We heard the news about Ricky Davis the other day, and it wasn’t good. Newbie was the first to alert us, and his one-liner was to express surprise that the Clippers are concerned about losing Davis for a five-game suspension. One might think, given how far Ricky has fallen, that his violation of the league’s drug program would be a minor blip on the ratty Clippers’ radar. The news, though, did give us a quick chance to look back at one of the worst trades of all-time in terms solely of the players dealt. Consider: the Wolves traded Wally Szczerbiak, Michael Olowokandi and Dwayne Jones to the Celtics for Davis, Marcus Banks, Justin Reed and Mark Blount. That was just under three years ago. All those players were reasonably young at the time of the trade. Each and every one of them is worse off now as a player than they were in January of 2006 when it went down. Olowokandi and Reed are not in the league. Banks, Blount and Jones are minor role players playing spare minutes. Davis, before getting hurt and now suspended, was averaging 4.3 ppg in 21 minutes per game of action. Szczerbiak was averaging 20 ppg for the Wolves when he was traded. It’s been a steady decline since then, and now he’s at 6.6 ppg for the Cavs (it should be noted, of course, that the Celtics included him as a key piece in the Ray Allen trade that helped them win a championship). That’s seven players all worse off than they were three years ago. Amazing.

It also gives us a chance to compile a Dysfunctional ex-Wolves all-star team:

PG Stephon Marbury: Fasolamatt notes that Marbury posted a blog entry for the New York Post. We have to give Steph credit: sometimes when he talks/writes, he sounds like he’s grown wiser. Suffice to say, though, things haven’t really worked out for him since he forced that trade so many years ago.

SG J.R. Rider: No comment necessary.

SF Ricky Davis: Rider’s status forces Ricky over to the three, where he’s more than happy to hoist up shots and sabotage team chemistry. Like the first two guys on the team, Davis is undeniably talented. So much so that the Wolves coveted him for years … until they finally had him.

PF Christian Laettner: Again, not comment necessary.

C Eddie Griffin: Not to speak ill of those passed on, but Griffin’s problems were no secret. Talent? For sure. He just couldn’t put it all together.

We invite you, in the comments, to imagine a game in which all five of these players were on the court at one time.

[And yes, note that the Wolves blowing such a huge lead barely registers on the surprise-meter].

Later on: hoping for Ramon’s belated COW and perhaps some Big Ten opener office basketball.

Fasola-link! The ultimate Rickroll.

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