Brian Davis (basketball)
Encyclopedia
Brian Keith Davis (born June 21, 1970, in Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the American version of the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast...

) is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 former college
College basketball
College basketball most often refers to the USA basketball competitive governance structure established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association . Basketball in the NCAA is divided into three divisions: Division I, Division II and Division III....

 and professional basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 player who was selected by the Phoenix Suns
Phoenix Suns
The Phoenix Suns are a professional basketball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association and the only team in their division not to be based in California. Their home arena since 1992 has been the US...

 in the 2nd round (48th overall) of the 1992 NBA Draft
1992 NBA Draft
The 1992 NBA Draft took place on June 24, 1992, in Portland, Oregon. At the time, the draft was considered to be one of the deepest drafts in NBA history. The top three picks were considered can't-miss prospects. O'Neal and Mourning are likely Hall of Famers...

. A 6'7" guard-forward, Davis played football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 and basketball at Bladensburg
Bladensburg, Maryland
Bladensburg is a town in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The population was 7,661 at the 2000 census.Bladensburg is from central Washington, DC...

 High School
Bladensburg High School
Bladensburg High School is a secondary school located in Bladensburg, Maryland.The school, which serves grades 9 through 12, is a part of the Prince George's County Public Schools district....

, and was a member of the Duke Blue Devils
Duke Blue Devils
Duke University's 26 varsity sports teams, known as the Blue Devils, compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The name comes from the French "les Diables Bleus" or "the Blue Devils," which was the nickname given during World War I to the Chasseurs Alpins, the French Alpine light infantry...

' 1991 and 1992 back-to-back national championship basketball teams. Davis played in the French league
Ligue Nationale de Basketball
The Ligue National de Basket is the top men's French professional basketball league. There are two divisions: French Pro A League and French Pro B League .-Pro A:...

 with Élan Béarnais Pau-Orthez during the 1992–1993 season alongside seven-foot-seven Gheorghe Muresan
Gheorghe Muresan
Gheorghe Dumitru Mureşan, , also known as Ghiţă or George, is a retired Romanian professional basketball player. At 7 ft 7 in , he is one of the tallest players in NBA history, along with Sudanese player Manute Bol, who was also 7 ft 7 in. Both Mureşan's parents are of average size, and,...

, and then returned to the NBA
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

 for the 1993–94 season
1993-94 NBA season
-Statistics leaders:-NBA awards:*Most Valuable Player: Hakeem Olajuwon, Houston Rockets*Rookie of the Year: Chris Webber, Golden State Warriors*Defensive Player of the Year: Hakeem Olajuwon, Houston Rockets...

 with the Minnesota Timberwolves
Minnesota Timberwolves
The Minnesota Timberwolves are an American professional basketball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Northwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association . Founded in 1989, the team is currently owned by Glen Taylor...

, where he played alongside former Duke teammate Christian Laettner
Christian Laettner
Christian Donald Laettner is a retired American professional basketball player and entrepreneur. He had a distinguished college and national career, and played in the National Basketball Association for thirteen seasons, from 1992–2005. He is presently a minority holder for the Major League...

. Davis played in 68 NBA games, averaged 5.5 minutes per game, and scored a total of 131 career points (1.9 per game).

He played in 141 career games for Duke (6th on their all-time list as of March 28, 2010; directly behind Jon Scheyer
Jon Scheyer
Jonathan James "Jon" Scheyer is an American-Israeli professional basketball player. He plays shooting guard for Maccabi Tel Aviv of the Israeli Super League in that competition, the Adriatic League, and the Euroleague...

, and tied with Thomas Hill
Thomas Hill (basketball)
Thomas Hill is a retired American professional basketball player.A 6'5" guard, Hill played at Duke University from 1990 to 1993, winning two NCAA Championships . His teammates at Duke included Grant Hill , Christian Laettner, and Bobby Hurley...

).

Business and philanthropy

Davis co-owns the community development company Blue Devil Ventures (BDV) with former Duke
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...

 teammate Christian Laettner
Christian Laettner
Christian Donald Laettner is a retired American professional basketball player and entrepreneur. He had a distinguished college and national career, and played in the National Basketball Association for thirteen seasons, from 1992–2005. He is presently a minority holder for the Major League...

 and Duke alumnus Tom Niemann. Since 1995, BDV has been developing a community in downtown Durham, North Carolina
Durham, North Carolina
Durham is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the county seat of Durham County and also extends into Wake County. It is the fifth-largest city in the state, and the 85th-largest in the United States by population, with 228,330 residents as of the 2010 United States census...

 named "West Village." BDV's website describes West Village as a "mixed-use, upscale community consisting of the adaptive-reuse of historic tobacco warehouses built between 1899 and 1926 and located in the Brightleaf District."

In 2005, Davis and Laettner donated $2 million to Duke's men's basketball program to endow an athletic scholarship and support the construction of a planned athletics center and basketball practice facility. Their donation to the Duke Legacy Fund — which seeks to make the Duke basketball program financially self-sufficient — represents the largest donation by former Duke basketball players to the program since Grant Hill
Grant Hill (basketball)
Grant Henry Hill is an American professional basketball player who most recently played for the Phoenix Suns. As a collegian with Duke University and early in his professional career with the Detroit Pistons, Hill was widely considered to be one of the best all-around players in the game, often...

 endowed a $1 million scholarship in 2000.

In October 2006, it was reported in The Commercial Appeal
The Commercial Appeal
The Commercial Appeal is the predominant daily newspaper of Memphis, Tennessee, and its surrounding metropolitan area. It is owned by The E. W. Scripps Company, a major North American media company. Scripps also owned the former afternoon paper, the Memphis Press-Scimitar, which it folded in...

that an investment group including Davis and former Blue Devils and Timberwolves teammate Christian Laettner
Christian Laettner
Christian Donald Laettner is a retired American professional basketball player and entrepreneur. He had a distinguished college and national career, and played in the National Basketball Association for thirteen seasons, from 1992–2005. He is presently a minority holder for the Major League...

 had reached an agreement to purchase the 70% share of the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies
Memphis Grizzlies
The Memphis Grizzlies are a professional basketball team based in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. The team is part of the Southwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association . Along with the Toronto Raptors, the Grizzlies were established in 1995 as part of the NBA's...

 franchise from current majority owner, Michael Heisley
Michael Heisley
Michael E. Heisley is an American businessman who is the majority owner of the Memphis Grizzlies. He orchestrated the move of the team from Vancouver in 2001, after promising to keep the franchise in Vancouver when he purchased it in 2000...

. However, the deal fell through when Davis's group failed to meet the deadline. Davis and Laettner were also involved in a group negotiating to operate Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...

's D.C. United
D.C. United
D.C. United is an American professional soccer club based in Washington, D.C. which competes in Major League Soccer , the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. It is one of the ten charter clubs of MLS, having competed in the league since its inception, in 1996.Over the...

.

External links

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