Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 10

- Rick Brunson

The last time we checked in on Eric Daniel Brunson, he was the director of men's basketball operations at the University of Virginia. He's moved now, however. After Virginia head coach Dave Leitao resigned last April, Brunson took over the head coaching role until his replacement announced, a role that didn't involve a huge amount of coaching as their season had already finished. Once the handover was completed, Brunson left the program and became an assistant coach at Hartford, where he remains.



- John Bryant

Bryant went undrafted out of Santa Clara on the basis that he was really really slow. He went to the Kings for summer league, but played only 8 minutes, even after Spencer Hawes decided not to turn up. Bryant then went to the D-League, where he averages 13.7 points, 10.9 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game for the Erie BayHawks. The rebounds rank 4th in the league, and two of the three ahead of him are NBA assignees (Joey Dorsey and D.J. White). However, he also averages 4 fouls in only 34 minutes.



- Greg Buckner

Buckner was waived by the Mavericks in training camp and has not signed elsewhere since. His unguaranteed salary would have been a pretty awesome trade chip at the deadline, but the Mavericks - already with Erick Dampier's unguaranteed contract for next year, Josh Howard's team option, Drew Gooden's expiring/unguaranteed and Shawne Williams' expiring - figured they had enough trade chips already. To be honest, I think they should have kept Buckner's unguaranteed over Williams' expiring, as the value of that unguaranteed would have been magnified in this economy. But I guess even the Mavericks have a budget limit, which is fair enough.

Remember the Love Mayo trade on draft night 2008? Eight players were involved; Love and Mayo (obviously), Brian Cardinal, Mike Miller, Jason Collins, Antoine Walker, Marko Jaric and Buckner. Minnesota took the opportunity to get a good contributor in Miller (which, it later turned out, was also a big part of getting Ricky Rubio), while Memphis traded up for the player they wanted more, taking the opportunity to open up $6 million in 2008/09 cap room in the process. All things considered, a win win situation. But the four players Minnesota received (Love, Cardinal, Collins and Miller) are still in the league, while three of Memphis' four acquisitions are out of it already (Jaric, Walker, Buckner).

I just thought that was interesting. It probably isn't.



- Rodney Buford

Rodney Buford has been around the houses lately, touring the Far East last year, and spending at least parts of the last three seasons in the Ukraine. This year he's gone to Germany, playing for Eisbaeren Bremerhaven. Buford averages 31 minutes, 17.5 points and 4.1 rebounds per game, shooting 48% from three point range.

He's not German, so he's blending right in.



- Louis Bullock

Bullock is into his sixth season with Real Madrid. He's averaging 10.4 points per game in the Euroleague and 11.1 points per game in the Spanish league. He's shooting only 86% from the line, however. I say "only" because this man never seems to dip under 92%. On the flip side, he has 83 points on 47 Euroleague shots and 187 ACB points on 113 shots, with a combined true shooting percentage between the two of .682%. As shooting/scoring specialists go, that's kind of handy.




- Pat Burke

Pat Burke is unsigned. Last year in the Euroleague, he averaged 10.7 points, 6.9 rebounds for Prokom Sopot of Poland, but they did not bring him back this summer.

Pat Burke is also 36, so he may be unsigned from here on out. I'm assuming he's retired, but the only thing online I can find that suggests that is this. And I don't think the seminal sentence "Pat Burke announced his retirement from pro baskeball dis summer!!" is quite the authentication that I'm looking for. But it's a hint, at least.



- Antonio Burks

Burks is still recuperating after being the victim of a near-fatal shooting last summer. Burks was a spectator at an illicit backyard dice game that he probably shouldn't have been at, when two teenagers tried to rob the game. One of them, 18 year old Darquan Swift, shot Burks in the abdomen and fled the scene. Burks almost died from his injuries, spent several months in hospital (much of which was spent on a ventilator), and had to survive multiple life saving operations; he has only recently gotten out of a wheelchair and into the crutches phase. Swift was arrested after an anonymous tip-off and was charged with first degree murder; the case is ongoing.

The news doesn't really get any better for Burks; not only does he have to face extensive rehab from his injuries, but he also has some criminal proceedings to go through. He turned himself into the authorities only a couple of days after appearing in court to identify Swift, the warrants against him being for unpaid child support, driving without a seatbelt and driving with a suspended license. Burks claims he was unable to pay the child support (which happened before the shooting) because he was suspended from playing basketball, which is also true; he was suspended by FIBA for a year in November 2007 after walking out on his previous team, Crvena Zvezda, in April. Crvena Zvezda hadn't paid him for a month, yet apparently that wasn't deemed valid enough of a reason to leave, and Burks was forced to miss the whole 2007-08 season. And while he was able to play in 2008-09, splitting the season between Bulgaria and Poland, he didn't play especially well and probably didn't earn a huge amount in the process. And then the shooting incident happens.

Bad times.



- Kevin Burleson

Former Bobcats guard Burleson is in Romania, playing for Ploiesti. The Romanian league is.....well, it's God awful in the grand scheme of things. But Ploiesti are a EuroChallenge team, which gives the gig a small degree of pedigree. Burleson averages 11.2 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game in the Romanian league, alongside 12.3/3.4/1.8 in the EuroChallenge.



- Stanley Burrell

Burrell is in Belgium and putting up by far the best assists numbers of his young life. In 27.7 minutes per game for Verviers-Pepinster, Burrell is averaging 9.7 points, 5.2 assists, 1.9 rebounds and 1.0 steals, shooting 48% from the field (albeit with only a 60% free throw percentage). After never averaging more than 3.8 assists per game in his college career, and only 2.0 last year in the D-League, Burrell this year has only three games in which he had less than 5. And those are continental assists, which are harder to get. The 5.2 assists also leads the whole Belgian league; it officially is Hammer Time there right now.



- Steve Burtt

Steve Burtt went to Cyprus this summer. I don't know why such a large amount of semi-decent players went to China this year compared to usual. We've already had a couple, and there's more to come. But what I do know is that there's no Cyprolian statistics available, and that Steve Burtt was released soon after arriving. He has not signed elsewhere since. And he also shut down his Twitter account.



- Jackie Butler

Jackie Butler has disappeared off the map. It was two and a half years ago that the Rockets released him in preseason despite his guaranteed contract, and he has not signed anywhere else since. His only scheduled appearance was at the Vegas Summer League in 2008 with the Charlotte Bobcats, but he did not turn up. Butler was rumoured as a candidate for a spot in the Chinese Basketball Association this season, but I don't think it ever got beyond the whispers stage, and he is not there now.



Finally....

- Jamar Butler

Ohio State guard Jamar Butler is in Greece, playing for Gymnastikos Olympia Larissas. (Larrisa is the place, not a thing. It's not "the Olympia Larrias" as in "the Charlotte Bobcats". If you must put it in that way, it's more liek the Larrisa Gymnasts.) For the Gymnasts, Butler averages 13.3 points and 3.1 assists per game, shooting 45% from the field and 41% from three point range.

Why do all Greek surnames end in -s?



Ten posts in and we still haven't reached the letter C. This might take a while.

A.D. Vassallo Made Me Have An Epiphany, That Well Hairlined Bastard

As you might presently yourself fully be aware of, one of the specialist areas that this website focuses on is on the life, times, careers and skillsets of players on the fringes of the NBA. (The other specialisms are; the NBA salaries and all the technical aspects that go along with them, player's criminal histories, references to English things that you don't really understand, occasional misogyny, overly complicated wordplay, and stealing jokes from Family Guy. So, something for everyone there.) The spectrum of the site runs broader than that, and tries to encapsulate everything NBA related, but those are the areas of particular focus. I try to bring you things that you can't get elsewhere in the online NBA world, and ne'er moreso is this true than in the scrub tracking.

It's something that I love to do in life. Some men go to sleep at night holding their dicks; I go to bed at night holding import player's rebounding statistics from the last Chinese Basketball Association season. (Not really; I hold my dick too. But you get the idea.) Following scrubs is pretty much all I do, so much so that I had to visit Google to remind me of what the word "sex" means. Oh and believe me, the internet carries that information.

Maybe it's because of my nation's jingoistic identity as a perennial lover of the underdog, but since day one of my NBA fandom, something has always drawn me to the crap players more than the good ones. My "favourite NBA players of all time" list includes Rick Brunson, Fred Hoiberg, Chris Jefferies and Marcus Fizer, for God's sake. I even have Fizer's name on a jersey somewhere. Perhaps I should sell it back to him.

One of the most grating aspects of this devotion, though, is the fanboys. Every player, no matter how insignificant they are to the NBA landscape, has their fanboys.

Sometimes they're hired help. They could be their business managers, agents, or friends who passed the bar exam that pretend to be agents. Sometimes they're family members. Sometimes they're just the guy's road meat. But whatever form they take, every player has their fanboys, their defenders, their online entourage, people who take it upon themselves to tell you everything that player has ever achieved, everything they're ever going to achieve, and usually (if you've been somewhat derogatory) how much of an uninformed twat you are.

It's rarely fun, but it's usually daily.

To be constantly told that you don't know anything when you're trying your best to know everything is deflating, but perhaps to be expected. It's easy to know everything about somebody, and it's impossible to know everything about everybody. But if you don't, someone will bite their thumb at you, denounce your opinions and besmirch your family. They know more than you, and they need you to know that. And because they know more than you, you know nothing. No matter how hard you try.

Which brings me sluggishly to my point.

None of us really know anything. Us NBA fans, we have our opinions, and we shout about them to anyone who'll listen. We're convinced that we're right, and we opine about this in arrogant, often condescending ways. We think we are right in what we think about all players, and we think that if we don't know someone, they're not worth knowing. And boy, are we confident.

But the reality of it is is that we don't really know anything. We know a fraction of a percentage of the bits that we think are interesting, and we denounce the bits that we don't. Rather than know everything, we know the bits that we want to know, and then tell the people who don't care for the bits that we do that they are wrong.

This would be normal and tolerable if we were nice about it. But for some reason, sports discussions are only able to exist if one or all parties involved happen to be a self-effacing little cockturtle, whose views and delivery are suitably close-minded and authoritative. Regardless of the fact that we are passing judgement on a group of elite athletes having the kind of career that a microscopic minority of human beings can achieve, us cockturtles are somehow the ones in the right. It would be like Ime Udoka and Ronnie Price denouncing your abilities as a lumberjack; it's not their place to say anything.

In short, we're all annoyingly self-assured in our own ignorance. And so I for one am going to start being a whole lot nicer about that.

Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 8

A lot of people are called Brown, I've noticed. How fascinating.

- Dee Brown started the year with the Wizards, but was then waived when it emerged that he wasn't much god, nor was he the answer to Washington's pretty severe outside shooting problems. He then went to a Suns mini-camp, where he beat out Eddie Gill, Damon Stoudamire, Darrell Armstrong, Walker Russell and Troy Hudson to win Phoenix's mandatory 13th roster spot. He's since had his arse waived again this week, due to the mandatory contract guarantee date of January 10th. The Suns, seemingly, are going to do what they so love doing - keeping the bare minimum of players at all times, going to 12 as and when they can, to avoid paying out as little money as possible. This from the team that traded away Rudy Fernandez and Rajon Rondo just to save money, and who then gave Goran Dragic more than either of them. Even the Jason Richardson trade saved them money, It kind of makes you squirm, doesn't it?

- I've been literally inundated with one request for news on Never Gonna Keep Me Down Elton Brown. Oddly, that request comes from soneone who already knows the answer. But, sod it, let's play along anyway. After spending the preseason with the Chicago Bulls, and having trouble getting a shot away without it being blocked by a defender and/or the rim, Elton went to Israeli powerhouse Maccabi Tel-Aviv, hoping to be good again. However, Elton appeared in only one game, scoring two points with two rebounds, before it was announced in late December that Maccabi were releasing him, supposedly because they were disappointed with his conditioning. Whether he has actually left yet, I'm not sure, but he's not playing with the team, and any remaining chance of some dramatic turnaround with the team is going to be made even less likely once Marcus Fizer makes his return from long term injury lay-off, which will happen in the near future. So, the D-League it is then.

- Andre Brown started the season with the Charlotte Bobcats, after surprisingly making the team out of training camp. (Their quest for a big man started with Brown, then included Linton Johnson, saw a brief sojourn with Dwayne Jones, and eventually they settled on Juwan Howard. Somewhere in that cycle, they waived Jermareo Davidson. In case you didn't know, Larry Brown now coaches the Charlotte Bobcats.) Waived soon afterwards, Andre Brown now plays in the D-League with the Austin "Danger" Toros, thereby guaranteeing himself a contract from the San Antonio Spurs at some point. Brown averages 16.1 points and 10.0 rebounds whilst remaining the worst free throw shooter alive today.

- Eric Daniel Brunson is still the director of men's basketball operations at the University of Virginia, where he presumably extolls the virtues of being all heart.

- Rodney Buford is currently unsigned, which, in a sense, isn't a bad thing. I think he's found the solution to his endless suspensions. If he's not under contract, he can't be suspended for smoking weed, can he? That's genius Rodney, that is.

- Pat Burke is playing with Prokom in Poland, where he averages 11.2 points and 6.1 rebounds a game. He also just had a 20 rebound performance in the Euroleague, which is nigh on impossible to do, but which will guarantee him work for a while.

- Antonio Burks is no longer suspended, after being forced to sit out all of last season after walking out on a team that wasn't paying him. Seemed like an unfair suspension when so simplified, but, whatever. Burks signed a few days ago with Slupsk in Poland, if only for the name alone, and he has not played a game for them yet.

- Kevin Burleson is unsigned, and not even the Bobcats want him right now.

- Steve Burtt Jr is playing in Israel, where he averages 21.0 points and 3.4 rebounds for a team called Ashkelon. Fun Steve Burtt Fact, If Fun Is The Right Word For It: Steve Burtt Jr returned from his Christmas trip back to America a day late, after his mother forbade him from returning to the country until living arrangements were made for him in the middle of the country, out of the way of all that current Gaza shindig. Nasty business, that.

- I have no idea where Jackie Butler is. None whatsoever. The Rockets waived him last preseason, after only accepting him as pennance for getting Luis Scola for free. He then sat out the whole of last season. Butler was then supposed to join the Charlotte Bobcats for summer league, but didn't, and he hasn't been signed anywhere this season either. Keith Glass, if you're reading this, then let me know. And Keith Glass, if you're not reading this, I'm going to go back and re-write the review I gave your book. (Also note, re: the Bobcats summer league team - how stacked was that lineup? How the hell did it go 2-3?)

- Jamar Butler signed with Eldo Caserta in Italy, but left after only two games after disagreements with the coach, and has not played since. It's been said that he'll sign in Turkey, and it's been said that he'll sign in Germany, but at the time of writing he hasn't signed with either.

- Derrick Byars is with the Jam in the D-League, where he averages 16.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.3 assists.

- Finally, fabled basketball vagabond Rashid Byrd is also in the D-League, where he averages 4.3 points and 3.4 rebounds. His free throw shooting percentage (44.4%) is higher than his field goal percentage (39.3%). It's also enough to make him a better free throw shooter than Andre Brown.

ShamSports.com - Doing the hard work so that you can steal it. Salaries excluded.

Where Are They Now? Part 6 (The Browns)

T-Air Brown is playing for Varese of the Italian league, and avergaing about 11 points and 3 assists. I was going to include statistics for everybody before I realised that I couldn't bothered, so there's Tierre's as a compromise of sorts.

Kedrick Brown, who was waived by the Sixers in February 2005 and who hadn't taken a basketball job since, is finally back playing, in the D-League, for The Arse (Anaheim Arsenal). Where he was in the mean time is unclear, but, depending on who you believe, he wasn't an alcoholic.

Perennial training camp hopeful Damone Brown has made his way to the Dutch league, playing for the Eiffel Towers Den Bosch. Why they are thus named is not immediately clear, but with this stint in Holland, Damone Brown has now officially played "everywhere". Even Utah. So well done him.

Denham Brown is playing for Tisettanta Cantu in the Italian league.

Dee Brown is playing for Galatasaray in Turkey, as mentioned before.

"Never Gonna Keep Me Down" Elton Brown is being firmly kept down by Hapoel Holon of the Israeli league.

Bobby Brown - no music career jokes please, because they aren't funny - is playing for ALBA Berlin, who are in Berlin. Which is in Spain. Seriously.

Rick Brunson is "Director Of Men's Basketball Operations" at the University of Virginia. What he does with the women's basketball team is anybody's guess.

Rodney Buford is playing for Azovmash in the Ukraine, after recently coming off of his fifth career suspension for waccy baccy smoking, this latest suspension three months in length. Time to re-think your lifestyle choices maybe, Rodney.

Pat Burke is playing for Kihmsky Moscow in the Russian League.

Antonio Burks was playing in the basketball Mecca that is the Bulgarian league, until November. Then he got suspended by FIBA for a year. Apparently his decision to walk out on his previous team - Red Star Belgrade - was deemed unlawful. Not knowing most of the facts of the case, I'm tempted to support Burks's decision to do so since the team hadn't paid him for a month. But, hey ho, what do I know. Unjust punishments for the win!

Kevin Burleson is playing for Mersin Buyuksehir Belediyesi in Turkey.

Jackie Butler hasn't been heard from since Houston waived him this October. But the chances are that some people will still tell you that he's a future starting centre in the NBA.



In answer to someone's question of "are you really going to go through the entire alphabet, 12 at a time?", the answer is yes.

30 teams in 36 or so days: New York

Players acquired via free agency or trade:

Zach Randolph (acquired from Portland)
Dan Dickau (acquired from Portland)
Fred Jones (acquired from Portland)



Players acquired via draft:

First round: Wilson Chandler (23rd overall)
Second round: Demetrius Nicholls (53rd overall, rights acquired from Portland, not yet signed)



Players retained:

Malik Rose (opted in)



Players departed:

Kelvin Cato (unsigned, largely inept)
Channing Frye (traded to Portland)
Steve Francis (traded to Portland)



Bobbins:

If he has not done so already, Isiah Thomas needs to write an autobiography. Actually, he needs to write about 3. One about his time as a player, one as a General Manager, and one for amusing miscellany. I can safely say without a shadow of a doubt that I would buy all three. Not even a moment's hesitation needed. And I think the same applies to about half of you. Maybe give him his own TV channel, and just run endless documentaries on him. I'd watch them. There's just too much fun yet inexplicable stuff going on at all times where Isiah Thomas is concerned.

Win or lose (but normally lose), these Isiah-led Knicks have been an absolute fixture at the top of the NBA's "sweet merciful crap, did you hear this?" listings. From the moment he took over, 'forfeiting' the 'future' of the franchise by trading for Stephon Marbury (the notion that Milos Vujanic constituted most of the Knicks future is still funny), Isiah has continued to dumbfound, amaze and amuse in equal measures. Whether it be by making the type of trade for which they had to invent their own category ("A Trade Only Isiah Could Make"), or for one of many stories that come out about him (such as his role in instigating the brawl against Denver, or wanting to kill Bill Simmons, which is the Tarantino film they never made but should have done), Thomas and the Knicks in general always seem to rustle up something with which to entertain. You can't help but disbelieve the roster moves that he makes, and you can't help but believe the stories that you hear about him. He's just that sort of person. Never say never with Isiah Thomas. (Or is that Mike Tyson? Hmmm. Anyway.)

This offseason, he went and did it again. Twice.

Apart from the occasional grumbling about potentially re-signing Allan Houston - a man Thomas tried to dump in any way possible when he first joined the Knicks, before Houston finally accepted a medical retirement, a decision he seemed to have reneged on - no news really comes out of Knicks land these days unless it's about the sexual harassment brought against Isiah by Zach Ra......err, Anucha Browne Sanders, former Knicks marketing vice president or something. Everything that I know about the subject has come directly from Bill Simmons's recap of the whole shebang, which answered many of my questions, but with two glaring omissions:

1) What the hell does Stephon Marbury have to do with any of this? What does his desire to cop some free ass have to do with her being fired for being crap at her job?
2) And who cares who called who a bitch? I dunno, maybe I'm just naive.

Either way, I'm not going into the subject further. There it is for you all to see.

Isiah's other storyline came before the start of the trial (which seems so long ago now), when he made the biggest headlines on draft night, trading Channing Frye, Steve Francis and a future second rounder to Portland for Zach Randolph, Dan Dickau, Fred Jones and the draft rights to Demetrius Nichols. With an overflowing roster, it is entirely possible that only one of those last three makes the team this season, or none if Allan Houston is signed. So they're not really factors here. Additionally, Francis was traded to Portland knowing that:

a) Portland would buy him out, and
b) Had New York been unable to deal him, they would have bought him out instead. Francis was merely salary filler.

The trade was essentially therefore just Frye for Randolph. When you put it that way, it sounds OK. But let's look a little deeper.

The Knicks of last year were a talented, but ill-fitting group of players, with a lot of distinct weaknesses to address. A very good rebounding team in spite of having Eddy Curry at center, the Knicks consistently had trouble defending the perimeter, ranking third last in the league in three point percentage against. They also turned it over way too much, ranking dead last in the league with 17.1 a game, whilst also ranking second last in blocked shots per game with 3.1, a mark bettered (or worsened) only by Milwaukee.

Now to get rid of Francis goes some way to helping with these deficiencies, particularly those of the turnover rate and offensive stagnificationness that the Knicks would go through at times last year. The offense revolved around force feeding Curry, who responded with almost 20 points a game, but it wasn't exactly the most inventive or successful strategy, and it was to cause problems whenever New York needed somewhere else to turn. Inefficient scoring from the perimeter players, plus the team-wide turnover woes, left New York as a one dimensional offensive team. And that offense was rather easy to nullify with a bit of common sense and flopping, as Chicago demonstrated on more than one occasion last year. When combined with New York's poor defense, it didn't make for a very promising lineup, which was reflected in their final record - New York ended up 32-50, firmly entrenched in the lottery. And they didn't get to keep their lottery pick, either. But you probably knew that already.

Why, then, did they decide Zach Randolph would somehow solve these problems?

While far from an exact clone of Eddy Curry, Randolph and he do share similar weaknesses. Both are poor defensive players, with mediocre at best man-to-man defense and abysmal help defense. Both players also turn it over way too often, stagnate the offense due to their lack of passing skill and passing desire, and are also almost exclusively to be found in the low post on offense (or that's where Randolph should be, at least). Also, New York has a relatively young core of players - is that really the kind of scenario in which you want to bring in Zach Randolph, Mr Locker Room Chemistry 2006?

Portland certainly didn't think so - they would rather pay Steve Francis $30 million to never ever turn up than they would have Randolph around their group of young players.

Then again, it's only Channing Frye, so maybe it was worth a flyer. Maybe it'll be so quirky that it works, in the same way that Rick Brunson is so bad that he's great. Maybe.

There's also the whole "is Marbury on crack?" thing to reflect upon, but I'm not sure I can think of anything interesting to say about it. However, in the extremely unlikely event that you have no idea what I'm talking about, watch this.

(And this.)



Next year:

One thing the Knicks on-court product of last season never lacked in was drama. If you were a Chicago fan rooting in your heart of hearts for the Knicks to lose (as was I), or just a Knick fan hoping in your heart of hearts that the Knicks would win, then you ran the full gambit of emotions throughout their season. Whether they won or lost, whether they were being blown out or were miles ahead, and whether they were playing a good team or a shit team, all Knicks games seemed to culminate with high drama finishes. Sometimes, they were on the winning end - see David Lee's tip in versus Charlotte, Eddy Curry's three pointer vs Milwaukee, or Steve Francis's three versus Washington. And sometimes, they were on the losing end, such as with Josh Howard's game saving block for Dallas early on, or Marbury's missed final second free throw versus Seattle.

Whatever the result, it made for some entertainment. And that's a good thing. This Knick team has got some fight, and some pride within them.

They just haven't got the ability, nor the cohesion.

The old saying goes that 'the whole is greater than the sum of the parts'. And it's true. San Antonio proves this adage time and again, continuing to win championships with only three legitimate NBA players (I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea). New York Knicks teams under Isiah's regime have proven much the same in the complete opposite way: continuing to add talented players time and again, it so far hasn't helped any, as the Knicks continue to miss the playoffs.

Next year figures to be no different. Adding an extremely gifted player who is the total package of talent, attitude and contract while solving none of the team's weaknesses and also consequently forcing arguably their best player to the bench doesn't seem like a winning formula to me. It sure as shit wasn't when Isiah tried it with Steve Francis, or Stephon Marbury, or Jalen Rose.

But, I guess we'll see. I'm a natural cynic, what would I know about anything anyway?

(Also, gambling tip for you gamblers out there - go and bet on Renaldo Balkman leading the Knicks in blocked shots per game next year. Because it's going to happen. And it's probably going to be around about 0.9 a game. Good fun.)