Summer league round-up: Cleveland Cavaliers

About bloody time.

View the Cavaliers' long overdue summer league roster.

- Christian Eyenga: Everything I know about Christian Eyenga can be found here. Nothing has happened since then to really advance my knowledge. But I'll add this unoriginal thought: This is a Cavaliers team that is trying to win now. It really is. If you trade for Shaquille O'Neal, you're trying to win now. They're the rules. So why then would you take the biggest prospect in the draft with your sole first round pick? I'm not saying that any of them are brilliant players or difference makers, but players like Sam Young, Dejuan Blair, Jermaine Taylor....these are potentially useful pieces, and as things stand, the Cavaliers bench is pretty bare. Would it not have been worth taking one of their ilk instead? What is the percentage possibility of Eyenga becoming a better NBA player than these others? I don't know. But it'd have to be quite a way above 50% to make this make sense.

- Jamont Gordon: Jamont Gordon fills up the stat sheet in all categories, but he has his flaws. He's an inefficient scorer, he turns it over too much, his own hairline hates him, and he's too short for his skillset. But one of the biggest flaws has always been his jumpshot. And, based on last year's play, it still is. Gordon averaged 11.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.4 steals in 24 minutes per game for Upim Bologna last season, but shot only 32% from three point range. He drew a lot of foul shots as per usual, but also missed a lot as per usual, shooting 68% from the stripe. Gordon's an unconventional kind of smallish guard, but he's quite a good one. He's just going to have to improve his decision making and/or shooting before he cracks the big league. If that happens, we'll forget about his fivehead.

- Danny Green: I like to think of Danny Green as being a bit like a crap Shane Battier. I like to think I know things. I don't.

- David Harrison: Harrison's rookie contract expired last summer, and after a brief training camp tryout with the Timberwolves, he left the NBA altogether. He buggered off to China, where he did the usual Chinese thing and put up a crapload of stats all across the board. Harrison totalled 21.0 points, 11.2 rebounds, 1.2 assists, 1.3 steals, 2.3 blocks and 4.2 fouls a game, shooting better from the field (62.1%) than the foul line (56.9%). Thems is good looking numbers, for sure, but good looking numbers are easy to achieve when you're over 6'8 tall and even slightly mobile. May I remind you once again that Olumide Oyedeji averaged almost 20/20 in China last season. Even Priest Lauderdale put up big numbers, bigger than Harrison's, to the tune of 21/13/4. And he's not even mobile. (By the way, add Priest Lauderdale to the list of American players who have obtained Bulgarian passports. But at least Priest had the decency to play there for four years.)

Harrison turns 27 next month and has never really developed. Don't let me be catching you talking about him as having potential. But more importantly, here's a Priest Lauderdale fact: Priest Lauderdale was once banned from playing in the Phillipines Basketball Association because the league ruled he was too big. The PBA atthe time had a rule which stated that teams could field two imports with only a combined of 13 feet six inches, and the 7'4 Lauderdale had a 6'4 team mate (Jermaine Walker). That rule has since been dropped due to its inherent stupidity. Good times.

- Robert Hite: The ironically named Hite was in the Belgian league last year, averaging 16.3 points and 4.8 rebounds for Oostende. But Cleveland, if you want Robert Hite, sign Luther Head. I'm seriously.

- Darnell Jackson: Jackson has an unguaranteed salary for next year, and if the Cavaliers get serious about winning now and decide to stock up with veterans, then his roster spot might be in jeopardy. But, since there's no real threat of that right now, he should be fine.

- Tarence Kinsey: Kinsey last season played about 13 important seconds all year. The rest of the time he saw was garbage time. Since you will no doubt know that Tarence Kinsey is the Kingsey Of Garbage Time, it might not surprise you to know that Kinsey managed to record a true shooting percentage last season of .595%. And this from your 13th man. Not too freaking bad, is it? Kinsey's contract is unguaranteed until July 28th, but I'm pulling for him to make it. And if he doesn't, I want my Bulls to get in on that. (Giggidy? Maybe.)

- Leo Lyons: Lyons was covered in the Indiana Pacers round-up of the other day. Nothing has happened since then to make me change my mind.

- Maureece Rice: Rice was one of about 46 people to get a training camp contract with the Sixers last year, but he never really stood a chance of making the team. After that went south, he went north, and was acquired by the Erie BayHawks of the D-League. He didn't start out too well, but things got better, and he ended up averaging 19.1 points, 4.4 rebounds and 4.0 assists on the year. Rice is still a bit fat, but he slimmed down a bit, and returned to his more suited position of shooting guard. He's managed to rebuild his resume after a bad previous 18 months, and another year like the second half of last year, and who knows; he might get somewhere. By the way, a slightly dodgy anagram of his name is "eerie cum race." Remember; everyone gets an anagram now. Peruse at will.

- Jawad Williams: Williams signed with the Cavs in training camp, and beat the long odds to make the team pretty much on the basis of his performance in one preseason game. He then sat on the inactive list until the contract guarantee date came around, at which point Ferry waived him. As soon as he cleared waivers, though, Jawad was bizarrely brought back for two ten contracts, where he once again sat around doing nothing. Clearly, Dan Gilbert was paying for a winner.

Then, disaster; the Thunder bought out Joe Smith, who signed with the Cavaliers, and Williams lost his roster spot. (By this time, he had played all of 10 minutes in 9 games.) That looked to be the end of that, and Williams slunk off to the D-League to average 25.7 points in 19 games for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.

And then he bounced back. The overdue medical retirement of Eric Snow finally went through, and the Cavaliers had a roster spot open again. They wasted next to no time in burning it on Williams again, signing him through 2010 and giving him the opportunity to once again sit on the bench. They even let him play once; in the Cavs final game of the season, when they rest as many vaguely capable players as they could, Williams came off the bench to score 8 points and pull down two rebounds in 10 minutes. In the 81 games before that, he had managed only 2 points and 0 rebounds in the same amount of time. It truly was a breakout of Ndudi Ebi-like proportions. And boy, did he deserve it.

Will Williams make the roster again? I doubt it. There's no reason why he should (no offense). However, considering Jawad's amazing powers of survival in the Ohio area, I'm not putting it past him. And if he does, I'll be sure to tell you.

Summer signings, round 14

- Good news: Bobby Jones was claimed off of waivers. Bad news: Miami did it. Why is this bad news? Because Bobby Jones has already spent time with Miami, and going back to a team that he has already been with doesn't help Jones's quest to have briefly been on the roster of every NBA franchise before the start of the 2010 season. So far, in 2 seasons in the NBA - and if we rather generously include the 2006 draft, as Jones's rights were traded that night - Bobby has spent times with the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Philadelphia 76ers, the Denver Nuggets, the Memphis Grizzlies, the Houston Rockets, the Miami Heat, the San Antonio Spurs, Denver again, the New York Knicks, and now Miami again. That's 8 franchises in 24 months, a rate that not even an in-his-heyday Josh Davis could match. So, Miami - do us a favour and trade him to Atlanta for his namesake Solomon Jones or something. Don't be selfish.

- Allan Houston wants to make another comeback attempt. Great. Good luck with that.

- The two remaining Oklahoma City unsigned draftees - DeVon Hardin and Serge Ibaka - have both signed contracts in Europe. Ibaka signed a three year contract with Ricoh Manresa of Spain, a deal which allows him to leave and return to the NBA after each year should he so wish. Hardin meanwhile signed with Belediyespor in Turkey on a one year deal. Neither signing is interesting.

- Earl Boykins has signed a one year, $3.5 million contract with Virtus Bologna in Italy, thereby making the remaining available point guard crop even worse. Not that the presence of Earl Boykins really did it much good.

- Filiberto Rivera has signed with Bamberg in Germany, thereby making the remaining available point guard crop even worse. Not that the presence of Filiberto Rivera really did it much good.

- For those keenly following the progress of Ivan Radenovic (if such people exist, I keep them well fed), Radenovic has upped sticks and moved to Greece, to play for Panellionios. If you couldn't be bothered to read previous posts on the subject of Ivan Radenovic, the Spanish team that he played for - Akasvayu Girona - extended his contract, and then went bankrupt, which was hopefully nothing to do with the size of Radenovic's contract. I'll miss Girona, you know. We got a few games of theirs on TV over here last year, and every time they were on, a staggeringly hot Spanish woman was the sideline reporter for the night. She spoke broken English in a hot accent, which just made the total package that much more enticing. You know how it is when women are so unbelievably good looking that it becomes impossible to rank their beauty when compared to other unbelievably good looking women? Well, she was one of them. So it's a shame that I won't be able to look at her talk four times a year for twenty seconds at a time A damn shame. And that's why I'll miss Akasvayu Girona.

- Jannero Pargo was reportedly on the verge of signing with the San Antonio Spurs, but now reports say that Miami has made a late bid for him. Since the Heat have spent most of their MLE on the unflinching duo of Mario Chalmers and James Earl Jones, the most that they can offer Pargo is the Bi-Annual Exception, which starts at $1.91 million, you have to wonder why Pargo opted out of the contract that would have paid him $1.976 million next year. Pargo has now opted out of his contract for two straight seasons, yet he remains unable to get the one massive paycheck that he's looking for. The chances of him signing a third straight two year contract with a player option, and then opting out after the first year, look impressively high. And that's got to be a world first. These are the things that I think about, by the way.

- Louis Williams re-signed with the 76ers, ensuring that they will have at least one shooting guard who will score more points than he will have attempted field goals. No, I haven't gotten over the Kareem Rush move yet.

- The Bobcats signed Shannon Brown, a move which doesn't seem to solve anything. By the way, if you are Shannon Brown, and you've just had your rookie scale contract cut down to only two years by Cleveland, and you're allowed to walk away unchallenged by your hometown Chicago Bulls, what reason would you possibly have for not joining on with a summer league team? Wouldn't it be a good idea to get in as much shwocasing as you can? This is what I would do, I'm pretty sure. (Note: if Brown was injured or otherwise incapacitated, therefore making my rant unjustified and ill-founded, please do not hesitate to keep that information to yourself.)

- The Rockets traded Steve Novak to the L.A. Clippers in order to save some money, so that they can try to re-sign Carl Landry and pay as little tax as possible. Or, ideally, none at all. It makes sense for Houston to dump the guaranteed money of an inconsequential player, but if someone could explain to me why the Clippers held onto Nick Fazekas for an unnecessarily long time, just to then trade for his older brother in Steve Novak, then please do that. Where's the vast gaping chasm of seperation between Fazekas and Novak, exactly? Is it a bigger or smaller gaping chasm of difference than the one that the Clippers saw between Jason Hart and Brevin Knight? An answer on those would be good, because I'm clearly not smart enough to get it. By the way, God bless Steve Novak. Class.

- Tarence Kinsey signed with the Cavaliers. Have I mentioned that Memphis waived Kinsey in preference to waiving Casey Jacobsen? I have. Will I mention it again? Probably. i just think it bears repeating, you know? The Memphis Grizzlies, everyone.

- And finally, what you've been waiting for - recently cut Nugget (so to speak) Taurean Green is about to sign with some team in some country in Europe. And I forgot to write down who and where.

What you've just witnessed, ladies and gentleman, is the work of an amateur. Be proud. Give generously.

Summer signings, round 1

Some former NBA players have moved from a non-NBA team to a non-NBA team. So have some former peripheral players who never quite cracked the NBA league. If news of this interests you, dear viewer, then read on.


Jerome Moiso has moved from DKV Joventut - a very good European team based Spain - to Khimki, an almost as good European team based in Russia. For all of his NBA failings, Jerome Moiso is regarded as hot shit on this Earth's finest continent.

Marc Jackson, who was released from Greek powerhouse Olympiakos part way through last season to be replaced by Qyntel Woods, has signed with Unics Kazan, also of Russia. The fact that Jackson chose to sign before the NBA free agency period began, and that he also didn't choose to go the summer league route, would indicate that Jackson either has no interest in playing in the NBA any more, or that he no longer finds it a viable option any more.

"Spider" Charles Smith has spent the last two seasons with powerhouse Real Madrid in Spain, but this week has left them to sign with Efes Pilsen in Turkey. There's a delicatessen in my nearest town called Efes Pilsen. Fun fact.

Speaking of Turkey, former Memphis Grizzlies guard Tarence Kinsey has obtained a Turkish passport due to residency (more on this concept in a future blog post), and he will now play for the Turkish national team. Similarly, former Raptors guard Omar Cook recently obtained Montenegran citizenship (it's a country), and will play for their national team too. It's news worth knowing brought to you by the site worth visiting.

Denver draft pick Axel Hervelle has re-signed with Real Madrid for three more years. So he's probably never coming over.

The Toronto Raptors and forward Jorge Garbajosa mutually agreed to terminate the final year of his contract, and Garbajosa has already agreed a deal with Tau Vitoria back in his native Spain. A post about the virtues of Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo may or may not be forthcoming, depending on my effort level. Oh, and as mentioned previously, Grizzlies guard Juan Carlos Navarro also went back to Spain, signing with his former team Barcelona for the next one hundred million years. Never should have left, Juan.

Former Knicks - for about a week - forward Otis George remains in the second tier of Italian basketball, signing with newly promoted Venezia.

Rick Rickert has re-signed with the New Zealand Breakers, who play in Australia. I'm still awaiting answers on why this is. Rickert is probably through with the NBA - or is that the other way around? - but there remains a slim chance that one day he can be reunited with Kevin Garnett, who can then punch him in the face again. As they say, "anything's possible!!!!!!". That joke was shit but I'm still happy I made it.

NBA journeyman Amal McCaskill has signed in the Phillipines, with a team named the Magnolia Beveragemasters. The standard of basketball might be shit over there, but the money's good, and the team names are faaaaaaaaantastic!

Milos Vujanic, the one time future of the New York Knicks, is joining Charles Smith above at Efes Pilsen, where together they will make the finest continental salads that you ever did sample.

Zoran Erceg - undrafted last season - has signed with Olympiakos of Greece, who you will know of if you have any worldly sense/saw the top of this post.

Where Are They Now? Part 21

Tarence Kinsey is playing for Fenerbache in Turkey, alongside former NBA players Will Solomon and Mirsad Turkcan. Kinsey averages 84 points and 52 rebounds, according to his team's website. But more importantly, here is Mirsad Turkcan's wife.



And here is Mirsad Turkcan.



This prompts a hypothetical question - would you rather be a beautiful person who could attract pretty much any member of the opposite sex that you so wished, or would you rather be regarded as ugly by pretty much everyone, only to wind up (somehow) with the most beautiful girl in the world?

Personally, I'm hoping there's some validity to the second option. Or else it's impending doom for me.


Kerry Kittles has not played since his short and not very sweet tenure for the L.A. Clippers.

Petteri Koponen has recently rejoined his finish team after completing his mandatory six month tour of duty in the army. Koponen averages 18.8 points and 3.3 assists for his team, who are called the Honka Playboys. And I think we can see why:



I guess they don't do mandatory head shaving in the Finnish army. ("Finnish" is a damn good name for an army, by the way.)


Yaroslav Korolev has 21 total points in 4 games for Dynamo Moscow. Dynamo is something of an NBA reject hostel, with other luminaries such as Robertas Javtokas, Sergei Monia, Travis Hansen, Milos Vujanic and Antonis Fotsis on hand to teach Korolev about the wonders of failure. The lesson, as always - don't draft "combo" Russian forwards in the first round. Never works.

Kevin Kruger - another former Magic guard, of whom there seems to be about 8 million - is playing for the Utah Flashers of the D-League, and ripping shit up. Kruger averages 13.3 points and 7.1 assists.

Toni Kukoc recently refused to meet George W. Bush for lunch, which is something that I'm not making up. Dino Radja, however, IS going, and I recently heard a whisper that Dino Radja came out of the closet. Confirmation of this would be welcome. Outside of this, I have no idea what he is doing. (That last sentence was intended for Kukoc, but applies to Bush too. Or even Dino Radja.)

Ibrahim Kutluay, the walking personification of the Rick Sund era in Seattle, was recently somewhat forced returned to his native Greece, where he is now playing for PAOK Salonika. Kutluay was previously playing for Fenerbache in Turkey, but if he stayed there any longer, he would have had to do some mandatory army service. So he left. And it's such a shame that bad things happen to moody people. Kutluay averages 15.2 points and about 1 assist while playing alongside a guy named Michael Jordan.

Christian Laettner is long since retired, and is running his property business with former teammate Brian Davis. He also owns D.C. United and a AAA baseball team, and once nearly bought the Grizzlies. Their website appears to no longer exist, which is a shame, because back in the day you could email Christian Laettner from there. Bugger.

Herve Lamizana played in the recently completed United Arab Emirates league season. That's all that I have to say about that.

Maciej Lampe has gotten a lot better. Playing for Khimky in Russia with Pat Burke, Clay Tucker and friends, Lampe averages 15.6 points and 8 rebounds, both team highs. He is also just 23 years old, so maybe he'll come back to the NBA one day. That'll be fun.

Magic Sean Lampley just won the Australian NBL championship with the Melbourne Tigers, averaging 14.6 points and 7.9 rebounds, both second on the team to Chris Anstey. That team, by the way, just today signed Rod Grizzard to replace Lampley.

30 teams in 36 or so days: Memphis

Players acquired via free agency or trade:

Andre Brown (one year minimum)
Casey Jacobsen (one year minimum)
Darko Milicic (3 years, $21.06 million)
Juan Carlos Navarro (rights acquired from Washington, signed for 1 year slightly above minimum)



Players acquired via draft:

First round: Mike Conley Jr (4th overall)
Second round: None



Players retained:

Tarence Kinsey (exercised team option)



Players departed:

Dahntay Jones (signed with Boston)
Chucky Atkins (signed with Denver)
Lawrence Roberts (signed in Greece)
Junior Harrington (unsigned)
Alexander Johnson (waived, signed with Miami)



Bobbins:

Only 3 years ago, the Memphis Grizzlies surprised everybody (except me, and I can prove it in court) by winning 50 games in a season and making the playoffs, this ending the franchise's entirely fruitless history up until that point. That year saw a lineup of General Manager Jerry West, head coach Hubie Brown getting his first full season with the team, and a 10 man rotation every night featuring some of my favourite players of all time (except Posey): Jason Williams, Earl Watson, Mike the Miller, James BOOOOOOOO! Posey, Bonzi Wells, Shane Christ-Battier, POW! Gasol, BO! Outlaw, Lorenzen Wright and Stromile Swift, with Jake Tsakalidis as the 11th man.

Frickin' awesome, it was.

Now, apart from Pau Gasol and Mike Miller (and also Stromile Swift, who left but came back), it's all change. From West to Watson via Brown and Bo, all of the above starlets have left the franchise, apart from those that haven't.

The 10 man rotation was partly to blame. Despite its awesomeness, it led to alleged locker room discontent from those who felt slighted by the limited minues that it gave them (namely Williams, Posey and Wells, although it also led to Stromile Swift signing with Houston). That discontent led to Hubie Brown resigning, and some players moves to be made over the course of the offseason and following season. Williams and Posey were dealt to Miami for Eddie Jones (a man who would never complain), and Bonzi Wells went to the Kings for backup guard Bobby Jackson. Watson and Swift were allowed to sign elsewhere, and Bo Outlaw was unexpectedly waived so that the team could keep Ryan Humphrey, a complete scrub of a forward who went on to achieve absolutely nothing. Battier was traded to Houston in June 2006, and just like that, most of the 10 man team had been disbanded.

With it went the Grizzlies playoff days.

Last season saw the Grizzlies finish with the worst record in the NBA. Largely due to the broken foot sustained by superstar Pau Gasol, the Grizzlies also had some coaching drama, firing Mike Fratello shortly after Christmas. His replacement, the wonderfully named and wonderfully tailored Tony Barone, didn't so much coach the team, as he did the opposite. From the slow paced micromanaging of Fratello, Memphis transformed almost overnight into a high tempo running team, averaging 105.7 points per game for the final 52 games of the under Barone. It didn't help them win any more, though, and neither did the return of Gasol, as Memphis limped to a 22 win season (or perhaps, it's best called a 60 loss season).

The only way to make that worse would be to finish 4th in the draft, the worst position that Memphis could have. They achieved this, if that's the right way to phrase it, missing out on Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, and drafted Mike Conley instead.

So in the end, all that losing was all for nought. Well, not for nought, but that's how it must have felt after a long, slow season of futility. A bit like walking six miles home, in the rain, just to find that you're locked out anyway. You can break into next door's garage and sleep there for the night, but it's not going to suffice, and you're not going to be a happy bunny. And your neighbours will probably be pretty fucked off with you too.



Contrary to how I've outlined it above, though, it's really not that bad of a situation in Memphis right now. New GM Chris Wallace's highly unsuccessful tenure in Boston was punctuated by his massively crap trade for former All Star and alcoholic Vin Baker, a trade whose ramifications ended only this summer, when Boston could finally stop paying him. Having seemingly learnt from that mistake, Wallace decided to spend Memphis's cap space this summer on Darko Milicic, a young talented big, rather than going balls out to sign someone like Stanislav Medvedenko (and don't think he couldn't do it, either). In addition to this, the Grizzlies traded a future first round draft choice to Washington for the rights to Juan Carlos Navarro, whom they then signed to a one year contract. This move, plus the drafting of Conley and the return from injury of Kyle Lowry, gives Damon Stoudamire a new reason to gripe, but more importantly it gives Memphis a decent guard rotation, something which they did not have last year. You can tell if a team has a good guard rotation or not by looking to see whether they have Junior Harrington on their roster. If yes, then that team does not have a good guard rotation.

Why they decided to sign Casey Jacobsen and Andre Brown prior to signing Navarro, severly limiting the amount of money they could give him (and therefore the number of years - Navarro's actually losing money this season after paying his buyout, which is why he signed for only one year), I'll never know. If they hadn't done so, they probably wouldn't be looking at having to spend part of all of their MLE next year on just keeping Navarro. In fact, why they waived Alexander Johnson just to replace him with Brown in the first place is also a mystery. But, you know, whatever.




Next season:

The additions of Milicic, Conley and Navarro add to a young core which already featured the harshly named Rudy Gay, the immensely decent (until his wrist broke) Kyle Lowry, the valuable if limited Hakim Warrick, and last year's surprise Tarence Kinsey. That's not to mention superstar power forward Gasol, and the uber role player himself, Mike Miller.

Memphis has many ingredients for a successful playoff team. They have a talented roster at every position, with plenty of offensive talent, improved if still poor defense, and more than enough athleticism. But their biggest hole is experience. Recent Memphis teams had successful regular seasons and made the playoffs, but the franchise has never won a playoff game in 12 years. Indeed, all the players on the roster have only won a combined 56 playoff games, with only 7 playoff series won between them. Mike Miller has won 2 playoff games, Damon Stoudamire has won 21 games and 4 series, Jacobsen 2 games, and Darko Milicic has 31 games and 7 playoff series won. Plus a ring.

Yet, given that Jacobsen didn't play at all in his team's playoff wins, that Milicic played mere garbage time in his entire spell at Detroit, that Miller's lone two playoff wins came 5 and 6 years ago (and also come alongside 18 losses), and that Stoudamire probably won't be with Memphis by the end of the season......it's really not an impressive run down. Especially since they have a rookie head coach.

Still, the Memphis roster has plenty of talent to go along with one of the best inside players in the game, one of the best young coaches in the game (apparently), and the super effing awesomeness of Mike Miller. They also have Brian Cardinal, who I thought I should mention, if only on the basis that I managed to name everybody except him at some point so far. It won't be this season, and maybe not the one after, but barring unforeseen disaster, the Memphis Grizzlies aren't too far away from their former 50 win selves, based on the talent that they have accumulated thus far and should continue to add to. And so maybe THAT'S why they didn't trade Pau Gasol.

Who knows, maybe next time around, they'll win some playoff games as well.