Eaton went undrafted out of Oklahoma State because he didn't have NBA talent. He joined the D-League and was assigned to the Tulsa 66ers, but he plaayed in only 2 games, totalling 1 point, 1 assists and 5 turnovers. Tulsa then released him in December. The fact that he's 5'10 and 260lbs might be why:
Former Timberwolves draft pick Ebi spent last year in Italy's SerieA, but this year downgraded to LegaDue, the division below. (Why LegaDue is not called SerieB, I do not know.) The obvious benefit there is to Ebi's numbers, and he's responded with averages of 16.1 points, 13.4 rebounds, 3.1 steals, 1.4 blocks and 1.3 assists per game. He leads Rimini in rebounds (with no one else having more than 4.5), steals and blocks, and is second in points only to Carlton Myers.
Carlton Myers used to be one of the best scorers in Italy, averaging over 20ppg in SerieA for about 26 years. Myers has played all but 7 games of his 19 year career in Italy and turns 39 in late March, so he's a long way out of his prime, but even at this ripe old age he is scoring a very efficient 17 ppg at a decent standard of basketball. This is not comparable to his best, though, for Carlton Myers once scored 87 points in a SerieA game. This occurred as recently as 1995, and here's a, uh, really awkward video of some of it.
Carlton Myers is pretty much an Italian, despite the name, being born to an Italian mother and spending basically his whole life there. However, he was born in London, as was Ndudi Ebi. Rimini also boast another Englishman, Mike Bernard, a former South Florida bench player and English international. Because of this trio, Basket Crabs Rimini are my favourite Italian second division. Also factoring into that decision is the fact that their name is Crabs Rimini.
Former Sacramento Kings draft pick Corsley Edwards is in China....or he was, until he broke his finger this week and returned home. On the season, Edwards is averaging 29.3 points, 8.3 points and 2.7 assists in 39 minutes per game, shooting 55% from the field, 69% from three point range (somehow) and 78% from the line. Included in there was a 50 point outing and a 47 point outing, and in 15 games he never scored less than 20. Pretty good, Corsley. Pretty good.
John Edwards spent two years in the NBA. He signed as an undrafted free agent out of Kent State with the Pacers in 2004, played spot minutes in 25 games, and then the Hawks signed him to an inexplicable two year, $2.08 million contract in the summer of 2005. After one year with Atlanta - in which he totalled 70 points, 48 rebounds and 76 fouls - the Hawks traded him back to the Pacers as filler in the Al Harrington deal. The Pacers then waived him, and after a training camp contract with the Timberwolves in 2007, that was it for John Edwards in the NBA.
Edwards has spent two of the last three years in the D-League, seemingly aware that the knock on him is his "rawness." Last year for the Sioux Falls Skyforce, Edwards averaged 9.3 and 6.9 rebounds in 21 minutes per game, fairly sedate numbers for a centre-starved league. Those numbers are particularly sedate when you consider that Edwards is now 28 years old. You can't be raw forever.
He did not initially return to the D-League this year, instead signing with Kolossos Rhodes in Greek's AI League. In theory, he was going to provide an NBA calibre frontcourt along with recent Heat draft pick, Robert Ntoziep. In practice, though, he was not very good. Edwards played only 36 minutes on the entire season, totalling 12 points, 5 rebounds and 8 fouls. Kolossos then waived him and signed David Monds as his replacement.
This was only the second time in his career that John Edwards has signed outside of America, and after his release he returned to what he knows best, joining the Bakersfield Jam of the D-League. In 5 games Edwards is averaging 7.2 points, 4.4 rebounds, 4.0 fouls and 1.8 turnovers per game. He's the same player that he ever was. And therein lies the problem.
After being sufficiently badass enough to win the Eurocup single handedly (kind of) for Lietuvos Rytas last season, Eidson went where the money was and signed for Maccabi Tel-Aviv. In the Israeli league he is averaging 10.2 points, 3.7 rebounds and 3.5 assists, alongside 13.1 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game in the Euroleague. Maccabi fans kind of hate him at times, but then again, Maccabi fans kind of hate everything at times.
This time last year, Eisley was working for the Nets for free as a "coaching associate", which is basically a player development coach. Having no evidence to the contrary, I am going to assume that he's still there.
Former Maryland and Atlanta Hawks big man Ekezie last played in April 2007. In February 2008 he established a new online venture called ZeepTravel, with the aims of being Nigeria's primary travel portal. Here is Ekezie talking about it.
Drexel offshoot Elegar, who made his name with a strong showing at the Portsmouth Invitational in 2008, is signed in Turkey. Playing for Bornova, The Elegarnce averages 12.5 points, 7.1 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game.
Elegar has a teammate called Ihsan Yalcin Azizmahmutogullari. An anagram of that is oh shut up.
Before Omri Casspi came Lior Eliyahu. Yahoo, an athletic Israeli forward whose rights are owned by the Houston Rockets, left his native Israel this summer and joined Caja Laboral in Spain. The side effect of that has been a dramatic decline in playing time; Eliyahu averages 17.9 minutes per game in the Euroleague, but only 12.8 minutes per game in the ACB. He averages 7.1/3.6 in the Euroleague and 4.4/1.8 in the ACB.
George Washington product Elliott spent the first two years of his previous career with the Sioux Falls Skyforce and Fort Wayne Mad Ants of the D-League. This summer, however, he gave it all up and moved abroad, to the basketball hotbed that is Finland. Hmmmm. I'm not up to date on the salary structure of Finnish basketball, nor am I even out of date with it, but I can't imagine it pays a whole lot better than the D-League. And the standard isn't better.
Elliott is playing for the deliciously named Honka Playboys, the team better known for producing the mighty Petteri Koponen. He is averaging 17.9 points, 4.4 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 2.7 steals per game, shooting 50% from the field and 26% from three point range.
Another Skyforce ex, Ellis started the year in Uruguay playing for a team called Union Atletica, where he paired up with former NBA player Art Long. Ellis averaged 11.7 points and 8.6 rebounds in 7 games; Long is averaging 15.4/9.9 through 14. Ellis has since moved to the Ukraine, which is about as far away from Uruguay as you can get geographically, if not alphabetically. He has played one game for his new team, Dnipro, totalling 2 points, 6 rebounds and 3 turnovers.
Tyrone Ellis, Southern Nazarene's finest, is spending his third season with Cajasol Sevilla in Spain's ACB. He is averaging 11.3 points and not much else on the season, shooting 42% from the field and 40% from three point range. Ellis takes 6 three pointers a game, which gives you some idea of his role on the team.
Ellis holds a Georgian passport, one obtained through those hitherto unexplained means that sometimes seem to befall decent American players in Europe. [Georgia is a country, by the way. Zaza Pachulia plays for them.] Another American Georgian passport holder is Shammond Williams; both Ellis and Williams have had the common decency to at play for the national team of the country whose generous gift of a passport greatly enhanced their basketball careers. That's the way it should be, Dan Dickau.
A judge sentenced Denver Nuggets guard J.R. Smith to 90 days in jail Tuesday night for causing an auto accident that killed his friend, though Smith will likely end up serving only 30.
Municipal Judge Debra J. Gelson suspended 60 days of the sentence providing Smith performs 500 hours of community service consisting of visiting sick children at hospitals.
As a Bulls fan, I can safely say that J.R. Smith is someone I've discussed a lot over the years. J.R. was included by the Hornets, somewhat needlessly, into the Tyson Chandler/P.J. Brown swap that pissed me off for a good few years. And from speaking to my fellow Bulls fans, I know that a lot of you miss J.R. Smith. He has crazy range, athleticism, potential (if not much sense) and a special shot making ability. It would be easier to stomach his loss had the best returning player for him not been Aaron Gray. (The players were; JamesOn Curry, who never played a game for the Bulls; the unguaranteed contract of Howard Eisley, who also never played for the Bulls; and Aaron Gray, who needn't have.)
Scott Skiles didn't even take one look at Smith before deciding he wouldn't tolerate him. Smith never reported to the Bulls, and John Paxson tried to turn him around straight away. The Bulls couldn't get a first round pick for him, though, and instead settled on Eisley and the two second rounders .(They later waived Eisley and used the money opened up to sign Adrian Griffin. Yippeeeeeeee.)
Perhaps we needn't miss him too much, though. In his time with Denver, Smith has been charged with assault, disturbing the peace and destruction of property, had his drivers license suspended three times (all three of which came after the fail accident detailed here, amazingly), crashed teammate Carmelo Anthony's car, and has now seen his troubles culminate in this jail sentence.
In this incident, Smith was charged with of improper passing, failure to stop at a stop sign, reckless driving, speeding and failure to wear a seat belt, but mercifully not of vehicular homicide. He also failed to appear in court for his first hearing back in January, drawing a further fine.
That list of bad times also does not include consistent affronts with his coach, George Karl, whose tolerance for Smith's erratic play and mild entitlement is varied at best. Smith has been suspended twice for a combined 13 games, and benched numerous times on top of that. He has never managed to avoid trouble. Seemingly, he's never really tried to.
And he is, after all, just a backup shooting guard.
Still, it's not all bad news; Smith played sufficient minutes last season to earn himself a $600,000 bonus on his contract for next season. So, at the very worst, it's swings and roundabouts.
- Bryant Dunston is in South Korea, averaging 17.6 points, 10.0 rebounds and 2.9 blocks for a team called Mobis Phoebus. Dunston doesn't really have any chance of making the NBA, but after watching the entire Lakers summer league - in which an extremely backcourt heavy roster started Dunston at centre, with Sharrod Ford at power forward - I grew to like him. I seemed to like his unathletic yet reasonably smooth game featuring plenty of lefty baby hooks. It reminded me of Michael Sweetney. And I like Michael Sweetney. (In fairness to Dunston, at age 22 with reasonable skill, he still has a real faint chance of sniffing the NBA at some point, even if it's only a camp invite. But I don't think signing in Korea is getting it done. And he should probably put those three pointers to bed.)
- Ronald "Doop" Dupree didn't make the Cavaliers out of training camp, and went back to the D-League with the Tulsa 66ers. As is often the case when he's in the D-League, Doop has beasted, averaging 19.8 points, 6.6 rebounds and 3.7 assists, but he still can't shoot, shooting only 31% from three point range and 69% from the free throw line. He'll also be 28 on January 26th, so a happy birthday to him, although I'm sure we'll all have better things to be celebrating on that day. (In joke!)
- Ndudi Ebi is signed in Italy, and still hasn't panned out. Ndudi is the third leading scorer on an Italian team called Carife Ferrara, where he is the third leading scorer behind Harold Jamison (THE Harold Jamison! Throw-in to the Miles for McInnis swap Harold Jamison! None finer!) and Andre Collins (yes, THE Andre Collins! From Loyola! The very same!). Ebi is really the fourth leading scorer, if you also include Rick Apodaca (THE Rick Apodaca! Former Magic training camp invitee Rick Apodaca! Et cetera!), but Apodaca only played in 5 games before being kicked off the team after testing positive for pot. Ebi averages 11.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, 1.8 steals and 1.8 blocks per game, and rather impressively has only 2 assists in 15 games. Especially impressive given the sheer unrelenting calibre of scoring options that I just outlined.
- Former Hawks and Pacers centre Sexy John Edwards was recently acquired by the Sioux Falls Skyforce in the D-League, averaging 6.2 points and 5.2 rebounds, and is still pushing his campaign towards ending poverty in America. (See that? That was a John Edwards switcharoony. You can't write comedy gold like that. Well, unless you're me.)
- I've got nothing on Howard Eisley, but I'm also not interested in a Chris Crawford-style campaign, either. By the way, an update on that - it appears that Crawford tried a comeback in mid-2006, which ended without any contract being offered. He has moved back to Galesburg, Michigan, owns a company called Slam Dunk Stables, and somebody sent me a Google Earth overhead shot of his house. The internet - it's faaaaaantastic.
- Obinna Ekezie has not played since a stint in Russia ended in April 2007. After almost two years out of the game, and about to turn 34, I'm going to wildly assume that Ekezie is probably out of the game for good. Feel free to correct me, Obinna Ekezie's agent.
- Frank Elegar is signed with Bremerhaven in Germany, where he averages 9.2 points and 5.6 rebounds. Despite boasting both Jared Reiner and Mike Gansey, along with a brief stay by Marcus Slaughter, Bremerhaven are stone dead last in the German first division, with a 1-16 record. As for Fun Time Franky, like with Bryant Dunston above, Elegar's shot at this NBA thing is pretty slim, but, like Bryant Dunston above, Frank Elegar impressed me in summer league, as he showed a decent mid range game with the Wizards, even if his free throw release was kind of amusing. Note to very fringe NBA players out there - this is how you get famous. Sign in summer league and show me something, and I'll write nice things about you to a worldwide audience. And you can't get much more famous than by appearing on this website, let me tell you - Alexa.com says that this is the 79,062nd most popular website in Hungary. You can't buy publicity gold like that. Although this doesn't mean that you can't give me money if you want to.
- Lior Eliyahu is in his third season with Maccabi Tel Aviv, and crapping over his numbers of last year. Eliyahu leads his team in Euroleague play, averaging 14.7 points, 6.9 rebounds and 2.3 assists, and he doesn't do badly in Israeli league play either, where he averages a further 13.0 points, 5.6 points and 3.3 assists. Is that NBA calibre talent? Yep, probably. But an Israeli viewer of this website informs me that Eliyahu has a voice like a girl. So make of that what you will.
- Georgian superstar Tyrone Ellis averages 11.4 points in Spanish League play, and 9.8 points in EuroChallenge play. His backcourt team mates include former Pacer, Tyus Edney, who barely plays, and who is about to turn 36. Oh wait, sorry, I forgot to tell you who Ellis plays for, didn't I? It's Cajasol Sevilla. In Spain. Specifically, in Sevilla.
- Chris Ellis is on the same poor Tulsa 66ers as Doop is. Ellis averages 6.7 points and 5.2 rebounds in 20 games, shooting a sizzling 38% from the floor. I'm still not sure what he's good at.
- Andre Emmett went to Pau Orthez after being waived by the Sixers in training camp, and in the early going Emmett was a big boost to the struggling French side, averaging 23 points and 5.4 rebounds in 5 games, despite missing nearly a month due to injury. However, in December, Emmett left the team. No explanation as to why - he just left. My French is a bit ropey, but as far as I call tell, he went home for Christmas, and didn't bother coming back. That's European basketball for you, everybody. Wouldn't it be funny if that happened in the NBA?
- Carl English is stylin' in Spain, where he averages 15.6 points, 2.9 rebounds and 3.3 assists in Spanish league play for Kalise Gran Canaria. He also just won player of the weeks honours, in a week that saw him play so well that he won player of the week honours. What an honour. By the way, why do Americans call the spin you put on a pool/snooker ball "English"? Is it funny or clever? Because I'm not seeing either. The word is "side", "spin", or "sidespin". Don't mess with perfection.
- Finally, Zoran Erceg is playing for Olympiakos in Greece, where he averages 7.2 points in Greek league play, and 5.8 points in the Euroleague. You can't buy informative gold like that. Or rather, you can, but you don't have to, because I did it for you. ShamSports.com - the website that cares. About Zoran Erceg.
Peja Drobnjak left the NBA due to "lucrative" European offers, apparently. I can't speak for how that has worked out for him, but I can tell you that he's now playing for Besiktas of Turkey, and that I don't know the extent of his lucrativeness, nor do I want to find it out.
Roberto Duenas has retired. TRIVIA QUESTION - Name the 6 players drafted by the Bulls to have competed in the Olympics. I'll give you some clues: Bobby Duenas is one, and Scottie Pippen isn't because the Bulls didn't technically draft him.
Ndudi Ebi is playing for Bnei Hasharon in Israel. Still English. Still brilliant. Yet still shit. (Bnei Hasharon have a starting lineup made up of a real Who's Who of NBA Never-Were's - Cookie Belcher, Jason Williams (not THE Jason Williams, nor the other Jason Williams, but a different Jason Williams), Ebi, Rod Grizzard and Ousmace Cisse. These are the things that keep me sane. I like to image that one or more of those players specifically went to Hasharon because of the opportunity to play with those luminaries. It's highly bloody unlikely, but it's a fun dream.
John Edwards is playing for Chirkassy in the Ukraine. Information like this is bloody hard to come across, given that there are many other, infinitely more famous people called John Edwards, who are currently making much more important news. So from now on, we'll call him Sexy John Edwards at all times, in a sort of Hacksaw Jim Duggan homage. It's for clarity's sake only, obviously.
Howard Eisley is out of basketball and seemingly untraceable.
Obinna Ekezie may have given up the dream to become like his hero Tony Massenburg, for he has not played professionally this season. Or maybe he's just injured. Couldn't say for sure.
Rockets draft pick Lior Eliyahu is playing in his native Israel for Maccabi Tel Aviv, and apparently struggling with a "new offensive hierarchy". Oooh, discontent? Does this mean he may leave and join Houston this summer? Maybe. Imagine how dull and inconsequential that would be. I'm moist already.
Tyrone Ellis is playing for Cajasol Sevilla, alongside Andy Betts and others. He also recently obtained Georgian citizenship. Somehow.
Chris Ellis is playing for The Cocks in the D-League.
Andre Emmett is in the powerhouse Belgian league, playing for Belgacom Liege, alongside no one that you've ever heard of, unless you've heard of Stephane Pelle.
Zoran Erceg- dammit, why do I make some of these profiles - is in his native Serbia playing for Zeleznik Beograd. Which also sounds like a munitions dump.
Evan Eschmeyer retired absolutely freakin' ages ago with dodgy knees, and seemingly no longer exists on this planet.
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.
- Byron Eaton
- Ndudi Ebi
- Corsley Edwards
- John Edwards
- Chuck Eidson
- Howard Eisley
- Obinna Ekezie
- Frank Elegar
- Lior Eliyahu
- Carl Elliott
- Chris Ellis
- Tyrone Ellis
