Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 55

Didn't get on the telly. Shame.

- Charlie Ward retired in 2004, and briefly became an assistant coach with the Rockets. However, he left that gig, and has instead found a place and a job that caters to his three biggest passions in life; basketball, American football, and Christianity. Ward is now the head football coach at Westbury Christian School in Houston, Texas, as well as an assistant coach on the basketball team. He also recently quarterbacked again, albeit only for a fun day. Question: if you were to ask Charlie Ward whether he regrets turning down an NFL career for his decent if underwhelming NBA career, what would he say? Genuinely intrigued by that.

- Darius Washington signed with the Bulls for preseason, and played very well in one of the preseason games. He didn't make the cut, though, and nor was he ever going to. Washington then signed with Ural Great Perm in Russia, where he is averaging 13.0 points and 3.6 assists per game in the EuroChallenge, along with 14.6 points, 3.1 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game in the Russian league. Did you know that Darius Washington is now a Macedonian citizen? Fun fact.

- Pistons draft pick Deron Washington is averaging 15.3 points, 6.2 rebounds, 2.0 steals and 1.2 blocks per game for Hapoel Holon in Israel. He recently helped the team to win the Israeli Cup, but is only shooting 23% on the year from three point range. So he still can't shoot.

- Darryl Watkins did not make the cut from the Spurs training camp, and then went to TianJin in China. Everyone loves Chinese numbers, and a post on this subject may well be soon appearing, so until then wrap your lips around this bad boy: 20.8 points, 14.1 rebounds and 3.5 assists.

- Jameel Watkins is also in China, playing for the Jiangsu Nangang Dragons. His numbers are highly comparable to the other Watkins, but slightly worse: Jameel averages 20.7 points, 13.5 rebounds, 4.6 fouls and 2.1 blocks per game.

- Clarence Weatherspoon is not in China, but it would be great if he was.

- Chris Webber now does TV work on both NBA TV and Inside The NBA, and is supposedly writing a book, presumably one about basketball and not metamorphic rock identification or anything. He also just had his jersey number retired by the Sacramento Kings, somewhat needlessly. Fun fact: did you know that Chris Webber released an album back in 1999? You may well have done. But I didn't. Genuinely intrigued by this, too.

- Frederic Weis recently moved from Iurbentia Bilbao to ViveMenorca, both Spanish ACB teams. Weis averaged 2.3 points and 4.4 rebounds in the ACB for Bilbao, and has totalled 6 points and 19 rebounds in the 60 minutes that he has played for Menorca through three games.

- Jiri Welsch is playing for Unicaja Malaga, averaging 7.6 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.1 assists in the Spanish league, alongside 8.5 points, 2.6 rebounds and an insignificant number of assists in the Euroleague. His stats from previous seasons can be found here, on his personal website, as can a deeply sinister picture of him looking like a recently goosed Frankie Dettori.

- David Wesley was traded as an unguaranteed contract twice in the 2007 offseason, and was waived by New Jersey before the season began. He hasn't signed since, and isn't going to, either. Fun fact: did you know that David Wesley is Michael Dickerson's cousin? No, me neither.

- Finally, you probably already knew that Bonzi Wells signed in China this season, and you probably knew that he has since left. And you probably knew that he stuffed the stat sheet in every plausible way during his time there. But you might not know the specifics, and so I'm here to oblige you with that.

On the season, in only 14 games, Bonzi averaged 42.1 minutes, 34.3 points, 8.9 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 3.8 steals per game. He shot 45% on the year, and 70% from the free throw line, and certainly wasn't waived because he wasn't producing. But a closer look at the numbers reveals a man who miiiiiiight not have been trying that hard. In those 14 games, Bonzi shot 156 three pointers, which for maths fans out there is a shade over 11 attempts per game. This seems like it's too many ('ooh, you think?'), but particularly so for a man who hit them at only 33%, and who hasn't shot the three pointer well since a fluke season in 2001/02. (For comparison's sake, Bonzi shot 50 three pointers combined last season in 73 NBA games for the Rockets and Hornets, hitting 12. And he hit 11 combined the previous two seasons.) Bonzi started out with a bash (giggidy), averaging 47 points through his first four games, shooting a Damon Stoudamire-like 57 threes in that span. But he scored only 3 points in a foul-plagued fifth game, and averaged a far more normal 32.2 ppg after that. The three's continued to go up, though, and with the foul plagued fifth game excluded (in which he shot only three), Bonzi never attempted less than seven 3 pointers in any game. I do not know why.

Bonzi Wells would be in the NBA right now, earning about $8 million, if Geoff Petrie had had his way. Something to consider.

Let Me Drago Pasalic You Up And Down

In keeping with my new policy of talking about every game that I watch that isn't an NBA game, here's what I observed from last night's Eurocup game between Iurbentia Bilbao and the home Lithuanian team with a Yorkshire inflection, Lietuvos Rytas. Go.

- Bilbao's lineup features only three Spanish nationals; point guard Javier Salgado, backup guard Paco Vazquez, and a really slow inside player with a massive head and greasy mullet called Salvador Guardia. The rest of the team was made up of foreign players, and it was pretty stacked; former, future and potentially future NBA talent on show included former Bucks forward and avid partygoer Damir Markota, former Jazz and Timberwolves swingman Quincy Lewis, former Heat tryerouter Luke Recker, former Chicago Bulls summer league participant Drago Pasalic, Mavericks second rounder Renaldas Seibutis, former Nuggets guard Predrag Savovic, the man the legend known as Frederic Weis (who did not play), Latvian international guard Janis Blums, and Croatian international big man Marko Banic.

- Lietuvos, meanwhile, had only two players that weren't Lithuanian - former South Carolina point forward Chuck Eidson, and Serbian big man Milko Bjelica, whose name sounds more like a lovely pudding. The rest of the team was made out of old clunky Lithuanians. (Eidson was awesome, by the way, and easily the best player in the game, despite all the talent and internationals on the court. But we'll come to this later.)

- For Bucks fans who fancy a cheap laugh at the expense of Damir Markota, I've got good news - he was pretty awful. Markota came off the bench in the first half, and did nothing at all, but for some reason he started the second half in place of Pasalic. He then proceeded to get involved on every possession, and normally in a bad way. On his team's first trip down the court, Markota took a contested NBA range three pointer with about 7 seconds gone in the half. It missed. On the next possession, Markota was stripped by Donatas Zavackas while standing at the top of the arc, leading to a Zavackas one-on-none breakaway layup. And it was a one-on-none breakaway layup because Markota decided not to bother chasing him. Over the next few possessions, Markota grabbed a good offensive rebound before missing the 4 inch putback, took another 27 foot three (which also missed), shouted at the refs, threw a terrible pass into the corner which Javier Salgado somehow caught and turned into a circus three, and was then subbed out for Pasalic. He later returned, and played most of the second half, grabbing several rebounds, but remained very out of the game on offense. He also spent the entire game with a huge wedge of cotton in his left ear, that was in keeping with the Bilbao team's desire to wear stupid apparel; Luke Recker wore black knee high socks and a full beard, which made him look a bit like a lumberjack battling with his repressed homosexuality, and Quincy Lewis wore a bizarre sky blue full length lycra elbow support thing that could conceivably have come from a fetish website. It was all a bit odd.

- Speaking of Recker and Lewis, they kind of sucked a bit. Recker was never in the game in the first half, turning down good shots and taking bad ones, while supposedly in there as a speciality shooter. He improved in the second half, working his way around screens (mainly from Guardia) for open looks, and playing decent help defense. And Lewis was extremely quiet, barely taking any shots or touching the ball on offense. Bilbao got very little offense from the wing positions in general, as no one other than Spanish national point guard Javier Salgado was able to get into the lane. The other primary ball handlers that Bilbao used - Janis Blums and Paco Vazquez - were completely taken out of the game by an unrelenting Rytas defense that denied almost all penetration and took away the passing lanes. Seibutis was the only other guy to get to the rim, and he did this precisely twice. Bilbao's offense was predominantly featured around Banic, who demonstrated good moves and good touch around the rim, using head fakes and spin moves to get himself open shots. However, at 6'9 and 230, with no athleticism to speak of, and no apparent interest in defense or rebounding, Banic looked like what he was (a decent player in high level European competition, going up against similarly clunky continentals with receding hairlines) and not what I'm really looking for (possible NBA players). And for those Bulls fans wondering....yes, Drago Pasalic's jumpshot is still absolutely mint. He showed a nice hook shot, too, and he's also grown his hair out. But he still sets the softest screens in showbiz.

- Lietuvos were basically all about Chuck Eidson. Technically playing the small forward, Eidson took most of the lead guard duties, and made about 12 great passes to only 1 crap one. He was easily the best passer on the court, and he was probably the best shooter too, albeit with a bizarre and anomolous 2-7 night from the free throw line. Eidson's weaknesses were quickly self evident - he has almost no right handed dribble, carrying the ball on one of his two attempts to go right and getting blocked on the other, and he wasn't fast or athletic for a 6'7 player. But he was very skilled, with ball handling that belies his height, a jumpshot that looked smooth both off the dribble and off a curl, plus them's there quality passing skills. He reminded me of Lamar Odom, if Lamar Odom couldn't rebound or play defense, and if he wasn't athletic. And if he was 4 inches shorter. And if he could shoot. And if he wasn't actualyl Lamar Odom. (Basically, the likeness started and ended with them being left handed. Maybe Kasib Powell would be a better comparison. Or Luke Jackson. Or maybe no comparison at all would be a good comparison.)

- A non-name dropping name drop coming up - I once had a conversation with an NBA general manager about the future of the Lithuanian national team. We agreed that there wasn't one. With that in mind, I paid particular attention to the Lithuanian players that Rytas has on show (as well as Bilbao's Litho, Seibutis). Most of them were over or dangerously close to 30 years of age, and the only three who weren't that played (Arturas Jomantas, Steponas Babrauskas, Justas Sinica) were three of the four players used off of the bench, along with Milko Bjelica. Bjelica, a 24 year old centre, showed little. Sinica, a skinny 6'8 23 year old forward, was largely docile, and took only three shots, all three pointers with a very slow release, making one. Babrauskas didn't look to be the 6'5 that the packaging suggested, but he displayed a decent jumpshot, albeit while playing exclusively off the ball. The one who showed promise, though, was Jomantas; a 6'7 swingman, Jomantas looked pretty fluid with the ball, and made two open three pointers (albeit while missing two others really badly). His ball pressure was good, and his help defense on inbounds plays or when trapping Paco Vazquez on the pick and roll was consistently effective. His work rate was good (as it was for all players, even Markota; they truly cared), and he fought for rebounds that weren't rightly his. Jomantas was, however, a bit slow. Seibutis, meanwhile, played almost exclusively off the ball as the two guard, which seems far more sensible of a position for him than the point guard he is occasionally confused into being. What few shots he took were good looks that he made smoothly, and he looked quicker than I remember. A massive red flag, however, was his defense - often charged with the matchup on Chuck Eidson, Sighbooties barely obscured Eidson's path to the rim, and could never seem to make Chuck drive right, as he so badly needed to do.

That is all I've got. There was another Eurocup game on, featuring Khimky versus Dynamo Moscow. But while I did watch it, I was busy priming a rifle, with which to then shoot myself in the head. That's how bad the commentary was. I'd explain further, but I daren't.

Rytas won, by the way, by a score of 73 to 71. You can find the box score here.

Summer signings, round 22

- A while ago, I helpfully wrote this.

Taurean Green is about to sign with some team in some country in Europe. And I forgot to write down who and where.

Well, I now know! Green has signed with CAI Zaragoza, which is a team in Spain. ShamSports.com - where uninteresting news is broken later than on other sites, and not very informatively at that.

- Oklahoma City signed Kyle Weaver, which gives them something they otherwise sorely lack - a shooting guard. (I mean, they have a looooooot of forwards. Desmond Mason and Joe Smith are only there as expirings, even though they are decent players. But even without them there's too much forward depth going on. This is making my great plan to pawn Cedric Simmons off onto them slightly harder to achieve.)

- There was a weird trade what happened, there be. Houston traded Patrick Ewing to New York for the draft rights to Frederic Weis. Houston did this for the same reasons that they traded Sean Singletary and Steve Novak before him - to dump salary so that they can re-sign Carl Landry and Dikembe Mutombo. But it must be pretty weird for Ewing Jr to be going to the team where his old man is revered as a bit of a legend, when he himself is going to struggle to make the regular season active roster. I can only imagine that that adds more pressure to a pretty desperate situation.

(Also, re: the Knicks - you trade away Renaldo Balkman because he doesn't "fit in", and then you trade for Patrick Ewing Jr. Hmmm. What did I miss?)

As for the hows and whys of Weis's involvement, read the bottom half of this page. I KNEW that writing all that bobbins would be worth it one day!

- And finally (yes, so soon!), Hapoel Holon signed Deron Washington, who will pair up with P.J. Tucker to form what no one is calling "The Wing Of Dreams". Speaking of Deron Washington, here is a list of all of this year's second rounders and what they've done with their lives, as well as possibly some nob jokes.



- Nikola Pekovic is signed in Europe, as well Minnesota knew when they drafted him. He has moved from Partizan Belgrade to Panathinaikos. He's also the eponymous star of a slightly pornographic Eastern European remake of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

- Walter Sharpe signed with the Detroit Pistons, and I forgot to tell you. Sorry.

- Joey Dorsey has not yet signed with the Houston Rockets, but he will do.

- Mario Chalmers has signed a three year deal with the Heat, who nevertheless have said that he won't be the starter next year. Which means that, by default, Marcus Banks or Chris Quinn will be. That can't be good. But it could be worse. It could be Stephon Marbury.

- DeAndre Jordan signed with the Clippers, as mentioned repeatedly already.

- Omer Asik isn't going to join the Bulls for at least two years, as he is signed with Fenerbache until that time. When he does join the NBA, he's probably going to be brilliant.

- Cucumber A Moute is signed with the Bucks and currently represents every decent defensive forward that they have.

- Kyle Weaver - look up, towards the bit where it says "Oklahoma City signs" and then where it says "Kyle Weaver" immediately afterwards.

- Sonny Weems is unsigned and recovering from hernia surgery. Will Denver sign him for camp? Probably. Do I have evidence of that? Nope.

- Chris Douglas-Roberts signed with New Jersey. I forgot to tell you this, too.

- Nathan Jawai signed with Toronto. I forgot to tell you this, too, too.

- Sean Singletary signed with Sacramento, then got traded to Houston, then got traded to Phoenix. Bobby Jones is worried. But Phoenix is expected to keep him now.

- Patrick Ewing also signed with Sacramento. Patrick Ewing also got traded to Houston. But, in a move that seperates him from the Sean Singletarys of this world, Ewing was then traded to New York. (Confusing, I know.) Look up for scorn.

- Ante Tomic......err, well, I can't find anything definitive either way, but I'd basically guarantee he's not signing this year. He's not signed a deal with the Jazz, and Kyrylo Fesenko and Kosta Koufos are already under contract. So why bring in Tomic? Who needs three tall European centres?

- Goran Dragic was the compelling protagonist of a "will he won't he" love epic that still hasn't entirely finished yet. It is said that he will sign with the Suns, but he hasn't done so yet.

- Trent Plaisted is signed with Angellico Biella in Italy.

- Bill Walker signed with the Celtics.

- Malik Hairston is unsigned and probably at least going to camp with the Spurs. I say that with nothing to back it up other than the fact that he's a Spurs draft pick who hasn't signed in Europe yet. If you have Malik Hairston news (I can find none! What the deuce!), fire it off below.

- Richard Hendrix signed with the Warriors way back in the day.

- DeVon Hardin signed with Belediyespor in Turkey.

- Shan Foster is signed with Juve Caserta in Italy.

- Darnell Jackson will be going to camp with the Cavaliers, which is a Python-esque sentence if you don't know what your NBA lingo.

- Tadija Dragicevic is staying with Red Star Belgrade (Crvena Zvezda) for at least one more season.

- Maarty Leunen is, according to the Rockets, destined for Europe. But Leunen hasn't signed there yet, perhaps hoping that the Rockets will miss Steve Novak more than they thought. If this wild unsubstantiated theory is in any way true......Maarty, don't bother going to Houston's camp this year. They'll just cut you. They can't even seem to fit Carl Landry in, for God's sake.

- Mike Taylor signed with the Clippers a good long while ago.

- Sasha Kaun signed with CSKA Moscow back on part two of this summer signings list. Bloody hell. That was ages ago. I'm still shooting for fifty, by the way, despite the fact that the news is drying up thick and fast. I'll invent it if I have to.

- James Gist has also signed with Angellico Biella.

- Joe Crawford signed with the Lakers already.

- Deron Washington - look up.

- Semih Erden isn't coming over this year. (Giggidy.)


As for the first rounders, everyone signed with their team, apart from George Hill (who should do, last I heard), and Serge Ibaka (who won't).

Hey look, only one cock joke!