Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 29

Don't know what happened there. Or rather, I do know what happened, and I do know why, and there's not a damn thing I could do about it. Downside of advert-free websites = they occasionally break, and no one tells you. Ho hum.

- Coby Karl began the season with the Idaho Stampede before going to Spain and DKV Joventut Badalona to replace Bracey Wright. Karl averaged 18.6 points, 4.4 rebounds and 5.5 assists for Idaho, and has appeared in all of one game for Badalona, scoring two points in two minutes on 0-2 shooting.

- Former Magic centre Mario Kasun - who I like to consider the forerunner to Marcin Gortat, albeit not as good, because nobody is as good as Marcin Gortat - is signed with Efes Pilsen in Turkey, but has missed most of the season through injury. Returning about three weeks ago, Kasun has so far totalled 25 points and 15 rebounds in two Turkish league games, and a 10 minute 8 point performance in his sole Euroleague game versus Real Madrid.

- Sasha Kaun is with CSKA Moscow, craftily located in Moscow. As is the case with young players in Moscow, Can kaun't get off the bench (see what I did there?), averaging 2.7 points and 2.7 rebounds in 9 Russian league games, and totalling 2 points and 6 rebounds in 4 Euroleague games. Kaun was also drafted in the fifth round of the CBA Draft, but that's not much of a boast, because the CBA draft is the most pointless thing in the world. "Quick, let's draft these players so that we'll hold their rights if they decide to join the CBA!.....Oh no, wait, they got NBA contracts instead. Bugger. If only they knew of all the needlessly misspelt fun that we have here at the Pittsburgh Xplosion."

- Tre Kelley is with Eldan Ashkelon in Israel, forming a lethal midget backcourt with Steve Burtt Jr. Kelley averages 11.3 points and 2.9 assists, as part of a three guard rotation with Burtt and some Israeli guy called Avi Ben Chimol.

- Viktor Khryapa also plays for CSKA Moscow, who lead the Russian superleague comfortably with a 14-0 record. Informal rule for you here: if they're Russian, and their name starts with K, they probably play for CSKA Moscow. On a stacked team, Khryapa averages 9.0 ppg, 8.5 rpg, 2.3 apg, 1.9 spg and 0.8 bpg in the Russian league, numbers which drop to 6.8 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 1.4 apg, 1.3 spg and 0.9 bpg in the Euroleague.

- Kerry Kittles's Wikipedia page says that he is working for the Nets as a part time scout. I can't find anything that validates this, but nor can I be bothered to check beyond page 1 of the Google results page. Speaking of Kerry Kittles, here's a fun fact about giraffes: male giraffes swill the piss of female giraffes around their mouths to detect whether she's ready for some good old fashioned giraffe loving or not. Fun fact. (Oh, and apparently, between 40 and 95% of giraffes have had a homosexual experience. That's a rather vague estimate, but in any case, it's a ratehr high number.)

- Petteri Koponen is strangely not playing a lot. For Fortezza Bologna, Koponen averages only 2.3 points, 0.9 assists and 1.3 steals in Italian league play, rising to 7.1 points, 1.5 assists and 1.1 steals in EuroChallenge play.

- Guess where Yaroslav Korolev plays. Go on, guess. Remember my informal rule above. Did you guess CSKA Moscow? If so, you were duped; Korolev actually plays for CSKA's cross town rivals, Dynamo Moscow. Or rather, he doesn't play. Korolev has totalled 4 points and 10 rebounds in seven Russian league games, and 5 points and 1 rebound in two Eurocup games, uimpressive numbers all around. He has also spent some time with the Dynamo under-23 team this season, in a bid to make him better. Korolev is still only 21, so there is time yet for him not to suck, but as time goes on, the fact that the Clippers drafted him at number 12 when he was only 18 years of age continues to look worse and worse. It's particularly bad when you consider that Danny Granger (who plays the same position as Korolev, yet who is nwo fifth in the NBA in scoring) was picked 17th in the same draft. Whoops.

- Kevin Kruger started the year with Lukoil Akademik in Bulgaria, but left the team in December, as did Kenny Adeleke. Kruger averaged 12.0 points and 7.5 assists in two Bulgarian league games, and 13.0 points and 2.0 assists in two Eurocup games. He was later replaced by Willie Deane.

- Don't know what Toni Kukoc does now.

- Ibrahim Kutluay - who ranks pretty highly on Rick Sund's all time mistakes list - just turned 35, and is now playing in the Turkish second division with ITU Istanbul. If you want to know what he averages for some strange reason, work this out yourself. I don't really know why Ibrahim Kutluay ever joined the NBA in the first place, but I do know that he's never joining it again. This is a bold statement, I know, but that's the kind of man that I am.

- Finally tonight, Christian Laettner now part-owns the operating rights to Major League Soccer team, D.C. United, but the website for his real estate company Blue Devil Ventures no longer works. This is a shame, because you could email Christian directly from it back in the day. Oh well.

Summer signings, round 29

- The Nets figured out that they could use a point guard, given that they only have two right now, one of whom is a shooting guard. So they brought in their former player Eddie Gill, as well as GM Kiki Vanderweghe's former mistake, Julius Hodge. They also signed another old boy, Awvee Storey, as well as some fella called Brian Hamilton. Those two can now battle valiantly for two weeks for the spot of 7th small forward on the roster, before both being waived anyway. Tough life.

- Jiri Hubalek's replacement at Phoenix's training camp is a man known by the slightly superb name of Coleman Collins, who played for the Raptors in summer league. Also turning out for the Suns' camp are Robert Hite, a highly capable three point shooter, and Trey Johnson, whose name suggests that he should be.

- The Clippers added Curtis Sumpter amongst their list of camp signings, and just as I was about to write about how they still made this move after barely playing him in their summer league campaign, I then realised that it wasn't Curtis Sumpter who played for the Clippers in summer league, but Curtis Stinson! Haha! God! I bet Sumpter gets that, like, ALL the time!

- In other Clippers news, Jason Williams retired not long after signing with the team. Bugger! I was really hoping for a J-Dub Redux, so much so that I have mentioned it like 80 times. And now we won't have one. Damn shame.

- Chicago made easily the best training camp signings out of everyone, because they're the best franchise in the sport. Genius comes naturally to them, and these signings reflect that. But enough of this overused hubris - they did actually make two good signings with Elton Brown and Darius Washington, fringe NBA players who can bring something that the team otherwise lacks, were they to make the roster. Roger Powell has far less chance of doing anything, but at least they get "hometown boy makes hometown team" stories out of it.

- Orlando made three signings of their own, with forward Jeremy Richardson, center Dwayne Jones, and point guard Mike Wilks. Three of my favourite fringe NBA players, they are. But I bet only Wilks sticks. Shame.

- Francisco Garcia somehow got a 5 year, $30 million extension from the Kings, which is basically MLE money. This after one decent year. Based on last year's play, and last year's play only, is Garcia worthy of the MLE? No, not really. He learnt how to shoot, but only to the direct detriment of his defense. Yet somehow, the Kings think that this one semi-decent season from a soon to be 27 year old backup is worth giving him a 5 year novelty oversized extension. Okay. Have fun paying him $7 million when he's 32. (Note: if Garcia tunes his game to the point where he plays the average defense that he used to play, yet keeps his fancy new jumpshot as well, then this will be fine.)

- Sammy Mejia, former draft pick of the Pistons, has signed for a Greek team named AEL 1964 Larissa, whose name derives from a joyous union of some opticians, the seminal Beatles smash "I Want To Hold Your Hand", and a 6'4 black transexual hooker. Sounds like a good night in.

- Philadelphia fully committed to this training camp idea, bringing in four players, seemingly stuck on the "R" page of their available players directory. Maureece Rice is a short fat guard who can't play point guard and who just came off a pretty damn poor senior year, Antywane Robinson is a training camp veteran small forward with an affection for his unspectacular jumpshot, Jared Reiner is a legend, and Justin Reed is trying to get back into the league after being one of the better players in the D-League last year. Those last two have a chance, depending on how deep the Sixers want to go. The Sixers also signed veteran Andre Emmett, but he has far less of a chance.

- Miami signed Eddie Basden as a energetic defensive guard with no offensive talent, and Matt Walsh as a perimeter shooter. But, considering that the Heat have already signed Koobs Diawara and James Earl Jones for those two roles, both of whoom have considerably more guaranteed money coming to them, you can probably go ahead and say with some confidence that there ain't no way in hell they're making the team. The Heat also signed Omar Barlett and Tre Kelley for camp, the kind of signings that training camp is about - a 28 year old forward so obscure that I had to translate the Polish calendar to figure out when his birthdate is, and a small guard who goes by an alias unbefitting of his style of play. Good times. I love training camp, me.



This will be the last of the summer signings posts, by the way. This is partly because news has pretty much dried up, and that most news now is just training camp signings, which will be fully documented in another post. But mainly, it's because it's not summer any more.

We'll go out with a bang. Two bangs, in fact. You're getting banged from all angles. Giggidy.

- Former Atlanta Hawks forward Hanno Mottola retired from the game last week, while in theory still at his "peak". That's bang number one.

- Bang number two; the mighty Shawn Kemp comeback, mentioned before here, is over after precisely 0 games. Kemp showed up in reasonable shape, but then stopped showing up at all. After flying home briefly to the USA - ostensibly to check that his property was fine after recent hurricanes - Kemp never came back, and the team ended the experiment, on seemingly courteous terms. To replace Kemp, the team have signed former NBA brick shithouse Brandon Hunter.

That is all. Summer officially just ended. So sayeth the Lord.