Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 29

- Jason Hart

Hart first signed with the Timberwolves for training camp, and the depth chart alone was enough to help him beat out the other 470 competitors for the 15th man spot. However, despite the Wolves' lack of a third point guard, Hart played only 5 minutes and ended up being traded away, twice. Sort of. The Timberwolves first had a deal with New Orleans that would have seen them trade Hart (or rather, his unguaranteed contract) to the Hornets in exchange for Devin Brown and cash, and the deal was so close to being done that a press release even appeared on the Timberwolves' website. However, Phoenix snuck in at the last minute and offered Minnesota a better deal, giving them Alando Tucker and a second rounder for Hart instead.

Phoenix then waived Hart, and New Orleans eventually got their man when Hart signed a ten day cover with them as injury cover when Chris Paul first went down. Since then, however, Hart has been unsigned. He can often be seen in the crowd of Syracuse home games, although there aren't any more of them scheduled until November time now.



- Donnell Harvey

Harvey was covered in the 2010 CBA Season Round-up from last week. In his last two games, Harvey put up two of his three worst scoring outings of the season; 14 points, 15 rebounds against Guandong, and 8/9 in the regular season finale against Zhejiang Lions. Never mind, though. A fine season.



- Matt Haryasz

Stanford graduate and ex-Rockets signee Matt Haryasz moved from Belgium to Israel in the summer, but it didn't last long. After only 3 games with Bnei Hasharon, in which he totalled 17 points and 12 rebounds, Haryasz moved to Holland to play for Groningen. Playing in the slightly crap Dutch league (no offense) has done wonders for Haryasz's numbers; he's averaging 16.1 points and 8.5 rebounds in only 25 minutes per game on the season.

Holland borders both Belgium and Germany, and their basketball league shares the Belgian and German league trait for having far too many Americans in it. Haryasz is one of 7 on his team, and they also boast a Canadian called Steve Ross. It seems excessive.



- Kenny Hasbrouck

Siena graduate Hasbrouck was going to sign with the Miami Heat for training camp. He originally joined the team for their summer free agent camp - boringly, they didn't enter a summer league team - and he had the Heat staff raving about him. The contract looked - was - inevitable. However, Hasbrouck got injured just before camp started, and he never signed with the team. The injury was supposed to take about a month to heal, but actually took a lot longer than that, and Hasbrouck did not reappear until late January when he resurfaced in the D-League. From there, he was acquired by the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, and in 10 games for them Hasbrouck has averaged 16.9 points and 2.9 assists on 50% shooting.

The Heat are going to call him up later today as a replacement for Rafer Alston, who has been suspended for the remainder of the season. Alston walked out on the team last week after the Heat told him he would be out of the rotation for the remainder of the season, and also after his sister attempted suicide. He is said to be contemplating retirement. The Heat are not said to be contemplating Mike James.



- David Hawkins

Temple graduate Hawkins moved to Montepaschi Siena in the summer, who went undefeated in Italy's SerieA last year. They're doing it again this year, too, with a 21-0 record and easily on course for their fourth consecutive championship. (Pepsi Caserta are in second place with a 15-7 record. They are seven games behind in the loss column with only 9 weeks left. It's over.) Hawkins is a big part of Siena's success this season, averaging 12.8 points per game in the Italian league and 11.2ppg in the Euroleague (from which Siena have been eliminated), while playing his usual brand of tough defense.



- Juaquin Hawkins

Former Rockets guard Hawkins turns 37 years old this summer, but was playing professionally until recently. But now he's not. While playing for the Australian team Gold Coast Blaze in January 2008, Hawkins suffered a stroke that pretty much ended his professional career. It certainly ended his season. Hawkins did return to the Blaze the following season to play again, but his stats were way down, and he left after 6 games. He's all right now, even playing on the freaking stacked Los Angeles Lightning IBL team last summer. But there's no more seasons in Australia in his future.

Now in retirement, Hawkins is an active youth leader and fundraiser in the L.A. area who runs this. He is also an ambassador for the American Stroke Association, for obvious reasons.



- Brandon Heath

San Diego State product Heath is in Cyprus, playing for APOEL Nicosia. Regular readers will be aware that there's no Cyprish domestic league statistics are avail, but APOEL are also in the quarter finals of the EuroChallenge, so we have Heath's stats from that. In 12 games, Heath is averaging 12.1 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.7 assists, shooting 41% from two point range and 46% from three point range despite the squiffyness of his jumpshot release.



- Alan Henderson

Henderson last played in 2007 with the Philadelphia 76ers. After being salary dumped by them onto the Jazz at the 2007 deadline, Henderson was instantly cut by the Jazz, waited the prerequisite 30 days, then rejoined the Sixers for a meaningless last few games. It was reported that Henderson would re-sign with the Sixers for the 2007/08 season, but he didn't. Nor did he ever sign anywhere again, ever.

Henderson maintained throughout his NBA career that he'd like to go onto medical school once it finished, but he changed his mind when the time came, deciding that it was too late. He now lives in Florida, and now studies business at Indiana University through an online program. Henderson also used to be involved in the Alan Henderson Golf Invitational, but pulled out in a row about how the funds that were raised were being distributed. Therefore, the Alan Henderson Golf Invitational now no longer involves Alan Henderson. Which seems a tad strange.

Alan Henderson's middle name is Lybrooks. That's pretty unique.



- Dick Hendrix

Hendrix has moved to Spain for this season, playing for C.B. Granada. He is averaging 14.0 points and 7.2 rebounds in 26.2 minutes per game on the season, shooting 67% from the field and 57% from the foul line.

The Warriors have finally been able to replace him with Chris Hunter, but why a team that was outrebounded in 55 of their first 64 games would so undervalue the rebounding abilities of someone like Hendrix is mindblowing. It's not that Hendrix is brilliant; it's instead that they seem not to know or care that their way of building a team with zero power forwards is not working out. Do the Warriors' braintrust deliberately not get it, or are they all just simultaneously overlooking the obvious?



- Walter Herrmann

Herrmann is in year one of a four year contract that he signed with Caja Laboral in the ACB this summer, but year 1 isn't going too well. Hermann is averaging only 14.1 minutes, 5.9 points and 2.4 rebounds per game in the ACB, alongside 12.9/4.3/2.1 in the Euroleague. He has played no more than 21 minutes in any Euroleague game thus far, and had played only 49 ACB minutes all season through January 24th. He did however play all 40 minutes in Vitoria's last game against Estudiantes, totalling 22 points and 8 rebounds. However, the rest of the team combined for only 36 and Vitoria lost by 16.



Finally....

- Axel Hervelle

Former Nuggets draft pick Axel Hervelle started the season with Real Madrid, his sixth season there. He totalled 82 minutes, 13 points and 18 rebounds in seven ACB games, but was the subject of transfer rumours the entire season, including rumours of a trade between Real and Efes Pilsen that would have seen Hervelle swapped for Boki Nachbar. That particular deal never happened, but Hervelle did eventually leave, moving to Bizkaia Bilbao in January. In 9 ACB games for the team Hervelle is averaging 24 minutes, 8.4 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game, shooting 73% from two points range and 11% from three point range.

His rights are now owned by the Houston Rockets, who acquired them as the suitably arbitrary returning piece in the deal that saw Denver acquire James White. White never played for the Nuggets. Hervelle will probably never play for the Rockets either.

Summer signings, round 8

- The Knicks signed Anthony Roberson, which is the sort of move that I'm usually sceptical of, but which in this instance I'm rather pleased with. The Knicks guards, basically, are all terrible. Only a Knicks fan, or someone who likes contradicting my sweeping generalisations, could really disagree with that. But within that, they all share a common drawback - they don't shoot too well. Chris Duhon passes up more threes than he hits. Quentin Richardson may have once held the all time record for three pointers attempted in a season, but that doesn't mean he's a good three point shooter. Mardy Collins is worse at it than both. Stephon Marbury has never had good range, and he probably won't be there to open the season anyway. Jamal Crawford is a good shooter, but inefficient due to his own misguided idea of quite how good at it he is. (86% of Crawford's field goal attempts are jumpshots, which is a freakin' huge number.) This leaves only Nate Robinson, who shot a meagre 33% on three pointers last season. Roberson, if nothing else, provides them with a second decent shooter from the guard spots (or third if you count Nate, which you might want to, if you hate me and everything that I represent). So at the very least, Donnie Walsh appears to have spotted a flaw in his current roster, and found a small remedy for it. That's a start.

- Herbert Hill, renounced by the Sixers as a part of their devious cap room plan, signed with Le Mans in France. Earlier this month, Hill was arrested for DUI, and when you combine that with the fact that he didn't play a single minute in the NBA last season due to knee surgeries, you can see why he might have not seen a return to the NBA as being immedate.

- J.R. Reynolds also signed in France, with Asvel Basket. Fun fact - we bought our house from a man called J.R. Reynolds. He didn't go by "J.R.", sadly, but if I'd mentioned that before the fact, then it would have made it less spectacularly fascinating. And no one wants that.

- The Denver Nuggets are the kind of team that trades away their better players in salary dumps, carry only 13 players on the roster, and pay as many people the minimum as possible. So, true to form, they've filled out their bench with two more minimum salary players in Chris Andersen and Dahntay Jones. Having said that, a minimum salary bench foursome of Anderson, Dahntay Jones, Bobby Jones and Anthony Carter is actually quite good, so I'll shut up now. (By the way, they'd better not start Carter this year. Chucky Atkins is hardly a better alternative, but....Anthony Carter?? Seriously? Trade for a point guard or something. Jesus. Or, alternatively, keep your first round picks and draft one. I'm theorising wildly now.)

- Bobby Brown signed with Sacramento, and not Golden State as I mentioned in an earlier post. The lesson, as always - visit this website every day, but don't come here for news. Just for, you know, scathing views and pictures of Sam Cassell touching himself and salaries and stuff. Also, I'm never trusting anyone again.

- Speaking of the Warriors, they've been the busiest team in the NBA this offseason, but in one fell swoop, they pretty much finished up their business. After Kelenna Azubuike signed an offer sheet with the L.A. Clippers last week, the Warriors began negotiating with Orlando free agent guard, Maurice Evans, with whom they agreed a three year contract. However, Evans then changed his mind, and held out for more money. Golden State, rightly not willing to play silly buggers with an inconsequential player, countered by matching Azubuike's offer sheet, something which they weren't originally going to do. They then tidied up A.O.B. by trading for Marcus Williams to fill the back-up point guard spot (this actually happened beforehand, but play along), re-signed Monta Ellis to a big money long-term deal, and signed second round draft pick Richard Hendrix. A good couple of days for the Warriors then. Their only remaining drama on an otherwise completed roster is the re-signing of Andris Biedrins, which hasn't happened yet. True to form, rumours abound that a European team is about to offer Biedrins a highly competitive if not superior rate of pay. That comes to you from the incorrigable Fannation.com


- Speaking of the Clippers, a few hours before losing out on Azubuike, they made the sort of the trade that I absolutely love when they dealt Brevin Knight to Utah for their own former starlet, Jason Hart. I LOVE trades like this. Love them. How can you not? It's fantastic. It's a trade so wonderfully, awesomely pointless, that the right adjective simply does not exist. Great stuff. I've always wondered who initiates trades like this. Who picks up the phone first? Did they ring each other at the same time? What roster holes do the teams think they are filling? Did Utah, recognising their need for improved perimeter shooting, mistakenly identify Brevin Knight as the solution, inadvertently obtaining one of the only point guards in the league that shoots worse than Jason Hart? Or were both teams just in "anyone but him" mode? Good stuff. Plus, if you're a Bobcats fan, there's the added bonus of the two players involved once forming a two headed Bobcat point guard monster, and now they're being irrelevantly traded for each other. Good times all around. Stupid, but fun.


Also, speaking of the Clippers being stupid......well, the Clippers are stupid. If you take my salary figures as being entirely correct - a dangerous proposition at any time - then this is how the current Clippers salary situation looks:

Baron Davis: $11,200,000, ish.
Marcus Camby: $10,000,000
Chris Kaman: $9,500,000
Cuttino Mobley: $8,925,000
Tim Thomas: $6,049,400
Eric Gordon: $2,623,200
Jason Hart: $2,484,000
Al Thornton: $1,776,240
Nick Fazekas: $886,517 (qualifying offer/caphold, restricted free agent)
Josh Powell: $854,957
Mike Taylor: $442,114
DeAndre Jordan: $442,114

Total: $55,183,542


That, against a salary cap of $58,680,000, leaves the Clippers with just under $3.5 million to finish up their roster. It's not an exact figure, because Baron Davis's salary is not guaranteed accurate (it's within $100,000 of that, at least.) It is, however, near enough to make my point.

The reason I mention this is that, if it were for slightly better cap management, they could have even more cap space. I shall explain.

As you probably know, the salaries for first round draft picks are set by the rookie salary scale, a scale of pre-determined numbers that dictate the salary for each first round draft slot, for every year of the current CBA. There does remain a bit of room for negotiation, though - players can sign for up to 120% of the amount outlined by the scale, or for as little as 80%. It is standard for all teams to sign their players to the full 120% of the scale: it is very rare for anyone to take anything differently. (The only two players in recent years to do otherwise were Sergio Rodriguez, who took 100%, and Ian Mahinmi, who took 80% in the first year of his rookie deal to help the Spurs avoid the luxury tax. Whether he did this magnanimously, or because the Spurs wouldn't offer differently, is unclear.) Eric Gordon, as is the custom, signed for the full 120%.

However, in the window between drafting a first rounder and signing them, the draftees have a cap hold for 100% of the rookie scale only. Thus, by signing him to the 120% of the scale while still under the cap, the Clippers just lost $437,200 in cap room. ($437,200 is the difference between 120% and 100% of the rookie salary scale for the 2008 7th pick.)

This may seem inconsequential, but it might not be. If you take that $437,200, add it to the $484,000 difference between the salaries of Jason Hart and Brevin Knight, add that to the $854,957 cap hold of the completely unguaranteed salary of the completely inconsequential Josh Powell that could easily be done without, add that to the $884,228 that could have been saved by not signing Mike Taylor and DeAndre Jordan already (unsigned second round picks do not have a cap hold), add that to the $886,517 that would have been opened up had Nick Fazekas been renounced, add the $3,496,458 of cap room from the maths outlined above, and subtract $1,768,456 for the four roster charges that would be charged for only having 8 players under contract.....

.....and you get $5,274,904. That's the cap room that the Clippers COULD have right now.

As mentioned above, it's not an exact figure, but the point it demonstrates remains valid. Right now, the Clippers have just a fraction less than $3.5 million in cap room remaining, but if they'd thought about it a bit more, they could have nearly $5.3 million. It wouldn't have cost them a significant player, either: Gordon, Jordan and Taylor would still have been signed, but just a bit later. And the idea that Fazekas and Powell would have been snapped up in the mean time - or the idea that it would have mattered in any way if that had happened - is extremely far-fetched.

The Clippers could have one and a half times their current cap space.
The difference between $3.5 million and $5.3 million in cap space over the span of a 5 year contract is $10.44 million dollars. A contract starting at $3 million over 5 years with maximum raises totals $20.3 million, and a contract starting at $5.2 million with maximum raises totals $30.74 million.

To put it another way, it is potentially the difference between Hedo Turkoglu and Eduardo Najera.

But, alas, it's too late. They can still renounce Fazekas and waive Powell, but it won't be optimum. The Clippers could have traded for Marcus Camby, signed Baron Davis, and still have had as-near-as-is an MLE left over. But they won't now.

The lesson, as always - screw Danny Ainge. (No, wait, sorry - I'm just stuck on loop saying that. I mean, screw Elgin Baylor. Yeah, that one.)





- And finally, speaking of Sam Cassell touching himself, here is Sam Cassell touching himself.



That will never stop being disturbing.

30 teams in 36 or so days: L.A. Clippers

This is the first of 30 installments that will serve the dual purpose of being both offseason recaps and poorly thought predictions for next season, for all 30 NBA teams. These will be done in an order: that order is the order that I choose to do them in. There won't be an alphabetical approach, nor one based on standings. They'll be truly random. Randomness is the future.

___________________________________________


L.A. Clippers


Players acquired via free agency or trade:

Brevin Knight (2 years, $3.3 million)
Ruben Patterson (one year minimum)
Josh Powell (3 years, $2.6 million)
Guillermo Diaz (three year minimum)



Players acquired via draft:

First round: Al Thornton (14th overall)
Second round: Jared Jordan (45th overall, unsigned)


Players retained:

Quinton Ross (exercised team option)


Players departed:

James Singleton (declined team option, signed in Spain), Jason Hart (signed with Utah), Yaroslav Korolev (initially agreed to re-sign with the team right back at the start of free agency, but hasn't done it yet, and now reports are flying about him signing in Europe instead), Daniel Ewing (waived, signed in Russia), Will Conroy (waived, signed in Italy)



Bobbins:

In amongst all the weird and strange things that have gone on throughout the league during this offseason, it seems to have escaped the attention of most people that the Los Angeles Clippers had one of the most economical and shrewd offseasons out there. After not getting ridiculously lucky and moving up in the lottery, the Clippers ended up drafting a consensus good pick, and also managed to draft a player in the second round who seemingly has trade value before he has even taken the court.

Not stopping there, the Clippers waited for a while as other teams overspent for players, before making their own free agency splashes. Somehow, in Knight and Patterson, they managed to acquire via free agency two players who could very realistically be in the top 8 of the league's best team, and who are fringe starters/quality backups anywhere in the league, all for only a combined price tag of 3 years and roughly $4 million.

That's pretty amazing, really, given that this current NBA climate is one predicated on wildly overpaying for people who aren't worth it, just so that you can get them. But more on that later. (Hint: Orlando.)

And yet it's all for nothing. No matter what they do in terms of bringing people in, the Clippers aren't going to win anything this season, nor in the foreseeable future.

They may have been a mid-to-low seed playoff team, even in the strong Western Conference, had all of the above taken place in conjunction with a run of good luck with injuries. But that's not what has happened: superstar Elton Brand is almost certainly out for the season with a ruptured achilles tendon, and overrated guard Shaun Livingston is also out indefinitely with all manner of bad times going on in his left leg. And by "indefinitely", they really do mean indefinitely. Not the sort of "indefinitely" that seems to be labelled to people who are day to day with back spasms, in which scenario "indefinitely" is basically a byword for "we wouldn't like to say when he'll be back for fear of retribution, but it won't be long". This is the sort of indefinitely that is truly indefinite, where it's far from definite that a return is even possible. He really did carnage up that thing.

Without those two, the Clippers aren't going anywhere. OK, so that's more of an endorsement of Brand than it is Livingston, but the point remains - the Clippers could have been a good team. But now, they aren't.

Indeed, it's only because of the injuries that the Clippers were able to acquire Knight and Patterson in the first place. With Livingston down, the only remaining options at point guard left were the unsuitable Conroy, Ewing and Hart (all since allowed to leave or, in the case of Ewing, actively encouraged), and the aged Sam Cassell, who is entering what is probably his final season before he retires to tend to his colony (Cassell alien jokes are easy, aren't they?). Even if it's not on a very good team - a concept with which he is entirely familiar - this presented an opportunity for Brevin Knight to play good minutes, something that seems to be very dear to him. (Note: Knight signed after Brand's injury had occurred, and it's extent widely publicised. So apparently the playoffs weren't that important to him.) Similarly, Patterson signed after Brand's injury - unable to get a contract that he deemed sufficient from any other team this offseason, Patterson took the next best thing in big minutes and a probable starting spot, filling in for Brand (who's going to stop him starting? Tim Thomas? Paul Davis?)

For once, the Clippers were too competent for their own good.

None of the Clippers's other moves figure to impact the lives of anything or anyone in the world today. They replaced a small guard with shoot-first tendencies (Ewing) with a small guard with shoot-first tendencies (Diaz), and swapped a 26 year old tweener forward with some fairly decent all around skills (Singleton) with a 24 year old tweener forward with some fairly decent all around skills (Powell). And once again, the Clippers will find that they don't have minutes for either of them when at full strength, despite having signed the pair for a combined 6 years. The Powell signing, when combined with the drafting of Thornton and the Patterson signing, pushes their guy-who-can-play-either-forward-spot-but-who-is-probably-better-at-small-forward quotient back up to a healthy four people - we await news on whether Korolev will make this five. Given that they're now out of roster spots, it is doubtful. There isn't even a spot for Jared Jordan, unless he beats out Guillermo Diaz.

And they still have Aaron Williams at backup centre. Hmmm. I think somebody overlooked this bit.


Next season:

Depends. If they keep things as they are with the current roster, this team probably limps to a 30-33 win season - even in spite of not having a power forward that is actually a power forward - and gives it another hearty go next year. Yet if they choose to go the other way and blow the doors off of this thing, then they could be the worst team in the league. It's one of those. It's one more significant injury and a Cassell buyout away from being a certain tank job.

If Elton Brand opts out next offseason - which he might - the Clippers will have max cap room. Corey Maggette also has an opt out, and is perhaps the more likely of the two to do so. Should this happen, that leaves them with the majority of the remaining players under contract being doddering old farts (Knight, Thomas, Cuttino Mobley), and with not much of a youth moment.

Given that they're not going anywhere this year due to injury, and given that they're staring down the barrel of a very unpleasant situation next offseason that is out of their current control.....

.....it's a fair assumption to say that the roster that they will begin this season with, is pretty unlikely to be the one that they end it with.

Now watch as they stand pat and show me up. How spiteful.