"I'm the king of L.A.," Baron Davis likes to say, with a smile on his bearded face.

But he doesn't even play here. He plays in Oakland. And it's not right. They don't deserve him.

We do.

"Comfortable everywhere," he likes to say, grinning some more. There is a chuckle in his voice. "From Compton to Malibu."

Everybody knows, after all, that Davis was a stud at UCLA before he became an NBA star in New Orleans, then was injured, barked at coaches, got traded, and came back to California, but to the wrong place.