John Lucas III Involved In Very Lame Chinese Fight

The Chinese Basketball Association season begins tonight (Saturday), and former Heat, Rockets and Thunder point guard John Lucas III welcomed it with a fight.

What the fight was about, I have no idea, and who instigated it, I have no clue. Whether John Lucas III did anything wrong is similarly unclear, as is who the rest of the people involved were. All we know about said fight is that it spawned these two hilarious pictures:




Most fights look pretty pathetic when viewed in picture form only. But this looks particularly tepid. And that's why it's hilarious. Lucas has so far avoided Tweeting about the incident, but it can't hurt to ask him.

Additionally, the list of CBA imports for next season, previously speculated at here, now looks to be complete. It follows this semi-colon;

1. Guangdong - Smush Parker, David Harrison
2. Xinjiang - Myron Allen, Charles Gaines
3. Jiangsu - DerMarr Johnson, Jameel Watkins
4. Shaanxi - Corsley Edwards, Tim Pickett
5. DongGuan - Dajuan Tate, Alexander Johnson
6. Fujian - Chris Porter, Jelani McCoy
7. Zhejiang Lions - Rodney White, Peter John Ramos
8. Shandong - Andre Emmett, Stromile Swift
9. Beijing - James Mays, Cedric Bozeman
10. Shanxi - Donta Smith, Michael Sweetney, Maurice Taylor (maximum of two imports, so a cut to come)
11. Bayi - None
12. Liaoning - Olumide Oyedeji, Brandon Robinson
13. Jilin - Leon Rodgers, Soumaila Samake
14. Zhejiang Cyclones - Andre Brown, Marcus E. Williams
15. TianJin - Herve Lamizana, Brandon Crump
16. Qingdao - Frans Steyn, Chris Williams
17. Shanghai - John Lucas III, Garret Siler


Players to have tried out unsuccessfully for places include Mario West, Courtney Sims, Lorenzen Wright, Lee Benson, Ansu Sesay, Frank Robinson, Will Conroy and Donnell Harvey. Kirk Snyder wanted to return, but the CBA didn't want him. The league appears to have gotten pickier this year, which can only be good.


Sticking with the Asia theme, in non-Chinese world news, Ekene Ibekwe (of Maryland and Raptors summer league fame) has signed in Iran with a team called Imam Harbour, and former Bulls and Suns camp invitee Jeff Varem has also signed in Iran with Saba Mehr. There, he will replace Priest Lauderdale, as the world's tallest Bulgarian is currently injured. And former Hornets forward Sean Banks has also gone east, signing with Zain in Jordan. The other non-Jordanians in the Jordanian Premier League are Kendall Dartez, Rasheim Wright, Damian Cantrell, Jamal Schoetz, LaMarr Greer and John Thomas III. (Not to be confused with John Lucas III.)

Michael Sweetney signs in China

As always, Chinese Basketball Association transactions are extremely hard to verify. There is no English language version of the CBA's website, and crude Google translations aren't really that helpful. Tryouts are often reported as signings, signings often aren't reported at all, and lots of things go unreported. From these tatty shreds, we have to piece together the workings of an entire league. And it's not easy.

However, one thing that's perfectly clear is that former Bulls and Knicks big big big man Michael Sweetney has joined the legion of ex-NBA big men making their way over to the Chinese Basketball Association. The story was first reported by Adrian Wojnarowski over six weeks ago, and became official yesterday.

Sweetney turned down the offer of a workout with the Memphis Grizzlies to go to China, fully aware of the fact that he's not able to play in the NBA right now. The reason why he's not able to play in the NBA right now is obvious; put simply, he's fatter than ever. How fat? This fat:



That's Byron Eaton territory.

Sweetney is not a guarantee to have made the Shanxi roster; Chinese teams can only carry two non-Chinese players, and Shanxi currently rock all four of Sweetney, Maurice Taylor, Lee Benson and Donta Smith. (At least, as far as I can tell. There's also a team called Shaanxi, which makes this all very confusing.) Nevertheless, this is the right move for him. China pays well, and the CBA tends to play more games than comparable leagues (although apparently they're down to only 32 regular season games per team this season). The games are 48 minutes in length and not 40, and the import players will play huge minutes (as opposed to in Europe, where teams will employ 11 man rotations in 40 minutes games wherever possible.) The stint in China will get Sweetney money, court time, exposure, and bloody enormous statistics; if he stays healthy and drops some weight, this could be the launchpad for his NBA comeback.

So that's good.


In other Chinese news, ex-Maccabi, Spurs and Bucks big man Charles Gaines has also joined the league, as has former NBA player Alexander Johnson. Lorenzen Wright was cut and has returned to America, and Will Conroy did not make the cut for the Dongguan New Century Leopards, losing out to Johnson and Dajuan Tate. And while American courts had allowed Kirk Snyder to travel to China to play in the CBA, the CBA decided that they didn't want him.

Also, Olumide Oyedeji has signed with Liaoning for next season, which is particularly awesome news considering the defamatory comments he made about the CBA, ones which the CBA may yet sue over. Good times.


As accurate of a list of Chinese signees as I can get can be found here. In non-Chinese news:

- Former Erie BayHawks guard Maureece Rice has signed in Azovmash in the Ukraine, where he pairs up again with his teammate from last year, Erik Daniels. Azovmash have had a bad year and recently made widespread sweeping changes - Daniels was one of the few to survive - and Rice is a part of the new infusion, trying to elevate Azovmash from their currently underwhelming 9th position in the Ukranian Superleague.

Azovmash are also in trouble regarding a contract dispute over ex-Raptors draft pick, Remon Van de Hare. VDH signed with the team last summer to a three year contract, but the team released him only partway through last season. He sued to get the money for the full three years of the contract, and FIBA have ruled that Azovmash have until the 21st of this month to pay it. If they don't, they might be kicked out of the Eurocup.

- Another ex-D-Leaguer, Malick Badiane, has signed for the first time this season, joining Nanterre in France.

- Former NBA player Nikoloz Tskitishvili walked away from his contract with his Greek team Panionios, and ended up giving them money so that he could join Spanish league team Fuenlabrada instead.

- Hapoel Holon Israel released Brandon Wallace for no obvious reason, who then joined up in Poland with Turow, where he replaces Willie Deane, who was not having a good season.

- Ex-Timberwolf Rick Rickert has moved from the New Zealand Breakers to the Harbour Heat. Both teams are based in New Zealand, but the Breakers play in Australia's NBL, and the Heat don't. That's quite the downgrade.

- Nigel Dixon changes South Korean teams, moving from Anyang to Sonic Boom. It's an upgrade in team name, if nothing else.

- Lokomotiv Kuban started the year without any Americans, and then added two last week; Gerald Green and James Gist. There's some NBA calibre right there, which has to be a welcome midseason infusion.

- Michael Ruffin's short term contract with Manresa expired, and was not renewed.

- Olympiakos released Von Wafer, who had disappointed greatly. Wafer had started the year in the rotation, but had worked his way down to being on the inactive list. Greek teams are allowed a maximum of only 3 Americans and 6 non-Greeks for Greek league games, and Olympiakos have 7. And while Yotam Halperin started the year as the inactive player, he played his way into contention, as did Patrick Beverley. Wafer, meanwhile, played his way onto it. And now Olympiakos has decided to save the money and cut him. Wafer is now a candidate to join the Memphis Grizzlies, who are totally awesome yet who could use an extra bench scorer. They're currently having to pretend that Sam Old is a backup two. And it's not really working.

Strasbourg releases Terrel Harris

As mentioned in the 1997 NBA Draft Where Are They Now Round-up Recap Thing, IG Strasbourg are a French team that's not doing very well. They're currently joint 15th in the 16 team French ProA league with a 2-7 record and a 3 game losing streak. They're currently in the EuroChallenge (the third tier continent-wide club tournament), and they lead this group, but that won't count for a whole lot unless they reverse their French league fortunes. So they've made some changes, signed Wen Mukubu (to replace the injured Alain Digbeu), and waived Terrel Harris.

Harris, pictured here receiving mid-game oral sex from an unnamed Texas Longhorn with different sized ears, was signed in the summer to try and provide some of that scoring help. He averaged 13.9ppg for the Oklahoma State Cowboys last season, doing little else except shoot impromptu threes and rebound a little bit. He's only been doing half to that for Strasbourg this season, though, averaging only 6.8 points, 1.9 rebounds and 2.6 fouls per game. He shot the three well, scoring over 48% from outside, but he offered nothing else outside of that.

Not a good week for former Oklahoma State players.



EDIT: Strasbourg have also signed former NBA guard and sexual tyrant Anthony Roberson, who replaces Harris. Mukubu replaces Digbeu.

David Monds replaces John Edwards

John Edwards spent two years in the NBA. He signed as an undrafted free agent out of Kent State with the Pacers in 2004, played spot minutes in 25 games, and the Hawks signed him to an inexplicable two year, $2.08 million contract in the summer of 2005. After one year with Atlanta - in which he totalled 70 points, 48 rebounds and 76 fouls - the Hawks traded him back to the Pacers as filler in the Al Harrington deal. The Pacers then waived him, and after a training camp contract with the Timberwolves in 2007, that was it for John Edwards in the NBA.

Edwards has spent two of the last three years in the D-League, seemingly aware that the knock on him is his "rawness." Last year for the Sioux Falls Skyforce, Edwards averaged 9.3 and 6.9 rebounds in 21 minutes per game, fairly sedate numbers for a centre-starved league. Those numbers are particularly sedate when you consider that Edwards is now 28 years old. You can't be raw forever.

He did not return to the D-League this year, instead signing with Kolossos Rhodes in Greek's AI League. In theory, he was going to provide an NBA calibre frontcourt along with recent Heat draft pick, Robert Dozier. In practice, though, he's not been good. Edwards has played only 36 minutes on the entire season, totalling 12 points, 5 rebounds and 8 fouls. Now entering his physical prime, Edwards has never learnt how to stop fouling, has never dragged up his rebounding rate, and even though he's offensively inclined, he still can't score without a size advantage.

So Kolossos have released him in favour of recent Lakers camp invite and another D-League veteran, David Monds. Monds doesn't have Edwards' height, but he has strength, athleticism and poise. Poise counts for a lot.

By the way, I looked it up; David Monds does have two brothers, but they're called DeAndra and Trenton. Not Alfred and Diane, as you might have hoped.

Cartier Martin is the happiest man in the world

Last year, former Kansas State forward Cartier Martin started out in the D-League before earning an early call-up to the Charlotte Bobcats. He didn't play a whole lot, and when he did it's mainly because Larry Brown was using him as a defensive specialist (including occasionally guarding the point guard before Dontell Jefferson arrived), yet he spent the entire season with the team anyway.

This summer, he signed with Benetton Treviso in Italy, a team that started the year in the Euroleague. His team mates there include sure-fire lottery pick Donatas Motiejunas, as well as Gary Neal, Judson Wallace, Sandro Nicevic and Daniel Hackett. It was a decent team. However, from day one, Cartier Martin seemed unhappy. And he chose to document that unhappiness on Twitter.

Despite his account having the tag line of "I'm out here grindin and workin hard," Cartier never settled in Italy, and seemed to hate the place. He documented that hate with Tweets such as:

"Not as good as I thought."

"Chilliin in this terrible hotel somewhere in Italy! How are we one of the top teams in Italy and we stay in hotels like this...TERRIBLE!"

"Man it's time to just say f*** it and shoot that bitch every time I touch it."

"it look like it's trashy out here"

"Man some things just aren't for certain ppl. That's how I'm feelin right now!"

"Man I can't even tell you how I really feel bout it on here. I need to be there tho."

"I'm not passing it all when I touch it...I'm putting it up everytime."

"I ain't doin nothing out here tho...I barely even play sometimes. Its cool tho..long as I get that bread."

"In weak ass Naples, Italy! I'm so ready to....."

.......as well as other, slightly more woe-is-me ones that seem to have been deleted. Probably best.

(His payoff tweet of "headed back home. I hate to say bye" seems kind of out of place after all that went before it.)

Perhaps mercifully, Martin left Benetton this week and returned to America. He is now a likely candidate to return to the D-League and look for another NBA call-up. Despite the massive pay decrease and the inferior standard of basketball on offer, Martin seems to really, really, REALLY want to play more games and less practices in accordance with American style, seemingly unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the European style of basketball that could mean only 25 minutes of playing time in an entire week. He'd rather be happy than rich.

And that's what it's all about, really.