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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1: The following Youtube video has done the rounds recently, showing an impressive double alleoop in a highly one-sided high school game.
That clip reminded me of this one, featuring the Los Angeles Clippers's "overloaded with potential" era, specifically Darius Miles and Lamar Odom. (Also, is it Sean Rooks throwing that frontcourt pass? I think so.)
Since Kevin Calabro left us, Ralph Lawler has assumed the title of Best Announcer Of Any NBA Team. If ever you forget that, watch this clip. Great freaking call, Ralph. Great call.
2: While looking for that clip, I also found this one.
I loved that so-called "Jail Blazers" team. Loved it. There was just so much talent on it, so much depth, and so much athleticism (which, not matter how much you appreciate skill, is something that makes the game more fun. As evidenced by this clip). That particular Blazers team also had Steve Kerr and Chris Dudley, two all time favourites of mine. It was great times all around. But it's a bit odd, when you think about it. All but one Blazer in this clip is now out of the league. Derek Anderson is unsigned. Bonzi Wells is in China. Ruben Patterson is unsigned. Scottie Pippen is kicking 50's door down. (Not 50 Cent, but the age.) Kerr is the Suns General Manager now, and Chris Dudley is Kevin Love's mentor. (Well, he was, briefly.) Rasheed Wallace is still with us, but not the same Rasheed Wallace as we see today, and the rest of the roster not seen in this clip (Damon Stoudamire, Dale Davis, Shawn Kemp, Erick Barkley, Mitchell Butler, Ruben Boumtje Boumtje, Rick Brunson) are all out of the league. The only ones that aren't are Sheed and Zach Randolph, then a deep bench player on a deep bench. Admittedly, this clip is seven years old, and so 13 of the 15 players being out of the league seven years on should not be a surprise.....but it just doesn't feel right, does it?
3: Speaking of Darius Miles, congratulations on him playing his tenth game, and playing it bloody well.
a) Is this evidence of Dallas realising that this core isn't working, and isn't going to work, so saving some money and thinking 2010 might not be a bad idea right now? I hope so. There's literally no potential for internal improvement right now. Gerald Green, J.J. Barea and Shawne Williams don't constitute a young core. And you'll have to keep Brandon Bass first before he counts.
b) Are there any more overpaid backup centres on long term contracts that the Bobcats can bring in to fight for the ten minutes behind Emeka Okafor? Is two (Diop and Nazr Mohammed - going to enough? Can we goad them into a move for Dan Gadzuric? Spend their full MLE on Fabricio Oberto? No? Pity.
5: It's a shame that the Nets realised that they stood to gain absolutely nothing from the Larry Hughes/Bobby Simmons & Maurice Ager swap, because otherwise the Bulls were in danger of pulling off a good move. It's also a shame, though, that talks seemed to break down over the Nets' insistence on including either Tyrus Thomas or Yannick Noah in the deal. Now come on, Thorneweghe. Give them some credit. You don't dump your sole semblance of a future frontcourt, however unsatisfying it may be, just to move Larry Hughes. And more importantly, you don't need Tyrus Thomas. You've already got Stromile Swift. They're basically the same, right?
6: Speaking of, why does everyone seem so interested in Sean Williams? What is he good at other than blocking the occasional shot, and being friends with insanely annoying British whiggers? Williams is simply not that skilled, and he compounds that with an apparent attitude problem (as evidenced at the D-League showcase, where he turned up only technically). Athleticism does not equal talent, and Sean Williams has lots of one and not enough of the other.
7: Hopefully, the Grizzlies firing Marc Iavaroni will lead to a change in philosophy. What's the point of creating a team with two point guard (Mike Conley and Kyle Lowry) who thrives when pushing the ball, then starting two great athletes like O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay (hehe) on the wings, having a similarly athletic power forward in Darrell Arthur and a high flying sixth man like Hakim Warrick, just to then be 22nd in the league in pace? Memphis should be pushing the ball. They're young, athletic, have enough of a halfcourt option in Marc Gasol to get by, and have just enough rebounding to run a reasonably successful running game. (More than the Warriors do, anyway.) To make them grind out meticulous and rather ineffective halfcourt sets doesn't seem to be working, so play to the team's strengths. At the very least, their trade values will go up. And you might even win more.
8: Heartfelt condolences to Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller, who had half of both his legs amputated, and to long time Bulls staple Johnny 'Red' Kerr, who has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
- Chris Alexander re-emerged as a vaguely interesting prospect last season, despite being 28 years old, after a campaign that saw him average 11.6 points, 11.2 rebounds and 2.0 blocks a game in the D-League for the Sioux Falls Skyforce. He turned that into first a contract in the Phillipines, and then a training camp contract with Oklahoma City. As Alexander is a centre, he must have fancied his chances on the length-crazy Thunder, but he didn't make the cut. After the Phillipines thing ended (where he won the title of "Best Import" in the championship series), Alexander went back to the Skyforce this season, and averaged 6.9 points and 8.5 rebounds before leaving the team on Christmas Eve, for reasons which either weren't announced or which I can't find. More importantly, here's an update on the length of his neck.
- Shagari Alleyne is now a member of the Harlem Globetrotters. He goes by the name "Skyscraper". I think this means his NBA dream is over.
- Lance Allred was waived by the Cavaliers, and has gone back to the D-League with the Idaho Stampede. He averages 14.7 points and 9.2 rebounds, and would be the most NBA-desired big man on his team were it not for the presence of Jermareo Davidson, who averages slightly better (17/11) and who is nearly four years younger. Tough break for Lance.
- Hawks draftee David Andersen has left Russia and forgotten how to rebound. For Barcelona, Andersen is averaging 10.5 points and 3.7 rebounds in nearly 22 minutes a game. The second tallest guy on the team (behind Daniel Santiago, who plays less than him), Andersen is a mere third in rebounds, comfortably behind Ersan Ilyasova (7.9 rebounds a game) and Fran Vazquez (6.5). That's not the best effort, really, and yes I know that he's playing increasingly further away from the hoop these days. Perhaps he shouldn't.
- Just this very day, it was announced that former Bobcat guard Alan Anderson has followed Nenad Krstic out of Triumph Lyubertsy of Russia, and instead signed with Cibona Zagreb. Anderson averaged 10.6 points, 6.0 rebounds and 1.8 steals for Triumph, and presumably left because they stopped paying him. I can retract this presumption if need be.
- Derek Anderson and Shandon Anderson remain unsigned. It's basically impossible to know when players are officially retired, but I'm willing to bet that Shandon is, and that Derek is still loosely working out and waiting for the phone to ring. Meanwhile, Kenny Anderson gave it up, and is now the head coach of a Slamball team. True story.
- Rashad Anderson has broken away from his above namesakes and is playing professional basketball for Udine in Italy. Anderson leads all of Serie A with a 20.3 points per game average, but he only averages 2.5 rebounds and 1.2 assists to go along with that, which is something that we should use to make sweeping unfounded judgements about his selfishness. Or we could not, it's up to you.
- Én finalement, Martynas Andriuskevicius is signed with Alicante in Spain, where he averages 9.4 points, 6.7 rebounds and 3.2 fouls a game. You know why running this website has been worthwhile? I can type Martynas Andriuskevicius without having to stop and look it up. And Wally Szczerbiak as well. Good times. I shall now experiment with lethal overdoses of needle drugs.
The second in a new series of posts detailing teams financial outlooks for the upcoming free agency period, what cap room they have, what exceptions, what draft slots, etc. Should be fascinatingly fascinating, if you're easily pleased.
No information is 100% guaranteed accurate, but unless you're privy to hitherto unknown information, or just better at this than I am (highly possible), then it's probably more accurate than you.
To be completed in an order best described as "Random".
Emeka Okafor (qualifying offer - $7,082,635, cap hold - $13,568,268) Ryan Hollins (qualifying offer - $972,581, cap hold - $893,693)
Draft picks:
First round: 8th pick, subject to lottery results. (Cap hold - $2,002,600) Second round: 38th pick (no cap hold)
Cap room/exceptions:
None, unless they renounce Okafor....which they won't. MLE and BAE, no trade exceptions.
Depth chart if you take all the free agents away:
PG - Felton SG - Richardson, Carroll SF - Dudley, Morrison PF - Wallace, May C - Mohammed
Sensible things to do:
Change coach. Re-sign Okafor, but don't overpay - let him find out how weak the market is the hard way. Get backup guards that don't suck, and whose presence the coach won't hold against Felton. Keep Hollins or Davidson, but not really both because there's not much point. Pray for a rainout.
In a recent debate with someone about who the eight playoff teams in the East are going to be this season, debate raged as to who would be the 8th team. We discussed the possibility of the eighth seed being Orlando, Washington, Milwaukee, and even Atlanta, before finally settling on one which I won't mention (because it will spoil a later post).
Neither of us debated the possibility of Charlotte being the eighth seed. This is because we had both already pencilled them as the seventh, with absolutely no contention from each other.
There's two possible conclusions that you can draw here. The first would be that the two of us basically don't know what the hell we are talking about, which is a good point well made that I am unable to counter. The second would be to assume that, yes, Charlotte is a playoff calibre team. And that point, I can defend.
The franchise got off to a slow start after expansion, as you would expect, but slowly the Bobcats picked up pieces along the way. Starting around Emeka Okafor and building outwards, nothing much has gone right for the Bobcats before this summer. Mired deep in the lottery, and bound by the salary cam limitations that the NBA seems to strangely enjoy putting onto new franchises, the Bobcats achieved little on-the-court success, struggling through the growing pains that expansion teams are somewhat mandated to go through. All the losing didn't really pay off either, given the shockingly unsuccessful selection of Adam Morrison at number 3 in last year's draft.
Along the way, though, the Bobcats have slowly been assembling pieces. Despite only Gerald Wallace and Primoz Brezec remaining on the roster from their initial expansion draft (someone's going to have to explain to me one day quite what the point was of selecting so many free agents that they then didn't sign), Charlotte have picked some players up along the way for cheap, players that have helped their on-court product. Brevin Knight (recently waived, but we'll come to that) added veteranness and that, and also played fairly well. Pickups on the cheap such as Matt Carroll and Walter Herrmann have paid dividends, and the Bobcats have added good young players through the draft such as Okafor and Raymond Felton (notice that I didn't list Morrison).
This summer, they added the scoring punch that they sorely lacked, in obtaining Jason Richardson from Golden State for next to nothing. The move has its downsides - with contract extensions for Felton and Okafor coming up in the not-too-distant future, and with Gerald Wallace and Matt Carroll re-signing this summer to 6 year contracts, adding the big salary of Richardson takes away the financial flexibility that Charlotte previously enjoyed. It commits them to this current core for at least the short term, whether it is good enough or not. And it also means that the awesome unredoubtable Matt Carroll gets less court time, which is disappointing for all concerned. But it plugs the slightly important 20 point a game scorer that Charlotte has always lacked. Draw your own Jason Richardson/Michael Jordan comparisons, they're all stupid.
In addition to this, the Bobcats spend well in retaining most of their players from last year, and obtained two possible rotation players in Jared Dudley and Jermareo Davidson via the draft. I don't really know any more about them than that, so I'll leave that there.
Next year:
As I said above, Charlotte seemed like a strange choice for automatic inclusion into my predicted playoff seedings. They haven't, to coin a phrase, done shit yet. But despite being only a 33 win team a year ago, they have three big factor working for them:
a) They had a big infusion of talent this offseason, more so than most teams.
b) They have continued interal growth from their young core players.
c) They're relatively healthy. Well, except Sean May.
To elaborate on point C, the Bobcats do have an injury prone roster. Star big man Emeka Okafor has played in only 166 of the 246 games of his career, which is a poor ratio, and star forward Gerald Wallace set a career high in games played last year with a rather uninspiring 72.
Everyone is healthy at the moment, apart from Sean May, who is to miss the season with more surgery on his cartilege-free knees, and who I'm willing to bet never plays more than 40 NBA games for the rest of his life. Despite the fact that injuries to the Bobcats are about as inevitable as a Jonny Gomes swing and a miss on a down and away curveball, they have the sort of depth right now thay they have never had before, which will help them to overcome it. Last year's starter Matt Carroll is now a key bench player, joinining a deep wing rotation including Wallace, Richardson, Dudley, Morrison, and last's year breakout player and Lord of the Sex, Walter Herrmann. Herrmann shined late last season filling in as an emergency power forward as the injuries piled up yet again, but he's now faced with lengthy stays on the bench as Charlotte stocked up the wing positions this summer. It also appears that head coach Sam Vincent thinks it's best to start Emeka Okafor at power forward alongside Richardson, Walace and either Primoz Brezec or Ryan Hollins at center, and we can only hope that it won't take long for him to realise that it would be best to play Okafor at center with Wallace and Herrmann as the forwards. Walter needs his court time, dammit, if us neutrals are to have any interest in watching Charlotte this year.
The Bobcats are weak at the center position though, in spite of their improved depth, and Jeff McInnis is the full time backup point guard. But it's not really that important: the backup point guard spot has never been important enough to be able to sabotage an entire season, even if it is Jeff McInnis. After all, the San Antonio Spurs just won a title without a backup point guard worth a damn. By the way, someone (namely me) ought to point out the irony of waiving Brevin Knight for reported chemistry issues and locker room diviseness, then re-signing Mr Chemistry 2007 McInnis to take his place. A strange one, that.
Nonetheless, the Bobcats plugged other gaps, andTo make the playoffs, the Bobcats only realistically need about 8 more wins. Is adding a 20 point scorer for no real cost good enough to do that, especially when youf actor in all the other shit that I outlined above?
Sham is a miserable and self-effacing little bastard, whose basketball opinions are often riddled with bias, insecurity, and rank immaturity. He has also never played the sport, and the only game he has ever been to see was a Ware Rebels game back in 2001. The night bus didn't show up and he had to walk the 9 miles home. It was after this that his passion for basketball really took off.
He considers himself to be Britain's foremost NBA expert, an arbitrary title that carries with it no basis in fact, or any worldly significance. He also wrote this section of the website in third person narrative, purely for reasons of arrogance.
Copyright ShamSports.com, 2005-2010. Every published word on this website
is copyrighted to the website's owner, including (but not limited to)
the really stupid ones that I wish I'd never written.
- Akin Akingbala
- Cenk Akyol
- Chris Alexander
- Cory Alexander
- Courtney Alexander
- Shagari Alleyne
- Lance Allred
- Morris Almond
- Alade Aminu
- Alan Anderson
- Derek Anderson
