Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 13

January 16th, 2009

– Carlos Delfino is still with Khimki in Russia, despite the rumours of a return to the Raptors ramping up a bit after Toronto dumped Hassan Adams off to the Clippers a fortnight ago. However, while these rumours may not be unfounded, they sure are illogical. Let me tell you why the Raptors dumped Hassan Adams – they dumped Hassan Adams because Brian Colangelo gave Adams a guaranteed contract in July, before Adams showed up out of shape and unable to consistently do the one thing that he’s best  at – running around off the ball. Additionally, Hassan Adams is not an NBA rotation player even when in shape, which in hindsight was another reason not to give him that guaranteed contract. However, because Colangelo did, he brought the team so close to the tax threshold ($1,107 beneath it, to be exact) that the team could only carry 13 players in order to stay under it. When their big man injury situation got so bad that they had to sign somebody (Jake Voskuhl), the Raptors had to shift a contract in order to get underneath the threshold again. Adams was the logical choice – he was the final man on the bench, filled no team needs, had an appropriately sized yet easily moveable contract, and should never have been on the team in the first place. So the Raptors gave the Clippers some money as an incentive for taking on Hassan’s dead weight cap number. THAT’S why the Raptors moved Hassan Adams. It wasn’t a precursor to some move for Carlos Delfino.

Let me ask you something – when you’re so staunchly obliged to stay under the luxury tax that you can’t even sign Jake Voskuhl without having to make corresponding roster moves to free up the money, while carrying the league minimum number of players all season in a bid to save further money, are you really going to throw a few million at a backup wing player, who just played his supposed career season with you and who still wasn’t great, chucking like Berry and somehow managing to shoot slightly less than his career average of 40% shooting? No, no you aren’t. No matter how desperate an NBA team is for a short-term fix, Carlos Delfino isn’t it. He’s especially not it when obtaining him means triggering your extremely delicate salary situation. And so that’s why the Raptors won’t be signing Carlos Delfino this season.

(By the way, Delfino averages 11.4 points and 4.1 rebounds in Russian league play. It’s all good information.)

– Tony Delk retired from professional basketball in November 2007. This retirement lasted a mere manner of months, as he quickly unretired to join a team in Puerto Rico. Three games later, Delk retired again, and is now a “technical advisor” to that same Puerto Rican team, the Gigantes of Carolina. I assume that this means he mends the Jumbotron every now and then, and plays lots of Minesweeper.

– Derrick Dial is currently in the D-League with the Tulsa 66ers, which isn’t really the place for 33-year-old journeyman. Nevertheless, Dial is there, and he averages 11.3 points, 4.1 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 38% shooting, as the sixth man on a Tulsa team that averages 21.3 turnovers a game. And that’s a lot of turnovers.

– Dimitris Diamantidis is in his fifth season with Panathinaikos, averaging 10.4 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.6 assists in EuroLeague play.

[Did I really just say “chucking like Berry”? Jesus. You’d better go. I wouldn’t read me either.]

– Guillermo Diaz averages 17.6 points and 2.0 assists for Eldo Caserta, the Italian team that Jamar Butler also just joined. The 2.0 assists is a team high (tied with Butler, although Butler has played only three games), so there’s clearly not a lot of passing from the Eldo backcourt there. Although that’s probably not that surprising, coming from a backcourt featuring Guillermo Diaz, Horace Jenkins and Shan Foster.

– Dan Dickau is unsigned, and still trying to add to his healthy list of NBA Teams That Dan Dickau Has Belonged To For At Least Eight Minutes – the Lakers are supposedly interested in him.

– Kaniel Dickens is in the Italian second division. He was in the first division, but his team – Napoli – went bankrupt, and so Kaniel had to look elsewhere. For Cimberio Varese, playing alongside Randolph Childress, Dickens averages 14.3 points and 7.1 rebounds, both team highs. While writing Kaniel’s name just now, I noticed that an anagram of it happened to be “Dick Linesnake”, which might just be the best name for a male porn star that I’ve ever heard. That, or he’s an Anchorman character. Good times.

– Michael Dickerson’s random comeback didn’t last very long. Signing with the Cavaliers for training camp, after five and a half years out of the game, Dickerson faced impossible odds to make the team, and didn’t overcome them. After being waived, Dickerson went back where he came from – to India, on a voyage of “spiritual discovery”. Alrighty.

– Alain Digbeu – some French veteran whose rights the Hawks still own – started the season with Kavala/Panorama in Greece (a team that seemingly couldn’t decide which name to use), but left earlier this month. Whether he jumped or whether he was pushed, I couldn’t say, but the 7.1 points per game on 36% shooting probably made him livewithoutable.

– And finally, an update on a player that has already been mentioned, but whose circumstances have since changed. Austin Croshere has signed with the San Antonio Spurs on a ten-day contract, although what the Spurs think they’ll see in those ten days that Austin hasn’t shown over the last twelve years is a bit baffling.