Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 28

- You did it! You did it! You waited for your Alexander Johnson news! Be proud of yourself, and then proceed to hate me, as I tell you that there isn't any. Johnson started the year in Germany with Brose Baskets Bonn, totalled 11.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3.4 fouls in 11 German league games, before leaving last month and being replaced (sort of) by Dan Dickau. Johnson is now unsigned, but, in better news, Dickau has scored 37 points combined in the two games that he's been there.

- Jumaine Jones was suspended from European basketball for a year in September by FIBA, for the weird yet wonderful crime of signing contracts with two different teams at the same time; one with Alyssa Milano, and one with Ural Great Perm in Russia. However, he's been playing for the greatly named Great Perm anyway, averaging 6.5 points and 4.6 rebounds in Russian league play. How that is possible, I don't know - Russia is in kind of both Europe and Asia, depending on which you want to count it as at any given moment. However, Great Perm have played in both the Eurocup and EuroChallenge this season, and, as the names would suggest, those are European competitions. Yet Jumaine has been playing in them, averaging 9.1 points and 5.8 rebounds in the EuroChallenge. Any answers as to how this is possible?

- Eddie Jones was bought out by the Pacers in preseason after being traded from the Mavericks, and hasn't been heard from since.

- Dwayne Jones went to training camp with the Magic, didn't make it, went to Turkey with Efes, played two games, scored 1 point, grabbed 1 rebound, came back to America, signed with the Bobcats, averaged 2 and 2 in 6 games, got waived, went to the D-League, was acquired by the Iowa Energy, played one game, scored one point, grabbed one rebound, got traded to the Idaho Stampede, and has since averaged 12.9 points, 10.6 rebounds and 1.9 blocks through 8 games. That sentence is more fun if you take all 16 commas out.

- Amazingly, there isn't an update on former Orlando Magic guard Mark Jones, a player so obscure that not even Orlando Magic fans have heard of him. Jones still hasn't played since a stint in the Ukraine in 2006, and now that he's about to turn 34, there probably won't be another one.

- In a fourteenmonth period from September 2007 to November 2008, Bobby Jones played on 12 different teams. Having spent the whole previous season with the Philadelphia 76ers, Jones was traded to the Denver Nuggets in the offseason Reggie Evans/Steven Hunter swap. He made it through until the January contract guarantee date before being waived by Denver, at which point he started travelling again. Jones soon signed a ten day contract with the Grizzlies, but didn't get a second one, and went to the D-League with the Sioux Falls Skyforce. After nearly a month and 5 games there, Jones earned another ten day contract with the Houston Rockets, but again a second wasn't forthcoming. Jones then instantly signed a ten day contract with the Heat, and this time re-signed to a second one, but unfortunately didn't get signed for the remainder of the season. By this time, however, he was probably used to that. Another ten day contract followed, with yet another team (the Spurs), and after that one expired, Jones wound up back where it all started, signing a contract through the end of the season and with an unguaranteed 2008/09 season with the Nuggets again. Unfortunately, that still wasn't it for Bobby; he was traded to the Knicks along with Taurean Green in exchange for Renaldo Balkman, and then waived almost instantly by the Knicks. BJ subsequently re-signed with the Heat after summer league, but didn't even make it as far as training camp, being waived in August. Never fear, though, for Jones did make it to an NBA training camp, this time with another new team, Sacramento. But Jones didn't make the cut there either, and has since buggered off back to the Skyforce, where he has managed to enjoy the relative job security of 25 games in a row with the same team. (Phewph. That was harder to write than to read, I promise.) For the Skyforce, Jones averages 15.1 points and 7.8 rebounds; decent numbers, but not good enough for another 10 day contract. Yet.

- Alvin Jones's tale is far easier to tell - he's unsigned.

- Jared Jordan went to training camp with the Hornets, failed to make the cut on a team with an open roster spot and a desperate need for a point guard, and then disappeared off the map for a bit. In December, Jordan reappeared, and was acquired by the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, yet earlier this month he was waived due to a high ankle sprain that was due to keep him out for two weeks. But he'll be back. Jordan averaged 8.6 points and 6.2 assists in what little time he managed.

- Antoine Jordan started the season nailed to the bench for the Tulsa 66ers, then left the team in December and went to the seminal Dutch league. In 2 games for the mighty Matrixx Magix of Nijmegen, Jordan averages 12.0 points and 5.5 rebounds, due solely to the highly competitive and truly classy nature of the Dutch league.

- Zhang Kai, as expected, went back to China after not making the Kings roster out of training camp (surprisingly!). For the DongGuan New Century - the team that he's been with since roughly conception age - Zhang averages 19.9 points and 9.6 rebounds, making him arguably the best Chinese player under the age of 30 other than Yao Ming.

- Finally, two players you don't know or care about. The Spurs and Blazers are often lauded for their draft choices, which often yield talent unbefitting of the draft spot from which they were picking. They get a few "steals" in this way. Unfortuantely, these two weren't two of them. Portland's Federico Kammerichs is a soon-to-be-29 year old extremely bearded forward, who is playing in the powerhouse known as the Argentinian league. For the irrepressible Regatas Corrientes, Otacon averages 13.4 points and 10.7 rebounds, numbers that sting your eyes with their unrelenting sex appeal and briliance. Meanwhile, the Spurs's Sergei Karaulov is comparably brilliant, as the soon-to-be-27 year old extremely unbearded centre is playing for Nizhny Novgorod, a team in the Russian second division. If you're really that bothered, you can work out his averages for yourself from this confusing dribble. Here's a starting point; he's number 15. Hope this helps.

Where Are They Now? Part 20

Keeping up with the Jones's.

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Arthur Johnson is playing for Pepsi Caserta in Italy's second divison, alongside Guillermo Diaz and perennial also-ran Randolph Childress. Johnson averages 13.9 points and 6.5 rebounds a game.

Trey Johnson is averaging 12.3 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.1 assists in only 27 minutes a game for the Bakersfield Jam of the D-League.

Bobby Jones has tied an NBA record this season, after playing for 5 different NBA teams - Denver, Memphis, San Antonio, Miami and Houston. Jones was also on the Sixers roster before the season, but he was traded as a part of the Reggie Evans/Steven Hunter deal that nobody was interested in. He has just today returned to the Denver Nuggets, obviously wanting to settle down now.

Dahntay Jones played well for the Kings earlier this season, before being waived to accomodate the players acquired from Atlanta as a part of the Mike Bibby trade. One of those players - Tyronn Lue - was subsequently waived, but still the Kings didn't bring Dahntay back, nor Justin Williams, the other guy waived concurrent to the trade. As a result, Jones is stuck with plying his trade down in the D-League, where he shits on the league with a 24.4 points per game average.

Mark Jones - a former Magic guard, so obscure in his formerness that only the truly hardcore will remember him - has not played professionally for two years, and I have absolutely nothing further to say about him. That's how obscure he is. It'd be quite the mysterious and evocative act if it wasn't so irrelevant to everyone and everything.

Alvin Jones, who this summer became the ultimate random "oh shit yeah, I remember him!" signing of any training camp ever when he signed with Denver for three whole days, is playing for a Turkish team that not even people in Turkey have heard of - Mutlu Aku Selcuk Universitesi Konya. It is here that Jones puts up the other-worldly numbers of 4 total BL's and no ASS. Make your own assumptions as to what those abbreviations form his team's website represent. Jones is also, I shit ye not, a Luxembourgian passport holder, and this is the kind of information that I NEED to bring the world. (Question: which former Net is now a member of the Qatarian national team? We'll find out, after these messages. And about 30 more blog posts.)

Jumaine Jones is averaging 18.2 points and 8.6 rebounds for Napoli in Italy, alongside another former Net, Jamel Thomas. Speaking of Jamel Thomas, Jamel Thomas is Stephon Marbury's cousin. And Jamel Thomas is writing a book. And Jamel Thomas isn't nice about Marbury on this book, or so he implies in a Youtube video that he made. In this video, Jamel Thomas wears sunglasses indoors, complimented by a pink tank top, ranting somewhat incoherently (the room has ropey acoustics) about how angry he is about Marbury-related things, doing so with a loosely enforced rhyme scheme in place. In the unlikely event that you haven't seen this video, given that every NBA blog in the world seems to have carried it recently, here it is:



I'm buying that, despite my almost-total lack of interest in the subject matter. You've sold me, Jamel Thomas. By the way, Jamal has two A's in it.

Jared Jordan is playing for Lietuvos in Lithuania, alongside (or rather, behind) the mighty Hollis Price. Jordan averages a mere 6.1 points and 4.0 assists for the team. Nevertheless, I remain steadfast in my opinion that this player that I have never seen play is destined for good things, because people who I trust rather well keep telling me this. And frankly, that's all that I need. It's the fundamental principle that this website was based on. Maybe I shouldn't have just said that.

Federico Kammerichs averages only 7.1 points and 5.9 rebounds for Murcia in Spain. The old unwritten rule which states that dual German/Argentinian nationality players with massive beards drafted in the second round of the NBA draft never go on to international basketball superstardom, claims another victim. Maybe one day, we'll break this unholy cycle of woe.

Sergei Karaulov - one of those tall young European second round draft choices that the Spurs make, that you've never heard of, yet you are convinced that they could one day start on a championship winning Spurs team purely because te Spurs drafted them - will never start on a Spurs championship team. Because he's crap. Karaulov, 26 tomorrow, averages only 3.2 points and 2.1 rebounds for Lokomotiv Rostov in the Russian Superleague. Thus, it's official - the Spurs cocked one up. And when we get to Viktor Sanikidze, you'll learn how they cocked two up.

Mario Kasun had his restricted free agency renounced by Orlando when they renounced everybody except Fran Vazquez to open up the room to sign Rashard Lewis to as much as they physically could, for no freaking reason whatsoever. As a result, Kasun is now fully detatched from the NBA, and now we have something else to blame Rashard Lewis for. (Let's overlook for a minute the fact that Kasun doesn't want to play in the NBA.) Kasun, now 28, averages 7.7 points and 3.3 rebounds per game for Barcelona, and if I could read Spanish I'd be able to tell you if he has stopped his prolific fouling or not. But I'd wager not. (Vazquez, coincidentally, is his teammate.)

Viktor Khryapa was bought out by the Bulls just before the trade deadline so that he could return to the Motherland to resurrect his career. It hasn't really worked out yet, as Khryapa averages only 10.8 points and 6.4 rebounds for CSKA Moscow, which isn't terrific. Khryapa's team mate in Moscow is Trajan Langdon, who tears things up with an 11.8ppg scoring average, which is highly terrific. I may have an agenda here, but don't tell anyone.