With regularity he is self-involved and fails to do what his team requires of him.

Ricky isn't a guy you put on a Championship Contender. He just isn't dependable enough.

Some lowly playoff team should give him a whirl in a 6th man type role though.

[vjcsmoke]

Just do a little reading between the lines there.
Ricky is a guy that Doc always had to 'get on', had to do a lot of communicating with, etc.
You don't think that gets tiresome for a coach, having to babysit/motivate one particular player all the time to make sure he gets proper production out of him?
I'm not sure where all the love for RD comes from, but if he was hard on the coach, how hard was he on the teammates?
Let's just hope Posey resigns so we don't have to read more threads like this one...

But the problem is he has too many issues both on and off court and I don't think Doc and Paul Pierce were too broken up the first time he left town.

What off the court issues has Davis had?

I even remember reading an article where Doc basically says that Davis and Blount had worn out their welcome to the team and shipping them out was a gust of fresh air for the team.


Rivers remembers
Rivers took some time to recall coaching Davis and Blount, though it wouldn't necessarily be called reminiscing.

"Ricky is a challenging personality, but there was a lot of communication," said Rivers. "I thought that helped with him. I think we still forget how young Ricky still is. Mark also was a challenge, obviously. He was a challenge before I got there and he was a challenge when I got there. I told Mark when he plays well, he's one of the better bigs in our league at times. He's not consistent, but you can see it there.

"Rick I communicated a ton with because I think you have to. Mark it went back and forth. Sometimes I thought Mark wanted to hear it. Sometimes he didn't. You've got to make a choice when to give him room and when to not. Obviously, there's times I probably did it poorly, and times I did it right. But that's not an easy job.

"With Ricky, you've got to stay in his ear and you've got to be relentless with it. It's tough because you have 14 or 15 other players. But if you want the production out of him, you have to. The one thing I never questioned is his talent. I had gripes with [Blount] and I had gripes with Ricky at times, but overall [Blount] played hard for me. For the most part, he did his job. I wish he had done it better at times."

This was the article brought into question. I don't see where Doc said that Davis wore out his welcome with the team or that trading the two brought a gust of fresh air to the team.

[xperimentvictim]

He really put in a genuine effort when he was here.  Going after loose balls.  As someone of his stature typically wouldn't.  Imagine how he'd play under the wing of KG?

[drza44]

Ricky and Marbury are cut from the same cloth of putting up great individual numbers while simultaneously killing a team.  They are the anti-UBUNTU and should be avoided at all costs.  Steph actually went to GT while I was there and I met him a few times, seemed cool, I've got nothing against him personally.  But I want no parts of him on this team.  As for Ricky...

Pat Riley got rid of him as a young man despite his obvious talent because he considered him too hard to coach.

He was in Cleveland putting up great numbers when they got LeBron.  By all reports he refused to play second fiddle to a rookie, even a phenom like LeBron, and poisoned the locker room to the point that he was traded as an "addition by subtraction" to the Celtics.

As Roy Hobbs did a great job of chronicling, Ricky consistently undermined Pierce and made Doc's job hard while he was in Boston.  He was traded to Minnesota.

In Minny, Davis and Blount became known as the "Toxic Twins".  They combined to absolutely poison the team.  He put the final nail in the KG era in Minny in 2007, as Ricky had a clash with the coach and left the bench during a game while the team was still in playoff contention with a record of 20-17.  The team lost, two games later the coach was fired, and for the rest of the year the team went 12 - 33.  Trading Davis and Blount to Miami for Walker and a #1 was arguably the greatest trade of Mchale's tenure.

In Miami you can't blame Wade's injury on Davis and Blount, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the two of them were present and playing big minutes during the Heat's terrible season.  In fact, I wrote a predictions article before last season, when most expected the Heat to be a playoffs team, I predicted that things would not go well in Miami in part because of the presence of Ricky and Blount.

Bottom line: just say no to Ricky (and Marbury) in Green next year.

[celt4ever]

Let's see, doesn't pass.  Only plays defense when he feels like it and even then is below average.  Is difficult to coach.  By all reports isn't a great locker room guy.  Honestly, you're much better off bringing back Tony Allen until you can find a better option.
[/quote]

that's right the better option shold be snyder

[Bahku]

Not.

[CoachBo]

No.

Someone wake me up when the inevitable "Bring Back Mark Blount" thread arises.

[rickyfan3.0...]

I would say 'no' initially... but if you want to talk about bringing in a Birdman or a Darius, why not bring in Ricky, who is a legit 20 ppg scorer to anchor the bench scoring? He would probably cost 2 or 3 mill for a year and brings TONS of energy and life.

I think he could be reigned in easily, and if you are looking for a "bad guy" discount to take on a guy who you know can be productive?

Don't underestimate what a HUGE fan favorite this guy was. This home crowd is crazy as it is, imagine when Ricky comes in for the first time?

If you want to patently say 'no, I don't want to mess with the chemistry' then don't... but if you are planning on bringing in a bad attitude guy anyways, why not make it one that has proven to work?

[Celtic_E]

But the problem is he has too many issues both on and off court and I don't think Doc and Paul Pierce were too broken up the first time he left town.

What off the court issues has Davis had?

I even remember reading an article where Doc basically says that Davis and Blount had worn out their welcome to the team and shipping them out was a gust of fresh air for the team.


Rivers remembers
Rivers took some time to recall coaching Davis and Blount, though it wouldn't necessarily be called reminiscing.

"Ricky is a challenging personality, but there was a lot of communication," said Rivers. "I thought that helped with him. I think we still forget how young Ricky still is. Mark also was a challenge, obviously. He was a challenge before I got there and he was a challenge when I got there. I told Mark when he plays well, he's one of the better bigs in our league at times. He's not consistent, but you can see it there.

"Rick I communicated a ton with because I think you have to. Mark it went back and forth. Sometimes I thought Mark wanted to hear it. Sometimes he didn't. You've got to make a choice when to give him room and when to not. Obviously, there's times I probably did it poorly, and times I did it right. But that's not an easy job.

"With Ricky, you've got to stay in his ear and you've got to be relentless with it. It's tough because you have 14 or 15 other players. But if you want the production out of him, you have to. The one thing I never questioned is his talent. I had gripes with [Blount] and I had gripes with Ricky at times, but overall [Blount] played hard for me. For the most part, he did his job. I wish he had done it better at times."

This was the article brought into question. I don't see where Doc said that Davis wore out his welcome with the team or that trading the two brought a gust of fresh air to the team.

It wasn't only that article.  There were others.

``The other [off-the-court] stuff going on [with Ricky] was tough,'' he said. ``It was more directed from player to player, and that affects chemistry, and that has to be cleared up. Players have to pull for each other.''

There is also a quiet acknowledgement from the team that by midseason, Rivers had an unworkable situation on his hands. The Davis experiment, while bearing fruit on the floor after two seasons, had run its course in the locker room.

According to a team source, Davis habitually undercut Paul Pierce's authority, often talking and joking behind the Celtics captain's back, and ``rolling his eyes'' when Pierce attempted to address the rest of the team. Similar things were said about Davis during his brief time as LeBron James' teammate in Cleveland.

``Paul was very aware of it,'' said the source. ``It began to affect his play and his demeanor. That was something that had to change.''

But at least Rivers claims to see more clearly now. With the various disruptions and distractions of Mark Blount, Ricky Davis and Marcus Banks out of the way, Rivers expects to have a more orderly process in hand next October.

``I think so,'' [Doc] said. ...

I'm sure there are other reports out there.  Also, there were plenty of rumors that KG and Ricky didn't get along in Minnesota.

Thanks for posting those Roy. You saved me the trouble of going through the net to find those articles. TP for that.

At this point of our championship run, I don't think giving Ricky Davis another shot will do us any favors. He has proven all his career that he is the anti-Ubuntu type of player. We still have a legit shot to repeat next year. Signing Ricky Davis to any type of contract will instantly kill those chances. As far as I'm concerned, the Celtics is not the place for "roll the dice" types of players especially coming off a championship year.

To paraphrase Larry Bird, "Sorry Ricky, you had your chance but you blew it."