Glen Davis’ nickname was Big Baby. He got the name as a nine-year-old playing football with older kids. When he complained to the coach about rough treatment, the coach called him a big baby and the name stuck. Davis played 8 NBA seasons and is best known for his weight and for winning a title with the Boston Celtics.
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Why was Glen Davis called Big Baby?
When Glen Davis was just nine years old, he was too big to play football with the kids his own age. He was 5’6” and 160 pounds.
Instead, Davis had to play with older kids. In playing against the older, sometimes bigger kds, Davis got targeted and pushed around a bit.
His coach, in true football coach style, told him to stop being such a big baby and play the game. The name big baby stuck with Glen Davis for the rest of his life.
How much did Big Baby Davis weigh?
Davis’ official weight in the NBA was listed at 289 pounds. His playing weight for most of his career was probably closer to 330 pounds.
Now, I have written a thing or three about weights in the NBA. Whether it’s the lightest players in NBA history or Charles Barkley – most certainly NOT the lightest player in NBA history – official weights have little guarantee of accuracy.
Sometimes they are the weight a player played at for their first season. Those can sometimes go way up as careers progress.
In some cases, they take players’ words for their weights or try to make them sound good if the player comes in a little heavy.
Also, like all humans, players’ weights change over time – especially over long NBA careers.
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One thing we can say about listed weights is the player probably weighed close to that number at one time.
In the case of players like Shawn Kemp and Charles Barkley who put on some pounds, we can say that their listed weight is probably their minimum weight.
That is the case with Glen “Big Baby” Davis.
Big Baby said in this article that he was playing at 300 pounds. The interview was given in December of 2013 in Davis’ 7th NBA season when he was 28 years old. In it he said…
As far as consistently staying at this weight and staying down, it’s been since the eighth grade when I was this thin.
Glen “Big Baby” Davis
So we know that Davis considered 300 pounds to be the lightest he’d been since he was 14. He admitted he generally played at 330 in the NBA and that he once weighed as much as 370 in high school.
How tall was Glen “Big Baby” Davis?
Glen “Big Baby” Davis was officially listed at 6’9” tall. Unlike official NBA weights, official heights tend to have at least some basis in reality.
Until recently though, when the NBA started using truly official measurements, there was wiggle room when it came to player heights as well.
In 2019 when the NBA went to official heights, Tacko Fall went from 7’7” to 7’5, Bradley Beal went from 6’5” to 6’3” and Klay Thompson went from 6’7” to 6’5”.
Unlike weights, it is fairly easy to see how tall players are in comparison to other players. In many pictures, Big Baby looks a lot shorter than Celtics teammate Kevin Garnett.
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KG was alleged to lie by claiming he was shorter than he was to avoid having to play center.
But Garnett was listed at 6’11”. Big Baby looks considerably smaller than that. He looks closer to the height of Paul Pierce who was listed at 6’7”.
Would it surprise me if Big Baby Davis was really 6’7”, or even a bit shorter, no. Was he 6’3”? No way.
Big Baby Davis was listed at 6’9” and was probably somewhere close, but a bit shorter, than that.
How long was Big Baby in the NBA?
Glen Big Baby Davis played 8 seasons in the NBA. You can see his career stats below.
| Points | Rebounds | Assists | PER | Win Shares |
| 8.0 | 4.4 | .9 | 12.4 | 18.6 |
After a standout college career at LSU, Davis decided to forego his senior season and declare for the 2007 NBA Draft.
Big Baby was selected 35th overall in the 2nd round by the Seattle SuperSonics and traded quickly to the Boston Celtics.
He played four seasons in Boston. The team won the NBA title in 2008 behind KG, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen.
Big Baby averaged 12 points per game for the Celtics in his fourth season but was then traded to the Orlando Magic in a deal for Brandon Bass.
Davis played 2.5 seasons in Orlando before being bought out of his deal in what was called a mutual parting of the ways.
Davis quickly signed with his old Celtics’ coach Doc Rivers who was now leading the LA Clippers. He lasted the rest of that season and one more in LA before injuries ended his NBA career.
What happened to Big Baby Davis?
Since the end of his NBA career in 2015, Davis won the BIG3 title but has also faced considerable legal trouble as well.
In February of 2018, Davis was arrested and charged with a felony count of drug possession with intent to distribute. Big Baby was caught with a fairly serious amount of marijuana and $92,000 in cash.
But, after the arrest made considerable headlines, Davis was allowed to pay a $15,000 fine and avoid a conviction on his record if he stayed out of future trouble through a program in the Maryland court system.
Both Davis and his attorneys swore he was not actually a drug dealer and the whole thing was a misunderstanding.
The willingness of the court to allow him to escape with a smallish fine makes it seem that the incident may not have been quite as serious as the initial arrest reports made it seem.
Davis went on to play in and win the BIG3 basketball tournament that summer for his team Power.
But trouble found Davis again more recently. In October of 2021 Davis was once again arrested.
This time he was charged with healthcare fraud along with 17 other former NBA players.
The trial for these charges has not yet happened. Davis was caught recently on camera at a Celtics game being removed from another fan’s courtside seats.
That seemingly comical incident may have caused Davis more trouble, however. It was widely reported that drawing national attention with the move may have caused people to notice that Davis was in Boston, which was a possible bail violation for his fraud case.
The results of that incident are still unknown as well.
Summary: Glen Davis’ Nickname
Glen Davis got the nickname Big Baby as a nine year old. When he was forced to play football with older kids, Davis complained to his coach that they were mistreating him. The coach called him a Big Baby and the name has stuck ever since.
I have been a Boston sports fan for more than forty years. I write about games, players and seasons from the past.