Baron Davis' career has followed a fairly typical story arc for an NBA player of his skill level.

At his best, he's been a star. Not a league-defining superstar, but a prolific scorer and the best player on his team. It was the role he filled during his first career stop with the Hornets and during his most productive career stop with the Warriors.

His stint as a 20 point per game scorer in Don Nelson's 78-r.p.m. Warriors offense artificially inflated his value, and in 2008 earned him a 5-year, $65 million contract from the league's sucker-betters, the Los Angeles Clippers.

Davis was overpaid. His contract began to strain the Clippers, and they started looking for a team to take the lead weight off their hands.

Thursday, the Clippers found their dance partner in the Cavaliers. The Cavs are armed with the deep and open pocketbook of owner Dan Gilbert and were in the market for a first-round draft pick, which the Clips were willing to part with, if it meant offloading Davis' contract.

Exit Mo Williams and Jamario Moon, enter Davis and what appears to be a second lottery pick in the 2011 draft.

In Cleveland, we know the trade was made for the pick. Davis is collateral damage. He won't be here when the Cavs start making their upswing through the Eastern Conference in a few years -- or at least, that's the plan.

But in the interim, the Cavs are stuck with Davis. He's signed for two more years and due about $28 million over that span, so his contract is going to be difficult to buy out in any type of lump sum. The length and size of the contract also mean he'll be nearly impossible to trade until the 2012 offseason at the earliest, when his deal with reach its final year. And by then, a new collective bargaining agreement will likely be in effect, throwing another spoonful of uncertainty into the recipe.

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The Cavs roll into the Q this Wednesday night riding a shiny 4 game winning streak. Now, I know that's not what all of the papers, websites, or any other publication would have you believe. But, let me ask you this: Have the so called "experts" watched portions of most of the recent Cavs games like I have? I didn't think so.

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You know those days when half your Facebook friends want to sell you a stolen painting and the other half want you to purchase a cow and all you want to do is to publicly establish what you have always known in your heart - that given half a chance (or a virtual social media game) you would be dribbling your way to Springfield, MA, to humbly acknowledge your place as perhaps the greatest living professional bball player?

You may not have been speaking out loud but Facebook was listening.  And so was the NBA.  Tired of being called the "second most favorite sport in America," the NBA is leveraging the volume of fans who "like" them.  

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Let’s face it. For a while there, the NBA’s once electrifying All-Star Weekend festivities were starting to get pretty damn stale. The dunk had become passé, the 3-point shootout was a brick toss amongst bench jockeys, and the Legends game was scrapped due to the uptick in old fat guys shattering their fibulas. It wasn’t until 2003 that the NBA finally found the solution to its All-Star woes. They called it the Skills Challenge, but I like to call it the most exciting half hour in sports.

Suffice it to say, anticipation is at an all-time high for the 2011 Taco Bell Skills Challenge. I mean, just look at the field: rookie sensation John Wall, MVP candidate Derrick Rose, elite point guards Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook, and sharpshooter Stephen Curry, who’s from Akron. Yeah, I didn’t know that either. Man, now I’m even more excited!

So, we’ve got five of the most talented young players on the planet going head to head in their very own All-Star Saturday showdown. Sounds amazing. But perhaps you’re wondering, “hey, what exactly is this Skills Challenge thing again? I have no recollection of this event whatsoever and I’m pretty sure I’ve watched All-Star Saturday the past few years.”

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