David Harrison (basketball)
David Joshua Harrison is an American former professional basketball player. A former National Basketball Association 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. 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.