At the end of August, a quick and flashy point guard by the name of Dee Davis was testing out the Osthalle floor in his new Giessen home against the Fraport Skyliners in a pre-season game and wasn´t impressing anyone. The American with two professional seasons under his belt was taking hurried low percentage jumpers and driving to the hole into a brick ball and missing shots on a regular basis and the first moans were surfacing and cries for Cameron Wells to return who had been an important piece to the rapid ascension of the club the last years from the Pro A back to the BBL and almost to the playoffs. One could easily observe that Davis had a lot of talent, but was a little wild. He did make some acrobatic shots and made some fine kick out passes finding the open man, but after that game nobody was really convinced he could fill the shoes of Wells. Three and half months later nobody in Giessen is remembering that early pre-season game against Frankfurt anymore and possibly not reminiscing all to much anymore about Wells. One can say now that never rate the ability of a player after one game or two or maybe three especially if it´s the pre-season where teams and players are still working on finding their game within the team structure. Davis is a 24 year old 183cm point guard from Bloomington, Indiana that has overcome early question marks and is making the grade with the Giessen 46ers. Davis is one of many guys that enter the BBL each season looking to make the next step in a much higher and skilled league coming from a lesser league. Sometimes players pan out and sometimes they don´t as the Frankfurt Skyliners found out with Jimmie Hunt who couldn´t make it in the BBL coming as the top scorer with Kemoplast Alpos Sentjur (Slovenia-1A), but did go on to other countries finding his mark and is still playing today in Bulgaria at age 35. Just like Hunt, Davis played his first two seasons in Slovenia with Rogaska Crystal (Slovenia-Liga NovaKBM) leading the team to the final last season and leaving his mark as third top scorer averaging 16.3ppg, 2.9rpg, Assists-4(5.0apg), 1.5spg, FGP: 54.1%, 3PT: 37.8%, FT: 75.6%. The question was right away could the American make the next step in the BBL. He certainly wasn´t lacking in self confidence as in June after being acquired by Giessen he already was sprouting bold predictions about not only making the grade, but more than that. “Of course, I believe in any league I could make an impact”, warned Dee Davis. He has held on to his warning and stat wise totally panned out and helped Giessen be a team currently in the hunt for the playoffs something Giessen isn´t expected to do.” I would describe myself as an aggressive playmaker who’s does what he has to, to help his team win”, stressed Dee Davis. Aggressive he has been and helped lead the team to some big wins. After 11 games he is averaging 14,8ppg, 2,3rpg and 4,7apg, 1,5spg and is shooting a respectable 33% from downtown in 31 minutes per game. He scored in double figures in nine of his first 11 games. Right away in his second game he held his own against top team Brose Bamberg having them near the brink of defeat losing 87-84 as he steered 11 points, dished out eight assists and had three steals. A week later he helped Giessen beat dark horse title favorite Ludwigsburg 83-81 producing 16 points, grabbing four rebounds and getting five dimes while picking his spots and having sound shot selection. Another game that showed he had landed in the BBL was his 20 point and 10 assist game in the 107-99 win against MBC. But one also has to give head coach Ingo Freyer a lot of credit as he has been known for years to bring in those underdog type guards and helped them mature as he showed with Davin White, Zamal Nixon and Brandon Jefferson when he coached Phoenix Hagen. “I believe I can adjust to whatever style of play, but I enjoy getting up and down the court”, added Dee Davis. And that he has and it will be interesting to see where the rest of this season´s journey will go for the ex Xavier standout as so far he has been a refreshing new face to the BBL that has made the most of his opportunity.
