Don't know what happened there. Or rather, I do know what happened, and I do know why, and there's not a damn thing I could do about it. Downside of advert-free websites = they occasionally break, and no one tells you. Ho hum.
- Coby Karl began the season with the Idaho Stampede before going to Spain and DKV Joventut Badalona to replace Bracey Wright. Karl averaged 18.6 points, 4.4 rebounds and 5.5 assists for Idaho, and has appeared in all of one game for Badalona, scoring two points in two minutes on 0-2 shooting.
- Former Magic centre Mario Kasun - who I like to consider the forerunner to Marcin Gortat, albeit not as good, because nobody is as good as Marcin Gortat - is signed with Efes Pilsen in Turkey, but has missed most of the season through injury. Returning about three weeks ago, Kasun has so far totalled 25 points and 15 rebounds in two Turkish league games, and a 10 minute 8 point performance in his sole Euroleague game versus Real Madrid.
- Sasha Kaun is with CSKA Moscow, craftily located in Moscow. As is the case with young players in Moscow, Can kaun't get off the bench (see what I did there?), averaging 2.7 points and 2.7 rebounds in 9 Russian league games, and totalling 2 points and 6 rebounds in 4 Euroleague games. Kaun was also drafted in the fifth round of the CBA Draft, but that's not much of a boast, because the CBA draft is the most pointless thing in the world. "Quick, let's draft these players so that we'll hold their rights if they decide to join the CBA!.....Oh no, wait, they got NBA contracts instead. Bugger. If only they knew of all the needlessly misspelt fun that we have here at the Pittsburgh Xplosion."
- Tre Kelley is with Eldan Ashkelon in Israel, forming a lethal midget backcourt with Steve Burtt Jr. Kelley averages 11.3 points and 2.9 assists, as part of a three guard rotation with Burtt and some Israeli guy called Avi Ben Chimol.
- Viktor Khryapa also plays for CSKA Moscow, who lead the Russian superleague comfortably with a 14-0 record. Informal rule for you here: if they're Russian, and their name starts with K, they probably play for CSKA Moscow. On a stacked team, Khryapa averages 9.0 ppg, 8.5 rpg, 2.3 apg, 1.9 spg and 0.8 bpg in the Russian league, numbers which drop to 6.8 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 1.4 apg, 1.3 spg and 0.9 bpg in the Euroleague.
- Kerry Kittles's Wikipedia page says that he is working for the Nets as a part time scout. I can't find anything that validates this, but nor can I be bothered to check beyond page 1 of the Google results page. Speaking of Kerry Kittles, here's a fun fact about giraffes: male giraffes swill the piss of female giraffes around their mouths to detect whether she's ready for some good old fashioned giraffe loving or not. Fun fact. (Oh, and apparently, between 40 and 95% of giraffes have had a homosexual experience. That's a rather vague estimate, but in any case, it's a ratehr high number.)
- Petteri Koponen is strangely not playing a lot. For Fortezza Bologna, Koponen averages only 2.3 points, 0.9 assists and 1.3 steals in Italian league play, rising to 7.1 points, 1.5 assists and 1.1 steals in EuroChallenge play.
- Guess where Yaroslav Korolev plays. Go on, guess. Remember my informal rule above. Did you guess CSKA Moscow? If so, you were duped; Korolev actually plays for CSKA's cross town rivals, Dynamo Moscow. Or rather, he doesn't play. Korolev has totalled 4 points and 10 rebounds in seven Russian league games, and 5 points and 1 rebound in two Eurocup games, uimpressive numbers all around. He has also spent some time with the Dynamo under-23 team this season, in a bid to make him better. Korolev is still only 21, so there is time yet for him not to suck, but as time goes on, the fact that the Clippers drafted him at number 12 when he was only 18 years of age continues to look worse and worse. It's particularly bad when you consider that Danny Granger (who plays the same position as Korolev, yet who is nwo fifth in the NBA in scoring) was picked 17th in the same draft. Whoops.
- Kevin Kruger started the year with Lukoil Akademik in Bulgaria, but left the team in December, as did Kenny Adeleke. Kruger averaged 12.0 points and 7.5 assists in two Bulgarian league games, and 13.0 points and 2.0 assists in two Eurocup games. He was later replaced by Willie Deane.
- Ibrahim Kutluay - who ranks pretty highly on Rick Sund's all time mistakes list - just turned 35, and is now playing in the Turkish second division with ITU Istanbul. If you want to know what he averages for some strange reason, work this out yourself. I don't really know why Ibrahim Kutluay ever joined the NBA in the first place, but I do know that he's never joining it again. This is a bold statement, I know, but that's the kind of man that I am.
- Finally tonight, Christian Laettner now part-owns the operating rights to Major League Soccer team, D.C. United, but the website for his real estate company Blue Devil Ventures no longer works. This is a shame, because you could email Christian directly from it back in the day. Oh well.
- Previously, I had theorised immaturely that Mario Kasun had left Barcelona after a fight with Andre Barrett. This is because I'm not funny. The actual reason, though, was because Kasun had agreed a deal with Efes Pilsen in Turkey, and therefore he and Barcelona terminated the remainder of his contract by mutual consent. ShamSports.com - the home of childish banter that you could definitely do without.
- Daniel Ewing is going to Poland, for a team named Asseco Prokom. You might not have heard of Prokom, despite their chart topping single "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" from a few decades ago, but you might have heard of some of Ewing's new team mates. Ronnie Burrell, Koko Archibong and David Logan? Anybody? Ch'yeah, you've heard. You don't forget names like Koko Archibong and David Logan in a hurry, let me tell you.
- Yuta Tabuse has decided to enhance his NBA dream by leaving America. After three years of barely playing in the D-League, Tabuse has gone home to Japan, to play for a team by the wonderful name of Tochigi Brex. Tabuse will be the highest paid player in Japan, and his contract contains an NBA escape clause, for he believes this move to be an important step in his long-awaited return to the NBA.
This decision might surprise some people, but there is one thing I can say for certain: I have not changed my mind on taking on the challenge of playing in the NBA,"
Yeah. Good luck with that.
- Universitet Surgut signed both Lionel Chalmers and Akin Akingbala, thereby earning themselves some coverage on this, the NBA's most scrub focused website whose URL begins with an S. So here's some Universitet Surgut information, because they earned it:
1 - They're a Russian team. 2 - Kyle Davis used to play for them. 3 - They sucked last year.
That's all I've got.
- Miami signed Jamaal Magloire, apparently blissfully unaware of how staggeringly crap Jamaal was last season.
- Cleveland signed Lorenzen Wright, also apparently blissfully unaware of how staggeringly crap Lorenzen was last season. Speaking of, I've been known to defend former Hawks General Manager Billy Knight in the past, but let's remind ourselves of something - in the summer of 2006, Knight was armed with maximum cap room. He needed a centre and a point guard. He signed Lorenzen Wright and Speedy Claxton. He signed them for a combined six years and $31.14 million. Since then, the two players have combined to play 142 out of a possible 328 games, with combined totals of 394 points on 461 shots, along with 361 fouls. Wright has long since left the team, after one and a half shocking seasons of play led to him being mere salary filler in the Mike Bibby trade. Claxton's been even less helpful, playing a dire first half of his first season, then missing the next year and a half due to injury. In the unlikely event that he returns this year, he'll be fourth on the Hawks depth chart, all while earning over $11 million guaranteed over the next two seasons.
Defend that if you can. Hint - you can't.
- Cleveland also lost a player, sort of, after reserve guard Billy Thomas agreed to sign with a Greek team named Kavala/Panorama. However, the Cavaliers haven't actually waived Thomas at any point, and he remains under contract to them for next year, albeit an unguaranteed minimum salary. This remains true even though the Panoramic news broke a few days before I write you this post. It's unlikely that Cleveland would stiff Kavala over this and refuse to cut him, given that it's only Billy bloody Thomas and that they clearly gave him permission to get other offers, but it would be funny if they did. Let's make it happen.
- Herbert Hill signed with Le Mans a hundred million years ago, but his contract has since been terminated, because Hill still hasn't recovered from the knee surgery that caused him to miss all of last year. A knee injury that prevents him from playing basketball, clearly. But not one that prevents him from driving. Hill was replaced in Le Mans by J.P. Batista, the forward Gonzaga forward once told by Dwayne Bruce that he wasn't cut out for professional wrestling.
- James Thomas has been loaned from Upim Bologna to Erdemir in Turkey. For those American fans unaware of the concept of loaning a player, it's exactly what it sounds like.
- And finally, some amateurism. Somehow, somewhere, I had some news on Trey Johnson. He was going to sign somewhere, and I forgot to write down where it was. So that was clever of me. However, it may work out for the best anyway, because since this booboo occurred, it's been reported that Johnson will go to training camp with the Phoenix Suns, alongside former Heat guard Robert Hite and some tall white guy.
This edition of our fun and voluptuous Summer Signings is highlighted by the fact that there's almost no one in it that you've ever heard of. If all the players in this list get into 80 NBA games combined next season, I will be shocked. In fact, I'll be justifiably flummoxed if even three of them make a roster. It's a sparse'un this time. Onward.
- Casey Jacobsen has signed with ALBA Berlin in Germany. In a previous blog post, I asked semi-mockingly for someone to do some research into which players have been to the German league and still been able to come back to the NBA. Two people mentioned Jacobsen, who was the German league finals NBA in 2007 before spending last season on the bench for the Memphis Grizzlies. This move completes the Grizzly German sandwich (giggidy), but it doesn't really undermine my insinuation that the German league is a bit shit, does it? Casey Jacobsen is all right, but a fringe NBA player. In between these two German stints, he scored 107 points on 115 shots in the NBA, as his jumpshot decided to take the year off. And now he's gone back to Germany where he'll probably star once again and become a champion of the serfs. What does this say about the German league? Basically nothing more than what I've already implied - it's a bit weak.
By the way, one of the two people who told me about C-Jake was an agent, who shall remain nameless. In Googling to see whether this nameless man is, or has even been, Casey Jacsobsen's agent, I found this search result:
"casey jacobsen girlfriend ipmessage lolita masturbation free pregnant women having sex"
So, something for everyone there.
- In a bizarre move, the likes of which have never previously been seen as interesting, the Suns and the Rockets swapped young guards D.J. Strawberry and Sean Singletary. This move is interesting (if you're a nerd) because it's a move that could save both teams money. The Rockets are trying to save money to be able to re-sign Carl Landry and Dikembe Mutombo without paying the lxury tax too much, if at all, and the Suns are trying to save money because they're the Suns. So in this deal, they may have both found what they were looking for. With the minimum of 13 players under contract once Goran Dragic officially signs his deal, the Suns depth chart is pretty much done, and Strawberry figured to be the last man on it again. However, as a second year player, he was to earn the minimum of $711,517, whereas a rookie on the minumum would earn only $442,114. Therefore, swapping Strawberry and Singletary saves the Suns the difference between those two sums ($269,403), doubled for tax ($538,806), and yet they lose nothing on the court, because neither player is going to take it. (Note: Singletary's salary is only partially guaranteed, contrary to what it says elsewhere on this webshite, but he'll make the team anyway, because if he doesn't, they'll have to pay someone else as well.) The Rockets meanwhile take on the more expensive player, but Strawberry's contract is not guaranteed, and so they save the whole of Singletary's salary, while also losing nothing on the court. It's all very interesting stuff if you're the kind of person that will forego a social life and regular sex in order to reinvest that time into calculating Greg Buckner's trade kicker.
(Note: If the Rockets keep Strawberry, then forget I said anything.)
- Joe Crawford has signed with the Lakers for training camp where he can once again do what he did in summer league and outplay Coby Karl. While challenging Tim Duncan to a fight.
- Kaniel Dickens has signed with Napoli, in Italy. See how obsure the list is this time around? Kaniel Dickens represents one of the bigger name players on it. At least he actually played in the NBA last year. That's more than what this next fella did.
- Mario Kasun and Barcelona have mutually agreed to terminate his contract. I don't know why, but we can speculate wildly. Maybe he doesn't think he was being paid enough. Maybe he wasn't getting enough minutes, in his own opinion. Or maybe he had a fight with Andre Barrett. Actually, yeah, it's that.
- Orien Greene has signed for MyGuide Amsterdam. And, if anyone out there should need a guide to Amsterdam....start with the cafes, follow the stench of sex, and work backwards. Soon enough you'll find a 70 year old woman seated in a shop's front window dressed in nothing but stockings and a suspender belt, knitting. As national identities go, it certainly pisses our one of fish and chips, Amy Winehouse, an arbitrary powerless monarchy and drizzle.
- Rod Benson has signed with SLUC Nancy in France. I don't know what the SLUC stands for, but if you change the last letter slightly and put it all in lower case while still suffixed with "Nancy", then it makes for quite a realistic soubriquet for the aforementioned 70 year old woman seated in a shop's front window dressed in nothing but stockings and a suspender belt, knitting.
- Sean Marks has signed for the New Orleans Hornets. How the hell does he do it? He's not a bad player by any means, but...well, he's never really done anything, has he? And yet he's now about to start the ninth year of his NBA career. 8 years, 127 games, 391 points, and still more offers of work. Just doesn't make sense. But fair play to him nonetheless.
- Memphis signed Hamed Haddadi, the only player in the Olympics to average a double double. Another fine move by a fine organisation.
- The trail blazing Portland Trail Blazers signed their 15th, 16th and 17th men in Luke Jackson, Steven Hill and Jamaal Tatum, albeit not necessarily in that order. I have already rambled about Jackson, and have nothing to say about the other two, so that's the end of that torrent of NBA insight. Quick! We're near the end!
- And finally, former Clippers guard and ABA journeyman Fred Vinson has returned to the Clippers as an assistant coach. After reading about this news, I faffed about for a while, and then went to bed. Yet clearly the news had a lasting effect on me, because I then proceeded to dream about Fred Vinson. I dreamt that me, Fred Vinson and Fred Vinson's wife, Mrs Fred Vinson (I don't even know if she exists) were out to dinner in a restaurant. The three of us were huddled around a table designed only for two. I had a steak diane, Mrs Fred Vinson had soup, and Fred Vinson had a largely undistinguished plate of brown. There was laughter, merriment, and much guffawery. I can't remember a single topic of conversation, but dammit, it doesn't matter. The important thing is that I dreamt that I was out to dinner with Fred Vinson.
Arthur Johnson is playing for Pepsi Caserta in Italy's second divison, alongside Guillermo Diaz and perennial also-ran Randolph Childress. Johnson averages 13.9 points and 6.5 rebounds a game.
Trey Johnson is averaging 12.3 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.1 assists in only 27 minutes a game for the Bakersfield Jam of the D-League.
Bobby Jones has tied an NBA record this season, after playing for 5 different NBA teams - Denver, Memphis, San Antonio, Miami and Houston. Jones was also on the Sixers roster before the season, but he was traded as a part of the Reggie Evans/Steven Hunter deal that nobody was interested in. He has just today returned to the Denver Nuggets, obviously wanting to settle down now.
Dahntay Jones played well for the Kings earlier this season, before being waived to accomodate the players acquired from Atlanta as a part of the Mike Bibby trade. One of those players - Tyronn Lue - was subsequently waived, but still the Kings didn't bring Dahntay back, nor Justin Williams, the other guy waived concurrent to the trade. As a result, Jones is stuck with plying his trade down in the D-League, where he shits on the league with a 24.4 points per game average.
Mark Jones - a former Magic guard, so obscure in his formerness that only the truly hardcore will remember him - has not played professionally for two years, and I have absolutely nothing further to say about him. That's how obscure he is. It'd be quite the mysterious and evocative act if it wasn't so irrelevant to everyone and everything.
Alvin Jones, who this summer became the ultimate random "oh shit yeah, I remember him!" signing of any training camp ever when he signed with Denver for three whole days, is playing for a Turkish team that not even people in Turkey have heard of - Mutlu Aku Selcuk Universitesi Konya. It is here that Jones puts up the other-worldly numbers of 4 total BL's and no ASS. Make your own assumptions as to what those abbreviations form his team's website represent. Jones is also, I shit ye not, a Luxembourgian passport holder, and this is the kind of information that I NEED to bring the world. (Question: which former Net is now a member of the Qatarian national team? We'll find out, after these messages. And about 30 more blog posts.)
Jumaine Jones is averaging 18.2 points and 8.6 rebounds for Napoli in Italy, alongside another former Net, Jamel Thomas. Speaking of Jamel Thomas, Jamel Thomas is Stephon Marbury's cousin. And Jamel Thomas is writing a book. And Jamel Thomas isn't nice about Marbury on this book, or so he implies in a Youtube video that he made. In this video, Jamel Thomas wears sunglasses indoors, complimented by a pink tank top, ranting somewhat incoherently (the room has ropey acoustics) about how angry he is about Marbury-related things, doing so with a loosely enforced rhyme scheme in place. In the unlikely event that you haven't seen this video, given that every NBA blog in the world seems to have carried it recently, here it is:
I'm buying that, despite my almost-total lack of interest in the subject matter. You've sold me, Jamel Thomas. By the way, Jamal has two A's in it.
Jared Jordan is playing for Lietuvos in Lithuania, alongside (or rather, behind) the mighty Hollis Price. Jordan averages a mere 6.1 points and 4.0 assists for the team. Nevertheless, I remain steadfast in my opinion that this player that I have never seen play is destined for good things, because people who I trust rather well keep telling me this. And frankly, that's all that I need. It's the fundamental principle that this website was based on. Maybe I shouldn't have just said that.
Federico Kammerichs averages only 7.1 points and 5.9 rebounds for Murcia in Spain. The old unwritten rule which states that dual German/Argentinian nationality players with massive beards drafted in the second round of the NBA draft never go on to international basketball superstardom, claims another victim. Maybe one day, we'll break this unholy cycle of woe.
Sergei Karaulov - one of those tall young European second round draft choices that the Spurs make, that you've never heard of, yet you are convinced that they could one day start on a championship winning Spurs team purely because te Spurs drafted them - will never start on a Spurs championship team. Because he's crap. Karaulov, 26 tomorrow, averages only 3.2 points and 2.1 rebounds for Lokomotiv Rostov in the Russian Superleague. Thus, it's official - the Spurs cocked one up. And when we get to Viktor Sanikidze, you'll learn how they cocked two up.
Mario Kasun had his restricted free agency renounced by Orlando when they renounced everybody except Fran Vazquez to open up the room to sign Rashard Lewis to as much as they physically could, for no freaking reason whatsoever. As a result, Kasun is now fully detatched from the NBA, and now we have something else to blame Rashard Lewis for. (Let's overlook for a minute the fact that Kasun doesn't want to play in the NBA.) Kasun, now 28, averages 7.7 points and 3.3 rebounds per game for Barcelona, and if I could read Spanish I'd be able to tell you if he has stopped his prolific fouling or not. But I'd wager not. (Vazquez, coincidentally, is his teammate.)
Viktor Khryapa was bought out by the Bulls just before the trade deadline so that he could return to the Motherland to resurrect his career. It hasn't really worked out yet, as Khryapa averages only 10.8 points and 6.4 rebounds for CSKA Moscow, which isn't terrific. Khryapa's team mate in Moscow is Trajan Langdon, who tears things up with an 11.8ppg scoring average, which is highly terrific. I may have an agenda here, but don't tell anyone.
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.
