Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 26

I'm kind of overexcitable today, with a level of maturity that belies my 24 years of age. I feel pretty much like a small child today. And I feel like a small child today because I've just acted like one. Today, 2nd February 2009, marks the day that I built the first snowman of my life. And here it is:


Experienced snowmen builders out there will have noticed a few faults in my technique. For example, it's plain to see that I've fallen into the usual rookie trap of making a base that is way too big, overestimating what I will have the patience to achieve, and then having to hurridly heap snow on top, crudely falling into kind of a cone shape, making my snowman's body resemble a sumo wrestler melting. Additionally, I don't have any coal, so the classic coal eyes have had to be replaced by a pair of police aviators. I also didn't have a carrot, so a parsnip suffices as the nose, and insulating tape forms a rudimentary mouth shape for no particular reason. I also have no explanation as to why he is holding a retro early 90's tennis racket, or a duck on a stick, but these additions seemed vital at the time. As did the really gay stetson. But I'm proud of it anyway, because it's my first one. And everyone remembers their first time.

Why haven't I built one before? Well, because it's never snowed like this before. And why am I telling you all this? Because I felt like it. Anyhoo. To some basketball stuff.

- Serge Ibaka played in the LEB Gold last year, and has upgraded to the ACB this year. He's not tearing things up at the moment, with sedate averages of 6.1 ppg, 4.0 rpg and 1.0 bpg, but those numbers are pretty good from a 19 year old in the ACB. So much so, in fact, that according to ESPN's Chris Sheridan, his rights are hot property.

- Mile Ilic is also in Spain and the ACB, playing for Cajasol Sevilla, the team currently in last place. Ilic isn't really helping, as he averages 2.2 points, 2.2 rebounds, 0.6 blocks and 1.6 fouls per game through 12 games. Those numbers improved to 6.7 points and 3.3 rebounds in EuroChallenge play, but, now aged 24, excuses of rawness are running thin.

- Ersan Ilyasova is one of the highest paid players in Europe, and is still a restricted free agent of the Milwaukee Bucks. However, instead of being the 21 year old Turk that we believe him to be, he might actually be a 24 year old Uzbekistani, if unconfirmed reports are telling the truth. Ilyasova averages 10.4 points and 8.1 rebounds in the Spanish League for Barcelona, along with 9.6 points and 6.9 rebounds in the Euroleague.

- Jermaine Jackson is with Snaidero Udine, who currently place last in Italy's SerieA. Jackson averages 8.1 points, 5.8 assists and 3.3 steals, as the passer to Rashad Anderson's scorer, but hasn't played since December due to a groin injury, and has returned to the US to get it looked at.

- I've no idea what Jim Jackson does now, but the answer is not 'playing professional basketball'.

- Luke Jackson is back in the D-League, averaging 16.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 3.4 turnovers for the Idaho Stampede. Will he ever make it back for more than 3 weeks at a time?

- Marc Jackson is back to doing what he does best - bumming around Europe, finding work in whichever country he can get. As far as I can tell, though, he doesn't have any right now. Jackson signed with Unics Kazan for preseason, but he doesn't appear to be on their roster, or their season statistics, and I watched a Unics Kazan game last week in which Jackson wasn't even mentioned. So I'm guessing he's not there any more. (By the way, here's something that I learnt from that game: Vladimir Veremeenko = skilled, versatile.....clumsy.)

- Casey Jacobsen is back in Germany, the country that was so good to him back in 2007. For ALBA Berlin, Jacobsen averages 10.0 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.2 assists in the German league, along with 6.3 points, 2.8 rebounds and 1.2 assists in the Euroleague. Unfortunately, on the latter stage, Jacobsen's shot has left him (just like it did last season) - he's shooting only 33% in Euroleague play, while shooting almost exclusively three pointers. But in the German league, Jacobsen averages 1.62 points per shot, and anyone who knows me knows how much I love that metric. It's like true shooting percentage for lazy people. Good times.

- Jan Jagla is with DKV Joventut Badalona in Spain, a team that features heavily throughout this list. (Or at least, it will do.) Jagla evrages 7.0 points, 3.0 rebounds, 0.7 steals and 0.9 blocks in 17 minutes per game in the Spanish league, rising to 9.0 points, 3.3 rebounds and the same defensive stats in an extra minute per game in the Euroleague.

- Sarunas Yassercabbages is with Panathinaikos, as he has been since falling out of the NBA. For Panathinaikos, Jasikevicius is doing the thing he couldn't do in the NBA - producing. His averages (10.9ppg, 2.9apg in the Greek league, 8.0ppg and 2.3apg in the Euroleague) might not seem like much, but that team is stacked. You've got Jasikevicius, Dimitris Diamantidis, Vassils Spanoulis, Antonis Fotsis.....and they're just the players whose names end in S.

- Finally, for my views on Robertas Javtokas's NBA prospects, click this. For his numbers, keep it right here: Javtokas averages 13.0 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.0 blocks in the Eurocup, along with 8.6 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.1 blocks in the Russian league.

Summer signings, round 4

- Andreas Glyniadakis, former Pistons draft pick and one-time Sonic, has extended his contract with Costa Coffee in Greece. I hope that the sponsoring of team names never catches hold in the NBA, even when it leads to beautiful times.

- Ersan Ilyasova, whose NBA rights are still owned by the Milwaukee Bucks, has seen his contract with Barcelona extended. It seems odd that, in this instance, the NBA franchise has been the feeder club for the European team. 10 years ago, that just doesn't happen.

- Gabe Muoneke, a man on the fringes of the NBA for about 6 years now before finally getting a sniff with the Charlotte Bobcats last October, has signed with Asvel in France. Last season, Muoneke played in Iran, and he's probably made the right decision to get out.

- English supestar Pops Mensah-Bonsu has signed with Joventut Badalona in Spain, and, if I've ever called them Joventut Barcelona in the past, then I apologise. Pops will play alongside Ricky Rubio, and if you've heard that name but don't know much about him.......he's brilliant. He really is.

- Qyntel Woods has signed with Fortitudo Bologna. I want to make a joke about dogs, but I like dogs, so I won't. By the way, I sponsored a dog recently, and let me tell you - it's a damn scam. I take my time choosing which dog I want to sponsor, pay for a full year, but then they send me a letter saying "we're sorry, but that dog is no longer available to sponsor". And then they kept the money anyway. Bastards. So learn from my mistakes - if you're feeling philanthropic, sponsor a panda or a child or a leper or something. There's no value in the dog thing.

- Rodney White - possibly the worst player in modern history to have a triple double in an NBA game, depending on your view of Chris Duhon - has signed for Maccabi Tel Aviv, which is in Tel Aviv, Israel.

- Troy Bell has signed for Soresina in Italy's lower divisions. The drafting of Bell was quite possibly the worst roster move that Jerry West has ever made in the NBA, depending on how shit hot your NBA history knowledge is. (Mine's awful.) Players drafted after Troy Bell in 2003 include David West, Leandro Barbosa, Josh Howard, Kendrick Perkins, Boris Diaw, Jason Kapono, Carlos Delfino, Maurice Williams, Luke Walton, Zaza Pachulia, James Jones, Kyle Korver, Steve Blake, Travis Outlaw........et cetera. Whoops.

- Former Denver Nuggets guard Vincent Yarborough has hit the big time, signing for Bonn in Germany. The mere mention of Vincent Yarborough has reminded me of how bad that 2002/03 Denver Nuggets team was, and so, for the hell of it, here is a run down of the whereabouts of everyone they gave an airing to that season.

1: Juwan Howard - unsigned, spent last season with the Dallas Mavericks.
2: James Posey - agreed today to sign with the New Orleans Hornets for 4 years.
3: Maybyner Hilario - the only one still with Denver, although he hasn't played much for a variety of reasons, including cancer.
4: Chris Whitney - long since out of the game. And the headlines.
5: Shammond Williams - now a Georgian citizen, somehow. Playing for Pamesa Valencia in Spain.
6: Rodney White - see above.
7: Donnell Harvey - recently joined the Charlotte Bobcats summer league team, but left early due to a family emergency. Unsigned. (By the way, speaking of the Bobcats summer league, Jackie Butler was supposed to be on it, but he never turned up. If we haven't done so already, can we officially scrub Jackie Butler from our minds? Thanks.)
8: Marcus Camby - yes, well, let's not talk about that.
9: Devin Brown - unsigned, last season played for the Cavaliers.
10: Jeff Trepagnier - unsigned, spent last season with Pau Orthez in France.
11: Kenny Satterfield - Scoop Jackson assures us he's fine.
12: Mark Blount - currently the Miami Heat's starting centre, which probably enthuses them no end.
13: Chris Andersen - unsigned, but that won't last. Played all of 34 minutes last year with the Hornets.
14: Lorinza Harrington - playing for the Philadelphia 76ers summer league team.
15: Nikoloz Tskitishvili - unsigned. Quick! Before someone snaps him up!
16: Ryan Bowen - unsigned, played last for the Hornets, Says he's "hopeful" of being re-signed, something which I agree with.
17: John Crotty - very very done, but I don't know what he does now.
18: Adam Harrington - unsigned, played last year in the D-League.
19: Predrag Savovic - has one year left of a five year contract that he signed with Bilboa in Spain back in 2004. Still sucks, but he has Luke Recker, Drago Pasalic, Mile Ilic, Quincy Lewis and Fran Vazquez for company.
20: Vincent Yarborough - see above.
21: Mark Bryant - didn't play again after leaving this very same Nuggets team. Now an Oklahoma City assistant coach.

Jesus. What a shite team that was.

Where Are They Now? Part 18

It has been brought to my attention that this series of posts is 'dull', 'uninformative' and 'gay'. This unholy trifecta is a bit upsetting - I figured I could lapse into at least one of the three by accident. But no, apparently that's all three strikes right there.

Still, if there's two things that I don't have, they are a willingness to accept negative criticism, and a social life. So a combination of the two will see this series continue in a slightly different way, that hopefully is more uplifting, more useful, and more heterosexual. (Also, regardless of whether other people like me doing it, I'M enjoying doing it. So nanny nanny boo boo, stick your head in doo doo.)

Rudimentary stats for all players will now be added, where applicable. The act of doing this will probably drive me to suicide, if I am not already slain by the inevitable carpal tunnel that will come with it. But this is what champions do. They give up their bodies. (No wait, that's what whores do.) They show grit, and lay it all out there every day, willing to risk injury and/or humiliation for the team's greater good. They play the game the way that it should be played. They are heroes.

I am David Eckstein. You are Joe Morgan. I have absolutely no idea what I'm saying any more. Let's do this.

---

Daniel Horton is playing for Hyeres-Toulon in France, which sounds more like a semi-successful lawnmoer manufacturer. He left the D-League in mid February to sign there. I have no stats for him.

Quinton Hosley is playing for Pinar Karsiyaka in Turkey. You can try and figure out whatever the hell his stats are by clicking here. Fun Quentin trivia: the only three players to have played in the NBA with some variant of the name Quentin - Quentin Richardson, Quinton Ross, Quintin Dailey - have all played for the Clippers. Fun fact that I can't be arsed to verify.

Troy Hudson hasn't played since being waived by Golden State earlier this year due to injury.

DeeAndre Hulett - Raptors draft choice from 2000 and occasional answer to the trivia question "Who the hell is DeeAndre Hulett?" - has finished his whistlestop tour of Latin America, and is now in Germany, playing for Walter Tigers Tuebingen. He is averaging roughly 6 points and 2 and a half rebounds. And this is in Germany, lest we forget.

Ryan Humphrey spent the second half of last season with APOEL Nicosia in Cyprus, with whom he went to the giddying heights of the Cypriot finals. However, he has not played this season.

Brick Shithouse Brandon Hunter is playing for Angelico Biella in Italy. Whoever Angelico Biella is, she sounds hot. Hunter is averaging just over 12 points and just under 9 rebounds a game.

Jimmie "Snap" Hunter is playing for Polaris World Murcia in Spain. He is averaging 13.4 points and 1.9 assists a game.

Mile Ilic is playing for Bilbao of Spain, where he averages 6.8 points and 4.8 rebounds a game. No word on whether Nets fans still think he's the future or not.

Ersan Ilyasova is playing for Barcelona, whom you probably already know to be one of the world's better teams. Milwaukee still owns Ilyasova's rights. Ersan averages only 5.1 points and 2.8 rebounds a game.

Luke Jackson is playing for the Idaho Stampede of the D-League, averaging 13.3 points, 3.7 rebounds and 3.2 assists.

Marc Jackson was playing for Olympiakos in Greece, before they decided to release him due to his unwillingness to play defense. In his place, they signed Qyntel Woods, and also brought back from Sofoklis Schortsanitis from a health spa. But more on him later.

Jim Jackson is done.

30 teams in 36 or so days: Milwaukee

Milwaukee

Players acquired via free agency or trade:

Desmond Mason (2 years, $10.4 million)
Jake Voskuhl (1 year, $3 million)
Awvee Storey (one year minimum)



Players acquired via draft:

First round: Yi Jianlian (6th overall)
Second round: Ramon Sessions (56th overall)



Players retained:

Maurice Williams (re-signed, 6 years, $51.263 million)



Players departed:

Ersan Ilyasova (signed in Spain, rights retained), Charlie Bell (unsigned, rights retained for now), Damir Markota (waived on general principle, see blog entry), Earl Boykins (opted out, unsigned), Jared Reiner (signed in Spain), Ruben Patterson (signed with Clippers), Brian Skinner (team option declined, unsigned, thinks he's worth more than he is)





Bobbins:

It's difficult to convey how I feel about the Bucks offseason and recent past without stealing too much directly from my own recent blog entry.

So that's exactly what I'll do.

After a poor 2004-05 season in which they finished with a disappointing 30-52 record, the Bucks beat long odds to win the lottery, and also had maximum cap room available to them. This offseason, they once again had potentially maximum cap room, and a high pick (number 6) in a supposedly powerhouse draft.

Once again, they have not taken advantage.

2005's offseason yielded Andrew Bogut with the number 1 overall pick, one of the better players of a weak draft but far from the best. The cap space was spent on re-signing Michael Redd to a maximum contract (decide amongst yourselves whether it was worth it, but the correct answer is "not really"), signing the Most Improved player of the previous season (Bobby Simmons) to a $46.4 million contract only to then see him miss one season and disappoint in the other, and re-signing Dan Gadzuric to a considerably overpriced deal, all while letting the considerably younger, considerably cheaper and considerably better Zaza Pachulia sign with Atlanta, unchallenged.

This offseason brought much of the same: they signed another starting small forward in Desmond Mason, who figures to not only make the Simmons signing look that much worse, but who should also be roughly the equal of the man he is replacing - Ruben Patterson - and signed Jake Voskuhl to compete with/replace Gadzuric at the backup center spot. Voskuhl, too, figures to be the mere equal of the guy he has replaced, the unheralded Brian Skinner. (OK, so "unheralded" is a blatant embellishment. But you know what I mean.)

In addition to the disappointments in free agency, the Bucks also had an ongoing saga with their draft choice at number 6, Yi Jianlian, whose agents and 'people' warned Milwaukee that their client did not want to play there, going as far as refusing to let Bucks personel watch a private workout conducted by Yi. The Bucks took the risk and drafted him anyway, and much dalliance ensued. It ended reasonably amicably, as Yi has signed his rookie contract and will join the team as normal. But it is reported that he does so only after obtaining a minimum playing time guarantee. And that's.....bizarre.

Charlie Bell, one of the few bright spots over the last two years (an under-the-radar find by General Manager Larry Harris, a man who is quite good at doing that), has been subjected to his own soap opera with the Bucks this offseason. A restricted free agent combo guard, Bell had to take a back seat as the Bucks prioritised the re-signing of unrestricted guard Maurice Williams (who, for what it's worth, has the same agent as Bell), and also had no choice but to look on as Milwaukee spent the rest of their cap space on Desmond Mason and Jake Voskuhl (who, for what it's worth, also has the same agent as Bell). This probably unsettled Charlie a bit - if a team spends the salary slot that they should be using on you to instead sign a 10mpg back up center, you're entitled to interpret that as a bit of a kick in the balls.

Nevertheless, the Bucks kept Bell as a restricted free agent, not renouncing him as they did with everybody else (except Ersan Ilyasova), and continued to negotiate with him. Bell turned down all offers made to him by Milwaukee, but never signed an offer sheet with another club, despite playing the field a bit to try and force Milwaukee to increase their offer. Milwaukee didn't - at least, not by enough for Bell, who turned down Milwaukee's reported final offer of 3 years and $9 million. And now Bell's all but gone, leaving Milwaukee with Lynn Greer, Ramon Sessions and David Noel as backup guards for next year. They can, they will and they should do something about that before the season starts, but with only the minimum salary to work with, that's not a good result from what started out as near-maximum cap room.

All in all, something of a cock-up this offseason. Even the bits that went well only did so via a roundabout method.

Oh, and let's not forget the Damir Markota experience. This was fun.



Next season:

The Bucks's championship aspirations last season were marred by two rather important drawbacks:

a) Everybody seemed to get injured
b) They were a terrible defensive team.

The only Bucks players to play more than 68 games last year were Patterson and Bell. The only Bucks players to play much defense last year were Patterson, Bell and Brian Skinner.

Those three have all left the team.

Replacing them are Desmond Mason, a player that Milwaukee need not have ever lost in the first place were it not for the extremely poor Jamaal Magloire trade of October 2005, and a man scheduled to play Ruben Patterson's former role to a lesser standard than Ruben Patterson did (but hey, at least Mase isn't a registered sex offender!). Jake Voskuhl replaces Brian Skinner and, while he's not a particularly good one, Jake has an outside chance at being the Bucks best defensive player this season. If he sees the court, that is. And as mentioned above, Charlie Bell and Earl Boykins have not been replaced, leaving the Bucks very thin in the backcourt behind the starters.

This rather unsuccessful shuffling of personel leaves a lot of pressure and expectation on the Bucks' young big man trio of Andrew Bogut, Charlie Villanueva and Yi Jianlian. In the coming season or two, one - or preferably more than one - of these players has to step up, break out, and assume the franchise mantle. Villanueva and Bogut have the talent to do so, but both suffered disappointing sophomore seasons in which they did not make particularly significant improvements to their games, albeit with both missing a lot of games due to injury. However, all the opportunity they can handle is once again available to them (unless you think Jake Voskuhl was signed to be a regular starter. In which case, you're an idiot), and the Milwaukee franchise goes as far as they do. Milwaukee needs them to succeed for this current era to be going anywhere.

If they don't, the Bucks will once again be an offense-only team, led by the perimeter games of Michael Redd and Maurice Williams, a team that can make the 6-8 seeds if all goes well, or a team which could once again end up in the lottery if their luck with injuries does not change.

Oh yeah, and Andrew Bogut cut his hair into a pony tail. I thought you should know.