Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 20

- Joao Gomes averages 8.3 points and 4.4 rebounds for Leche Rio Breogan Lugo in the Spanish second division. You're probably wondering who the hell Joao Gomes is. So am I, honestly. In other, more important Gomes news, the Cincinnati Reds signed Jonny Gomes to a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training. Good luck Jonny. Savage everything you see. Both women and fastballs. Jonny Gomes = savage. The good sort of savage.

- Jamon Gordon was suspended by his German team, the Koeln 99ers, for going to America without permission. I think. (A user's blog comment also said something about Gordon trashing his flat, which seems like a weird thing to be suspended for, so I'll assume he did this afterwards.) His replacement is a man called Michael Jordan, and no I'm not making that up. Gordon averaged 13.9 points, 4.2 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 2.7 steals in his 9 games with the team.

- Jamont Gordon (not to be confused with Jamon Gordon, despite how blatantly easy that is to do) is signed with Fortitudo Bologna, the team also known as Upim Bologna and GMAC Real Estate Bologna, and formerly known as Skipper Bologna and Climamio Bologna, yet NOT to be confused with La Fortezza Bologna, which is another Italian first division team. Jesus, I wish these bastards would settle on just one name. All European people are stupid, I tell you. Gordon averages 11.3 points, 3.3 rebounds, 1.5 steals and 2.0 assists in Eurocup play, while playing alongside Gregor Fucka, whose name is still fun to type, even if it has been usurped by Lior Lipshits.

- Brian Grant (not to be confused with Briant Grant, who is someone that I just made up) retired over two years ago and hasn't been heard from since.

- Devin Green is signed in the Ukraine of all places, with Dnipro Dnepropetrovsk. Unfortunately, none of his team mates have funny names. Green averages 20.5 points, 7.8 rebounds and 3.3 assists, while being probably the best player in the country.

- Caleb Green averages 13.5 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2.3 assists in Eurochallenge play per game for Dexia's Midnight Runners in Belgium, along with 13.9 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1 assist in Belgian league play. You may remember Dexia Mons-Hainault (the team's real name) as being the team that was too good for Dion Dowell. Or you may not. Depends on how much you care.

- Taurean Green is signed with CAI Zaragoza in Spain, averaging 11.4 points and 2.4 assists.

- Orien Greene (not to be confused with Taurean Green, Torien Greene, Orient Greene, or anyone other than himself) is in Holland, playing for the immortally named MyGuide Amsterdam. Greene averaged 9.8 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.6 assists in EuroChallenge play, and averages 12.9 points, 4.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.3 steals in the Dutch league. So there you have it; we finally found a league that can make Orien Greene look like a useful scorer.

- Lynn Greer is a starting guard on the Olympiakos team that leads the Greek league, and that continues to advance in the Euroleague. Greer averages only 9.6 points in the Greek league, but averages a team high 12.4 points in the Euroleague. Yet, supposedly, they want to bring in another guard (Jannero Pargo, Stephon Marbury) anyway. Seems odd.

- Vincent Grier is doing a bit of everything in the French league, averaging 9.8 points, 4.9 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.8 steals and 1.2 blocks a game for Cholet Basket. Grier also averaged 8.3 points and 3.2 rebounds in the EuroChallenge. Unfortunately, he hasn't hit a three all year in either competition, going 0-5 in total, and Grier is also a combined 35-63 from the free throw line in all competition this season. That's not getting it done as a 6;5 guy.

- Did they ever rule on whether Eddie Griffin's death was officially a suicide?

- Rob Griffin was recently cut from his CBA team, which can't make a man feel good.

- Finally, Adrian Griffin played all preseason with the Bucks, but then was waived just before opening night for Austin Croshere. Unwilling (or unable) to be parted from his sugardaddy, Scott Skiles, Griffin then immediately became his assistant coach, something that he's pretty much unofficially been for about four years now. Those two are so CUTE together! *hugs*

Summer signings, round 21

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.

You don't want to be like me when you grow up.

Where Are They Now? Part 15

Devin Green is playing for Siviglia Wear Teramo in Italy, alongside Hassan Adams and friends.

Orien Greene is playing for Hapoel Jerusalem in Israel, and hasn't been there for very long.

Lynn Greer took a buyout from the Bucks this summer of $0 to go back to Europe, and now he is playing for Olympiakos in Greece. Greer is also one of Europe's highest paid players, as his current paycheck shits on the $687,456 before tax that Milwaukee had him down for. And he's also playing extremely well. It's worked out rather well for Lynn, all told.

Vincent Grier is playing for Gravelines in the French league, a town whose name isn't pronounced how it looks like it is.

Eddie Griffin is still dead.

Rob Griffin isn't dead, and is playing for the Fort Wayne Mad Pants in the D-League.

Rashard Griffith is playing for Poliesti in Romania, the only player in this list (I think) playing in that country. Griffith is now 33, and any chance of him joining the NBA has long since passed.

Anthony Grundy is playing for Panellinios Athens in Greece.

Tom Gugliotta has been out of the game for a long time.

Marcus Haislip is playing for CSKA Moscow, but is having a little bit of trouble travelling with the team, as he hasn't been issued a new passport due to unpaid back taxes. Tut tut tut.

Mike Hall is playing for the Tulsa 66ers in the D-League. Also on that team is Keith Closs, who is attempting a comeback now aged 32 after faffing up his first shot at the NBA. Now off of the drink, and apparently more motivated than ever, Closs is blocking shots at an outstanding rate in the D-League (2.8 a game in only 19.4 minutes), but isn't doing much of anything else (6.6 points and 4.7 rebounds). Still, nice story. Maybe he'll get an NBA camp invite.

Yotam Halperin, as mentioned earlier, is playing for Maccabi Tel-Aviv.

Why John Freakin' Stockton Was So Freakin' Fantastic

A conversation with a friend about the awesomeness/awfulness of DeSagana Diop - and you can probably guess which side of the fence I am on regarding that - led to me to write about how great John Stockton is.

Come re-live that fun journey with me.



I try and keep an open mind on certain basketball philosophies. There are some players out there whose worth on the court is so mysterious that you really have to question their very presence on it, and yet, for whatever reason, they remain out there. A lot of them get regular rotation minutes. Some of them get regular rotation minutes on decent or good teams. And I always endeavour to understand why.

As an example, for many years, Jason Collins started on the New Jersey Nets. Not only did he start, but he would also play over twenty minutes a game (up to the tune of 31.8 in 2004/05). A quick glance at his statistics, though, makes you wonder why the hell this was. Collins has never shot over 43% in a season, which must be pretty dumbfoundingly difficult to do as a 7 footer, especially an athletic 7 footer with Jason Kidd as your point guard. (Even Michael Ruffin managed this once, and he did it armed with Bryce Drew leading the breaks. Bryce effing Drew.) Collins also has a rebounding average worse than Eddy Curry's, with a career average of a tumultuous 8.8 boards per 48 minutes. And worst of all was his PER, which last year was a can't-even-think-of-an-adjective-shit-enough-for-it 3.3. (Only this year, when it hit 3.1, did the Nets think "hmmm, maybe we could find a player with a more positive impact on the game if we try". Impressively, they did.)

I listened to arguments as to why Collins merited the court time that he got. On a good team, he would play more than half the game, despite seemingly not doing a single thing well. I watched closely and tried to figure out what it was that he was good at, and I listened to people paid to be flattering about him (i.e. Iain Eagle) try and polish this turd as shiny as it could get. I could see that Collins was a versatile defensive player, big and strong enough to defend the tough post players, but also fleet footed and agile enough to stay in front of the quicker tall forwards as they made their way to the basket. I also understood that he was Jesus Collins, Lord Of The Handoff (giggidy), and that while he couldn't grab any rebounds of his own, he cleared out the lane well enough while boxing out for guards to come in and sweep rebounds off of the floor. (See?!? Kidd owes all those rebounds to Collins! And his rebounding during tenures on previous teams were just lucky.) I also accepted the argument that maybe Nets head coach Lawrence Frank had a raging man-boner for him and just couldn't let it subside, for this argument is often applicable to NBA coaches. (See also: Chris Duhon with Jim Boylan, Lindsey Hunter with Flip Saunders, and Orien Greene with anybody to have ever coached him.)

I considered it all. And then I disregarded it all. This was because - and let's be honest here - Jason Collins was (is) a massive huge great big fat negative of a basketball player. There's no point in being a little things player if you can't do any of the big things well. And anyway, shouldn't "little things" players be able to shoot above 50% from the free throw line?

(Oh and by the way, how in the hell did Collins go from a near-80% shooter to below the Wallace Line in 4 short years? What changed? How do certain players - usually big men - manage to get so bad from the line so easily as they approach their prime years? See also: Magloire, Jamaal)

A similar situation occurs with DeSagana Diop. For whatever reason - and this has become much more prevalent since he was traded away - columnists and idiots alike would eulogise The Diop as if he were some kind of integral piece to the Mavericks championship puzzle, ignoring for a moment the fact that the Mavericks didn't actually have a championship puzzle (but that's a rant for another day). Indeed, Karate Diop is better than Jason Collins, which makes the situation slightly less deplorable. And Lasagna did give the Mavericks a skill with his rudimentary shot blocking that they otherwised lacked outside of the misshapen marvel that is Rick Dampier.

[Please feel free to look elsewhere while I burn through my own supply of extremely bad self devised DeSagana Diop nicknames. I'll get over it soon.]

But overall, DeSagana Diop was not, is not, and will probably never be a good basketball player. He used to be abhorrent, so his status as a reasonable to crappy backup centre is an improvement, yet this alone does not make him good.

This was the hard line stance that I took in our conversation, and prepared to back up my claim by using a piece of trivia that I last used in March 2006, about how Diop was on course to spend the most full seasons in the NBA of any player to average less than 2 points per game for his career (and "full seasons" is a key distinction there). However, to use this piece of trivia, I had to check that it was still true.

Sadly, it wasn't. A recent offensive explosion and the subsequent giddying heights of three points per game with the Mavericks this season have boosted Garnerchop to a career average of 2.1 points per game (or that's it was at the time of writing - if he's been on a scoring rampage since then, adjust accordingly), which undermined my premise and made me feel rather empty inside. How could I talk about Daisy Gardener being one of the worst offensive players of all time when he averages quite such a tremendous amount of points? I felt like such a twat.

Still, not one to be outdone, I rebounded (unlike Jason Collins), and offered up something new in my constant quest to win petty arguments with uninteresting trivia. While looking up Jop's career points average, I also happened to notice that his career high in points in a single game is a fantastic 10 points, achieved 4 times, 2 of which came this season. (Michael Ruffin has a career high of 14, for those keeping score at home, and you've probably noticed by now that I like to use The Muffin as my barometer when it comes to mentioning historically bad offensive players. His profile explains this in more depth.)

Those 4 explosive outings came in 409 career games. How can a man not score more than 10 points in 409 games? How is that possible? Wouldn't you do it by accident one day? At one point, wouldn't your teammates decide that enough is enough and conspire to give you enough touches to crack that elusive 11 point barrier? (And these things do happen, if your team is bad enough. See Mark Madsen's seven three point attempts in a single game in the most disgustingly shameless piece of tanking in NBA history.)

Seemingly, his teammates haven't ever thought of this. So if the Nets fall out of the playoff race this season, on purpose or otherwise, then we need to push this agenda forward. Let's get Diop to 20. In fact, 15 will do. Someone start a t-shirt campaign.



Anyway, this piece of fascinating Senegalese trivia led me on to another related one.

In 1504 career games, John Stockton never once grabbed at least 10 rebounds in a regular season game. Stockton also never had ten steals in a game either, meaning that ne never achieved a triple double, which is pretty astonishing for a man who averaged a double double over 19 seasons and 1504 games. (Note - he did once have a triple double in a playoff game, but it pisses on my chips a little to mention that, so pretend that it didn't happen.)

This discovery, which is surely a harder feat to not-achieve than Diop's points total, led me into an exploration of the man and the legend that was John Freakin' Stockton, and led me to compile this concise but considerable list of reasons quite why he was brilliant.


REASON NUMBER 1: John Freakin' Stockton played 1504 games in 19 NBA seasons, and for those doing the maths at home, this means that he only missed 22 games in his entire career. He had perfect attendance records in 17 of his 19 seasons, playing all 82 games in 16, all 50 games in the strike shortened 1998-99 season, a mere 78 in 1989-1990, and a pathetically dismal 64 games in 1997-1998. For the sake of reference, Marcus Camby has cracked the 64 game barrier only three times in 12 years, and has never played more than 72.

REASON NUMBER 2: John Freakin' Stockton played 1504 games and never grabbed 10 rebounds in a game. (The lesson here, as should be obvious - if you aggressively pursue rebounds, you'll shorten your career. So things are looking up for Jason Collins already.)

REASON NUMBER 3: John Freakin' Stockton just let it go.



Stockton played until he was 41 years old, and inevitably towards the end of his career he had a few years in which his performance slowly trailed off. But right up to and including his final season, Stockton continued to perform at a high level, starting for a Utah Jazz team that he led to a 47-35 record and the playoffs, all while averaging as-near-as-is 11 points, 8 assists and 2 steals a game. He also shot .483 that season, which is absolutely remarkable when you consider that this was 2003 that we are talking about, a season that did not favour shooting percentages.

But when faced with the decline of both his own skills and the Jazz's short term future, Stockton chose to walk away while he was still near the top of his game. This may seem like a normal or sensible thing to do, but recent precedent shows it to not be so normal after all.



So far in this 2007 season (including preseason and offseason), assorted stars of varying pedigree have either expressed an interest in returning to play one more season, or have actually done so. Allan Houston re-signed briefly with the New York Knicks before being waived in preseason in favour of Fred Jones. Chris Webber couldn't keep away and signed with the Golden State Warriors. Reggie Miller and the Boston Celtics had a brief two way flirtation before Reggie decided against un-retiring to play for only the second team of his NBA career. And Gary Payton's agent also contacted the Celtics, asking if they would return his love and affection and signing him for one more half season. (They didn't.)


Now forgive me for being a bit cynical here, as it's all I know. But why oh why might Payton want to do this?

Possible reasons:

a) He thinks he's still got it.
b) He's run out of money.
c) He wants to win an NBA title, and thinks he can get one with only the token gesture of suiting up every now and then.


If it's point A, then he's very, very wrong.

If it's point B, then he's going to have to make lifestyle changes to make the prorated veteran's minimum into an amount he can live comfortably off until his NBA pension is due.

And if it's point C, then he's pathetic.


Unfortunately, it's probably point C. And, in Gary Payton's case, it's an even more pathetic gesture than usual. For you see, Gary Payton has now achieved the almost-unachievable: he's now done this coattail riding act with three different teams. I can't think of any other instance in which that has happened, and frankly nor would I want to.

To make matters worse, Payton already has a ring from doing this, when he won with Miami back in 2005/06. So why's he hanging out desperately trying to win a ring, when he's already got one? Where's the pride in coattailing two of them, or does he feel ashamed by his first one and needs a second to restore pride? I can't see either scenario being all that profitable to his soul. And you know Gary Payton's got soul.


I don't have a problem with players that latch on with contending teams for less money than they could have gotten elsewhere, just to try and win a championship. That's not a problem with me. As any NBA "pundit" or "expert" will tell you - and I use that term very loosely - it's "all about" the rings. That is certainly the argument used to demean most players without them (or even those with them, if you're Kobe Bryant), and the alternative is to do what Reggie Miller did and stick around with a team that has no chance of winning the title just because you'll get more money that way. This is hardly a more dignified way to see out the end your career, even if it does lead to people praising you for your "loyalty", even if they misinterpret your loyalty to the chequebook as being your loyalty to a franchise.

Karl Malone, for example, played it just about right - he turned down the huge amounts of money and pleas of loyalty offered by Utah to go and spend two years for far less money trying to win a title with the L.A. Lakers. But once this bid failed, he took off. He did not go to another team elsewhere. Not again. Malone took his shot, missed, realised that his skills and health were on the way out, and threw in the towel once and for all. This was an impressive feat, especially given that he was within touching distance of one of the NBA's untouchable records - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's all time points scored record.

But this isn't really about the rings. Instead, it is about the good or great players just going away and not bothering us any more, in general.



When he retired as a player, Reggie Miller went on to become a TV personality. An annoying one. So did Jon Barry. So did Magic Johnson. So did Kendall Gill, Steve Smith, Greg Anthony, Mark Jackson, Scott Williams, and a good many other players. And almost universally, they are bad at it. There must be a reason why this is. Maybe it's stubbornness and the interference of their long-term memory on their cognitive capacity. But they just are bad at it, for whatever reason. Only a few shine in this broadcasters role, and most of those shine more for their entertainment value more than their actual ability to analyse.

Some former players go into coaching, irrespective of their abilities in this area. They can't live their lives as young up-and-coming basketball players any more, so they make sure that they are around to watch those of others develop. (It's either coaching, or a cameo in a Spike Lee movie.) Almost universally they are bad at this, too. For the most part, the better the player, the worse the coach or general manager they make. (There are some exceptions, such as Joe Dumars. But for every Joe Dumars, there's three or four Kevin McHale's.)

Worse still, some of the game's true all time greats hang around awkwardly at events such as All Star weekend, demonstrating their complete lack of touch with the modern NBA game, and occasionally making matters even worse by taking the court and proving that they aren't in any way the player that they used to be. It's deflating to watch, and should be made illegal. (There's potential for a second t-shirt campaign here.)



But John Stockton doesn't do any of this.

John Stockton just played until he shouldn't, and then took off. He didn't swan out, interfere with things that weren't his business to interfere with, or humiliate himself at All-Star weekends. He followed his career's path until he reached the end, and then he left.

And that's why he'll always be John Freakin' Stockton.