Glen Davis is not entirely dissimilar to Darius Songaila, if Darius was fat and black. That statement doesn't really mean much, and is open to much interpretation; for example, Nelson Mandela isn't too dissimilar to Robert the Bruce, and Kelly Clarkson isn't too different to Solomon Burke. They're both singers, after all. But nonetheless, Davis and Songaila share similar skillsets.
Davis is a poor defensive rebounder and not in any way a shot blocker. His bulk is both a blessing and a curse on defense - it allows him to defend big and strong interior players, but it also slows him down, affecting his ability to defend quicker power forwards and forcing him to defend these bigger centres, to whom he gives up the height advantage. Regardless, Davis does move pretty well laterally for one so large, and he gets into position to take charges extremely well, positions from which he then flops pathetically. (And yes, many of them are flops. Look at the size of him. No one knocks a man that big down through incidental contact. Except maybe Andre the Giant. And he's dead, so he has the perfect alibi.)
Offensively, Davis is a good passer and has developed a mid range jump shot with ever increasing range. That jumpshot has become a pretty deadly weapon, and it, combined with Davis's knack for baseline reverse layups, make him an offensive threat as a finisher, if not a creator. However, he is not much of a finisher in the paint, combined with little post offense to speak of, and thus it's both strange and perhaps a bit unwise for a man of that size to be playing away from the hoop (even if it was initially necessitated by team need). As Malik Allen will tell you, shooting mid range jumpshots all day without drawing a foul shot leaves you needing to hit about 60% of them to have a good scoring efficiency, and Davis doesn't. No one does. Then again, the mid range jumpshot will provide a perfect accompaniment to an improved inside scoring game, if he ever gets one.
Glen Davis fact: Glen Davis's first name is actually Ronald, and his nickname is Big Baby. Davis is so called because he's so huge and yet still armed with a baby face, and not because he cries a lot as a grown man. No. That's just a coincidence.
- 2nd June, 2009.
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