Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 2

- Akin Akingbala

Akingbala came out of nowhere to be a decent rebounder and defender for Clemson in his senior season, and was a training camp invite of the Celtics in 2006 as a result. After that he went to the D-League for a bit, and has spent the last three years touring Europe. He is currently with Nancy in France (pronounced Noncy, which is even funnier), averaging 11.1 points, 7.4 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game in the French league. Akingbala exclusively does "big man things", as evidenced by his 47% FT shooting and 2 assists all year. But as athletic interior players go, you could do worse. The King Baller also put up a 9 points, 7 rebounds, 8 blocks statline earlier this month, which is not bad going.



- Cenk Akyol

After at least 7 years there, Akyol finally left Efes Pilsen in his native Turkey this summer, and moved to Italy to join Air Avellino. He missed six weeks due to injury, and has appeared in only 6 of 11 Serie A games for the team, but he's averaging 7.0 points and 2.2 steals in 21 minutes per game. The 17% three point shooting is not a great start, and nor is the 5 total assists, but Akyol is still young. He's only 22. Feels like he shouldn't be by now.



- Chris Alexander

D-League veteran and occasional NBA flirt Alexander has ditched both of those on-off girlfriends in favour of going to South Korea. Playing for the LG Sakers, Alexander averages 14.4 points, 9.8 rebounds and 1.2 blocks in 28 minutes per game, shooting 65% from the field and 61% from the foul line.The South Korean league plays a heeyooooge, NBA-like amount of games; opening night was on October 17th, and LG have already played 30 games in those two mere months. All that court time and all those statistics are part of the reason why fringe and former NBA players like to go there; a longer breakdown of the South Korean Experience can be found by clicking the words South Korean Experience.



- Cory Alexander

Alexander fell out of the NBA in 2001 after bouncing between Denver, San Antonio and Orlando for a few years, but he didn't hitch on straight away with the first six figure European contract that he could get. Instead, he sat out the 2001/02 season, and then went to the D-League for a year, where he starred as a veteran amongst whippersnappers and built himself a new CV. Alexander DID sign in Italy with Lottomatica Roma for the 2003/04 season, and performed pretty well for a Euroleague-calibre team, but the D-League came first for Alexander (and also afterwards; he went back there or the 2004/05 season too). Seemingly it worked, because Alexander DID get back into the league, playing a few games for the expansion Bobcats as Brevin Knight's mentor (maybe). This Bobcats gig was also Alexander's last, and he now works as a radio announcer for University of Virginia games.



- Courtney Alexander

Of all the people I've tried to find out about, Courtney Alexander has been the hardest. He hasn't played in the NBA since the 2nd of May 2003, and he never played outside of it. He spent the whole 2003/04 season on the injured list, and although he signed with the Kings in October 2004 and made the team for three weeks, he spent all that time on the injured list and never played for them. Alexander's only other NBA contract was a training camp invite to the Nuggets in 2006, where he did not make the team. He has not played since, nor has he been found since. And I've done a lot of looking.

Finally found him, though; he and his wife has set up a foundation called "CA Press", a foundation seemingly set on both academic and spiritual excellence. The foundation is advertised as being "non-profit", but given that his wife seems to have given up a career in order to help run it (according to the About page), then clearly they're turning some kind of trade from it.

A quick Facebook search for "Courtney Alexander" reveals a lot of fairly good looking women, interspersed with the occasional stunner. It's worth a gander if you're a misogynist.



- Shagari Alleyne

Shagari Alleyne started this season in Norway. I told you about this at the time, but no one would fault you for not noticing. He left the team (Tromso) before playing a game, and came back to America, where he signed with the D-League and was taken in the fifth round of the draft by the Albuquerque Thunderbirds. The Thunderbirds released him without so much as a whimper before the season started, and a couple of weeks ago, Alleyne signed with the Halifax Rainmen in Canada, who play in the Premier Basketball League. You'll notice we don't cover Norway and the Premier Basketball League on here as a rule.

In his first game with the Rainmen, Alleyne put up 5 points, 6 rebounds and 3 blocks in 16 minutes. In his second game the following night, Alleyne put up 3 points and 0 rebounds in 8 minutes. In the third game, he perked up a bit, totalling 8 points, 14 rebounds and 6 blocks in 19 minutes off the bench, in a PBL game against the Vermont Frost Heaves that the Rainmen won by 45 points. What's a Frost Heave?

Teammates of his that you may have heard of include former Blazer Desmond Ferguson, former NBA draft pick and middle aged man Gordon Malone, as well as D-League veterans John Strickland and Gary Ervin. But that's about it. Lest it needs to be said, PBL basketball is not strong. (Nor is Norwegian league basketball.) The intent of the PBL is to surpass the ABA, and they're doing fairly well at that, mainly because they have infinitely more sensible expansion credentials. But it's still not significant to the NBA landscape, which is what this website is supposed to focus on. I realise that that's a silly thing to say when talking about Shagari Alleyne, however. Never mind. Let's move on.



- Lance Allred

Allred, a D-League veteran, turned down the D-League this year to try and get some money. He initially signed with Napoli in Italy, but got out of there just in time. (More on their downfall later.) Allred then signed with Scavolini Pesaro for two months, another SerieA team, but in 4 games he totalled only 42 minutes, 21 points (on 22 shots), 16 rebounds, 2 steals, 0 blocks, 0 assists and 9 fouls, shooting 46% from the field and 20% from the foul line. He last played on November 1st, and left in late November when his 60 day contract expired.

I still haven't bought his book, but you still should. He's writing another one, although this time it's a work of historical fiction. There's also apparently a book of poems on the way.



- Morris Almond

Almond went to camp with the Magic, a team who at least understand that you can never have too much jumpshooting. Us bandwagon Bulls fans have made quite a song and dance this year about how bad our three point shooting has been; so would you if you replace Ben Gordon's soothingly sensual buttery touch with the claw-like scratchings of rabid feline John Salmons. But they are only actually tied for 26th in the league in three point percentage with Memphis, and three teams (New Jersey, Detroit and Minnesota) are somehow even worse. There are also 9 teams in the league shooting .318% or worse from three point range this season. Why is this the case? It needn't be. The world of basketball did not run out of shooters. The NBA just stopped getting them. What a stupid stat that is.

Anyway, the Magic didn't keep Almond, because a taxpaying team already with J.J. Redick doesn't need him. So Almond went back to the D-League with the Springfield Armor, for whom he is averaging 28.2 points, 4.0 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 2.8 turnovers. Sounds about right.




- Alade Aminu

After going undrafted, Aminu was picked up by the Miami Heat for training camp, but he never really had a chance of making the team and was an early cut. He then went to the D-League and was picked 10th overall by the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, who then immediately traded him to the Erie BayHawks in exchange for Rob Kurz. At Erie, Aminu is averaging only 10.3 points, 4.8 rebounds and 0.6 blocks in 24 minutes a game. For a supposed Chris Andersen type, that's a mediocre start to a professional career.



- Alan Anderson

Anderson signed with Maccabi Tel Aviv fantastically early on this summer, and he's still there. In the Euroleague, Anderson is averaging 13.1 points, 3.3 fouls, 3.4 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.5 steals in 25 minutes per game, and in the Israeli league he's averaging 10.4 points, 2.6 rebounds and 2.0 assists in 18 minutes a game. There have been rumours a-flying about Maccabi potentially getting rid of him, but rumours like that have accompanied many Maccabi players this year, especially Maciej Lampe. And neither has left yet.

Speaking of Maccabi, if anyone was wondering if Derrick Sharp went back there for a 14th consecutive season, the answer is yes.



- Derek Anderson

Anderson's last basketball employment was with the Bobcats back in 2007. He has not signed anywhere since, and nor has he been linked to anyone. Anderson recently signed up to join a program at the University of Kentucky that helps former players complete their degrees, as has Ron Mercer.

Summer league round-up: Washington Wizards

View the Wizards summer league roster.

- Alade Aminu: I've not seen Aminu, to be honest with you. But his stats from last year go like this; 11.9 points, 8.0 rebounds and 1.8 blocks in 27 minutes per game. Solid. So is the 6'10 230lb size with a 7'3 wingspan. However, the points came somewhat inefficiently, he turned it over a lot, and he fouled quite a lot too. And he could use some weight gain. But he's also only 21, despite having just played his senior season, and that's got to bode well.

- Dwayne Anderson: In all the times I watched Villanova last year, I didn't realise Dwayne Anderson was a senior. But I did realise that he wasn't very good. He didn't have a bad senior year, but he's a forward in a guard's body, with not much of a jumpshot and little dribbling ability, who rebounds well and who could be a good defender, but who kind of isn't. This is probably his only ever NBA sniff.

- Ryan Ayers Ryan Ayers is here for three reasons. The first is because he has great size for the NBA at 6'7. The second is because he has a fine set jumpshot that already has NBA three point range. And the third is because he's the son of recent Wizards assistant coach Randy Ayers. To be 6'7 and a fine shooter sounds like a good thing, but here's the thing with Ayers; he does nothing else. He only catches and shoots. He's fairly athletic and his defense is all right, but he will only ever catch and shoot. Even at the college level with 6'2 prospective morticians matched up on him, all he did was catch and shoot. That's not going to get it done, even if he is extremely good at shooting and with a good NBA physique.

- Jimmy Baron: See this.

- Andray Blatche: Andray Blatche, there's a reason you're still doing summer league after 5 years in the league. It's because you still haven't figured out that you're not Kobe Bryant. I tell you this in the hope that it may help. Go to the post and stay there.

- Javaris Crittenton: In August 2007, the Grizzlies traded a heavily protected first rounder to the Wizards for the rights to Juan Carlos Navarro. The pick was at least top 12 protected until 2012, at which point if it still hadn't been conveyed, it became a second round pick and cash instead. However, the Navarro move went a bit wrong, and the Grizzlies got all of one year out of him because he buggered off back to Spain, ne'er to return. They then traded Crittenton to the Wizards in December last year to get the pick back, in spite of all its protection. To be honest, I'd rather have Crittenton.

- John Edwards: Edwards is 28 in about a week, but he never stops trying. Aside from one stint in the Ukraine, he's never played outside of America; he's either in the NBA, or in a minor league trying to get back there. Unfortunately, it's no longer happening for him. Last year in the D-League, he averaged 9.3 points, 6.9 rebounds and 3.6 fouls for the Sioux Falls Skyforce. That's not getting it done.

- Josh Heytvelt: Heytvelt had a good college career, if you ignore the whole recreational drugs thing, but that doesn't mean he'll have an NBA career. His inside outside offensive game is fun to watch. However, if you're 6'11 and not a defender or a rebounder, you'd better be a bloody good scorer. And Heytvelt isn't. But he is a pretty good Formula 1 driver.

- James Lang: Lang is a former Wizard, and the owner of his own theory. He played 11 games with the team in 2006-07, doing nothing at all. He's done nothing at all since then, too, averaging only 6/4 in the D-League last year. Lang is still freaking huge, so the NBA still continues to monitor him. But he's never developed.

- Tits McGee: The bad news for McGee is that Brendan Haywood is back this year. The good news for McGee is that the Wizards will no longer have to feel like they're obliged to play Darius Songaila. Even at centre.

- Dominic McGuire: McGuire's contract for next year is fully unguaranteed. He's the 15th man on the roster. On a team that figures to be a heavy tax payer next season. Somehow, Dominic McGuire is going to have to show that he's worth the $1.65 million it'll cost to keep him. And I don't think the 21% shooting he managed in summer league is getting it done.

- Tywain McKee: None of us watched a Coppin State game last year, so let's not kid ourselves. So here's some numbers; McKee averaged 18.4 points, 5.7 rebounds, 4.1 assists, 2.8 steals and 3.0 turnovers per game, shooting 40% from the field, 36% from three point range and 815 from the foul line. Those are the numbers. This is the fluff piece.

- Tyrese Rice: Rice averaged 21/5 in his junior season, but that dropped to 17/5 in his senior season. Maybe he was trying to reinvent himself as more of a pass first player - which wouldn't be a bad idea as a 6'0 guard with not a great jumpshot - but either way it was a downwards trend. And that's why he went undrafted. I do love the Boston College uniforms, though.

- Jason Rich: Rich got a pre-draft workout with the Wizards last summer, but went undrafted out of FSU. He then spent the year in Italy, averaging 9.8 points and 3.1 rebounds for NGC Cantu in Serie A. He shot 39% from three point range, which shows improvement, but he still doesn't have NBA talent.

- Alex Ruoff: Ruoff has signed in Belgium next year for Belgacom Liege. I feel this is all the Alex Ruoff news and views that you need.

- Diamon Simpson: Simpson is a great rebounder but a crap shooter, and not much of an offensive player in general. His points come from hustle and scrappiness around the rim; he got to the line over 7 times a game last year, just to shoot 58% from there. His size at 6'7 230lbs isn't really getting it done, either. And as is mentioned in the McGuire section, the Wizards are already carrying 17. Apart from the four already with contracts, none of these boys really have a chance. Still, thanks for playing.

- Kyle Spain: A fat shooter out of San Diego State. (Sorry. I can just see the end in sight, finally.)

- Brandon Wallace: Last season in Poland, Wallace averaged 7.8 points and 5.6 rebounds. His usual high defensive numbers weren't really there, averaging less than a block per game. He shot 38% from three point range, which is a good sign, but it came in limited attempts. If the Wizards decide they can replace McGuire with an inferior but cheaper version, then Wallace could be a candidate. But that doesn't seem as likely as just not bothering with either of them.

- Nick Young: Fun Nick Young fact: Nick Young's career PER in the playoffs is 1.3. That is all.