| The End Could Be Near For Harrison Authored by Andrew Perna - January 12, 2008 - 12:29 pm
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He will begin serving his suspension when the Pacers take on the Kings in Sacramento on Saturday night. He has appeared in 27 games for Indiana this season, averaging just 4.4 points and 2.2 rebounds for new coach Jim O’Brien. Indiana, already thin in the frontcourt, will miss the 12.9 minutes a night he was banging in the paint.
Harrison will almost certainly enter the offseason as a restricted free agent, as the Pacers aren’t likely to offer him a long-term contract. His injury history, he has averaged just 46 appearances in his first three seasons, has kept him from becoming a significant contributor to the team.
In addition to the difficulties he has had remaining healthy; he also has trouble staying on the court once he enters the game.
He’s averaging 3.3 fouls per game this season, which works out a foul every four minutes spent on the hardwood. The extremely high rate at which he commits fouls hasn’t helped him advance his career since he came out of Colorado in the 2004 Draft.
When I asked him about his foul troubles last season he downplayed the issue, “You know, I play aggressively and I hit people and I’m a bigger guy. If I have more mass than the person I hit, my force is going to exert on them. So I don’t think you can really work on that.”
Strangely enough, he does seem to be productive for the Pacers when he’s on the court. He leads the team in plus/minus for the season (+30), and is the only player with a per game plus/minus average higher than +0.6. He also seems to bring out the best in Jamaal Tinsley, or vice versa, as they combine for a +48 rating when on the court together – the Pacers’ best two-man combination.
Still, Harrison is known more for his locker room antics and the mohawk he sported during the 2005 playoffs than anything he has accomplished on the court.
It’s unknown what substance Harrison tested positive for, but the length of his suspension may provide some insight. The league conducts random tests four times a season, and players are subject to a ten-game suspension for their first failed examination. Receiving half the possible ban would lead many to believe that performance-enhancing drugs weren’t involved.
The list of banned substances that appear in the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement is rather basic: drugs of abuse (like cocaine and LSD), marijuana, steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs and diuretics.
We may never know what Harrison tested positive for, but his future in Indiana seems even cloudier now as the Pacers make their best attempt to clear up their tainted public image.
Bird needs Tinsley to run O’Brien’s offense with effectiveness, which seems to have earned the point guard a pass on his various legal problems, but at this point Harrison is expendable. Bird issued the standard statement following the news on Friday afternoon saying, “This is a private matter and we will do what we can to provide David any help going forward.”
Only time will tell what that truly means.
Thoughts on David Harrison?: Andrew.Perna@RealGM.com |
