Robert Whaley arrested for carrying drugs in his arse

The cheerful looking sausage in this picture is former Utah Jazz and Toronto Raptors big man, Robert Whaley. You may remember him, or you may not. But if you do, it's probably because either:

a) you're a Cincinnati Bearcats fan who remembers Whaley for the one year of fail he brought your team in 2003-04 before being forced to transfer due to off-the-court issues,

b) you're a Raptors fan who remembers Whaley's inclusion as a throw-in in the trade that ended the Rafael Araujo Experience, or

c) you're a Jazz fan who remembers Whaley as being the fat one that was arrested alongside Deron Williams back in 2005, in an incident that saw them humiliate and besmirch themselves by giving false names to the police.

Either way, your memories of Robert Whaley probably aren't great.

A recurrent theme in that list, other than fail, is Whaley's trend of getting involved in off-the-court issues. Largely unbeknownst to me until today, Whaley has been making a habit of that over the last few years. In the early hours of this morning, per the Salt Lake Tribune, Whaley was a passenger in a car when he was arrested by "gang detectives", whatever they are, and found to have marijuana in his buttocks. Upon being processed, it also turned out that Whaley was a wanted fugitive in the state of Michigan after being convicted of running a drug house back in 2008. The obligatory mugshot follows.


2008 also marked the last time Whaley played professional basketball. And his career, dating back to the end of his high school years, was not exactly dignified. After almost winning Mr Basketball in the state of Michigan in 2001, Whaley spent two years at Barton County community college, averaging 16.9 points and 7.7 rebounds per game, before moving to Cincinnati for his junior season. (By the way, "Mr Basketball" is the lamest expression ever.) Once at Cincinnati, Whaley had more field goal attempts than points scored, and grabbed only 4.3 rebounds per 40 minutes, before being kicked off the team and forced to transfer.

Whaley moved to Walsh University, a team in the NAIA (and, not coincidentally, then-Cininnati head coach Bob Huggins's alma mater), and things finally improved a bit. Considering how far he'd moved down the basketball ladder, they kind of had to. Whaley averaged 19.9 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game, was named the NAIA Division 2 player of the year, and led Walsh to their first and only NAIA National Championship. That, plus the magical word "potential", was enough to get Whaley drafted that summer 51st overall. No matter that he was a terrible rebounder, wouldn't play defense, was out of shape, had rarely played to a standard worth a damn and hadn't played well when he did, was highly inconsistent, had a terrible attitude, big turnover problems and multiple off-court issues; he was a scoring big man who moved OK. And that's what the NBA needs most.

Whaley's first season in the NBA was also his last. It started ominously well when Whaley earned himself a two game suspension for throwing a punch at Adam Parada (then on the Lakers' training camp roster) in a preseason game. And then when he started playing, it got no better. In 23 games, Whaley averaged 2.3 points, 1.9 rebounds, 0.6 turnovers and 1.8 fouls per game, shooting 40% from the field and 50% from the line. For per-36 minute fans, that's 8.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, 7.0 fouls and 2.6 turnovers. Whaley then missed the majority of the season after knee surgery, and then topped off his season with the incident with Williams. Robert and Deron were both with a class C violation for lying to police after an early morning altercation at a club. A Denver Nuggets fan with the slightly awesome name of Affan Arslanagic (sounds more like a suppository) started having a go at Williams and Jazz team mate Robert Whaley in a club, eventually throwing a bottle at them. All three got thrown out of the place, but the fight continued in the street. When police arrived, Whaley said that his name was "Bobby Williams", and Williams said his name was "Torrey Ellis". I don't know why they did this.

At some point in the altercation, Whaley also cut his hand. He then lied about this to the Jazz, claiming that his infant son accidentally cut it with a knife. His cunning ruse was soon rumbled, however, and he was fined and suspended for two games by the team.

After the season ended, the Jazz traded Whaley as filler in the Kris Humphries/Rafael Araujo swap before draft night 2006. The Raptors two weeks later before draft night. Whaley has never sniffed the NBA again. He played on the Jazz's summer league team at the Rocky Mountain Revue in 2006 - even after they had traded him away a mere month before - and then split the 2006-07 season between the Dominican Republic, the ABA and Iran. In 2007/08 Whaley went to the D-League, but in 21 games with the Los Angeles D-Fenders he averaged only 4.2 points, 2.9 rebounds and 2.8 fouls in 12.9 minutes per game. This was the last professional basketball gig of his career; as outlined at the top of the post, it appears he found a new source of income elsewhere.

Whaley's criminal history also includes two felony counts of aggravated battery after partaking in some kind of brawl in 2003, to which he was sentenced to a year's probation. And that history is perhaps highlighted - if that's the right word - by a rape trial in 2001 involving a 13 year old girl. Whaley was eventually acquitted in that case after a mistrial was declared, but that's what first crippled his stock and necessitated the two years at community college.

You're getting the idea by now, though. Robert Whaley = fail. In fact, in a mini Twitter homage, we may now have to call him Failwhale.

Speaking of Twitter, Robert Whaley appears to have an account there, and he didn't even use an alias to do it. On it is what appears to the harrowing story of his son being knocked down and killed by a car this summer, as well as some slightly clingy messages to current Jazz players. Whaley has not used the account for a while, and he's probably not going to do so soon either.

Nevertheless, if I can find Robert Whaley just by searching Twitter, why couldn't Michigan State police?

Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 25

Due to an excessive amount of recent studies, this list has fallen a touch behind schedule. Therefore, the aim for a bit is to do two a day. If you hate them, this will probably suck for you.

- Sergiy Gladyr

After being drafted by the Atlanta Hawks this summer, Gladyr left the Ukraine for the first time and moved to the ACB to play with Suzuki Manresa (formerly known as Ricoh Manresa). Manresa have an 11-13 record on the season, yet they're comfortably in the middle of the table, currently placing 10th out of 18 ACB teams. Gladyr is third on the team in scoring with a 9.9ppg average, alongside 2.1 rebounds, 3.6 fouls and no other significant statistics per game. For a shooter, though, he's not shooting too well, shooting only 32% from three point range. And given that he has attempted 135 three pointers compared to only 35 two points, that's not ideal. It is not an ideal first season in Spain for Gladyr; that said, for a 20 year old in the ACB, it's pretty good. Young players don't normally play much there.



- Dion Glover

Glover played briefly on the 2004-2005 Spurs team that won the NBA Championship, but found himself having to go to summer league that year in order to get more employment. After averaging 19/5/5 for the Rockets team, Glover got a contract from Houston and made the team, but was waived in December of that year without playing a game. He never played in the NBA again.

Glover split the 2006-07 season between Lebanon and the D-League, and later played for a couple of Dominican Republic teams. He last played in March 2008 with a Venezuelan team called Gaiteros de Zulia, for whom he totalled 8 points in his only appearance. As for what he's done since then, here's Dion telling you himself.



Also note the accuracy of his prediction there. Well, half of it.



- Andreas Glyniadakis

Ex-Pistons draft pick Glyniadakis is Olympiakos' 15th and cheapest man. Olympiakos bought him from Marousi in the summer, along with former Minnesota pick Loukas Mavrokefalidis, in order to fill their quota of Greeks, and the two now spend a lot of time on the bench together, waiting for Olympiakos to build up a lead so big that they can take out Giannis Bourousis, Sofoklis Schortsanitis, Nikola Vujcic and Linas Kleiza. Glyniadakis has played 103 minutes all season, totalling 33 points, 22 rebounds and 28 fouls. This means he must have made contact with an opposing player at least 28 times. I'm not sure I believe that.



- Anthony Goldwire

NBA journeyman Anthony Goldwire made an unexpected appearance in the Spanish fourth division last season at the age of 37, playing for the remnants of Girona, a former ACB team who imploded due to bankruptcy a couple of years ago. Goldwire averaged 10.4 points, 2.5 rebounds and 1.6 assists at that incredibly low standard of basketball, and has since called it quits. He now assists Lifetime Fitness in establishing their basketball league program. Goldwire was also on hand to help manage the Bakersfield Jam's open tryout back in March, which seems odd in that he appears to hold no formal position with the team.

This seems like a good moment to post a picture of Anthony Goldwire modelling an ill-fitting coat.





- Joao Gomes

Gomes is an athletic Portuguese forward who was an NBA draft candidate back in 2007. He is playing with Breogan in Spain's LEB Gold, and is averaging 11.7 points and 5.4 rebounds per game. Gomes was not drafted and is not very interesting, so let's move on to Jamon Gordon.



- Jamon Gordon

Gordon was one of the replacements Marousi brought in this summer as they tooled up for their debut Euroleague season. It was a good season at that; they were still in the competition up until yesterday, when unfortunately their already-eliminated Greek rivals Panathinaikos beat them by three points and eliminated them. Gordon had 10 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists in the game.

On the season, Gordon leads the team in assists in both the Euroleague and Greek leagues, a feat not insignificant considering that Marousi play a two point guard lineup with Gordon and Billy Keys. Gordon averages 10.5 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.1 assists in the Euroleague, alongside 8.9/3.1/4.1 in the Greek league. He has shot a combined 17/71 from three point range.

He is known as Jamon Lucas in Greece, even having that on the back of his jersey. I do not know why this is.



- Jamont Gordon

The confusingly similarly named Jamont Gordon is also in the Euroleague, playing for Cibona Zagreb. Like Marousi, Cibona just got knocked out of the Euroleague at the Top 16 stage; like Jamon, Jamont leads his team in assists. He averaged 13.9 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game in Euroleague play, including ranking 1st overall in scoring in the Last 16 group stage (20ppg) and 5th in rebounds. Gordon also averages 13.1 points, 4.0 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game in the Adriatic League.

Jamon Gordon is the lefty out of Virginia Tech. Jamont Gordon is the lefty out of Mississippi State. They're both big strong athletic point guards with jumpshot concerns, whom both just got knocked out of the Euroleague. It's not in the least bit confusing.



- Brian Grant

As you probably already know, Brian Grant recently went public with his struggle against early onset Parkinson's. That struggle continues; sadly, that struggle will always continue, because a cure does not yet exist. This article by Ken Berger describes Grant's daily battle with the disease, what it's cost him, and of what it's going to cost him. I found it very upsetting and I believe you will too. God bless you, Brian Grant. He definitely owes you one.



- Taj Gray

Since leaving Oklahoma in 2006, Gray has spent four years in France. He started with Chalon, averaging 16.1ppg, 6.1rpg, and 1.3bpg, before moving to Paris-Levallois for the 2007/08 season and averaging 10.4/5.0/1.3. Last year playing for Roanne, those numbers shot up to 19.5/7.3/1.1, which was enough to get him a training camp contract with the L.A. Clippers. He didn't make the team, and thus went back to France to rejoin Chalon, for whom he is averaging 17.0 points, 6.0 rebounds and 0.7 blocks per game in the French league, alongside 14.4/5.9/2.0 in the EuroChallenge.



- Caleb Green

Caleb Green, one of Division 1's elusive 2000/1000 club, is still in Belgium. Last year he averaged 15/6 for Dexia Mons-Hainaut, and this season he's averaging 12.0 points and 5.1 rebounds per game for Oostende.

After going 9-29 from three point range in his four year college career - as opposed to his 812-1495 from two point range - Green is now turning himself into a three point shooter. He has 78 three point attempts in 21 games this year, compared with 101 two pointers and 88 free throws. He's good at them, too, making 34 of those 78 for a 43.6% success rate. Reinventing himself rather well, it appears.

His teammates there include Eddie Gill and Bracey Wright, and Oostende also feature two other Americans in Matt Lojeski and former Padres closer Trevor Huffman. The rest of Oostende's rotation features a Cameroonian (Stephane Pelle), a Slovenian (Dragisa Drobnjak), a Nigerian (Leigh Enobakhare, henceforth known as "Emo back hair") and a Bosnian Serb (Veselin Petrovic). Other players to have left Oostende during the season include Ivan Paunic (Serbian international; moved to Aris), Vladan Vukosavljevic (another Serbian; moved to Aliaga in Turkey), and Javier Mojica (American/Puerto Rican; now playing for Bayamon in Puerto Rico). Because of those 12 foreigners, Belgian players for Oostende have played only 176 minutes all season, split between three players; Quentin Serron (166), Jean Salumu (7) and Yacine Baeri (3). That's 176 out of a possible 4,200 minutes; therefore, only 4.19% of Oostende's PT has been shared amongst Belgian players. For comparison's sake, Americans have a 53.62% share.

God bless Belgian basketball.



- Devin Green

Green made his way to his fifth consecutive NBA training camp when he signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves this summer. He did not make the team, as he and every other signee lost out on a spot to Jason Hart, who played all of 5 minutes for the Wolves and who is now out of the league. Green then moved to Greece and joined Olimpia Larissa, leading them in scoring with a 14.3ppg average along with 4.1 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game. However, he left the team in January, reportedly because of a pay dispute. (Note: when American players leave Greek teams midseason, it is usually because of a pay dispute.) Green has joined the annual Puerto Rican exodus, signing with Gallitos de Isabela. In his two games for the team so far, Green put up 38 points and 13 rebounds.



Finally....

- Gerald Green

Green squirmed out 4 years in the NBA, but never came close to realising the potential that a man with his combination of athleticism and jumpshooting has by default. He last played with the Mavericks; however, at the Nerdjerkfest Conference Thing last week (or whatever it was called; said with affection, by the way), Mark Cuban famously and amusingly stated that Green "just doesn't understand the game of basketball." Quite the burn there from a man who spent a year signing his paychecks, but after four years of experimenting, the whole NBA seems to have bought into it.

Green is now in Russia playing for Lokomotiv Kuban. He is averaging 15.6 points and 3.4 rebounds per game.

Mengke Bateer Is A Coconut Wielding Homicidal Badass

Everyone remembers their first Mengke Bateer experience. Mine came in the 2000 Olympics. In a game against the USA in which Yao Ming beasted from three point range (true story), and in which Wang Zhizhi picked up four first half fouls, Mengke came in and hit some mid range jumpshots, in that way that he does. It was kind of fun, if ultimately kind of forgettable. (Although it can't have been that forgettable if I was able to remember it just now. Hmmm. Never mind then.)

Bateer went on to enjoy a few years in the NBA. He started out as a training camp signee of the Denver Nuggets in 2002, yet was waived before the season started. He thus went back to China and averaged 24.3 points and 14.2 rebounds per game for Beijing, before returning to the Nuggets in February 2002 to see out the season with them. Bateer played in 27 games for that God awful Nuggets team and even squeezed out 10 starts, averaging 5.1 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.5 fouls in 15 minutes per game. You'll no doubt have noticed that that's a lot of fouls.

That offseason, Bateer - who had been signed through 2003 - was a throw-in by Denver in the trade with Detroit that saw him, Don Reid and a first round pick swapped for Rodney White. That pick was later traded to Atlanta (who used it on Josh Smith) as the centrepiece of the Rasheed Wallace deal; in a way, therefore, Mengke Bateer was an integral part of building the 2003-04 NBA champion Detroit Pistons. An underrated bad Kiki Vanderweghe trade, that one. (It was perhaps overshadowed by the fact that it came in the same offseason as the drafting of Nikoloz Tskitishvili, a move you may have heard about.)

Nevertheless, despite how much Bateer had brought to the franchise, Detroit moved him on without him playing a game for them. He was traded to San Antonio just after camp opened in exchange for a 2003 second round draft pick, one which the Pistons then used on Andreas Glyniadakis. Bateer spent the whole year with the Spurs, but played only 46 minutes in 12 games, racking up another 14 fouls in that time and posting a PER of -8.4. His most significant contribution to that season was coming in and shooting two free throws in a game as an injury replacement, selected by whoever the opposing team was, presumably after they took one look at him and assumed he was terrible at foul shots (which he isn't; far from it, in fact). Bateer obliged them and missed them both. They were his only foul shots all season.

Despite it all, Bateer won an NBA championship ring that season, the first Chinese player to ever do so. The only other one to have done has been Sun Yue. It's hard to say who was more important to their teams respective titles, but the stats give the edge to Mengke; his -8.4 PER for the Spurs in 2003 practically destroys Yue's -8.6 PER for the Lakers in 2009. Represent.

The Spurs let Bateer go that offseason, even though he'd sort of helped them win a title. At that point came Toronto, who signed him to a two year minimum salary contract, clearly identifying a player who had now been an integral part of two NBA championship teams (even though this was still 2003 and one of them hadn't happened yet). But Mengke played in only 7 games for the Raptors - totalling 40 minutes and 7 fouls - before being moved on again when he was traded to Orlando for Robert Archibald. Toronto also gave up the rights to Remon Van De Hare in that deal, as well as the right to swap 2005 second round picks, a right which was exercised when Orlando moved up from 41st (Roko Ukic) to 38th (Travis Diener). You have to love deals like that, and not just because it has a hairy chested Scotsman in it.

Orlando waived Bateer almost immediately after trading for him, and he never played in the NBA again. Bateer saw out that season in the D-League, went to training camp in 2004 with the Knicks and in 2005 with the Cavaliers, but he never again saw an NBA court. This is mainly because he never got any faster, and thus never stopped fouling. His NBA career ended with totals of 46 games, 494 minutes, 156 points, 114 rebounds and 118 fouls; for per-36 fans, that's 11.4/8.3/8.6. Almost a triple double. Except with fouls.

Bateer has been been back in China ever since, averaging 13.8 points, 9.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 3.0 fouls this season for Xinjiang. Recent posts on this website about Mengke Bateer have featured this picture of him;



That is Bateer dressed as a bloody enormous monk, not because of some sexual fetish of his, but because of his side career as an actor. And that's another true story.

In addition to continuing his basketball career, Bateer has also begun a move towards whatever the Hong Kong equivalent of Hollywood is called. He first appeared in a film called "The Blue Xanadu" back in 2005, and the above monk photo comes from a film called "Bodyguards And Assassins."

Body & Ass is reputedly one of the most eagerly anticipated and expensive films to come out of Hong Kong cinema in a generation, with a hype fuelled in no small part by repeated delays in its release. The trailer certainly makes it look as slick as a baby's arse, and better still, Bateer's part is no small cameo. In the film, he plays an outcast monk (obviously), going by the slightly awesome of Wang Fuming, who moonlights as a tofu vendor. There are not enough films these days written about 6'11 monk salesmen, but Bateer pulls the part off with remarkable aplomb, as you can see in this clip where he kills dudes with coconuts and proves to be nigh-on impossible to kill.



Apparently being stabbed 150 times by a swarth of hate-driving stampeding hitmen armed with stabby things is not a certain death in this alternate reality. Not compared to, say, a coconut in the face. Nevertheless, despite the artistic license taken with the realism in the action scenes, the film does look kind of awesome. And any help as to what the caption above Bateer's strewn corpse says would be most welcome.


Bateer is set to appear in another film, Arrival of Fortune God, which has finished filming and which is due to be released later this year. A quick Google reveals no English language information about the film, or about Mengke's role within it, but it does reveal this picture;


This can only end well.