Where Are They Now, 2009: Part 46

Because twice a night is twice as nice.

- Renaldas Seibutis is part of a deep Iurbentia Bilbao team, averaging 10.7 points and 1.6 rebounds in the Eurocup, alongside 6.6 points and 1.7 rebounds in the Spanish league.

- Now is the time to refamiliarise yourself with Warriors great, Mladen Sekularac. Mladen was drafted in the second round by the Mavericks back in 2002, coming off a season that saw him average 17.6 points in the Saporta Cup, the predecessor of sorts to the Eurocup. From there, Sekularac (whose name I'm finding really hard to abridge) went to Bologna in Italy, where he didn't play much and was released mid-season. In 2003/04, Rac averaged a slightly modest 10ppg back in the Adriatic league, and then saw his rights traded to Golden State as a completely unnecessary minor part of the Erick Dampier trade. It was at that moment that it all started to go south. Sekularac had signed with Buducnost to start the 2004/05 season, but left after they stopped paying him. He then signed in December of '04 with Apollon in Greece, but appeared in only two games, totalling 0 points. Zero. Nada. Since then, Kula has been in Belgium, where a series of injuries have seen him go from the fifth leading scorer in the country in 2005/06 to a fringe starter in the present day (as might have the realisation that he was playing in Belgium, almost always a backwards step for any man's NBA aspirations). Sek is now 28, and has not panned out despite once being touted as his nation's best prospect for a generation. And guess what? Right now, he's currently injured. Larac signed a two year contract with Charleroi this summer, and then got injured in his debut, back in October. He hasn't played since, and has all of two points to his name on the year. Bad times.

- Mouhamed Sene was waived by the Thunder on trade deadline day to accomodate Thabo Sefolosha. The team have since waived Joe Smith, thus opening up a roster spot for Sene's return. But it's not going to happen. Do you know why it's not going to happen It's not going to happen because Saer Sene is not an NBA calibre player. Not now, and probably not ever. Remember that before you tout him as a signing for your team, as so many of you seem to be doing. (Note: if it happens, this post will self-destruct.)

- Josip Sesar - a 2000 second round draft pick of the Sonics, later traded to the Celtics - has never left the Balkans. In fact, the only times he's played for a team outside of his native Croatia have been for teams in Bosnia, and that's where he finds himself now, with a team named BC Zrinjski Mik Company Mostar. The team don't even appear to have a website, so I can't tell you what Sesar averages. But then, you don't really care, do you? He's 31, he's a lot worse than he was when he was 21, he never joined the NBA, and he's never going to. That's all you really need to know.

- Ansu Sesay is playing for ALBA Berlin, a team who have managed to make it strangely far in the Euroleague before their triumphant run ended last month. Sesay averages 9.1 points and 4.4 rebounds in Euroleague play, alongside 12.4 points and 4.5 rebounds in German league play. Six of ALBA's top 7 scorers are Americans (a list that includes Casey Jacobsen, Adam Chubb and Rashad Wright, as well as Sesay), and the seventh is a Serbian named Aleksandar Nadjfeji. German national basketball is looking healthy, then.

- The most important update of this entire series is finally here. Ha Seung-Jin was traded by the Blazers to Milwaukee in the 2006 offseason, as a part of the trade that took Jamaal Magloire to Portland. Ha was waived during training camp, kicked around for a couple of months, and was then acquired by the Anaheim Arsenal of the D-League. Ha played in 26 games for The Arse, with 16 starts, and averaged a frankly depressing 2.7 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.0 fouls. In the size starved D-League. Bad times. But this was still in 2006-07, remember. Since then, Ha's managed to do even less. Ha did not play last year, and this year he is back in his native Korea playing for KCC Egis. But there is hope at last - Ha has played in 37 games with the team, averaging 22 minutes, 9.3 rebounds, 7.4 rebounds, 1.3 blocks and 1.3 fouls per game, shooting 66% from the floor and 43% from the foul line. Those are, if nothing else, numbers. And you can only obtain numbers by playing in games. So this means that Ha is at least playing in games. And for that, we are grateful, and mightily relieved. The dream is not yet over.

For the sheer hell of it, here is that classic Ha picture again, having lost none of its magic in the last three years.



- Mustafa Shakur was a recent signing for Panellinios in Greece, where he backs up Anthony Grundy and averages 6.0 points and 1.2 assists. I watched a Panellinios game a few days ago, and, after Shakur committed two admittedly rather dumb fouls in the first 30 seconds, the commentators spent the remainder of the game doing little else but talk about how bad Mustafa Shakur is. They did this unapologetically and relentlessly, despite Shakur scoring 18 points in 13 minutes right in front of their eyes, on a relentless sequence of superbly effective drives. The lesson here is SHUT UP ROY.

- Doron Sheffer has retired for the fourth time. The first time came back in the year 2000 at the age of 28, when it transpired that he had cancer. He returned in early 2003, and managed to avoid retiring until October 2005, when he retired again due to the "sleepless nights" he got from the "waste of time" that basketball was to him. That solemn vow lasted for all of six weeks before he unretired again in December, and Sheff saw out the season with Hapoel Tel Aviv, playing in only 5 games before breaking his hand. Guess what he did then? Yep, he retired, this time in April 2006, and this one lasted until July 2007, when Sheffer returned to play one final season with his original team, Hapoel Galil Elyon-Golan. This time, he managed a full season. And then he retired again after the season ended. We can only guess that this is really it this time, even if the evidence is decidedly stacked against it.

- Ricky Shields is arguably the best player in Slovenia, leading his team, the league leading Krka, in both points and assists with averages of 15.1 and 2.7 respectively, along with 4.8 rebounds per game. If "best player on the best team in Slovenia" isn't the ultimate CV boost, then I don't know what is.

- Joe Shipp is playing for Minas Tenis Clube in Brazil, a team who strangely favour basketball over tennis. Shipp averages 19.7 points and 5.6 rebounds in the Brazlian league.

- Paul Shirley's blog on ESPN.com over the summer alluded to the idea that his 2008 stint in Spain with Vive Menorca might have been his last ever professional basketball player gig. It wasn't, because Shirley signed a one month contract this November with Unicaja Malaga as an injury replacement for Marcus Haislip. However, that's over now, and Shirley is again unsigned, seemingly not looking too hard for work either. He's now writing a lot for ESPN about music.

- Finally, some good news. After almost two years out of the game, Wayne Simien is back and playing, albeit not at the standard that he once was. Simien is with Caceras in the Spanish LEB Gold [second divison], averaging 16.8 points and 8.2 rebounds a game. It's a start. Despite how few NBA games he played, though, Simien has still appeared in the second most out of anyone on this list, with 51 games, albeit way behind Ansu Sesay's 127. (Sene and Ha both appeared in 46, Shirley in 18. The rest have appeared in 0, and probably never will. These lists are somewhat desperately really, aren't they?)

Let Me Drago Pasalic You Up And Down

In keeping with my new policy of talking about every game that I watch that isn't an NBA game, here's what I observed from last night's Eurocup game between Iurbentia Bilbao and the home Lithuanian team with a Yorkshire inflection, Lietuvos Rytas. Go.

- Bilbao's lineup features only three Spanish nationals; point guard Javier Salgado, backup guard Paco Vazquez, and a really slow inside player with a massive head and greasy mullet called Salvador Guardia. The rest of the team was made up of foreign players, and it was pretty stacked; former, future and potentially future NBA talent on show included former Bucks forward and avid partygoer Damir Markota, former Jazz and Timberwolves swingman Quincy Lewis, former Heat tryerouter Luke Recker, former Chicago Bulls summer league participant Drago Pasalic, Mavericks second rounder Renaldas Seibutis, former Nuggets guard Predrag Savovic, the man the legend known as Frederic Weis (who did not play), Latvian international guard Janis Blums, and Croatian international big man Marko Banic.

- Lietuvos, meanwhile, had only two players that weren't Lithuanian - former South Carolina point forward Chuck Eidson, and Serbian big man Milko Bjelica, whose name sounds more like a lovely pudding. The rest of the team was made out of old clunky Lithuanians. (Eidson was awesome, by the way, and easily the best player in the game, despite all the talent and internationals on the court. But we'll come to this later.)

- For Bucks fans who fancy a cheap laugh at the expense of Damir Markota, I've got good news - he was pretty awful. Markota came off the bench in the first half, and did nothing at all, but for some reason he started the second half in place of Pasalic. He then proceeded to get involved on every possession, and normally in a bad way. On his team's first trip down the court, Markota took a contested NBA range three pointer with about 7 seconds gone in the half. It missed. On the next possession, Markota was stripped by Donatas Zavackas while standing at the top of the arc, leading to a Zavackas one-on-none breakaway layup. And it was a one-on-none breakaway layup because Markota decided not to bother chasing him. Over the next few possessions, Markota grabbed a good offensive rebound before missing the 4 inch putback, took another 27 foot three (which also missed), shouted at the refs, threw a terrible pass into the corner which Javier Salgado somehow caught and turned into a circus three, and was then subbed out for Pasalic. He later returned, and played most of the second half, grabbing several rebounds, but remained very out of the game on offense. He also spent the entire game with a huge wedge of cotton in his left ear, that was in keeping with the Bilbao team's desire to wear stupid apparel; Luke Recker wore black knee high socks and a full beard, which made him look a bit like a lumberjack battling with his repressed homosexuality, and Quincy Lewis wore a bizarre sky blue full length lycra elbow support thing that could conceivably have come from a fetish website. It was all a bit odd.

- Speaking of Recker and Lewis, they kind of sucked a bit. Recker was never in the game in the first half, turning down good shots and taking bad ones, while supposedly in there as a speciality shooter. He improved in the second half, working his way around screens (mainly from Guardia) for open looks, and playing decent help defense. And Lewis was extremely quiet, barely taking any shots or touching the ball on offense. Bilbao got very little offense from the wing positions in general, as no one other than Spanish national point guard Javier Salgado was able to get into the lane. The other primary ball handlers that Bilbao used - Janis Blums and Paco Vazquez - were completely taken out of the game by an unrelenting Rytas defense that denied almost all penetration and took away the passing lanes. Seibutis was the only other guy to get to the rim, and he did this precisely twice. Bilbao's offense was predominantly featured around Banic, who demonstrated good moves and good touch around the rim, using head fakes and spin moves to get himself open shots. However, at 6'9 and 230, with no athleticism to speak of, and no apparent interest in defense or rebounding, Banic looked like what he was (a decent player in high level European competition, going up against similarly clunky continentals with receding hairlines) and not what I'm really looking for (possible NBA players). And for those Bulls fans wondering....yes, Drago Pasalic's jumpshot is still absolutely mint. He showed a nice hook shot, too, and he's also grown his hair out. But he still sets the softest screens in showbiz.

- Lietuvos were basically all about Chuck Eidson. Technically playing the small forward, Eidson took most of the lead guard duties, and made about 12 great passes to only 1 crap one. He was easily the best passer on the court, and he was probably the best shooter too, albeit with a bizarre and anomolous 2-7 night from the free throw line. Eidson's weaknesses were quickly self evident - he has almost no right handed dribble, carrying the ball on one of his two attempts to go right and getting blocked on the other, and he wasn't fast or athletic for a 6'7 player. But he was very skilled, with ball handling that belies his height, a jumpshot that looked smooth both off the dribble and off a curl, plus them's there quality passing skills. He reminded me of Lamar Odom, if Lamar Odom couldn't rebound or play defense, and if he wasn't athletic. And if he was 4 inches shorter. And if he could shoot. And if he wasn't actualyl Lamar Odom. (Basically, the likeness started and ended with them being left handed. Maybe Kasib Powell would be a better comparison. Or Luke Jackson. Or maybe no comparison at all would be a good comparison.)

- A non-name dropping name drop coming up - I once had a conversation with an NBA general manager about the future of the Lithuanian national team. We agreed that there wasn't one. With that in mind, I paid particular attention to the Lithuanian players that Rytas has on show (as well as Bilbao's Litho, Seibutis). Most of them were over or dangerously close to 30 years of age, and the only three who weren't that played (Arturas Jomantas, Steponas Babrauskas, Justas Sinica) were three of the four players used off of the bench, along with Milko Bjelica. Bjelica, a 24 year old centre, showed little. Sinica, a skinny 6'8 23 year old forward, was largely docile, and took only three shots, all three pointers with a very slow release, making one. Babrauskas didn't look to be the 6'5 that the packaging suggested, but he displayed a decent jumpshot, albeit while playing exclusively off the ball. The one who showed promise, though, was Jomantas; a 6'7 swingman, Jomantas looked pretty fluid with the ball, and made two open three pointers (albeit while missing two others really badly). His ball pressure was good, and his help defense on inbounds plays or when trapping Paco Vazquez on the pick and roll was consistently effective. His work rate was good (as it was for all players, even Markota; they truly cared), and he fought for rebounds that weren't rightly his. Jomantas was, however, a bit slow. Seibutis, meanwhile, played almost exclusively off the ball as the two guard, which seems far more sensible of a position for him than the point guard he is occasionally confused into being. What few shots he took were good looks that he made smoothly, and he looked quicker than I remember. A massive red flag, however, was his defense - often charged with the matchup on Chuck Eidson, Sighbooties barely obscured Eidson's path to the rim, and could never seem to make Chuck drive right, as he so badly needed to do.

That is all I've got. There was another Eurocup game on, featuring Khimky versus Dynamo Moscow. But while I did watch it, I was busy priming a rifle, with which to then shoot myself in the head. That's how bad the commentary was. I'd explain further, but I daren't.

Rytas won, by the way, by a score of 73 to 71. You can find the box score here.

Summer signings, round 13

- After signing Brian Skinner and waiving Josh Powell, as described in the previous blog post, the Clippers finally did the other obvious thing and withdrew the qualifying offer to Nick Fazekas. This moves leaves them with roughly $1.4 million in remaining cap space. However, if they hadn't made the moves to sign draftees Eric Gordon, DeAndre Jordan and Mike Taylor unnecessarily early, as well as the even more unnecessary Jason Hart trade, then that number would be more like $2.5 million. I'm going to keep bloody going on about this until someone patronisingly rubs me on the head and tells me that it's OK.

- Adonal Foyle re-signed with the Orlando Magic, who still don't have a good backup big man. I'm all about Marcin Gortat, though. I like him. Also, free agent Magic guard Carlos Arroyo signed with Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel, a move insignificant of itself, but which serves to make this year's already weal free agency point guard crop even weaker. Someone needs to either gamble on Shaun Livingston, or get Kevin Ollie back in this league. Anything to keep Smush Parker out. (NB: Earl Boykins was rumoured to be going to Maccabi, but that was before the Arroyo signing was announced, so I doubt that's still on. However, for all his failings, Boykins is maybe now the best free agent left on the market. That's how bad the market is.)

- While we're on the subject of crappy journeyman point guards, Anthony Goldwire is still going, signing for Egaleo in Greece. Goldwire's kicking 40's door down, in the words of the lyrically superior Eminem, but he's still getting basketball jobs. So he's either broke, or he deeply loves the game. I truly hope it's the latter.

- The Lakers signed a short D-League scoring guard, Dwayne Mitchell. Seems like a weird place to start when they have other depth concerns, but oh well. I watched qutie a bit of the Lakers summer league, and Mitchell didn't play much behind such luminaries as Joe Crawford, Coby Karl, Brian Roberts and Cedric Bozeman. I don't know what to make of that.

- Julius Hodge says he wants to make an NBA comeback. Hmmmm. For those unaware, Hodge played for the New Jersey Nets summer league team. For those also unaware, the New Jersey Nets basketball operations person thingy is Kiki Vanderweghe. For those yet further unaware, Kiki Vanderweghe is the man who drafted Hodge way too frigging high back when Vanderwghe was the basketball operations person thingy with the Denver Nuggets. Yet even while crossing the country to follow the one guy to date who thought him worthy of an NBA contract, Hodge couldn't get himself another one. That doesn't bode well.

- Kevinn Pinkney and Shan Foster have agreed to sign with Juve Caserta in Italy. Therefore, Shan Foster must continue to wait to PLAAAAY IN THE NBAAAAAAAA". (I laughed at myself. Judge me if you must.)

- Another Dallas secound round draft pick, Renaldas Seibutis, has signed with Bilbao in Spain. Do you know how hard it is to think up good Renaldas Seibutis jokes? Let me tell you. It's very hard indeed. So I won't bother.

- Ndudi Ebi has signed with Carife Ferrara in Italy, alongside Harold Jamison. There just aren't enough Harold Jamison updates in the world today. Do you know what you get if you Google News-search "Harold Jamison"? Nothing. Well, nothing in English, anyway. Fucking shame.

- Steven Smith has signed with Kolossos Rhodes in Greece, perhaps the finest non-Phillipino team name I've ever seen. Such imperialism! Such history! Such distinction! Such pressure! Good luck Steven.

- Uros Slokar has signed for Fortitudo Bologna. By the way, if you like professional basketball players with accessibility, you'll LOVE Uros Slokar's website. Feel free to email him. Tell him I sent you. Offer him the job as this site's main web developer. Don't tell him that it's unpaid.