LA Times Columnist T.J. Simers Calls Ricky Davis 'a Druggie'
Ricky Davis of the Los Angeles Clippers has long been an enigma. Immensely talented after entering the league after just one season at Iowa, questions about his attitude have prevented him from catching on. He played in Miami, then Cleveland, then Boston, then Minnesota and Miami again before landing in L.A., never staying 183 total games for any of those teams.
There have been whispers about Davis using drugs, and last season he was suspended by the NBA for five games for violating the substance abuse policy.
Davis is back, playing sparingly with the team this season, and who knows the extent of his drug use. The league did not say what drug he was suspended for and not much has been reported about Davis's incident. Whatever happened, drug abuse is nothing to joke about. Unless you're L.A. Times columnist T.J. Simers.
Simers, of course, has made a career out of being a smug contrarian, making big show confrontations in locker rooms a regular theme, possibly his most famouse were his run-ins and columns about former Dodger Andruw Jones' weight.
This is what Simers had to say about Davis in his latest:
A new season, and the Clippers come back with the same depressing story line, yahoo radio guy, lots of injuries and a druggie in their locker room just to remind Clippers' fans they will always settle for the bottom of everyone else's roster.
"You're a clown," Ricky Davis is telling me before Monday night's game and he's the druggie — suspended last season for testing positive.
The column is basically a rant on the fact that the Clippers are wasting their young talent. It's possibly a valid point, but should making light of drug use really be the way to prove that point?
The Clippers are a mess, but Davis, a veteran probably on his last NBA contract, whose talent has obviously eroded, is not symbolic of that. Maybe the team owner and noted housing discriminator should shoulder more of the scorn that a guy who's currently the 11th or 12th man on the roster?
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