Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 16

When I came in from bowling last night, about 156 jillion messages awaited me asking me for my views on the news that Devin Brown had joined the Bulls. You know how sometimes you get an irrational like for a fringe NBA player, a staunch loyalty that reaches far in excess of that player's talent level, and you yearn for them to join your team if only for them to play badly so that you can break that bond? That guy is Devin Brown for me, and such a kinship made my name synonymous with that of Devin Brown to at least 1 person. This can only end well. Or rather; well, this can only end. Good times.

Of course, acquiring Brown means nothing more than acquiring a minimum salary backup. I don't think anyone is deluded into thinking otherwise, even those of us with inexplicable love for Downtown Devin Brown. His three point shooting this season is an anomaly until further notice, and he's still the same player he's always been; a mediocre one. But Brown doesn't have to be a good shooter or a good player to be a worthwhile player for the Bulls. He just has to be competent. Competent will do. Competent is fine. Competent is better than Lindsey Hunter.

Also, Jerome James is about ready to make his return from injury and apathy, and trading away Aaron Gray now makes James the only garbage time centre option. Isn't it better for the world that we let that happen?

A great trade all around. Genuinely very happy about this.


- Nando De Colo

Spurs draft pick Nando De Colo left France in the summer and moved to Valencia in the ACB in order to play against better competition. In the ACB he is averaging 12.1 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game, alongside 14.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game in the Eurocup. The points per game leads the team in the ACB, but it's only second in the team's Eurocup campaign behind Spanish guard Rafa Martinez's 13.8 points per game. Rafa Martinez is a 27 year old slightly undersized off-guard with an automatic jumpshot, strong hairline and not much else. You're better off worrying about Nando.

A few weeks ago, I lost my wallet at Finsbury Park train station when trying to catch the train. I rushed for the train, just made it on before the door shut, then checked my pockets as the train pulled away and realised I had lost my wallet sprinting up the stairs. I sulked about this for a good 3 days, but on the 4th day, an anonymous package arrived at my door. Someone - using deliberately anonymous handwriting so as to avoid being traced, and cheekily using the stamps I had in my wallet to cover the cost - had returned my driving license and Nando's (the chicken restaurant) loyalty card. They kept the wallet itself, but they returned the Nando's loyalty card. I don't know what this says about society. Or about Nando's.



- Taquan Dean

Dean started the year with Unicaja Malaga, averaging 11.7 points in the Euroleague and 9.3 points in the ACB. He took a lot of three pointers to get those numbers, hit only about 35% of them, did little else on the court, and did not really endear himself to the fans. (Ask a Malaga fan about Dean and gauge their reaction. They're generally a trifle brusque about it.) Malaga released Dean earlier this month, as mentioned in an earlier post, and yesterday he signed a one month contract with rival Spanish team Caja Laboral (the artists formally known as Tau Ceramica).



- Willie Deane

Deane started last season with Zalgiris in Lithuania, and then moved to Lukoil Akademik in Bulgaria. (That's the only Bulgarian team any relevant players sign for, and it's because they're Bulgaria's best and thus always in the EuroChallenge. Well, except this year.) He averaged 21/5 to finish the season there, and moved to Poland this summer to play for PGE Turow Zgorzelec. Turow released him after 11 Polish league games in which Dean averaged 9.4 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game. He returned to Lukoil Akademik this month to replace Walker Russell, and totalled 12 points and 10 rebounds in his only game for them so far.



- Andrew DeClercq

DeClercq was covered a few months ago in the 1995 NBA Draft Round-up Thing. Back then, I wrote this about him:

DeClercq's last NBA season was in 2004/05, and the Magic showed no interest in him after the season. He wasn't very good anyway, and he also had a bad knee. Nonetheless, DeClercq rehabbed the knee for 18 months, and tried a comeback in 2006 preseason, working out for the Bulls, in the summer that saw them try out every big man alive. But no contract came his way, and he gave up trying after that. DeClercq doesn't really do much with his time these days, other than working with kids basketball camps and being a stay at home dad. He also contributed $2,300 to Todd Long's election campaign, whoever that is.

We can add to that now: DeClercq is now an assistant coach at Montverde Academy in Florida, which is Luc Richard Mbah A Moute's former high school. He is also the owner of two real estate ventures; New Creation Properties and ATD Properties. And he's also on the board of Vision360. Vision360's website doesn't work at the moment, but a quick search reveals that:

Vision360 is an evangelical, multi-denominational ministry that seeks to serve church planters and church planting agencies.

Groovy.



- Paul Delaney

UAB product Delaney is in Israel. He started the year with Hapoel Holon, but was replaced before the season started, and moved to Ironi Nahariya. I don't think Ironi means the same thing in Israel that it does in England. Delaney averages 14.0 points, 4.1 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.7 steals per game for the team, although he's shooting 33% from three point range and only 68% from the foul line.



- Mario Delas

Mario Delas is an upcoming draft prospect who was pretty badass at the World U-19 Championships this summer. His post footwork was mercurial for such a young age, and even though being a weak and unathletic 6'10 doesn't bode well for any potential NBA career, he was great fun to watch. Until recently, Delas had played his whole life with KK Split in his native Croatia, and even though he turned 20 only last week, that was still at least 5 years he'd spent there. This year he was averaging 9.9 points, 3.7 rebounds and 3.6 fouls for Split in 24 minutes per game, but earlier this month he set off for pastures new when he joined Zalgiris Kaunas, a team looking to reload on future talent to rebuild a once prestigious program. In his one Lithuanian league game for Zalgiris so far, Delas totalled 11 points and 5 rebounds.



- Tony Delk

Delk was also covered only recently, this time in the 11996 NBA Draft Roundup Thing. If you have a good hour to spare, I implore you to read those things. Here's the Delk bit:

The last time we checked in on Delk, he was a technical advisor in Puerto Rico. Well, he's not any more. Nowadays, along with Scott Padgett, he is working with John Calipari at Kentucky as a "coach in training."

- Eric Devendorf

Eric Devendorf declared for the draft after his junior season as he received some advice that it might have been a good idea. It wasn't. Devendorf went undrafted, not coming close to being drafted, and has barely played since then. He spoke of offers from various countries, and it was reported in early November that he was going to go play in Israel. But he didn't, instead returning to America and joining the D-League. He was picked up by the Reno Bighorns in late December, played three games for the team, totalled 38 minutes and 14 points....and then was released again. He now sits in the D-League's available players pool, getting paid a small amount of money for his troubles, but not playing any professional basketball.

For all of Devendorf's excessive overconfidence in himself, lack of NBA talent, and established mouthiness (or call it what you may), he's better than a good many players in the D-League. It shouldn't have gone THIS badly for him. Someone in the D-League should pick him up because they'll get a good infusion of talent if they do.



- Derrick Dial

Dial spent all of last season in the D-League. I'm not sure why exactly, because the D-League is not really designed for 33 year old journeyman point guards. Yet he played in 47 out of 50 games anyway, and averaged 13.3 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game for the Tulsa 66ers. Dial is unsigned this year and.......well.



- Dimitris Diamantidis

Diamantidis is still with Panathinaikos because he has no reason to ever leave. He averages 10.6 points, 5.0 rebounds and 3.8 assists in 25 minutes per game in the Greek league, alongside 8.7 points, 2.6 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game in the Euroleague. I don't see any reason to think that he won't win the Euroleague's DPOY award this year. He's won every single one there's ever been to date, and he hasn't lost any ability yet.



Finally....

- Guillermo Diaz

Diaz was 4th in the Italian league in scoring last season, and spent the summer playing for the Puerto Rican national team. However, despite all of that pedigree, he is not currently signed anywhere.

Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 13

- Carlos Delfino is still with Khimky in Russia, despite the rumours of a return to the Raptors ramping up a bit after Toronto dumped Hassan Adams off to the Clippers a fortnight ago. However, while these rumours may not be unfounded, they sure are illogical. Let me tell you why the Raptors dumped Hassan Adams - they dumped Hassan Adams because Brian Colangelo gave Adams a guaranteed contract in July, something which Hassan then used as an excuse to not work very hard, showing up fat and unable to do the one thing that he's quite good at - running around off the ball. Additionally, Hassan Adams is not very good, which in hindsight was another reason not to give him that guaranteed contract. However, because Colangelo did, he brought the team so close to the tax threshold ($1,107 beneath it, to be exact) that the team could only carry 13 players in order to stay under it. When their big man injury situation got so bad that they had to sign somebody (Jake Voskuhl), the Raptors had to shift a contract in order to get underneath the threshold again. Adams was the logical choice - he was the final man on the bench, filled no team needs, had an appropriately sized yet easily moveable, and should never have been on the team in the first place. So the Raptors gave the Clippers some money as an incentive for taking on Hassan's dead weight cap number. THAT'S why the Raptors moved Hassan Adams. It wasn't a precursor to some move for Carlos bloody Delfino.

Let me ask you something - when you're so staunchly obliged to stay under the luxury tax that you can't even sign the irrelevant Jake Voskuhl without having to make corresponding roster moves to free up the money, while carrying the league minimum players all season in a bid to save further money, are you really going to throw a few million at a backup wing player, who just played his supposed career season with you and who still wasn't very good, chucking like Berry and somehow managing to shoot slightly less than his piss poor career average of 40% shooting? No, no you aren't. No matter how desperate you are for a short term fix,, Carlos Delfino isn't it. He's especially not it when obtaining him means roundly buggering your extremely delicate salary situation. And so that's why the Raptors won't be signing Carlos Delfino this season. Or if they do, they're dumb.

(By the way, Delfino averages 11.4 points and 4.1 rebounds in Russian league play. It's all good information.)

- Tony Delk retired from professional basketball in November 2007. This retirement lasted a mere manner of months, as he quickly unretired to join a team in Puerto Rico. Three games later, Delk retired again, and is now a "technical advisor" to that same Puerto Rican team, the Gigantes of Carolina. I assume that this means he mends the Jumbotron every now and then, and plays lots of Minesweeper.

- Derrick Dial is currently in the D-League with the Tulsa 66ers, which isn't really the place for 33 year old journeyman. Nevertheless, Dial is there, and he averages 11.3 points, 4.1 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 38% shooting, as the sixth man on a Tulsa team that averages 21.3 turnovers a game. And that's a lot of turnovers.

- Dimitris Diamantidis is in his fifth season with Panathinaikos, averaging 10.4 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.6 assists in Euroleague play.

[Did I really just say "chucking like Berry"? Jesus. You'd better go. I wouldn't read me either.]

- Guillermo Diaz averages 17.6 points and 2.0 assists for Eldo Caserta, the Italian team that Jamar Butler also just joined. The 2.0 assists is a team high (tied with Butler, although Butler has played only three games), so there's clearly not a lot of passing from the Eldo backcourt there. Although that's probably not that surprising, coming from a backcourt featuring Guillermo Diaz, Horace Jenkins and Shan Foster.

- Dan Dickau is unsigned, and still trying to add to his healthy old list of NBA Teams That Dan Dickau Has Belonged To For At Least 8 Minutes - the Lakers are supposedly interested in him.

- Kaniel Dickens is in the Italian second division. He was in the first division, but his team - Napoli - went bankrupt, and so Kaniel had to look elsewhere. For Cimberio Varese, playing alongside Randolph Childress, Dickens averages 14.3 points and 7.1 rebounds, both team highs. While writing Kaniel's name just now, I noticed that an anagram of it happened to be "Dick Linesnake", which might just be the best name for a male porn star that I've ever heard. That, or he's an Anchorman character. Good times.

- Michael Dickerson's random comeback didn't last very long. Signing with the Cavaliers for training camp, after five and a half years out of the game, Dickerson faced impossible odds to make the team, and didn't overcome them. After being waived, Dickerson went back where he came from - to India, on a voyage of "spiritual discovery". Alrighty.

- Alain Digbeu - some old French git whsoe rights the Hawks still own - started the season with Kavala/Panorama in Greece (a team that seemingly couldn't decide which name to use), but left earlier this month. Whether he jumped or whether he was pushed, I couldn't say, but the 7.1 points per game on 36% shooting probably made him livewithoutable.

- And finally, an update on two players that have already been mentioned, but whose circumstances have since changed. Justin Frazier has signed with the San Antonio Spurs on a ten day contract, although what the Spurs think they'll see in those ten days that Austin hasn't shown over the last 12 years is a bit baffling. And, after describing at reasonable length how former Lakers guard Maurice Carter was seemingly out of basketball, he has just this week gotten back into it, as he was acquired by the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the D-League.

Spooky coincidence? Maybe. But I'd like to think that I'm responsible for him getting employment. I'm not, but I like to think it anyway.