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.

They call me Sham Slidy. I'm back. Etc.

What is better than a holiday? I'll tell you what's better than a holiday: a full English breakfast is better than a holiday. It really is. Eggs, beans, a copious amount of sausages, bacon, toast, hash browns, mushies, black pudding if you've got it, OJ......yes, yes, that is definitely better than a holiday.

Another thing that is better than a holiday is two holidays, and that's what I've been having. This explains what looks to the casual observer like my continued absence. My last blog post, dated about three weeks ago, spoke of an impressive, overdue and highly important return to action, and yet this is only my second blog post of the whole season, after a month of November that saw only one feeble effort. A cynic would say that I've been away, and a particularly ruthless Mozambiquey (Mozambiquish?) Army General might have me shot for dereliction of duty.

However, that Mozambolian Army General would be wrong, and so would the cynic. I have not been neglecting this website, nor have I been neglecting you, dear viewer. Instead, I have been having a working holiday, if such a thing is possible for an unemployed man. While the blog hasn't been updated, the rest of this webshite has. In recent days, I have:

1: Provided a better vehicle for the site's increased focus on world basketball. (Look left.) While this remains an NBA focused website, a large part of that is documenting the players on the outskirts of the league with a realistic chance of being in it one day. For this reason, the rosters section has been expanded greatly, and player movement worldwide will now be documented via the worldwide transactions page, and the accompanying blog that'll probably never be used. The players database has also been expanded to contain such hugely important people as Joe Forte, Ansu Sesay, Rashad Anderson and Pablo Prigioni, so that they too may now not be written about. These developments come off of the background of the staggeringly mildly successful series of "Where are they now?" blog posts of last season, and such blog posts will now be made on that blog instead. Because I said so.

2: Begun the D-League coverage that was initially planned about two years ago. As the blurb above describes, this website is increasing its focus on the players just outside the NBA, and this is the reason for the sudden and uninspiring new D-League focus. A lot of the players in the D-League are crap and will never make the NBA, so the coverage will only focus on those with a perceived chance. For example, the insatiably named Xavier Whipple may never get a profile on here, whereas Antoine Jordan already did. This will probably be the high point of Antoine's life, and if Xavier Whipple kills himself in the coming days, then it was only a coincidence. All of this exciting new material can be found in the menu to the left, to the left. Mmmmmm. To the left, to the left. Everything I made in the box to the left.

3: Added more lookalikes, for those who like that sort of thing. I do.

4: Expanded the database, so that it now covers almost 10 million players. (Or 1,100. Whichever. Either way, it's more writing that I haven't yet done.)

5: Built three new features that you can't see yet. (Oh! The! Suspense!)

6: Written a DraftExpress post that you also can't see yet.

7: Completed the 2009 free agents lists, now available in three new and improved flavours: by name, by team, and by position.

8: Finished the overdue, slightly pointless but entirely unique 2008 Offseason Review.

9: Updated all the pre-existing information, including (but not limited to): assistant coaches lists (see team pages), depth charts, rosters, cap holds, D-League affiliates, and everything except the salaries because I can't be bothered with them yet.

10: Written the player profiles for T.J. Ford, Anthony Roberson, Chris Kaman, Jared Reiner, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade and Matt Barnes. (Only 800 to go!)

11: Finished the character issues section.

12: Agreed to be the host of a new, Around The Horn style podcast, featuring the four most pre-eminent Chicago Bulls podcasts on the web (Bulls Beat, Bullseye, Bullscast, and the other one). More details on this as, when, and if I can be bothered.



So you see, I do do stuff. (Note: my working holiday comes with less photos than my actual holiday. Be grateful.)

The downside of all this is that I might blog a bit less. As an aspiring NBA General Manager with no qualifications or skills to speak of, it's important that I use this website as my curriculum vitae to demonstrate my large and hopefully accurate knowledge of the NBA, and the players both in it and on its fringes. This is the reason for all the expansion. Will it work? No, but I'm doing it anyway.

But anyway, who the hell cares about all that. That's all just self congratulatory bollocks. Let's bring the noise. Here are some of my opinions on stuff.

1: The Al Harrington/Jamal Crawford trade looks like the epitomy of a win win trade. For a discontented player who had absolutely no worth on the depth chart, the Warriors managed to get a much needed short term fill-in at point guard, and a man who also isn't a bad fit alongside Monta Ellis, assuming that Monta ever plays for the Warriors again. Meanwhile, New York got a player that Mike D'Antoni can occasionally pretend is a centre (it's not that farfetched - Al Harrington played a lot of centre in his Hawks days, albeit not very well), while more importantly opening up a few more million in 2010 cap room. The Warriors have no 2010 ambitions, so they sacrificed something that they didn't want for something that they sorely needed. They will, however, suck anyway. (Incidentally, it's kind of a shame how things have worked out with Chris Mullin. He made a lot of mistakes in his early days in charge, but then put them right, and assembled a fine young roster. But then his superiors somewhat sold him out, Baron Davis let him down by opting out, and Ellis let him down by falling off a bike that he shouldn't have been on. Now he has a team with a poor record, a clusterfuck of a roster, and a contract that's about to run out with an owner that has completely different ideas to that of his own. It's a shame. For a while there, things really went his way. Oh well.)

2: Additionally, moving Zach Randolph and Mardy Collins to the Clippers for Tim Thomas and Cuttino Mobley was also a coup for the Knicks. For all the bellyaching I did about Donnie Walsh's summer moves - overpaying for a backup in Chris Duhon, drafting Danilo Galinari at number 6 who allegedly has no chance of being a star and who has the depth chart stacked against him, and dealing one of the team's few reasonable players in Renaldo Balkman to save money after overpaying for Duhon and being unwilling or unable to move the crappy players in front of him - I give Walsh the plaudits for finding a plan (2010), and executing it well. The fact that we're currently having to watch David Lee as a full time center is secondary - the Knicks had the balls and the patience to trade two of their three best players for unwanted bit parts, all for a one year saving on their salaries. Rarely is the 2010 plan (or any capspace plan) worthwhile for the teams involved. But in the Knicks case, it was. And now they've facilitated it. So well done them. As for the Clippers, God knows what they expect to achieve. Getting a 20/10 (not 2010) player for spare parts should always be desirable, but in this case, it isn't. And I can't write much more about their side of the deal without borrowing too heavily from this piece what I's already wrote.

3: The seminal baseball journalism blog FireJoeMorgan.com has closed down, as its proprietors - people with jobs - have decided to do those jobs instead. This seems like a misuse of their time, but whatever. The point is that they'll be missed. (For those unaware, FireJoeMorgan.com was a baseball site that didn't cover baseball, but which covered other people's coverage of baseball. It was not merely a campaign to fire Joe Morgan, as the URL would have suggested. Acerbic to a tee and with a turn of phrase that would make Pynchon weep, the site made baseball writers and broadcasters - particularly the one whose name was in the URL - look really bloody stupid. Yet it did not entirely set out to do this - all that the team behind it had to do was to let the writers write whatever they like. The writer's stupidity was all their original work. FJM just let them hang themselves with line breaks and the occasional bit of sense. That's all that was needed for the ridiculous old boys network that governs Major League Baseball - and those who cover it - to show their true inanity, as they spewed forth their eternal semi-ons for the easily rectifiable myths that have ensured their job security up until now. Sadly, it looks like they'll now get away with it. Damn shame.)

Finally, and most importantly, number 4: It only occured to me the other day just how phallic an overhead shot of half a basketball court looks.



That is all. I am now off to watch all the games that I've missed out on.