David Harrison (basketball)

David Joshua Harrison (born August 15, 1982) is an American former professional basketball player. A former National Basketball Association (NBA) player for the Indiana Pacers, he was a member of the Beijing Ducks for the 2008–09 season and played with the Guangdong Southern Tigers for the next two years. He also played for the Tianjin Ronggang. At Brentwood Academy, Harrison was named Mr. Basketball in Tennessee, in both 2000 and 2001, for Division 2 schools. He was drafted by the Indiana Pacers out of the University of Colorado at Boulder with the 29th pick of the 2004 NBA draft.

College career

In college, he was named First Team All-Big 12 and earned Honorable Mention All-America honors by the Associated Press as a junior. He finished his college career as Colorado's all-time leading shot-blocker with 225 blocks.

NBA career

Harrison was drafted 29th overall in the 2004 NBA Draft by the Indiana Pacers. Harrison was expected to be the #2 or maybe even #3 center in the Pacers' depth chart for his rookie year of 2004–05, behind Jeff Foster and Scot Pollard. However, due to injuries to Pollard and the suspensions of Jermaine O'Neal, Stephen Jackson and Ron Artest, he became a starter at a much earlier part of his career than most people anticipated. He ended up starting 14 of the 43 games he played in his rookie season, before missing the final two months due to injury.

Harrison was charged with one count of assault and battery for his involvement in the Pacers–Pistons brawl at The Palace of Auburn Hills on November 19, 2004, though he was not penalized by the league for the incident.

In his sophomore season of 2005–06 with the Pacers, Harrison played in 67 games, starting 17 of them, playing an average of 15.4 minutes and contributing 5.7 points and 3.8 rebounds per game.

In 2008, the Pacers suspended Harrison for one game following an incident in which Harrison berated an official after being hit in the face by Matt Bonner hit him in the face (Bonner was called for an offensive foul). In Harrison's first game back from the suspension he had 4 points, 6 rebounds and a career high 6 blocks in just 20 minutes of play.

The Indiana Pacers chose not to re-sign Harrison after his contract expired at the end of the 2007–08 season. The Minnesota Timberwolves signed him to their practice squad for the preseason, but he was waived before the 2008–09 regular season began.

Off-court

In an interview, Harrison admitted to smoking marijuana in the offseason. The habit continued into the regular season and he was suspended 5 games in 2008.

Post-NBA career

After leaving the Indiana Pacers after the 2007–2008 season, he was invited to the Minnesota Timberwolves training camp but they declined to offer him a contract. and so Harrison chose to go over to China and play there. He ultimately played three seasons in China. In the 2011–2012 season, he played for the NBA D-League team Reno Bighorns. In 2012, he also played for the Dallas Mavericks summer league team. After experiencing financial struggles, Harrison took a job at McDonald's in August 2013. However, he left his position after two weeks because customers hounded him with questions to such an extent that taking orders took as long as 40 minutes. He had developed a mobile game application company named Kage Media Groups LLC, but he couldn't secure investment to bring the games to market. And so Harrison got a job working for Morgan Stanley as a financial adviser but quit when realizing that his day job conflicted with the project he and Chris Yim were developing to provide banking options for companies in the marijuana business. That company became Token HiFi which was founded with assistance from former New York representative Dan Donovan.

Basketball comeback

On September 14, 2015, Harrison decided to return to basketball and signed with the Las Vegas Dealers of the upcoming AmeriLeague. However, the league folded after it was discovered the founder was a con-artist.

Personal life

Harrison is the son of Dennis and Ida Harrison. Dennis is a 10-year-veteran of the NFL. His sister is Isabelle Harrison, a power forward for the New York Liberty and USK Praha. He has one son.