Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 42
April 8th, 2010
– Chet Mason
Former Miami Ohio guard and Cavs signee Chester “Chet” Mason is spending his second season with Siroki Eronet in Bosnia. Most teams from the former Yugoslavia that we cover – Crveza Zvezda, Hemofarm, Cibona Zagreb, etc – are usually in either the EuroCup or the EuroLeague, and also play in the Adriatic League. The Adriatic League is one of the strongest in the world for this reason. Yet Siroki are in none of them, nor are they in the EuroChallenge. It’s pure Bosnian league for them. Mason is averaging 13.5 points, 8.1 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.4 steals per game, and three weeks ago he posted the David Lee-like stat line of 27 points, 18 rebounds, 8 assists and 5 steals. Not bad for 6’5.
– Desmond Mason
Mason started the year with the Kings. Despite already having Kevin Martin, Francisco Garcia (neither of whom were injured at the time), Tyreke Evans, Donte Greene, Andres Nocioni and Omri Casspi all available to play at the two and/or three spots, the Kings felt they needed another wing option and brought in Mason for training camp. Even though he didn’t really show much in preseason, Mason made the team, and he then bizarrely started five games to begin the year. The experiment quickly ended after Mason put up a 6.2 PER, and Mason was waived. He has remained unsigned since; proposed links to a couple of different ACB teams never came off.
– Tony Massenburg
Tony Massenburg is 42 years old and has not played since summer 2008, but this does not necessarily mean he is retired. He is Tony Massenburg, after all, the man who signed with the Washington Wizards aged 40 in an unashamed pursuit of the “most NBA teams ever played for” record that he currently jointly holds with Jim Jackson and Chucky Brown. Massenburg last played in summer 2008 in Puerto Rico, yet spoke as recently as June of his desire to play in Europe.
– Jeremiah Massey
Massey was a member of Real Madrid last season, but with the arrival of Ettore Messina came a new era, and Massey was not retained. In fact, pretty much no one was retained; the only four current Real Madrid players who were there this time last year are Felipe Reyes, Louis Bullock, Sergio Llull and Tomas Van Der Spiegel, the latter of whom barely plays. Maybe they turned over too much, because they’re losing to Barcelona in all competitions right now.
It took a strangely long time for Real Madrid and Massey to finalise a settlement of the contract, and Massey didn’t find a new team until late February. But he did eventually join Xacobeo Blusens, who are currently second-last in the ACB with an 8-20 record. Massey played six games with the team and averaged 14.0 points and 5.7 rebounds; however, he was subbed out early from their last game on Monday night – a 40 point loss to Bilbao – and was then suspended by the team. An early report that I cited in an earlier post said that Massey was suspended for “threatening behaviour”, but this turned out to be a mistranslation. Supposedly, he was actually released to his attitude. Whatever that attitude consisted of, it must have been pretty severe for a team in a desperate relegation struggle to release one of their better players so close to the season’s end. They have moved fast in already replacing him with Paul Davis, and rumours continue to circle surrounding a potential Stephon Marbury signing, but regardless of both of those things, Xacobeo are still in trouble.
Speaking of Stephon Marbury, the following clip is of him scoring 9 points in 35 seconds in the CBA All Star Game.
– Bryant Matthews
Former Virginia Tech forward and Raptors signee Bryant Matthews has spent the year in Cyprus, playing with Pizza Express Primetel Apollon. There are no statistics available for Cyprus league basketball.
– Loukas Mavrokefalidis
Timberwolves draft pick Luke Maverick was bought by Olympiacos from Maroussi this summer, as Olympiacos sought to meet their quota of Greek nationals. (He was born in the Czech Republic, but has represented Greece at junior levels.) Mav doesn’t play much for Oly, playing only 124 EuroLeague minutes all season and usually appearing in A1 games only after the rout is on (which is quite often), but he’s scored well in his limited time. Mavrokefalidis averages 6.2 points and 2.6 rebounds in 10 mpg in the EuroLeague, alongside 7.7 and 2.6 in 13 minutes per game in the Greek league. But he also has 61 total fouls in 331 total minutes, a foul every 5.4 minutes, or 6.6 fouls per 36 minutes. Not ideal.
– James Mays
Captain Slows started the year in China, and was one of the best players there. In 16 games for Beijing, Mays averaged 26.0 points, 13.2 rebounds, 2.1 steals and 1.9 assists per game, shooting 58% from two-point range, 44% from three-point range (with more than two makes per game) and 58% from the line. However, he was only with the team for a month before being released in late January for reasons I am not aware of. Since then, Mays has gone from being one of the best players in China to being one of the best players in Puerto Rico, averaging 17.7 points, 8.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.1 blocks per game for Humacao.
– Kyle McAlarney
After going undrafted because of his skin pigment, McAlarney went to summer league with the L.A. Clippers, where his jump shot was not enough to convince Mike Dunleavy to stop being racist. With no training camp contract forthcoming, McAlarney was unable to cope with the bigotry he faced in America any more, and he moved to Israel to play for Ironi Nahariya. However, Kyle soon found that he pined for the prejudice he had back home in America, and returned to those shores to play in the D-League. In 43 games split between Fort Wayne and Springfield, McAlarney has averaged 10.8 points and 4.0 assists, numbers which would EASILY get him into the NBA if it wasn’t for the fact that he was white. Or something.
If you’re unaware of the reason for all this stupid racial talk, you should know that Kyle started it. This video used to be a lot longer, but ESPN cut it down after the controversy it caused. Just know that after the current ending of the clip came the message (not an inference, but an outright statement) from McAlarney himself that he felt his race was everything to do with the fact that he wasn’t in the NBA. Mike Dunleavy countered that while McAlarney’s shot was nice, they didn’t keep him around because they didn’t think he could guard anybody, yet McAlarney was not pacified. He thought it was a racial thing.
And that’s just not the case, Kyle. You’re good, but not good enough. You’re a nice D-League player, which is why you fit where you are. Your shot is nice, but the NBA needs a lot more, and you don’t have a lot more. Race does not enter into it. If the common belief surrounding your play is that you’re an undersized and not particularly athletic jump-shooting specialist with mediocre point guard skills, that’s not because of racial stereotyping; that’s because that’s who you are. There’s no need for the racism angle.
(If Kyle McAlarney makes the NBA without significantly adding to his currently defined yet limited skillset, could somebody not make an argument for racism the other way?)
– Rashad McCants.
McCants went unsigned this summer and has remained so ever since. It was reported that the Rockets had signed him for training camp, and they had intended to, but McCants failed his physical and it never happened. That was back in October, and there has been no news to report since then.
– Kelly McCarty
One-time Nugget and former Miss USA Kelly McCarty is now a Russian international playing in Russia. McCarty is playing his fourth consecutive season with Khimki, and even aged 34 he is a quality EuroLeague performer, averaging 14.2 points and 4.4 rebounds and shooting 43% from three-point range there. He averages a further 13/6 in the Russian league, alongside 11/6 in the VTB United League. Not bad.
McCarty’s NBA career started and ended back in 1999, and lasted all of two games. He put up a PER of 31.7 in that time. Also not bad.
Finally….
– Waltaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh
Walter McCarty’s last stint in the NBA came with the 2005-06 Clippers, where he didn’t do much. Since then, he has worked his way up through the coaching ranks, and he’s now an assistant coach to restaurant fanatic Rick Pitino at Louisville.
