Mengke Bateer Is A Coconut Wielding Homicidal Badass
Everyone remembers their first Mengke Bateer experience. Mine came in the 2000 Olympics. In a game against the USA in which Yao Ming beasted from three point range (true story), and in which Wang Zhizhi picked up four first half fouls, Mengke came in and hit some mid range jumpshots, in that way that he does. It was kind of fun, if ultimately kind of forgettable. (Although it can't have been that forgettable if I was able to remember it just now. Hmmm. Never mind then.)
Bateer went on to enjoy a few years in the NBA. He started out as a training camp signee of the Denver Nuggets in 2002, yet was waived before the season started. He thus went back to China and averaged 24.3 points and 14.2 rebounds per game for Beijing, before returning to the Nuggets in February 2002 to see out the season with them. Bateer played in 27 games for that God awful Nuggets team and even squeezed out 10 starts, averaging 5.1 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.5 fouls in 15 minutes per game. You'll no doubt have noticed that that's a lot of fouls.
That offseason, Bateer - who had been signed through 2003 - was a throw-in by Denver in the trade with Detroit that saw him, Don Reid and a first round pick swapped for Rodney White. That pick was later traded to Atlanta (who used it on Josh Smith) as the centrepiece of the Rasheed Wallace deal; in a way, therefore, Mengke Bateer was an integral part of building the 2003-04 NBA champion Detroit Pistons. An underrated bad Kiki Vanderweghe trade, that one. (It was perhaps overshadowed by the fact that it came in the same offseason as the drafting of Nikoloz Tskitishvili, a move you may have heard about.)
Nevertheless, despite how much Bateer had brought to the franchise, Detroit moved him on without him playing a game for them. He was traded to San Antonio just after camp opened in exchange for a 2003 second round draft pick, one which the Pistons then used on Andreas Glyniadakis. Bateer spent the whole year with the Spurs, but played only 46 minutes in 12 games, racking up another 14 fouls in that time and posting a PER of -8.4. His most significant contribution to that season was coming in and shooting two free throws in a game as an injury replacement, selected by whoever the opposing team was, presumably after they took one look at him and assumed he was terrible at foul shots (which he isn't; far from it, in fact). Bateer obliged them and missed them both. They were his only foul shots all season.
Despite it all, Bateer won an NBA championship ring that season, the first Chinese player to ever do so. The only other one to have done has been Sun Yue. It's hard to say who was more important to their teams respective titles, but the stats give the edge to Mengke; his -8.4 PER for the Spurs in 2003 practically destroys Yue's -8.6 PER for the Lakers in 2009. Represent.
The Spurs let Bateer go that offseason, even though he'd sort of helped them win a title. At that point came Toronto, who signed him to a two year minimum salary contract, clearly identifying a player who had now been an integral part of two NBA championship teams (even though this was still 2003 and one of them hadn't happened yet). But Mengke played in only 7 games for the Raptors - totalling 40 minutes and 7 fouls - before being moved on again when he was traded to Orlando for Robert Archibald. Toronto also gave up the rights to Remon Van De Hare in that deal, as well as the right to swap 2005 second round picks, a right which was exercised when Orlando moved up from 41st (Roko Ukic) to 38th (Travis Diener). You have to love deals like that, and not just because it has a hairy chested Scotsman in it.
Orlando waived Bateer almost immediately after trading for him, and he never played in the NBA again. Bateer saw out that season in the D-League, went to training camp in 2004 with the Knicks and in 2005 with the Cavaliers, but he never again saw an NBA court. This is mainly because he never got any faster, and thus never stopped fouling. His NBA career ended with totals of 46 games, 494 minutes, 156 points, 114 rebounds and 118 fouls; for per-36 fans, that's 11.4/8.3/8.6. Almost a triple double. Except with fouls.
Bateer has been been back in China ever since, averaging 13.8 points, 9.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 3.0 fouls this season for Xinjiang. Recent posts on this website about Mengke Bateer have featured this picture of him;
That is Bateer dressed as a bloody enormous monk, not because of some sexual fetish of his, but because of his side career as an actor. And that's another true story.
In addition to continuing his basketball career, Bateer has also begun a move towards whatever the Hong Kong equivalent of Hollywood is called. He first appeared in a film called "The Blue Xanadu" back in 2005, and the above monk photo comes from a film called "Bodyguards And Assassins."
Body & Ass is reputedly one of the most eagerly anticipated and expensive films to come out of Hong Kong cinema in a generation, with a hype fuelled in no small part by repeated delays in its release. The trailer certainly makes it look as slick as a baby's arse, and better still, Bateer's part is no small cameo. In the film, he plays an outcast monk (obviously), going by the slightly awesome of Wang Fuming, who moonlights as a tofu vendor. There are not enough films these days written about 6'11 monk salesmen, but Bateer pulls the part off with remarkable aplomb, as you can see in this clip where he kills dudes with coconuts and proves to be nigh-on impossible to kill.
Apparently being stabbed 150 times by a swarth of hate-driving stampeding hitmen armed with stabby things is not a certain death in this alternate reality. Not compared to, say, a coconut in the face. Nevertheless, despite the artistic license taken with the realism in the action scenes, the film does look kind of awesome. And any help as to what the caption above Bateer's strewn corpse says would be most welcome.
Bateer is set to appear in another film, Arrival of Fortune God, which has finished filming and which is due to be released later this year. A quick Google reveals no English language information about the film, or about Mengke's role within it, but it does reveal this picture;
I was going to write a separate post to describe ways that the Hornets can avoid the luxury tax without trading away David West or anyone important, but I've decided that I can't be bothered. Here's a shorthand version:
1) On trade deadline day, trade Hilton Armstrong and $1.1 million in cash ($922,748 to cover his remaining salary, the rest as an incentive) to the Clippers in exchange for changing the protection on their 2016 second rounder - already owed to the Hornets from the Rasual Butler deal - from top 55 to top 50. The Clippers gain a free player who may or may not see the court, whilst more importantly earning some cash for their troubles and giving up quite literally the least significant thing imaginable. Meanwhile, the Hornets dump the $2.8 million salary of a player that managed to lose an unloseable backup centre spot to Darius Songaila. That can't ever be a bad loss.
2) Also on trade deadline day, trade Ike Diogu and $400,000 to the Hawks for the rights to Alain Digbeu. $271,928 of that covers Diogu's remaining salary; the rest is the Hawks incentive to use an inactive list spot on a player that's out for the season. And all they lose is a 34 year old Frenchman. If not the Hawks, Diogu could also be sent to the Grizzlies, Kings, Pistons or Sixers. Whichever.
Trading two surplus players and $1.5 million will save them about $9 million, once tax payments are substituted and rebates added. And you can do so without moving one of your only good players or taking on future salary. If those two deals happen, or ones very similar to them, then expect misplaced bravado.
Failing that, someone competitive will think too much of James Posey, just like the Hornets once did themselves. Ask Dallas. Even if they won't give you Drew Gooden's unguaranteed deal, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot coming between a Shawne Williams and Kris Humphries package. The Lakers might want to know, too, at which point your foundation for a deal is Adam Morrison. Maybe San Antonio bites, using some of their expirings. Either way, you get the idea; the tax is highly dodgeable without giving away one of the only three good veterans to do it. Devin Brown's unnecessary trade kicker need not be a sticking point.
Banic is a Croatian big man playing in Spain. He scores really really ridiculously efficiently, has great touch around the basket, and can hit a jumpshot, yet is often out of shape, is a bad rebounder, is not physical and is a poor defensive player. But even though I just made him sound like it, Banic is not really like Eddy Curry. Curry is big, athletic and more awkward than your grandparent's sex life. Whereas Banic is short, grounded and smoother than a baby's arse.
Playing for Bilbao, Baby Arse is averaging 27.5 minutes, 17.5 points, 4.3 rebounds and 72% shooting in the Eurocup, and 26.0 minutes, 14.3 points, 5.0 rebounds and 67% shooting in the ACB. He doesn't just do it on layups, either.
Banks spent last season in Turkey, signed with Darussafaka. He averaged 13.0 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.0 assists, which are good all-around numbers, but he also shot 21% from three point range. This wouldn't have been too bad had three pointers not accounted for a third of all his shot attempts.
This season, Banks has not played anywhere. He signed in Jordan a couple of weeks ago to play with a team called Zain, who seem to be pursuing lots of former NBA talents this year (more on that later). However, Banks was released soon afterwards as he needed another month to recover from an injury. I don't know what injury.
Nothing seems to have materialised about Banks' chances of playing for the British national team. Banks' father was born in England and still lives there, which entitles him to apply for a British passport, something which he expressed an interest in doing 18 months ago. However, as far as I can tell, he either still hasn't done it, or it didn't work out. It would be great if it did.
Barac, whose rights are owned by the Pacers, is playing for Caja Laboral in Spain's ACB. They're the team that used to be known as Tau Ceramica. Barac tends to get a wriggle on in the ACB; in only 11.8 minutes a game, he averages 7.9 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.5 fouls per game, slowing to a more sedate 5.6 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.1 fousl in 14.8 minutes per game in the Euroleague. The number of minutes played isn't ideal, but when you've got Tiago Splitter in front of you, it makes sense.
Stanko Barac's nickaname should be Spanky. Stanko "Spanky" Barac. I like that. Admittedly I like Spanky as a nickname for pretty much everyone - Pau "Spanky" Gasol and Rajon "Spanky" Rondo in particular seem to work will - yet it works particularly well with Barac. In unrelated news, I feel this website is more desirable when it's a worldwide basketball news aggregator and a not a crap comedy vehicle.
Barber, who turns 30 in 10 days time (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!), is playing in Mexico. For the Libertadores de Queretaro (which translates as "the Liberators of Queretaro," I think), Barber averages 14.8 points and 2.7 assists. He takes nine three pointers a game and hits only 29% of them. Sounds like a bad idea.
The general rule is that we don't cover 30 year old 5'10 shoot-first journeyman point guards from the Southland Conference. But Steven Barber somehow appeared on the Knicks training camp roster of 2005. This has obligated me to follow him ever since. But it's a one-off thing.
Barlett is signed in Cyprus with a team called Achilleas Kaimakliou. This means there are no statistics for him, because there aren't any from Cyprus that I can find. I also don't really know anything about Omar Barlett, which kind of craps on any possible trivia ideas. So here's his back story instead.
Barlett went to college at Jacksonville State, making him the only Jacksonville State player that you've ever heard of. He transferred there from junior college, and averaged 15/7 in his senior season. After graduating, he spent two years in Portugal, and three years in Poland, before inexplicably winding up on the Heat's 2008 training camp roster. Inevitably, Barlett did not make the team, and he went back to Poland, where last year he averaged only 5 points and 4 rebounds. So an NBA redux does not look likely.
Rhode Island product Baron took his one major skill - jumpshooting - and brought it to a Turkish audience. Baron is Mersin's designated American shooter this season, taking over from Chris Lofton. That's not an easy thing to do, because Lofton was awesome in that role last year, averaging 20.2 points per game and including both 47 and 61 point outings (shooting a combined 30-42 from three point range in those two games). However, Baron has been pretty damn good at it himself, averaging 18.8 points and 3.3 rebounds per game in the Turkish league. Baron is shooting 48% from three point range while taking ten and a half of them a game, and while he's had no massive Lofton-like explosions (with a season high of only 29), he has shot consistently well. He always does. He probably always will.
Barrett was back in the NBA this autumn when he joined the Cleveland Cavaliers for training camp. He then lost the role of inactive list ballhandler to Coby Karl, and would have lost it to Russell Robinson as well, God willing. After being released from there, Barrett has not signed elsewhere. It was rumoured that he might go to Napoli in Italy, but.......well, that's not happening any more. More on that Napoli story later.
Does Americans call Autumn "the fall" because of the way "the" leaves "fall" from the trees? If so, oh.
Barron is in the D-League, waiting for an NBA call-up. He almost got one from the Blazers the other day, and will probably be heard from again at some point. For the Iowa Energy, Barron is averaging 15.1 points and 10.3 rebounds in only 32 minutes per game, with particularly good rebounding numbers for a man who's always been a bit average at that.
His rebounding numbers may be helped a bit by the Energy's lack of size, as, despite their team being pretty stacked, their second biggest player is perimeter orientated Cartier Martin. The starting point guard, Curtis Stinson, is second on the team in rebounds with 6.1 a game. Nevertheless, the Energy also have a rebounding differential of +3, so it's not a Biedrins-like situation. Barron is shooting only .434% from the field, and was suspended this week for hitting Jared Reiner in the face, but the NBA can probably overlook that second indiscretion.
Jon Barry retired after the 2006 season. He now works as a commentator for ESPN.
The last time I heard Jon Barry commentate was during the Hawks' blowout of the Bulls about a month ago. Barry tried to convince the audience that Lou Wolding had not realised his superstar potential, while simultaneously highlighting his inability to take anybody off the dribble. Apparently the dislogic between the two things did not hit home. He was also convinced that the reason for the Bulls struggles is a lack of post up offense, seemingly because someone told him this three years ago. "You'll never get anywhere as a jumpshooting team," says former jumpshooting specialist Jon Barry, as Joe Johnson stretches the lead to 32 with a three point jumpshot. Ho hum.
(For the record, you can get absolutely everywhere as a jumpshooting team. You just need to a) be good at jumpshooting, and b) play good defense. The Bulls are only point B intermittently, and they're woefully short on point A. So there's your real problems, Jon Barry.)
Brent, like Jon, is retired. Brent, like Jon, is now a media personality. Brent, unlike Jon, works for NBA TV. Brent, unlike Jon, is someone I can tolerate.
Basden played last year in Turkey for Mersin. He didn't play especially well, however, averaging 8.1 points, 4.7 points, 2.1 assists and 2.6 steals per game. The all around numbers are pretty good, but Basden shot only 24% from three point range, taking three threes a game. He took 174 two pointers, 84 three pointers and 56 foul shots, and ended up totalling 244 points on 258 shots. That's not good.
This year, he waited until December before joining the D-League, acquired by the Austin Toros. The result have been much the sane, however; through three games, Basden has averaged 8.0 points, 4.3 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.3 steals, but is shooting only 35% from the field, with 24 points on 26 shots. That's pretty much how he rolls. He has his uses defensively, but offensively, he doesn't have very many at all.
There's also an Eddie Basden playing for the Washington Madness in the Eastern Basketball Alliance. It's not the same one.
Baston's NBA redux over the last three years saw him not play a whole lot, but he did do quite well in the time that he did get. Last season was his worst season, yet even Baston's worst season was pretty good; he averaged 2.5 points and 2 rebounds in 8 minutes per game, and his PER was 12.3. His career PER is 14.4, too, which makes you wonder why he's only played 831 NBA minutes in three and a bit seasons.
Baston went to camp with the Pistons, but did not make the team. The Pistons decided they wanted both Chucky Atkins and an empty roster spot more than both him and Deron Washington, regardless of how many early season injuries they had. The Pistons are about $11 million short of the luxury tax, have a roster spot open, have had many injuries and need more depth, yet they won't actually sign anyone to help. They even waived Washington when keeping him cost them nothing until tomorrow. I just.......don't see the logic.
After being waived by the Pistons, Baston has not signed elsewhere, although there's rumours of a possible move to Aris in Greece.
Finally, our first of many Chinese Basketball Association updates.
For the most part, the astronomical statistics put up in the CBA are by the import players, almost always American (and almost always black; of the 33 CBA imports this year, only one, Frans Steyn, is white.) The Chinese players don't really do much; most of them can't compete in the athletic and physical brand of NBA-style ball that the CBA is trying to recreate. Chinese players largely dominate the point guard spot, but when it comes to scoring and rebounding, they're almost all overmatched physically.
Bateer is one of the few exceptions; he ranks as one of the few native players that can compete with the import's statistical domination. Last year for Xinjiang, Bateer averaged 15.5 points, 10.2 rebounds and 4.1 assists; this year, he's averaging 41.2 minutes, 9.8 points, 11.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists. Three pointers make up half the shots he takes, and he's not shooting them well so far this year (24%), but those passing numbers are pretty awesome. Just this very night, Bateer did a Kidd and totalled 7 points, 9 rebounds and 9 assists. And that's while weighing 300lbs. Bateer was never an NBA talent because he was so damn slow, but he was pretty cool.
Mengke Bateer fact: despite me calling him a native right there, Bateer kind of isn't. He's actually an ethnic Mongol, which is why his name doesn't play by the Chinese rules of naming. This is also why you'll sometimes see Sun Yue referred to as the first Chinese player to win a championship, even though Mengke was a member of the 2003 Spurs.
(Mongolia is a country. It rests atop China like a contented Spaniel. Although "contented" might be the wrong word there, considering. Maybe use "contentious.")
Another Mengke Bateer fact; Mengke Bateer has used his immense size to launch a second career in the film industry. The following Youtube clip is a trailer for a film called "Bodyguards and Assassins," a huge budget film starring many big time Chinese and Hong Kongish stars. In it, Bateer plays a bloody enormous monk.
And here he is in character.
Now that's a big frigging monk.
As always, if you want to keep tracks of the transaction of these players without having to wait until every January, use the transaction indexes for all three of the NBA, the D-League and the world at large. Every relevant transaction is in there. Even the Taiwanese ones.
- Malick Badiane was an exciting thing for Houston Rockets fans to care about for a few years. They could pretend that his underwhelming numbers in less than stellar European leagues were not as important as the idea of having a 7 foot young, athletic, defensive minded centre, who could grow into some weird yet perfect merger of Kevin Garnett and Dikembe Mutombo. But they slowly stopped caring after it emerged that Badiane wasn't getting anywhere. Badiane's rights were then meekly thrown into the unimportant Mike James/Bobby Jackson swap of last season (see here as to why this was), and from then on it was Memphis fans who had someone to not care about. Badiane then accepted Memphis' tender offer to come to training camp this summer - whether they wanted this or not is another matter - but unsurprisingly didn't make the team. He subsequently signed in China, but left before playing a game, and is now unemployed, probably boozing it up with Rafael Araujo or something. (I have this idea in my head that all currently unsigned basketball players constantly hang out together. It's not true, but it's a fun image anyway.)
- Dalibor Bagaric had reputedly signed a guaranteed contract with the Atlanta Hawks this summer, as Hawks GM Rick Sund once again pursued a player he nearly signed when Sund was with Seattle. But this didn't happen, as evidenced by the fact that it didn't happen. Instead, Bagaric went back to Fortitudo Bologna, where he averaged a mere 2 points and 2 rebounds in two games in October. Now, I can't speak Italian or Spanish, so I can't tell if he's still there and injured/out of favour, or if he left ages ago, but at the very least I can tell you that he is being pursued by CAI Zaragoza. As is Bruno Sundov. As is Ratko Varda. As is everybody, really.
- Kyle Bailey is back in Germany, where he's been since not making the San Antonio Spurs roster back in 2006. He averages 15.2 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.6 assists for Goettingen. Speaking of Kyle Bailey, can somebody please explain to me how he was able to spend 5 seasons at Santa Clara? Genuinely don't know how this works. I don't "do" college.
- It's all gone south for Vin Baker. After randomly spending part of November 2006 on the roster of the Minnesota Timberwolves - before being waived without playing a game - Baker has only been in the news for the wrong reasons. In June 2007, Baker was arrested for drink driving, a particularly bad situation to be in when you're a recovering alcoholic, as Vin is. (Baker pled guilty to a lesser charge of reckless driving Then it emerged that his seafood restaurant had closed down, with apparent debts of $900,000, and the embarassing news that Baker's parents had invested $400,000 into the unsuccessful venture. Worse still, in June 2008, Baker's home was also foreclosed. And then last month, Baker tried a basketball comeback in China, but his trial with the Liaoning Panpan Hunters ended after two days due to Baker's poor conditioning. They say that no news is good news, and no news about Vin Baker would be good right now.
- Sean Banks was one of the better players in the D-League last season, and he currently averages 11.5 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.0 assists for Darussafaka Istanbul in Turkey. Aged only 23 still, Banks had the time and the talent to make the NBA again one day.
- Stanko Barac is in the second year of a five year contract with Tau Ceramica in Spain. Barac averages 3.4 points and 3.5 rebounds on a stacked team, but we'll grant him extenuating circumstances seeing as he was also recently elected as the first black President of the United States of America. It's nice to have a trade to fall back on, though.
- Steven Barber was out of basketball all of last year, before last month making a dynamic return to the CBA with the Albany Patroons. I have no idea what his averages are. I don't really care, either.
- Omar Barlett signed two days ago with Anwil Wloclawek in Poland. I bring thee only the best, most important news.
- Andre Barrett landed a gig with Barcelona this season, which is no mean feat. Backing up Juan Carlos Navarro, Barrett averages 3.4 points and 1.1 assists, which is slightly less of a no mean feat. If that makes sense.
- Earl Barron signed with Fortitudo Bologna (Dalibor's team) to start the season, but was quickly injured and released. He's currently unsigned, and no doubt attending weekly salsa dancing classes with Araujo and Badiane.
- Jon Barry is now a crappy ESPN analyst. You knew that already, though, so instead I shall take this opportunity to list all the players that appeared (however briefly) on the 2005/06 Houston Rockets roster.
How crap is that lineup? That lineup is crap. That's how crap that lineup is. Of that list, only McGrady, Yao, Head, Graham, Bogans, Alston, Mutombo, Swift and Bowen remain in the NBA, and only five of them ever get off the bench. The previous season, saw similar retreads such as Clarence Weatherspoon, Tyronn Lue, Scott Padgett, Vin Baker, Charlie Ward, Maurice Taylor, Mike James, Bob Sura, Jim Jackson and Rod freakin' Strickland take the stand, of whom only James and Lue still remain. Two prime years of young superduperstars were wasted with a roster of little but pap. Back when they needed it, when they had the two stars necessary to make title pushes, they had nothing but a backcourt of OAP's and a frontcourt of shite to do it with. Now they have a balanced team, with youth and experience, offense and defense, athleticism and skill, but they only have a paralysed version of Tracy McGrady left to support, creating problems of a different sort. Did Carroll Dawson waste the Rockets best title window? Yes, I think he did.
(Note - that '06 roster was mainly undermined by the lengthy injuries to both McGrady and Yao. But let's be honest - it wasn't going anywhere anyway. I mean, just look at it.)
- Eddie Basden is playing for Mersin in Turkey, where he averages 8.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.2 steals a game. He is also a surprisingly potent source of hate mail for me, so I'd like to take this opportunity to set the record straight, and announce that anyone who perceives there to be any flaw in the delectably flawless basketball player that is Eddie Basden is, frankly, an idiot, and that any weaknesses or vague derogatory statements towards his basketball skillset are in the eye of the beholder only. Such statements are not to be valued as credible or reliable by anyone, and the makers of such damning slants are to be ridiculued mercilessly and to have their email accounts bombarded with anonymous insults. This includes anything that I may ever have written about him, and I have learnt my lesson - Eddie Basden is perfect, and you are to TOTALLY remind me of this at all times.
- Finally, Mengke Bateer buggered off back to China, where he averages 15.7 points, 10.0 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game for the Xinjiang Gyang Hui Flying Tigers. A further rambling on the subject of the Chinese Basketball Association's comically lopsided statistical averages will follow shortly.
In a new and uninteresting series of post, we (I) shall attempt to update you on the current whereabouts of some of your favourite players who sniffed the NBA for a brief moment before retiring with their tail between their legs to basketball's minor leagues. These players are to be glorified at all times, as they provide amusement, and also they provide the oft-undervalued mechanism for sports fans to worry entirely too much about the last player on the roster. It is a trend true of all sports, but particularly in basketball - if we can't see a player play, but they're on an NBA roster, we can then convince ourselves that they are potential 20ppg players, and no one can refute our claim with evidence because there isn't any. It's a dream we regularly live, then shatter, and then live again. Good times.
Larry Ayuso, persistent training camp fodder who shines in every league other than this one, is back in his native Puerto Rico playing for Santurce.
Malick Badiane, 2003 draft pick of the Houston Rockets whose rights were bizarrely traded to Memphis in February despite the fact that he'll likely never join the NBA, is playing for Saint Vallier of the French league.
Dalibor Bagaric, who lest you forget is the absolute DON, has grown a beard, and is playing for Upim Bologna of Italy. He also hasn't gotten any quicker.
Kyle Bailey - the mighty Kyle Bailey - is playing for Ulm in Germany. For those not previously aware, the German league is where careers go to die. It's shit.
Vin Baker is MIA. Since being waived by Minnesota in November 2006, he's been heard from twice - once when being arrested for drink driving (again), and once when it was announced that his restaurant was being foreclosed, whatever that means. So things might be going south.
Sean Banks is playing for the Los Angeles D-Fenders of the D-League.
The insaitable Stanko Barac, whose draft rights are owned by Indiana and who can boast the almost unique claimed of having the name Stanko, is playing in Spain for Pamesa Valencia.
Steven Barber is seemingly out of basketball, having last played in the D-League in the 2007 season. Now aged 28 and seemingly unable or unwilling to play professional basketball anywhere, I think the Steven Barber NBA Dream is officially over. Shame. He was so close. (If you don't know who Steven Barber is, rest assured that neither do I, really. He was just in the Spurs' training camp once.)
Andre Barrett is back in the D-League after recently seeing the Clippers turn down renewing his contract in a completely non-sensical decision to sign Smush Parker instead. Barrett remains one of the best players not in the NBA, and if he was three inches taller he would be in it, no questions asked.
Jon Barry is retired, and is now a really, really bad commentator.
Eddie Basden is playing for Bonn in Germany (see earlier comments re: Germany), and he still hasn't made Ben Gordon redundant, as some of my Bulls fan peers suggested was possible.
Edin Bavcic, 2006 second round pick of the Philadelphia 76ers, is in the powerhouse Bosnia and Herzegovina league playing for Sarajevo.
For those amongst you who, like me, have a strange fascination with transactions, both those finalized and those possible, this is a bad time of year for you. This is late August, the draft is long since gone, and most of the juicy bits of free agency have passed us by. Of the remaining free agents, only a select few are good enough to be starters in this league - Ruben Patterson to name......one - and merely the journeyman remain. This is the NBA's equivalent of what it's like to try and completely scrape clean an almost-empty pot of jam - you can try and try and try to clean every last morsel out of the jar, and occasionally struck it lucky with a decent sized chunk. But most of the residual jam offers up stubborn resistance, and is not even worth your time - even if there was a practical way of getting it off there, you wouldn't garner anything useful from it anyway.
Additionally, when writing these new player profiles for the site, I have had a very tough time trying to keep them interesting. How, for example, do you make the profile of JamesOn Curry read wildly different to that of Jannero Pargo or Salim Stoudamire, when they are very similar players? It's a quandry that has cropped up all too often. Too many players are too alike too many other players, and too many players conform to stereotypes.
So, let's look at those stereotypes and give them broad definitions based around the pioneer - the trendsetter, if you will - of that particular stereotype. Every team needs their role players, after all.
1 - The Jerome Williams: The athletic forward whose only real skill is the fact that they are an athletic forward. They're too small to play power forward unless against others such as themselves, yet they have not the dribbling skills, jumpshot or defensive footwork to play much small forward. They compensate by running around a lot. A classic player-without-a-position situation.
3 - The Esteban Batista: They're tall. They're strong. They're far from athletic. They're often foreign. They're often white. They don't do much else. This also perks your interest. It's also rarely worth it.
4 - The Zoran Planinic: Dedicated to those taller guards - often European - who are touted as being tall point guards, yet who are basically shooting guards (or, occasionally, small forwards) with slightly above average dribbling skills. These players are generally exposed during any subsequent attempts to play point guard due to their lack of foot speed, and also aren't exactly primed for the two guard position due to their decidedly temperamental jumpshots. The old saying goes that your position in the NBA is defined by the position that you are best at defending, yet it wouldn't go amiss for these players to get themselves a defined position on offense. For the "bit of one, bit of another" thing isn't really working.
5 - The Eddie House: Small guards who come into a game solely for the purposes of putting up lots of long jumpshots and running around enthusiastically. The genre is named after Eddie House himself, a man so perfectly awesome at this role that it defies any attempt of mine to explain it. If you're short (or tall by normal human standards) and want to make it in the world of basketball, this is probably your best bet.
6 - The Eric Piatkowski: A logical extension of the Jannero Pargo type. Decent sized perimeter players whose offense is limited to an extremely good outside jumpshot, and whose defense is just plain limited. Something of a retro position that I cannot ever say enough good things about.
7 - The Pat Garrity: A further extension of the Jannero Pargo genre, this role has similarities to the Jerome Wiliams genre above, in that the player concerned has no defined defensive position. They're power forwards with no power to their game, forced to play the position due to their lack of speed. The other slightly massive difference between this group and group one is that this group of extremely unathletic players also happen to have fantastic outside strokes. These players tend to share other common traits - they are usually absolutely abhorrent defensive players, and piss weak rebounders. They also seem to nearly always be white. This group compromises the most one trick ponyness of all the groups listed here. And yet, every year, one or two fresh faces pop up, despite the continued failure of all those to have previously trodden this path. It's dumbfounding, but it's faaaan-tastic.
8 - The Malik Allen: One final twist to the one dimension shooter saga. These guys are tall, with centers size. And they can shoot. Yet they also all suck at every other facer of the game. But, then again, it landed Troy Murphy a $58 million contract.
9 - The Chuck Hayes: They may be undersized, but by God, that doesn't mean that their rebound is not theirs. Not tall enough for traditional power forward/center size in this league, and without the eye popping vertical to overcome this, these players choose to go the other way - they beef up, and work harder than the other guy for the rebound. Try and take it off them, and they'll kill you, no questions asked. This is especially true for Lonny Baxter, who has a thing for guns and shooting - if the White House doesn't scare him, then neither will you.
10 - The Bruce Bowen: Decent sized reasonably athletic small forwards who play good defense on the perimeter, but who are contractually mandated on offense to stand in the corner and wait for an open three point attempt. To attempt to do anything else would result in asyphixiation, death, or worse.
11 - The Ibrahim Kutluay: Disenfranchised European player who was pretty good back on home soil but who is not good enough in the NBA to crack a rotation. Rather than accept this, though, they opt to play off of their misguided sense of entitlement, sulk, and invariably wind up being bought out for a minimal amount so that they can return to Europe and vent. A relatively modern genre that I'm truly enjoying.
12 - The Mateen Cleaves: If you're not good enough to get into the game, you may as well act like you're happy to have been given such good tickets to see it. This genre is for those players who like nothing more than to come flying enthusiastically off of the bench after a good play, smacking arse and waving towels, and acting like nothing could be more right with their life. And why shouldn't they be happy? They get paid to sit down. I wish I did.
13 - The Kelvin Cato: "Why does no one want me? I'm tall, I used to be good, what gives? Come on, just give me a minimum salary, I'll make it worth your while".
14 - The Gary Payton: The former star who still wants the ring really, really badly. They'll forego their pride, their legacy and their reputation to sign for pittance just to try and get it. Named after Gary Payton, a man who has done this twice - once with the Los Angeles Lakers and once with the Miami Heat. Strangely, having won the ring, Payton still did not then retire, and eked out one more season of poor player for the minimum salary in a bid to win a second. He did not do so. Now, hopefully, that will be it.
15 - The Jacque Vaughn: The "heady veteran" point guard who doesn't run nearly as well as he used to, yet who continues to look for (and sometimes get) NBA work as an old timer whose "experience" will help the team's younger point guards, and also provide a calming influence on the court. But basically they just aren't very good any more and are out for what they can get.
These people are not to be overlooked, though. Not in any way. The defending champion San Antonio Spurs, for example, have two number 10's including the poster child himself, a number 4, a number 6, a number 7, recently traded away a number 2, recently traded for a number 11 to go along with the one they already had, have THE number 15, and have themselves an extremely successful number 14 in Robert Horry.
Of course, they also have Tim Duncan, which counts for a lot. But do they really win their three recent titles without checking off a good half of the criteria thrown up by this list?
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.
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