2009 NBA Summer League round-up: Minnesota Timberwolves
July 13th, 2009
– Corey Brewer: Brewer was poor his rookie year, which was essentially a nothing year for him. His offence was enthusiastic, but it was also several kinds of inefficient, and undeserving of a #7 pick. Brewer started to make some strides, though, with a good summer league last year and a fine opening five games to last season. Unfortunately, he then popped his knee badly, which has undone all the good work. Minnesota’s forward spots are crowded, but the shooting guard spot is wide open, and if Brewer can show something then he might win the spot as a very tall two. But if he doesn’t, he’ll be fighting Ryan Gomes for small forward time.
– Bobby Brown: Bobby Brown is a testament to the point of summer league. Most players turn up to summer league to win spots in other leagues, but Brown beat the odds and played so well in summer league in 2008 that he earned himself a two-year guaranteed contract with the Kings. He was traded to the Timberwolves at mid-season, seemingly only as a money-saving venture (the three other players in the deal are all now UFAs), and now he finds himself as the second of two incumbent points guard on a team that just drafted 12 more of them. So that’s a bugger. Nevertheless, his contract is guaranteed, and if Minnesota decide they don’t want him, some other NBA team should do.
– Pat Carroll: When talking about Pat Carroll, I always feel compelled to compare him to Matt Carroll. Maybe I’m just not that imaginative. Either way, Matt Carroll has four years left to run on his guaranteed deal with the Mavericks, and Pat Carroll just spent a year in the Spanish second division. So you tell me who has the best chance of being in the NBA next year. By the way, be it an irony, a coincidence, or just an uninteresting fact, the Mavericks were also the team that gave Pat Carroll his sole NBA shot, a training camp contract in 2006. They also signed Samo Udrih in 2005, challenging the 2009 Phoenix Suns for “most inferior brothers that you can get on one team at a time that their superior brother is still in the league” award. But Phoenix wins because they’ve got two at the same time.
– Jonny Flynn: First of all, the Timberwolves should have picked Stephen Curry. Second of all, Flynn is too flawed to be a #6 pick, with questionable outside shooting, a tendency to get wild and poor perimeter defence, and it’s only the upside that comes with his athleticism and the weakness of the draft that gets him drafted that high. Thirdly, Jonny Flynn kills kittens. I haven’t finished with that joke yet.
– Devin Green: Green started last year with the Spurs in training camp, but didn’t make the team even after playing pretty well in preseason. He then went to Belgium, and later moved on to the Ukraine, averaging 17.0 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.0 assists for Dnipro. If the Timberwolves can’t or won’t bring back Rodney Carney, then Green makes for a pretty good replacement. He has a chance of making this roster, since it’s not deep on the wings right now.
– Paul Harris: Paul Harris reportedly flew up draft boards in the very final run-up to the draft after a series of impressive workouts. In fact, he flew up them so far that he went from being an undrafted talent, to being undrafted. Oh no, wait, he didn’t move up at all. Sorry.
Everyone seems to like Harris for his athleticism. And he does have every athletic advantage in the book; he’s quick, strong and a huge leaper, even if he tends to lose his leaping ability and front-rim dunks at the 58 minute mark on the second game of a back-to-back. However, he’s only 6’4, without much of a slashing game, and with next to no jump shot. He could be a defensive stopper, but he tends to drift around on that end, and as such, he isn’t. He also has a criminal history, which doesn’t work in your favour when you’re on the fringes. Harris initially agreed to join the Cavaliers summer league team, but changed his mind and is now reunited with Syracuse team mate Flynn. Maybe he thinks this will help. I’m not convinced.
– Gerald Henderson: The Bobcats don’t have a summer league roster this year, so they’re letting Henderson play for the Wolves so that he doesn’t miss out on the experience. It’s a pretty cool idea, but not as cool as ponying up for your own damn team. Cowards.
– Steven Hill: Hill is about as one-dimensional of a shot-blocker as you can get. He doesn’t rebound much, and he doesn’t score; he’s all just blocked shots and hair. I like him a lot. But read the Bucks round-up, specifically the bit about Chris Richard, and then tell me why Hill has chosen this team to play with. I just don’t get it.
– Rob Kurz: Kurz was signed by the Warriors for training camp, then waived, then almost immediately brought back when Monta Ellis was suspended. He managed to survive the whole year, with even Richard Hendrix being waived before him. CLast year, he totalled 157 points, 82 rebounds and 78 fouls, shooting 39% in 40 games. The Warriors then finally let him loose and didn’t extend him a qualifying offer.
– Oleksiy Pecherov: Pecherov didn’t do much better. He’s a tall jump shooter with a solid rebounding rate, but that’s pretty much it. There’s scant little defence and no interior offence, and somehow he managed only 2 rebounds and 2 assists all of last season. That’s got to be hard to do. Still, for as long as Pecherov looks like Stewie Griffin during his unheralded needle drug period, I think we’ll all continue to like him.
– Garret Siler: If you’re 6’10 and 305 pounds, yet playing in NCAA Division II, then there’s something wrong there. And Garret Siler’s problem is that he’s only played basketball for a scant few years. Siler averaged 16.2 points, 7.7 rebounds and 2.6 blocks for the mighty Augusta State Jaguars last year, on percentages of 66% and 79%. However, contrary to usual practice, that’s 79% from the field and 66% from the line, a total of 566 points on 285 shots. If you don’t believe me, read this. Pretty impressive, although given that he probably played mostly against 6’6 210lbs opposing centres, it’s not entirely without context. Siler is large and slow, which hampers any NBA prospects, but if he can find a similar level of professional competition to that of Augusta State’s schedule, then he’ll have himself a career. Might I recommend China?
– Ben Woodside: Similarly, if you are both one of the leading scorers and assist makers in all of Division I, and you don’t get drafted, then there’s something wrong there too. And that’s what just happened to Ben Woodside, who averaged 23.2 points (eightth in NCAA) and 6.2 assists (joint-fifth) in his senior season for North Dakota State. He scored big, he scored efficiently, and he racked up the assists to boot. He even had a 60-point, 8-rebound and 8-assist outing, where he shot 35 free throws and his team lost anyway. Good times, sort of. However, Woodside’s problem is that he’s small. He’s listed as 5’11 and 185 pounds, and isn’t physical or strong. And rightly or wrongly, that doesn’t get you in the NBA. Woodside might hang around the NBA fringes for a while, but a career in Europe is probably best suited to him anyway.
2009 NBA Summer League round-up: New Jersey Nets/Philadelphia 76ers
July 13th, 2009
To save money, and to add purpose, the Nets and Sixers agreed to share a summer league team this year. It’s not a practice I’m keen on, because I think the more spots given out to random nobodies, the better, and by having only one team that makes 12 less spots for random nobodies. So that’s a shame. But at least they bothered at all, unlike some teams.
– A.J. Abrams: Abrams’s college career consisted of three things – decent defence for his size, running around endlessly trying to get open, and then shooting jump shots. And a really bloody college career it was, too. However, Abrams is only 5’11. There are plenty of 6’6 guys who spend their entire careers trying to get NBA teams to notice that they specialise in exactly the same things, and (Kyle Korver excepted) they usually fail. So how likely is Abrams to do the same with his half-a-foot height disadvantage? He isn’t, really. He’s small even for a point guard, but the fact that he’s an off-ball guard counts heavily against him. Heavily. Abrams’ only chance to become an NBA player is to develop his ball-handling ability, and rework himself into a crude Jannero Pargo imitation. But Pargo isn’t exactly a regular rotation player in the NBA himself, so A.J’s chances are very slim.
– Jeff Adrien: Adrien was covered in the Grizzlies round-up. It’s pretty industrious of him to have wriggled his way into the summer league rosters of three teams, which really maximises his options. It was also a damn good idea to get onto the Grizzlies and Nets rosters, the two teams with the worst power forward rotations in the league last year. That’ll help his limited chances a bit. And, despite Adrien’s limitations and damaged prospects as outlined in the other round-up, can he really be much worse than Yi Jianlian? Good luck to him.
– Blake Ahearn: Ahearn has had two shots in the NBA – once with the distinctly crap Miami Heat 2007-08 team, and a small stint in the early part of last season with the San Antonio Spurs. He’s played a combined 15 games and shot 27%, which is probably not brilliant. But it’s also not an accurate depiction of what Daniel [his real first name] is like as a shooter; he’s a great one, really. This is evidenced in his D-League numbers of last year, when he scored 22.7 points and 5.0 assists per game for the Dakota Wizards, shooting 45% from the field, 42% from three-point range and a typically Blake Ahearn-y 96% from the foul line. (For those unaware, Ahearn shot 95% from the foul line for his NCAA career.) Ahearn’s problem is not with his scoring, but with his position; like so many others before him, he’s not really a point guard, yet he measures at only 6’2 and 190 and without NBA burst. He’s trying to make himself into a point guard, and is getting there slowly, as shown by those assist numbers. Unfortunately, those numbers were record in a hefty 39 minutes per game in an assist-heavy league, and also came along with 3.3 turnovers a game. (As an unrelated aside to the assists thing, Ahearn also only averaged 2.4 rebounds per game in that time, which isn’t getting it done.) Playing alongside former NBA point guard Maurice Baker factors into those numbers, but Baker is far from a pure point guard himself. His great shooting stroke will keep him on the fringes of the NBA for a while, but his existential quandary will keep him out of the realms of guaranteed contracts. Probably.
– Dionte Christmas: I’ve not seen Christmas, and admit as much. (I had a Temple game from last year saved somewhere, but I think I accidentally recorded over it. Very professional operation we run here) Everyone tells me, though, that Christmas would have been a fine undrafted signing. So here’s what the numbers say; Christmas averaged 19.5 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.9 assists, shooting 41% from the field and attempting nine three-pointers a game, which he hit at only 35%. Those numbers don’t wow me. If you’re going to be a specialist shooter, shoot higher than 35%. So we’ll see. (Or rather, “we have already seen;” Christmas scored 9.3 points per game on 44% shooting in four summer league games.)
– Chris Douglas-Roberts: Douglas-Roberts is in danger of getting overrated. Fans of pretty much all other teams seem to want to acquire him as an under-the-radar pickup for their shooting guard spot. They rave about his instant scoring punch, and his ability to create on his own. And it’s all true. But lost in that is Douglas-Roberts’ scoring inefficiency; he doesn’t shoot three-pointers, and while he gets to the foul line at a decent rate, he has to in order to be a decently efficient scorer. He shot 54% in both of his college seasons, which is terrific, and he shot 46% in his rookie season which is also very good. However, his eFG is is 47%, which isn’t too good, and his 53% true shooting percentage is solid, but not brilliant in a largely one-dimensional scorer. Chris and Douglas are both decent defensive players, but they don’t rebound and can’t create for others. They enter the game looking to score, and if they don’t have a good shooting night, they don’t really provide much. They should form a decent shooting guard foursome with Courtney and Lee next season, yet they (Chris and Douglas, not Courtney and Lee) are not really starting calibre. Desire them accordingly.
– Jason Ellis: Ellis is a 26-year-old former Boise State graduate who is a veteran of the US minor leagues. (He also spent two years in Switzerland. Hard to come back from there.) Last year in the D-League, Ellis averaged 7.1 points and 8.7 rebounds in 24 minutes per game for the Idaho Stampede, and while I’m usually wary of players who have more rebounds than points scored, Ellis surprises me by shooting 47% from the field and 81% from the foul line. Not bad, that. However, the market on undersized power forwards is pretty saturated, and even in spite of his rebounding rate, Ellis’ 6’7 200lb frame isn’t getting it done in the NBA. Chuck Hayes may be an inspiration to many, but he’s also an exception to the rule.
– Gary Forbes: Forbes did the rounds last year. Undrafted, he joined up with the Wizards for summer league, and was drafted in the fourth round of the D-League Draft by the Sioux Falls Skyforce. He didn’t make the Wizards roster, and turned down the D-League in favour of Italy, signing with Basket Napoli in Serie A. Unfortunately, Napoli went bankrupt before the season begun (you’d think they might have seen that coming, no?), and Forbes had to return to America where he joined up with the Skyforce. He averaged 16.3 points and 4.8 rebounds in 28 minutes per game, before being traded to the Tulsa 66ers, averaging 18.0 points, 5.7 rebounds and 4.0 assists in 31 minutes of 30 games for them. After the D-League season finished, Forbes went to the Philippines, averaging 27.5 points and 5.0 rebounds in two games for the joyfully named Talk ‘N’ Text Texters of Tropang (the Philippines league has amazingly corporate team names), and then went to Venezuela to play with Trotamundos for a month. He’s building himself an NBA resumé. Pay attention.
– Jrue Holiday: Finally got around to watching that UCLA game that I’ve been putting off. Got to say that my opinions of Darren Collison are higher than those of Holiday, who looked…..awkward. Not really a point guard, too small for a two guard, not a great shooter, average athlete….hmmm. Not sure of the tremendous upside potential, to be honest. Good defence, though (or so it appeared; it was hard to tell considering he was guarding an undersized raise-up-and-shoot-er (Patrick Christopher) all night long). He didn’t even play the point guard spot when Collison was out. So whatever it is that makes Holiday a #17 pick, I’m still waiting to see.
(Note: formulating opinions based on one game that you’ve watched is a dangerous proposition that isn’t really advised. So always leave yourself a get-out.)
– Chris Johnson: Last year for LSU, Johnson averaged 7.7 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game. He shot only 45% from the field, but the blocked shot and rebounding numbers are nice, and especially since they came in only 25 minutes per game. If he was a junior, we’d be saying how, with about 40 pounds more muscle and an improved post-up game, he’d be a future first round talent. But he’s not. So now, he’s an undrafted 190 lb position-less big man who turns 24 next week.
– Marreese Speights: If any team doesn’t need Marreese Speights, it’s the team with Elton Brand on it. Nonetheless, I’d love Marreese Speights on my team; even though he never passes and puts forth spotty defensive effort, Speights is an explosive and athletic finisher, who has soothing and sensual touch inside the paint and from mid range. He can’t be bothered to rebound, despite having all the athletic requirements for the job, and that’s a pity. But off the bench, he can be a highly valuable scoring big man. And Lord knows my team could use one of them. So, Philadelphia; if you want Kirk Hinrich, then find a deal that starts with Speights, and somehow work it into a three-way deal that gets us a defensive minded big two guard. Then he’s yours. But Willie Green is not getting it done, and neither is Samuel Dalembert. So don’t even go there.
– Terrence Williams: How is Williams going to score in the NBA? He’s not much of a shooter, he’s never really had to play without the ball in his hands, he tends to get wild, his 43% FG last season was the highest of his four-year career, and the highest FT% he ever shot was the 61% in his freshman year. That’s as a forward. His passing vision and skills are nice, but he’s not going to be a primary ball-handler in the NBA, and that nullifies them slightly. No, his best chance in the NBA will be as a defensive specialist and a disruptive influence, using his athleticism and energy to annoy the opposition all night and force some turnovers. It’s something he could be very good at, too. And if he ever gets the complimentary jump shot that still evades him, then he’ll be reet.
But do you really take someone like that eleventh overall?
2009 NBA Summer League round-up: Memphis Grizzlies
July 12th, 2009
This roster is heaving with talent, and will be particularly special if you’re a fan of the Connecticut Huskies. Remember, this list doesn’t include Rudy Gay.
– Jeff Adrien: If Adrien was 6’11, he would have been drafted. He’s a consistent double-double player, a strong rebounder, aggressive defender and solid post-up scorer, with good post-up defence, a hook shot, and more energy than a coked-up Jerome Williams. However, he can’t shoot or face up at all, and nor does he have much perimeter defence. He’s an out-and-out power forward, generously listed at 6’7. And therefore, he’s an undersized hustle player who’ll always be on the outside of the NBA, fighting to get in.
– Darrell Arthur: Arthur’s rookie season consisted of 44% shooting, a raging foul problem, and an embarrassing incident involving marijuana and “women” at the rookie initiation. Despite being the only power forward on the team’s roster, and the opportunity of 64 starts last year, Arthur did little with it, and the team often found itself going with the unsuitable Hakim Warrick or Darko Milicic in his place. So big was the power forward hole that the Grizzlies have agreed to trade for Zach Randolph (a deal which still hasn’t been officially consummated for whatever reason). Arthur still could bounce back and be a solid contributor, especially since it’s far from certain that Warrick is going to return. But dispensing with the off-court storylines might help, as might some more defensive intensity.
– DeMarre Carroll: In my eyes, Carroll was not a first-round talent, yet he was picked 27th anyway, giving Memphis a cheap backup combo forward that means they won’t have to pay Hakim Warrick. Carroll is an example of the classic college power forward trying to reinvent himself as a small forward, but he’s done quite well at it, enough to get into the first round at least. But I still would have picked Wayne Ellington instead, especially considering the Sam Young pick at #36. Anyway.
– Erik Daniels: Daniels played all of last year as a centre, despite being a forward by trade. He did well at it, too, averaging 21.0 points, 9.9 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game for the expansion Erie BayHawks. However, considering the above two entries, is Memphis really the ideal NBA franchise of choice for a combo forward looking for an end-of-the-bench spot?
– Daniel Ewing: Ewing played for Prokom Sopot in Poland last year, a team also in the EuroLeague. In the EuroLeague, Ewing scored 12.9 points per game and shot 38% from downtown, starting at point guard (he also averaged 2.7 assists) on a team laden with ex-fringe NBA players. It was a decent season for him, but it didn’t really change his stock any; he’s still a fringe NBA player, caught between two positions, with a decent jump shot but no extraordinary skills. And so it’s probably back to Europe for him.
– Trey Gilder: Gilder was eligible for the draft last month (I think) despite being in the D-League last year. He averaged 13.6 points and 5.4 rebounds per game, fairly pedestrian numbers, although they looked more impressive when you consider that they came in only 23 minutes a game. Gilder is an athletic but thin forward, who (like everyone else on this list) has a bit of a position crisis. He projects best as a small forward, but his shot is not great (only 33% from three-point range last year) and he doesn’t dribble in traffic well. He is best when using his athleticism to flail wildly around the hoop and finish, and he’s a decent if inconsistent rebounder. But you can’t be an NBA power forward when you weigh less than 200lbs, so Gilder’s best served using another season in the Developmental League, and doing what the name suggests it’s there for. (That is, to help players develop their game. Not to help them go mental.)
Something tells me that the Grizzlies are looking for forward help. Considering that Rudy Gay is going to need paying at some point in the next twelve months, and the aforementioned problems that they’ve had with the power forward spot lately, I’m not overly surprised.
– Hamed Haddadi: Haddadi is a project of a centre who had a weird season last year. He spent some time in the D-League, and struggled, but he also played 19 games in the NBA, and did pretty well in them, averaging 2.5 and 2.5 in only six minutes per game, managing to boast a PER of 19.7. That’s pretty much the most you can do with six minutes per game. Haddadi is more foul- and turnover-prone than you would like to see from a 24-year-old, but given that he’s gone from Iranian Superleague basketball to the NBA with nothing in between, perhaps that’s to be expected. He’s big and skilled; he just needs to get up to speed with the NBA game if he is to make an impact in it. He is under contract for two more years at a salary roughly equal to the 16th pick in the draft, so taper your expectations accordingly.
– Kenny Hasbrouck: Hasbrouck is a late addition to the Grizzlies summer league roster. I watched him play for Siena last year, and it didn’t help my personal bias that he didn’t play well in either game that I saw him in. Hasbrouck averaged 14.6 points, 3.5 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 2.0 steals, worse numbers than the season before, and his shooting percentages were poor, too. 40.7% FG, 34.8% 3pt FG and 65.7% FT, all down from the previous season, somewhat undercut his good defensive motor. Being an undersized 6’3 scoring guard with poor efficiency isn’t the way to land an NBA contract, no matter how good your hands are. So he’s not making the team.
– Longar Longar: Like many of the players on this list, Longar Longar attended a Grizzlies free agent camp (which had a heavy D-League focus) before the draft. Clearly he did something right, because he’s back in summer league, hoping to improve on his effort with the Timberwolves last year that saw him average 3 points and 1 rebound per game. Last season was Longar’s first as a professional, and he spent it in the D-League with the L.A. D-Fenders, averaging 7.8 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game. He didn’t turn it over nearly as much as he did at Oklahoma, which is a plus, but nor was he used as much on offence as he was there. It’s also about time he cut out the rookie mistakes, because despite his lack of basketball experience, he’s also now 26 years old, and the NBA window’s going to be shut if he doesn’t pull his finger out. It might not ever be open.
– Brion Rush: Rush is a small shooting guard who averaged 25.8 points, 7.0 rebounds and more turnovers than assists in his senior season at Grambling State. That was three years ago. Since then, he’s spent a year in the Italian second division and now the last two years in France, where he was second in the league in scoring with a 20.7 ppg average. He also averaged 5.1 points and 3.3 assists per game; however, the turnovers were there as ever (3.1 per game), and those 20.7 points per game came on 17.8 shots per game. He managed to shoot only 43% from the field, and shot only 3.3 free throws per game. His problems with making the NBA seem to be the same as Hasbrouck’s; he’s a undersized scorer with efficiency problems. And even though his scoring resumé is stronger than that of Hasbrouck – Rush has a bag, and shoots very well off the dribble – he’s also even smaller, measuring in at only 6’1. Still, I’m sure France will take him back.
– Donta Smith: Smith was most recently one of the compelling protagonists in the annual Puerto Rican pilgrimage that entices many American players every year, when he signed for Gigantes de Carolina. However, he was reportedly kicked off the team after only eight games for smoking pot, something which I think I mentioned somewhere before. Donta has actually down the full “flatter your stats” world tour this year, playing in both Australia and China before the Puerto Rico gig. In Australia, Smith averaged 15.0 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists as the sixth man on the NBL Championship-winning team, the Melbourne South Dragons, and in China before that he had averaged 22.5 points, 5.9 rebounds and 4.7 assists for Shanxi. His jump shot has also made some progress, although he’s still not a catch and shoot player, and so he’s still not gotten back into the NBA. But his defensive talent is all still there.
– Greg Stiemsma: Stiemsma was also a participant in the free agent camp. He spent three years at Wisconsin, never averaging more than 3.5 ppg and 3.1 rpg, before going to the Turkish league. There, he averaged 7.9 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game (third best in the league). He then left and went to the basketball dream land of dreams, South Korea, where he upped those numbers further to 14.3 points, 9.1 rebounds and 2.8 blocks per game. None of that is really impressive, though, when looked at in an NBA context – Stiemsma is big and can block, but the NBA is moving away from that. But here’s a picture of him with Alando Tucker and a girl in a hat.
(Note: Stiemsma is the one on the left.
– Hasheem Thabeet: Goodbye, Marc Gasol. You had a pretty good run in Memphis, and you’ve served well as a much underappreciated part of the infamous trade your brother was in. But apparently that’s it for you now. It would be nice to see you in Chicago, by the way.
– Marcus Williams: It’s been three bad years for Williams, but at the very least, he finally had a good spell recently. Like Smith, Williams became a Puerto Rican ex-pat last month, but unlike Smith, it went very well for him. Williams was possibly the best player in Puerto Rico, averaging 16.8 points, 9.0 assists and 4.8 rebounds, with two triple-doubles in 34 games. On the downside, the 572 points that he scored came on a huge 538 shots – Williams took over seven three-pointers a game, but shot only 31% from there, shot an overall field goal percentage of a poor 36%, and only 69% from the line. He’s a passer, but is increasingly forgetful about that.
He has a chance, though. Currently, Memphis’s point guard rotation features the underwhelming Mike Conley, the unsuitable Marko Jaric, and starting shooting guard O.J. Mayo. There’s room here for at least one or two more, and Williams has a good chance to at least break camp if he plays well. Although if the bizarre Allen Iverson signing goes through, he might lose out anyway.
– Sam Young: Sam Young’s great, and getting him at #36 is a good pick-up for the Grizzlies. He’s a good all-around player – a decent athlete, a decent shooter, a decent slasher, a decent defensive player, and he has the Pump Fake Of Doom which will forever make him memorable. He also doesn’t pass much, which should help him blend in on the current Grizzlies roster.
– Joe Alexander: If you had expected the Joe Alexander/Scott Skiles marriage to end well for Joe Alexander, then…..well, you’re wrong Alexander is going to be a hollow shell of his former self, destroyed, a broken man, by the time he gets free from Skiles’s leadership. Skiles is a great defensive coach with the permanently contrite face of an “angry-looking man” (a real quote, yet sadly not mine), but if there’s one thing he hates, it’s players who repeatedly make defensive mistakes. And Joe Alexander is a player that repeatedly makes defensive mistakes. John Hammond, do yourself a favour, and trade Alexander while you can still get someone like the calibre of J.J. Hickson for him. Because if you don’t do it now, you’ll only get less later.
(It also didn’t help Alexander that he supposedly receive an in-house suspension from his team for digging all up in one of the cheerleaders, which is depressingly against the rules.)
– Paul Delaney: In part three of my exceptionally long draft diary (no one really read parts two and three; I might have to make it about 9,000 words shorter next season), I mentioned how I had seen Robert Vaden of UAB play one game, a game in which he shot 0-17. Well, Paul Delaney was Vaden’s backcourt mate at UAB, and last year he averaged 16.1 ppg to Vaden’s 17.6 ppg, on 9.8 FGA per game to Vaden’s 15.4 FGA per game, on 5.8 FTA per game to Vaden’s 2.9 FTA per game, on 56% shooting to Vaden’s 40% shooting. Indeed, only one other player in UAB’s small rotation shot over 45% – 6’8 junior forward Howard Crawford. Delaney led his team in field goal percentage, steals and assists, while being second in scoring and fourth in rebounds. Yet Vaden is the one that gets drafted. Alrighty.
– Dominic James: James isn’t actually going to be with the Bucks summer league team. He was initially announced as a part of the roster, but he sprained his ankle sufficiently badly that he can’t now play, and had to be replaced. This is the same guy who broke his foot down the stretch of his senior season, with his team making an NCAA Tournament run, and finally killing his already-tenuous draft stock. He can’t catch a break, it seems. And I totally intended that pun.
– Brandon Jennings: I want to like Brandon Jennings. How can anyone not? It’s the year 2009, yet Jennings still rocks out a hi-top fade with a slight mohawk finish. That’s to be applauded. However, considering Jennings’ poor play last year, his less-than-humble quotes from before draft night and that whole Joe Budden thing, he’s making himself harder to like. Nonetheless, I’m open-minded about this. So wow me, BJ.
– Amir Johnson: Amir Johnson has now played four years in the NBA and he’s still going to summer league. You can argue that this is just so that he gets familiar with the team, and they with he, but perhaps he’s going to summer league because he still plays like a rookie. He still fouls at a ridiculous rate, and his offensive skills still don’t really exist. And that’s a guy you’re paying $3,941,667 to next year. Good luck to you with that, but I’d temper those expectations, because potential has to become reality at some point.
– Luc Richard Mbah A Moute: If Joe Alexander is emblematic of the Scott Skiles regime, then so is the Fresh Prince. Offensively challenged (his eFG on jump shots last year was .318%), Mbah A Moute nonetheless played big minutes at three positions due to his defensive skills, versatility, and ability to not make too many mistakes. Many of these minutes came at the expense of Alexander, whose offensive upside had to defer to Mbah A Moute’s defensive abilities, even when mired in a 34-win season. It’s no knock on LRMAM, who’s a straight baller, but that’s just the Skiles way. It’s going to work, too, when the Bucks make the playoffs next year. But after that, brace yourself, because his shelf life is usually short.
– Will McDonald: McDonald will be 30 before next season starts, and he’s still never made the NBA. He’s had a few summer league stints (the Warriors in 2003, the Heat in 2004, the Celtics in 2005) but he’s never signed in the NBA, not even for training camp. It’s not held him back though, as he has turned in a good European career on some big-name teams. As evidence of that, last year McDonald was the starting centre for Tau Ceramica, and averaged 9.1 points and 4.4 rebounds in the EuroLeague. McDonald is not a good rebounder, but he can score the ball from the mid-range and in. And if you’re an offensively skilled 6’10 American, the NBA will pay some attention to you.
– Jodie Meeks: Meeks has already signed a three -year contract, where he will back up Charlie Bell, the back-up to Michael Redd. Those two large contracts will expire eventually, so there’s hope yet for Meeks ever seeing the court.
– Juan Palacios: Someone asked me for a Juan Palacios update back in January. So I gave them one. (Remember, I take requests.) Nothing really changed since then; Palacios’ end of season averages were basically the same, and he’s continued his four-year long trend of declining production. Palacios also appeared on the Kings summer league roster last year, but he played all of three minutes. They took a few too many players, to be honest. 17 players for five games is a bit much.
Richard was waived in last year’s training camp – along with Araujo and Harrison – in favour of Jason Collins and Kevin Ollie, which probably destroyed his soul. He then went to the D-League, becoming the first overall pick of the D-League draft by the Tulsa 66ers. Richard then turned in a couple of months averaging 12.0 points and 8.3 rebounds, got named to the All Star team, before breaking a bone in his back in late January. This represents his comeback. He’s never going to be a Buck, though, because while the Bucks would love to be able to salary-dump Dan Gadzuric, Francisco Elson and Malik Allen, they likely can’t. And therefore there’s no roster spot available for him.
– Salim Stoudamire: Why did the Bucks sign Salim Stoudamire? I don’t know. They signed him in early April, just before the end of the season, and then never played him in any games. He signed through 2010, too, and even though the contract is not fully guaranteed, he’s now on the books for a minimum salary greater than it would be if they signed him this summer instead (due to the league’s reimbursement scheme thingy). More importantly, they simply didn’t need him, and now that they’ve drafted Meeks, they really don’t need him. So why is he still here? I don’t know, but I’m glad he is.
– Szymon Szewczyk: Szewczyk must be a popular surname in Poland, because there’s at least five of them on the professional basketball circuit. (Games of Scrabble must be brilliant over there, too.) Szewczyk was a Bucks second-round draft choice way back in 2003, whom they’ve never signed at any point, and whose draft rights they therefore still own. Most unsigned second-rounders never signed in the NBA because they were never good enough (e.g. Ramon van de Hare), but Szewczyk’s not had a bad career. Last year for Lokomotiv Rostov in Russia, he averaged 12.1 points and 5.9 rebounds in 24 minutes per game, numbers that improved to 14.3 points and 7.1 rebounds in the EuroChallenge. He’s soon to be 27 years old, and his hairline has started to go, but he’s done all right for himself, regardless of the non-existence of his NBA career.
– Mohammed Tangara: Tangara was named as the late replacement for Dominic James, and he’s nothing like James. He’s….well, he’s a hard one to find anything out about.
Here’s what I’ve got: Tanagara is from Mali (it’s a country, geography fans!) and attended Mount Zion Christian Academy from 2003-04, the school more famous for churning out Tracy McGrady amongst others. From there, he went on to spend four years at Arizona, where his best statistical season saw him rocket up the scoreboards with averages of 1.6 ppg and 1.0 rpg. He scored 39 points total in his four-year Arizona career, with 34 of them coming in his sophomore campaign back in 2005/06. Then, via means I’m not entirely sure of (presumably he got a redshirt in there somewhere), Tangara played a fifth season last year with the Chaminade Silverswords, a Division II team that you’ve probably never heard of. Once there, he averaged 14.4 ppg and 8.7 rpg, shooting 57% from the field and 83% from the foul line. He finally did something, even if he had to go to Division II to do it.
Tangara is 25 years old next month, and measures in at roughly 6’8 and 248 pounds-ish. Which part of that back story is NBA calibre? You tell me. But I like the optimism.
Tangara’s official website carries the amusing slogan, “Now Is The Time For Redemption,” which would imply that Tangara is either a devoted Christian or a future homicidal maniac with delusion of religious grandeur. You decide.
– Lorrenzo Wade: Wade is a decent-sized swingman who doesn’t rebound, is a mediocre three-point shooter and who turns it over way too much. He’s a decent athlete and slasher, who gets buckets through strength and guile, but so do many players at the NBA level. And most of them don’t have those other flaws. What I’m saying to you here is that Wade is very much up against making the team.
2009 NBA Summer League round-up: Cleveland Cavaliers
July 11th, 2009
– 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. 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 substantial difference-makers, but players like Sam Young, Dejuan Blair, Jermaine Taylor….these are potentially useful pieces immediately, 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 at times, he turns it over too much at others, his own hairline hates him, and he’s short for his scoring skillset. But one of the biggest flaws has always been his jump shot. 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 a below-par 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, and he’s quite a good one, bullish and athletic with some moves in his bag. He’s just going to have to improve his decision making and/or shooting before he cracks the big league..
– Danny Green: I like to think of Danny Green as being a bit like a quicker, less-refined 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 went 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%). Them’s is good looking numbers, for sure, but good-looking numbers are easy enough to achieve in China 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 hugely developed. He will have to show out big here to have a chance. But more importantly, here’s a Priest Lauderdale fact: Priest Lauderdale was once banned from playing in the Philippines Basketball Association because the league ruled he was too big. The PBA at the 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.
– 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, and all 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% in that role. And this from your 13th man. Not too 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.
– 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 bigger guard, let’s say, 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,; another year like the second half of last year, and who knows; he might get in.
– Jawad Williams: Williams signed with the Cavs in training camp, and beat the long odds to make the team seemingly 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 Danny Ferry waived him. As soon as he cleared waivers, though, Jawad was brought back for two ten-day contracts, where he once again sat around not playing. 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 ten minutes in nine 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 using 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 rested as many rotation players as they could, Williams came off the bench to score eight 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 offence; it just wasn’t exactly much of a role). 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.
2009 NBA Summer League round-up: Los Angeles Lakers
July 11th, 2009
– Alan Anderson: Anderson has been on the fringes of the NBA for quite a while. He spent parts of two seasons with the Bobcats, playing in 53 games, and spent last summer on the Grizzlies’ VSL team. After failing to make the team, he signed in Russia with Triumph (the team perhaps better known last summer for the big contract they gave Nenad Krstic…..briefly), but left during the season and joined Cibona Zagreb. There, he averaged 16.2 ppg, 6.8 rpg and 2.8 apg in the Croatian league, alongside 18.4 ppg, 5.6 rpg and 2.1 apg in the Adriatic league. However, he left Cibona last month, because they weren’t able to afford his contract demands for next season, and Anderson has already signed for next season with Israeli powerhouse Maccabi Tel-Aviv.
I’m not sure why he’s even bothering with summer league, to be honest; his Maccabi contract does have an NBA escape clause, meaning that he can get out of it if an NBA team comes a-calling later this summer, but that might not be preferable. His Maccabi contract also calls for him to be paid $800,000 next year – which, remember, is a net sum – and sees him in a guest guitarist role for one of the biggest bands in showbiz today. I’m not sure why he’d jeopardise that for the chance to sit on the bench behind Kobe Bryant, Sasha Vujacic and Shannon Brown. But, good luck to him.
– Aron Baynes: Baynes is a centre with dual Australian and New Zealian citizenship [Zealandish? Zealish? Zealandolian? On a postcard, if you would] who recently graduated from Washingon State University. In his senior season, Baynes averaged 12.7 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game, on handsome percentage of 58% and 77%. He also has legit NBA size (being listed as 6’11 and 270lbs), plays physically, and is a post player through and through. However, he too has already signed elsewhere, catching on with the slightly-bankrupt defending EuroCup champions, Lietuvos Rytas. The Lakers appear to have adopted a weird approach to summer league this year.
– Dominique Coleman: Coleman is a former Colorado Buffaloes guard who was last with the Colorado 14ers of the D-League. The Nuggets clearly weren’t too interested, though. Coleman’s D-League numbers from last year are pretty freaking impressive; in 50 games, the 6’3 guard averaged 15.4 points, 7.4 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 2.9 steals per contest, shooting 50% from the field and 41% from three-point range. This is particularly impressive when you consider that he’d played for three teams in Finland the previous season. Another year like the last one, Dominique, and you’ll be famous.
– Chinemelu Elonu: When I watched Texas A&M last year, I saw Junior Elonu and thought “if anyone on this team is going to play in the NBA, it’ll be him”. He had decent defensive instincts, a mechanical and unattractive but fledgling offensive game, and the strength to make up for his comparative lack of size. Given an ever-present need to quench the NBA’s thirst for defensive-minded centres, I figured he might be on the radar down the road as someone who might be able to do a decent impression of the 2008 Adonal Foyle at some point. But that doesn’t mean that I thought he would be drafted.
– Tony Gaffney: Gaffney’s numbers last year are pretty brilliant: 11.5 ppg, 10.2 rpg, 1.7 apg, 2.0 spg and 3.8 bpg, on 54% shooting. However, they came at the basketball powerhouse that is Massachusetts, which helps provide some context as to how he did that. He also only measures at 6’8 and 205lbs, which is NBA small forward size on an interior specialist. Considering his lack of offensive ability outside of athleticism, opportunity scoring and hustle, he’ll perhaps be best served with a tidy European career. By the way, everything I’ve just written also applies to Kenneth Faried.
– Terrel Harris: Harris averaged 13.9 points and 4.8 rebounds for Oklahoma State last year, taking lots of three-pointers and looking for his shot at all times. But that also describes the entire Cowboys roster last year. (PS; Marshall Moses, use your right hand some time.) Harris was a solid offensive player, not really creating a whole lot but finishing the looks he got quite well. Unfortunately, that’s not really good enough at the NBA level.
– Justin Hawkins: Hawkins played for the Kings summer league team last year. He played in all five games, started two and played 100 minutes, but averaged only 5.6 points and 2.2 rebounds a game, shooting 32% from the field. He didn’t leave an impression, really. He went to France for last season, where again his numbers don’t really suggest anything immediately NBA worthy: 13.3 points and 4.6 rebounds a game, on 42% shooting and 61% FT. I also hate The Darkness because their music is annoying and there’s nothing cool about glam rock. So if there’s a reason to view Justin Hawkins as an NBA prospect, and I’ve missed it, then do please let me know.
– Ben McCauley: From what I saw of McCauley last season, he either couldn’t or wouldn’t quickly rotate on defence, and was slower than a paraplegic donkey in a minefield. He also wasn’t strong, physical, or blessed with overwhelming NBA size. But he could shoot the ball, and I saw him once gave a hard foul in the final two seconds of a blowout loss that sparked an enjoyable multi-player punch-up. So my impressions of him are mixed, with some great high points.
– David Monds: In keeping with the Lakers policy of bringing in players for summer league who have already signed elsewhere for next season, we now have David Monds, who has already signed somewhere for next year. Or at least, I thought he had; I forgot to write down where, and now I can’t find it. Lest we forget, this website is amateurish.
Monds is another former Oklahoma State player, who was kind of an afterthought role player in college, but who has done a bit better since. He last played in Puerto Rico, where he averaged 11.0 points and 7.6 rebounds for Humacao, and before that he spent the season with the Dakota Wizards and Albuquerque Thunderbirds in the D-League, averaging roughly 12/9 between the two. He’ll be 26 by the start of the next season, and a solid but unspectacular 6’9, but as I write this he just scored 17 points in 14 minutes in his summer league debut with some rim-running and mid-range touch. So you might like him anyway.
– Taylor Rochestie: Rochestie (with an I, not an L, to rhyme with the singular of “testes”) was Baynes’ team mate at Washington State for the last three years, after transferring from Tulane. He averaged 13.2 points, 3.6 rebounds and 4.5 assists last year, rocking a decent 2:1 assist to turnover ratio in the process. However, he also shot under 40%, and is only 6’1. If you can’t shoot 40% in college at that height, you’re not doing it in the NBA either. Rochestie is a fine shooter with some craft off the dribble, but not an NBA-calibre player.
– Luke Schenscher: Woop, it’s the long overdue return of The Schensch. How could you ever leave me, you beautiful beautiful man. Luke was back in his native Australia last year, where he averaged 16.9 points per game, a league-leading 10.8 rebounds per game, as well as 1.4 blocks, good for third in the league. He shot 55% from the field and 75% from the foul line, which is great news if you’ve ever seen Luke Schenscher bank in free throws in your team’s crucial first round playoff game. And I have. As for how the old school hook shot is looking these days, I couldn’t say, but I imagine it to still be sheer unadulterated joy. Lakers fans, if he unfurls that bad boy in summer league play, get ready to gush.
– Mustafa Shakur: Shakur didn’t have a great year last year, starting out with Tau Ceramica as the backup to Pablo Prigioni but not playing a lot, before moving to Panellinios in Greece, where he only played in the EuroCup games. In those Panellinios EuroCup games, he averaged 6.3 points and 1.2 assists on 54% shooting, which is about as much as any man can do in 11 minutes a game. But the European game isn’t really suited to him, which might explain his continued desire to come home.
– Reggie Williams: Williams was with the Mavericks summer league roster last year, where he demonstrated good size and athleticism along with a penchant to get pretty wild at times. Williams is the best player in VMI history, leading the whole NCAA in scoring in both his junior and senior seasons. He did that without ever having a good jump shot, which is more of a testament to the standard of competition that he faced than it is to his slashing game. Williams played in France last season, where he averaged 12.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game. He finds seams. However, he also shot 21% from three-point range on over 100 attempts. So he still hasn’t corrected that flaw.
2009 NBA Summer League round-up: Los Angeles Clippers
July 10th, 2009
– Sean Banks: Sean Banks was in the NBA once, believe it or not. It’s a period of time easily forgotten, but it did happen – after declaring early and going undrafted in the 2005 Draft, the Hornets signed him as an undrafted free agent, and assigned him to the Tulsa 66ers. He was the sixth player ever to be assigned to the D-League, but he didn’t do much there, averaging roughly 12/3. The Hornets waived him before his contract became guaranteed, and he never appeared in an NBA game. He hasn’t made it back since. However, in the 2007/08 season, Banks averaged 21.7 points, 5.4 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game for the L.A. D-Fenders, which got him back into NBA contention, and he signed with the Raptors summer league team last year as a result. After that, he went to Turkey and played for Darussafaka, averaging 13.1 points and 5.1 rebounds. Banks would do himself a big favour if he either improved his jump shot, or put it away; he shot 101 three-pointers in 30 games last season, accounting for one in every three of his shot attempts, yet he hit only 21 of them.
More importantly, Banks is rumoured to be trying to become a British national. His father was born in England, and still lives here, which entitles Sean to a British passport. He may soon be one of us. If he is, expect me to get biased.
– Nik Caner-Medley: Caner-Medley spent last year in Spain, playing for Cajasol Sevilla in the ACB. He averaged 10.7 points and 8.0 rebounds in 25 minutes a game during domestic competition, but he still hasn’t developed a great outside shot, shooting 23% from three-point range on the year. More notably, Caner-Medley was kicked off of the team at the end of the year for getting into a drunken fight with a team mate at a party thrown by the team to celebrate their season. The team mate, Michel Diouf – who reports say came off worse – was also suspended but later reinstated. Considering that the Clippers’ other small forwards are the specialist Steve Novak, the past-it Ricky Davis and the struggling Al Thornton, I’d like to think that Caner-Medley had a chance.
– Dionte Christmas: Temple graduate Christmas averaged 20 points per game on 46% shooting in his sophomore year, then 20 ppg on 43% shooting in his junior year, and then 20 ppg on 41% shooting in his senior year. If he’d done them the other way around, he might have been drafted. His turnovers also trended the same way, which isn’t ideal, although his assist numbers also got better, which helps. Christmas might be able to carve himself a nice NBA career as a catch-and-shoot specialist, but he’ll first have to improve on his 35% three-point percentage from last year.
– Eric Gordon: Way too good to be in summer league again. Way too good.
– Blake Griffin: Same. But I suppose everyone has to have at least one year.
– DeAndre Jordan: A lot of the time, you hear about players who are just athleticism and no technique, but rarely is it more true at the NBA level than it is with DeAndre Jordan. Yet some people still think he’s good for some reason. The evidence says otherwise; Jordan’s PER of 14.1 is quite good, but his PER against is 23.5, his win share rating was 1.5, his Roland Rating -7.6, his +/- rating a mere -7.5. His FG% and eFG% are both a tidy 63%, but that’s easy to do when 58% of your field goal attempts are dunks (almost all assisted) or tip ins – he shot 18% on jump shots, and 38.5% from the free throw line. Even on the night that he put up 23 points, 12 rebounds and 4 blocked shots, he let his matchup Andrew Bynum score 42 and 15. For him to ever be a rotation-calibre NBA centre, his effort will have to roughly double, and his skills will have to improve about tenfold. If he doesn’t, then the guaranteed contract that he has for next season might be the last one that he ever sees.
– Marcelus Kemp: Kemp played on the Lakers, but totalled only 13 points in three games. He spent last year in Italy, playing for Basket Livorno, a team fortuitously sponsored by a wicker basket making company. (Not really.) Kemp averaged 20.7 points and 4.9 rebounds on the season, but must have had a bad Christmas or something, because he only recorded six assists in the whole of 2009 (assistless in 10 of his last 11 games). He had 265 field goal attempts in that time as well. He’s a one-on-one type of player, and apparently it shows. Nevertheless, if he wanted NBA attention, he seems to have gotten it.
– Kyle McAlarney: Kyle McAlarney’s offensive game is mostly three-pointers, from between 21 to 34 feet, and the limit of his point guard play is driving baseline every one in a while. He’s a little shooting guard with a dynamite shooting stroke, and few other complimentary skills. He’s awesome. He’s going to be a brilliant player next year. Guaranteed. It just won’t be at the very highest standards of basketball.
– Kevinn Pinkney: Pinkney is a fine scoring big man, particularly from the mid-range game and within. It’s troubling, then, to see him take more and more threes. Pinkney averaged 14.2 points and 7.2 rebounds for NGC Cantu last year, shooting 71% from both inside the arc and at the foul line. But he shot only 33% from three-point range. Why, then, did he take two and a half three pointers per game?
– Mike Taylor: Portland drafted Taylor very late in the second round last year, then traded his rights to the Clippers for L.A’s second rounder this year. That was quite a high price to pay, considering that the Clippers then proceeded to suck and the pick wound up being #33 (which the Blazers then used on Dante Cunningham, another fringe Brit). Taylor showed some ability to score last year, although his defence is quite a way short and he’s not going to become a pure point guard at any point (his turnover numbers are still huge). He should make the team again, given that the Clippers don’t really have any alternatives to explore, but his contract is unguaranteed until the end of the month. And therefore, so are his chances.
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Additionally, it was expected that Sofoklis Schortsanitis was going to join the team. He tried to, at least. But FIBA ruled that, because he was still under contract to Olympiacos, he wasn’t allowed to play in summer league. This only appears to be a rule that applies to him, and not anyone else, so I must be missing something here. But that’s the gist of it, at least.
It is obligatory that any mention of Sofoklis Schortsanitis is accompanied with a progress report on his weight. So, here goes.
The latest reports out of Greece state that Sofoklis has lost a staggering 105lbs since the start of last season, which is a huge amount to lose. Their target weight for him is 340, which he’s damn nearly at, supposedly. Yet those reports also state that he now weighs 349 pounds.
You can do that math yourself. That’s a formerly 454 pound man we’re talking about. That’s documentary worthy-big. It’s unfathomable in a pro basketball player.
Those reports also claim that Sofoklis is down to 12% body fat, which seems like it can’t be plausible when talking about a guy that size. But be honest, I kind of believe them. It’s obviously impossible for a 6’8 350lb guy to be carrying around anything less than a load of excess, but I’m also willing to believe that the guy is chiselled underneath the wobbly bits. Watching several Olympiacos games last year, I never quite got used quite how spectacularly massive Sofo is. He would go up against players like Nikola Pekovic, giants amongst men, and yet he’d dwarf them all. He’d be shorter, and obviously chunkier, but it’s not just weight; the guy is freaking…..huge. I can’t really explain it, really. There’s a better way to explain it then this half-hearted attempt I’ve just managed, but I don’t know what it is. He’s just magnetically massive. He’s also pretty spritely for such a giant, pretty smart and highly skilled. He’s an enigma.
However, Sofoklis is still never going to be a factor in the NBA at that weight. He’s too big. And this weight cycle has been going on for at least six years. It’s fun to be optimistic about how good he could be, but maybe we just shouldn’t try to be any more.
– Will Blalock: The Pacers have been said to be looking for a point guard all summer long now. They kept Jamaal Tinsley inactive for all of last season, despite him being able and willing to play. Jarrett Jack is a restricted free agent, and even though he’s expected back, he isn’t really a point guard anyway. Neither is Travis Diener, and they seem to hate T.J. Ford more than it seems as though they should. But while Will Blalock is very much a point guard, I don’t think the answer to the Pacers’ point guard problem lies in a man who averaged 4.5 points and 2.1 assists in the German league last season.
Byars’ three point percentage by month, last season:
November – 0% December – 56% January – 28% February – 50% March – 26% April – 0%
Overall – 38%
It might be a coincidence that the two months he shot the most threes in were December and February. Or it might not.
– Tyler Hansbrough: Us Bulls fans discussed at length whether it would be a good idea to pick Tyler Hansbrough at #26. We eventually decided on “yes”. As draft day approached, we moved on to discussing whether it’d be justifiable to pick Hansbrough as high as #16. Opinion was split, but the majority said “no”. Turns out it was irrelevant anyway, as Indiana went for him at #13. And, since it’s the 2009 draft we’re talking about, I think they can get away with that.
– Roy Hibbert: Frank admission – Roy Hibbert is better than I thought he would be. He can score at the NBA level. Just can. He’d be better if he toned down the shot block attempts and focused more on the rebounding, and that foul rate is pretty ridiculous, but not many 22-year-old rookie centres can score at that rate. Once he stops being Bargnani-ish on the defensive glass, he’ll be goooood.
– Jared Homan: The Ho-Man played 16 games in the EuroLeague last year as a member of Cibona Zagreb, which is a very high standard of basketball for any man to be playing. Unfortunately, he didn’t play very well in them, averaging only 4.6 points and 3.3 rebounds, along with 2.4 fouls. His size and athleticism combination is still a virtue, but his size and athleticism combination is also nothing special by NBA standards. And nor is his age (26). Still, Rasho Nesterovic is a free agent, which opens up a space on the Pacers for a new centre.
–Aaron Jackson: Jackson broke the freak out last year, averaging 19.7 points, 5.5 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 1.6 steals per game, with percentages of 55.4%, 40.5% and 80.9%. Those numbers are up across the board from the year before, and his scoring output was more than doubled from his junior to senior years. Learning to shoot can do wonders for a man’s game. If he’d been in a less point guard-heavy draft, or at a school more noteworthy than Duquense, then he might have gotten drafted. As it is, he’s now fighting Will Blalock for a training camp spot, a fight that both will probably lose.
– Trey Johnson: Johnson briefly played in the NBA last season, signing a couple of ten-day contracts with the Cavaliers. He only scored four points, all from the foul line, but it’s an NBA career at least. When he wasn’t at the big dance, he was in the D-League, living up to his first name with the Bakersfield Jam. Johnson scored 21 points per game in 41 minutes per game, shooting 46% from the field and 41% from the three-point line. If he can start playing better defence, he might go down as the best player in the history of Jackson State. But until then, that title belongs to Lindsey Hunter. Or Purvis Short.
– Leo Lyons: I watched a lot of Missouri last year. It was hard not to, because they did pretty well. J.T. Tiller is my boy. But my opinion of Lyons isn’t highly flattering. He has some touch, some athleticism, and his wild flails to the rim are effective. But he makes a load of mistakes, doesn’t really have NBA size, and nor was his heart really in it defensively. If he was a sophomore, he would have been one to keep an eye on. But he wasn’t.
– Josh McRoberts: McRoberts finally got some PT last season, and in doing so he put up an almost identical PER to that of Marquis Daniels. He’s also grown a brilliant beard, and either is or was dating Lauren Conrad from MTV’s The Hills. Not a bad year for McBob, all told. He’s a restricted free agent, but he’ll return.
– A.J. Price: If drafting three straight seniors out of big programs wasn’t enough of a clue (Hibbert, Rush, Hansbrough), then the Pacers picking Price in the second round this year ought to have alerted you to the fact that Larry Bird watches the NCAA Tournament. More importantly, if the Pacers really are serious about getting an extra point guard regardless of how many options they already have, I would imagine that Price has a beeline on that spot right now. But that’s only if they do. (By the way, I just spent ten minutes trying to think up a plausible Jamaal Tinsley trade scenario. But I couldn’t do it. Is there not room for him in Indiana to rebuild his value just a little bit?)
– Brandon Rush: Rush’s rookie year wasn’t good, scoring inefficiently and ranking last on the team in plus/minus rating. But he has an opportunity here; Marquis Daniels is an unrestricted free agent, Mike Dunleavy’s knee is reportedly all kinds of haggard, and new signing Dahntay Jones is a defensive specialist. There’s minutes available for Rush, then, if he can figure out how to get to the foul line more than once a week.
– Anthony Smith: Smith averaged 17.6 points and 6.5 rebounds for Liberty last year. And here’s a Googled factoid:
As a junior, Smith was the only player in the nation during the 2008 season to attempt at least 200 three-point field goals and succeed on at least 40 percent of his three-point field goal attempts (41.0), while also hitting over 50 percent of his field goal attempts (51.5). Only four other players in the nation accomplish the same feat while attempting at least 100 three-point field goals, including Mario Chalmers (Kansas), Lee Cummard (BYU), Malik Hairston (Oregon) and James Harden (Arizona State).
Despite the apparent brilliance of his jump shot, though, he never shot over 66% from the foul line in his four-year NCAA career. And that’s all I’ve got.
– Scott VanderMeer: It’s difficult to find out information on Scott VanderMeer, since I’ve seen his surname spelt four different ways; VanderMeer, Vander Meer, van der Meer, and Van De Meer. Really helps things along, that. But here’s what I’ve got anyway: VanderMeer is a seven-footer who just shot 40% in the seminal Horizon League. The best part of his NCAA resumé is probably his shot-blocking, to the tune of 2.1 blocks per game last year, an output which he’ll have to roughly treble to trouble an NBA roster. Nevertheless, here’s a seven-minute highlight video.
– Hassan Adams: Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo struck gold in 2007 when he signed Jamario Moon right at the start of free agency, after a fine performance in a Raptors mini-camp. In 2008, he went for it again with Hassan Adams…and he struck out. He signed Adams to a guaranteed contract in July, then watched on as Adams (perhaps complacent due to the guaranteed money) showed up out of shape and with as few ball skills as ever. Adams was later salary-dumped onto the Clippers, who cut him.
After that, Adams went to Serbia to play for Vojvodina Srbija Gas Novi Sad, a team that badly needs its name abridging if it’s to make any catchy jingles. He totalled 11 points in two games before leaving in what I believe was acrimonious circumstances. He won’t make the Rockets roster; they didn’t sign Trevor Ariza, turn down Von Wafer’s advances and spend all that money on Jermaine Taylor just to let Hassan take their roster spot. But it’s nice to see him again anyway. Hope he can get his mojo back.
– Rod Benson: Rod Benson had a great year in 2007-08, starting out in the Nets training camp, then going to the D-League and leading it in rebounds. But 2008-09 was far worse: Benson went to France and signed with Nancy, but averaged only 2.3/2.3 in eight games before being released. He returned to the D-League, and averaged 7.3 points and 6.0 rebounds for the Dakota Wizards, before being traded to the Reno Bighorns where he averaged a far better 16.6 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2.5 blocks.
– Chase Budinger: Budinger is but one more on my list of “Players I would rather the Bulls had drafted instead of Taj Gibson at #26,” an increasingly long list that’s getting a bit extreme. I will get over it eventually, though. (Think of it as a good thing though, Taj. The less I expect of you, the more I’m going to like it when you turn out to be brilliant. And you will. Never forget that. If I have no expectations for you, they can’t be dashed. You’re like the anti-Eddy Curry. Make me love you.)
– Will Conroy: Conroy put up lots of everything for the Albuquerque Thunderbirds in the D-League last year. 49 games, 44.7 mpg (lead the league), 26.5 ppg (also lead the league), 8.0 apg (fifth), 4.8 rpg, 2.0 spg, 4.2 topg. He stuffed that CV like a CV stuffing bitch. And it’s a shame that it’s more than likely only getting him as far as Spain. But still. A good effort. Have some time off, you must be knackered.
– Marcus Cousin: Cousin averaged 10.9 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game for Houston last year, That’s the University of Houston, though, not the Rockets. Those are good numbers. Shame about the conference that they came in. Mind you, Robert Dozier got drafted while getting slightly worse numbers in the exact same conference. And he’s a lot smaller. So that makes total sense.
– Joey Dorsey: Dorsey’s rookie year was pretty sedate. He signed late -not before losing a game that he wasn’t even in – yet ended up getting a way bigger than usual contract for a second-rounder. Then it went downhill; Dorsey played all of six minutes for Rockets last year, and spent only seven games in the D-League,. Down there, he played with disinterested body language, averaging 9.7 points and 9.0 rebounds per game, which are pretty tame numbers in relative terms. He’s also going to turn 26 later this year, which makes him 18 months older than Darko Milicic. And we all know how much potential he has – none. Still, there’s some good news; someone wrote a fluff piece, and his contract isn’t guaranteed after this season. So that’s something.
– Charles Gaines: Gaines got a training camp contract with the Spurs to start the year, and after getting waived he was assigned to their D-League affiliate, the Austin Toros. The D-League is a slightly strange place for a 27-year-old to go, and Gaines perhaps unsurprisingly beasted, averaging 14.9 points and 10.3 rebounds a game. He left before the end of the season to sign with Israeli powerhouse Maccabi Tel-Aviv, for whom he averaged 8.0 ppg and 6.4 rpg. He won’t win a roster spot here, but he also won’t need it.
– Mike Green: Green played for the Cavaliers summer league team last year, where he started at point guard, took lots of shots and shot 30%. Can’t say I was duly impressed, really. More impressive was his follow-up season in Turkey, where he averaged 11.6 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4.4 assists for Antalya, but he shot only 31% from three-point range, again in love with his sub-par jump shot. Hone that, and we’ll talk.
– Maarty Leunen: Leunen, a draft pick of the Rockets last year, also spent the season in Turkey, playing for the immortally-named Darussafaka C.Tires Istanbul. There, he averaged 31 minutes, 12.1 points and 6.2 rebounds per game, shooting 44% from two-point range and 44% from three-point range. And he took a whole lot more threes than twos. If there was ever an outside chance of Leunen making the Rockets roster this year – and there wasn’t, really – then the incumbent Brian Cook just took it away from him.
– Brad Newley: Another unsigned Rockets second-rounder, this time from 2007, Newley has spent the two years since being drafted in Greece. Last year, he moved from Panionios to Panellinios, although it’s plausible that he just boarded the wrong bus or something and no one sought to correct him. Newley averaged 10.4 points and 3.1 assists in 24 minutes a game, but his jump shot wasn’t really with him all year. He, like Adams, has little chance of making the team this year, partly due to this next guy.
– Jermaine Taylor: The Rockets bought Taylor’s rights on draft night for $2.5 million, which is a hell of a lot of money to give up for a second-round pick, even a high 30s one. As a result, I think you can pretty much go ahead and assume that he’s making the team.
– Garrett Temple: Temple was the tall point guard to Marcus Thornton’s undersized shooting guard, and averaged 7.1 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists in his senior season. For some reason, I have a bit of a thing with offensively-challenged tall combo guards who want to be point guards – see also, my views on Cedric Bozeman – but the fact that Temple didn’t shoot over 40% in any of the four years of his college career means that his NBA prospects don’t really exist unless he corrects that.
– Darryl Watkins: Darryl Watkins’s middle name is “Finesse”, but don’t read too much into that. Like Gaines, he went to camp with the Spurs last year, but didn’t make the cut, and spent the rest of the year in China, averaging roughly 20/14. Good numbers, but it is China.
– James White: White has an unguaranteed contract with the Rockets for next season, and, if they’re truly going to go young (and I don’t see as though they have a choice), then the arrival of Ariza won’t necessarily be the death of White. Nor will Budinger, either.
2009 NBA Summer League round-up: Golden State Warriors
July 8th, 2009
– Connor Atchley: In his junior season, Atchley was looking like a decent big man prospect. He averaged 9.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game for Texas, while also shooting 41% from three-point range on over 100 attempts. However, his senior season was then a wash-out; 4.6 points, 3.1 rebounds, 1.3 blocks, .397 FG%, .278 3PT FG%. What went wrong? I don’t know. Some people want to blame Dexter Pittman. But either way, Atchley took himself out of the second round. Now 24, Atchley can count himself fortunate to even get a summer league spot, because 24-year-old 6’10 228lb sub-40% scoring jump shooting power forwards are not generally NBA worthy. Considerable improvements are needed. But they were there once.
– Stephen Curry: Curry has played six games in the last seven days for Team USA, totalling 50 points and 6 assists. Some people think he’ll be the next Ben Gordon. Some people think he’ll be the next J.J. Redick. Some think that he’ll be the rookie of the year; I think he’ll be nearer the first than the second, and definitely not the third.
– Jermareo Davidson: Davidson has a non-guaranteed contract with the Warriors for next season, and is also officially listed as the second-heaviest player on their roster behind Ronny Turiaf. Pretty weird, that, considering Davidson’s slightly lanky frame. Last summer, the Bobcats exercised their team option on Davidson and guaranteed his contract, before then waiving him and experimenting with a variety of big men (Andre Brown, Dwayne Jones and Linton Johnson), finally settling on Juwan Howard. There’s the Larry Brown influence for you. Davidson spent 15 games in the D-League, averaging 16/11, before the Warriors called him up, where he averaged 3.4 points and 2.8 rebounds for the big league team. I expect him to make the team again.
– Lawrence Hill: Never heard of Lawrence Hill, to be honest with you, but here’s what some searching reveals: Hill is a 6’8 power forward who just finished his senior year at Stanford, where he averaged 13.6 points, 5.9 rebounds and 2.2 assists on 50% shooting. Not very good rebounding numbers there, to be honest, and the points and rebounding numbers are both down on his sophomore season, where he averaged 16/6, but he’s efficient. Lawrence Hill is also an award-winning Canadian novelist and memoirist, a small suburb near Bracknell, and a small electoral ward in the city of Bristol.
– Joe Ingles: Joe Ingles should have been drafted. Let’s be honest. I won’t call out Chinemelu Elonu or Robert Dozier by name or anything, because that would be unfair, but there were domestic players drafted in the second round that didn’t need to be. They would have gone undrafted, had they not been drafted. And they would have wound up with the first team to offer them $20,000 to come to training camp. Anyway, whatever. Ingles averaged 13.1 ppg, 4.1 rpg and 3.5 apg for the Melbourne South Dragons in Australia last season, numbers down across the board from the year before. It might be high time for him to escape Australian basketball, given how it’s struggling; his decision might be accelerated by the fact that the South Dragons have refused to participate in the newly reformed NBL, despite being the defending champions.
– Jared Jordan: Jared Jordan hasn’t made it as far as a regular season NBA game yet, but he’s shooting for his third straight training camp spot on his third different team. Jordan was second in the D-League last year with a 9.0 assists per game average, to go along with 10.9 points and 3.4 rebounds, although he only shot 28% from three-point range and had some injuries. As ever, the Warriors could use a true point guard, which Jordan certainly is. But they also don’t have many roster spots to go around, and they have enough small guards already. Including this guy…..
– Acie Law:….who has not done much, but whose contract is guaranteed. Law has struggled since being taken 11th in 2007. In 11 career games, he is shooting only 39% and averaging seven assists per 48 minutes, with a career PER of 8.9. It’s hard to show less than that in two years, but the optimist within me would like to think that a change of scenery and a higher tempo offence will help turn things around for Law. But that certainly wasn’t the case for Marcus Williams, and if they don’t around, this may well be Law’s last year in the NBA.
– Cartier Martin: Martin broke into the NBA with the Bobcats last year, but didn’t show much, shooting 36% in 33 games. Before that, he was in the D-League, averaging 20.6 ppg on 48% shooting for the Iowa Energy. He doesn’t have a huge shot on a forward-heavy Warriors roster, so the D-League beckons again.
– Anthony Morrow: Morrow was so surprisingly good last year that he spawned his own range of Chuck Norris facts. All he really does is shoot, but it’s a hell of a jump shot that he’s got, and he has the size and athleticism to get almost any of them away. If Michael Redd is a precedent, then $90 million awaits; until then, it’s an unguaranteed minimum salary for Morrow. But he’s definitely coming back.
– Quan Prowell: Quan Prowell is not only the title emblazoned on the box of a crudely-translated illegal DVD copy of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but is also a 6’8 former Auburn forward. Last year, he averaged 15.5 points and 5.7 rebounds in Turkey, playing for Casa TED Kolejliler Ankar, a team with a less-than-catchy name. Question: if the Rockets are looking at all these 6’8 combo/power forwards, why didn’t they just keep Richard Hendrix?
– Anthony Randolph: Is Anthony Randolph going to be the next Magic Johnson, the next Scottie Pippen, the next Josh Smith, the next Lamar Odom, or the next none of these? I don’t know. But I do know that I’m waiting around to find out.
– Lawrence Roberts: As mentioned in the Detroit round-up, Roberts played for Crvena Zvezda last year, acting as the sage old head to a team of young upstarts. He was injured a lot, yet led the team in rebounding. However, he shot only 43% in the Adriatic League, and 37.5% in the EuroCup, taking an ever-increasing amount of jump shots from an ever-increasing distance away. Not necessarily good from your power forward whose main strength has always been his rebounding.
EDIT – An updated version of the Warriors roster saw Lawrence Roberts replaced by Othello Hunter, another power forward. Hunter spent all of last year with the Hawks, who signed him as an undrafted free agent after he played well for them in summer league. He averaged 1.4 points and 1.5 rebounds for them in 16 games, but was not extended a qualifying offer. He, too, is not Richard Hendrix. I’m trying to make a point here. I’m not anti-Hunter or anti-Roberts. I’m just pro-Hendrix.
– Michael Bramos: Bramos is a Greek wing who recently finished his senior season at the University of Miami, Ohio. (It was news to me that there were two Miami’s. Seems unnecessary.) On offence, he’s largely an outside shooter since he does not much dribble in traffic, but he’s not a great shooter, shooting 40% from the field and 36% from the three-point line in his senior season. He’s pretty athletic and very strong for an off-guard (standing 6’5 and 221lbs, which is pretty heavy for a man that height), and he also has a hell of a wingspan that gets about the place on defense. These reasons and more are why Europe is his inevitable destiny; that and the door-opening Greek passport, obviously.
– Will Bynum: Last year was a strange one for Will Bynum. Michael Curry played him and played him and played him and played him for three months, and he struggled. Then, in March, Bynum somehow broke out. He became able to get to the rim at will, and drained 21-footers like he’d never been able to do prior. Eventually, he became a key contributor for the Pistons, had a 32-point 7-assist game versus Charlotte, and averaged nearly 12 points per game for Detroit in the playoffs. And now Pistons fans are grateful that Bynum’s going to be on their roster and earning the minimum salary next year.
– Austin Daye: Detroit bailed out Daye’s decision to declare too early by picking him 15th overall this year, a pick with which I am not overly fond. They clearly see more in this athletic jump shooting specialist than I do. (This is a position that, in the long run, I am willing to modify. I admit that I didn’t see a lot of Daye in his college career. But I also didn’t see a lot in him, either. Yes, he might be the next poor man’s Rudy Gay, but remember something; Rudy Gay isn’t as good offensively as advertised. It’s physical profile rather than plus footwork or moves. To be a lesser version of that might mean to be a shooter only.)
– Ibrahim Jaaber: it’s quite the surprise to see Jaaber on here, in amongst the undrafted talent and regurgitated D-League talent that so permeates summer league rosters. Jaaber has become a star in Europe recently; as a starting guard for Lottomatica Roma last season, he averaged 14.1 points, 2.6 assists and 2.5 steals in the Italian league. But clearly the NBA is on his mind, or he wouldn’t be going to down the summer league route. He is capable of a way bigger stage and way more money than this. Still, good luck to him. It’s the American dream.
Ibrahim Jaaber fact: Ibrahim Jaaber, a Brooklyn native who has never played in Bulgaria, has a Bulgarian passport. So does Olympiacos and former Grizzlies forward Mike Batiste. And Chicago Bulls draft pick Mario Austin was offered one, but gallantly refused it.
– Jonas Jerebko: Jerebko was one of twelve small forwards drafted by the Pistons this year, but since they’re apparently going to sign Deron Washington to a guaranteed deal (which I’ll believe when I see it), then it looks like there’s no spot for Jerebko to come over this season, even if Walter Sharpe is dumped. Jerebko averaged 9.1 points and 5.5 rebounds for Angellico Biella last season, but still needs to improve his dribbling and his jump shot. So keeping him overseas seems like the best thing to do. At least give Dajuan Summers the opportunity to flame out first.
– Dwayne Jones: Considering that the Pistons currently only have Kwame Brown at centre, and that Dwayne Jones is NBA calibre-ish, then you have to think that he has a decent chance of making the roster at some point, unless he completely screws the pooch. Jones played 49 minutes with the Bobcats last year, totalling 12 points, 12 rebounds and 6 fouls, and also played seven minutes in Turkey, totalling 1 point, 1 rebounds and 3 fouls for Efes Pilsen. He spent most of the season in the D-League, playing for three teams; the Iowa Energy (1 game, 1 point, 1 rebound, 4 fouls), the Idaho Stampede (12 games, averaging 14.3 points, 10.3 rebounds and 1.4 blocks) and the Austin Toros (22 games, 17.2 points, 13.5 rebounds, 1.2 blocks). He’s never significantly developed his offence on the interior, and is now 26, but he’s a good-enough player through his length and activity to be in the NBA, and he seems to have picked his summer league team wisely. Good chance here.
– Andre Owens: Owens is a former Jazz and Pacers guard who spent last year as one of the two American imports for Crvena Zvezda, the other one being Lawrence Roberts. Those two were also the two oldest players on the team, as the roster outside of them was made up almost exclusively of Serbian and Bosnian youngsters, most of whom will be draft candidates one day soon. (And some of them, including Nemanja Bjelica and Elmedin Kikanovic, are slated to be second-rounders next year. But more on them later.) As the veteran star on the team, a role that he’s never had anywhere before, Owens averaged 10.4 points, 3.0 rebounds and 2.4 assists in the EuroCup, doing a little bit of everything and shooting fairly well from outside the arc. But Detroit might not have the room for him.
– Trent Plaisted: Plaisted playsted with Jerebko at Angellico Biella last year, which may explain why Detroit zoned in on JJ so early. However, Trent only played in two games with the team – both in October – before being injured and missing the rest of the season. I don’t know what his injury was, because I can’t read Italian (although I do know that coglioni = balls), but the fact that he was sent overseas for a year and yet missed almost all of the year due to injury would imply that a second year abroad is on the cards.
– Walter Sharpe: Sharpe barely played for the Pistons last year, totalling 20 minutes, yet spent hardly any time in the D-League. When he did finally play in four games for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, he kind of struggled, averaging only 10.8 points and 3.5 rebounds. The Pistons drafted three small forwards last year, which also can’t bode well for Sharpe’s chances. But his guaranteed contract for next year might be his saviour.
– Dajuan Summers: Pistons GM Joe Dumars almost picked Summers at #15, and was happily surprised when Summers fell to their second pick at #35. Not sure why, though, since the only obvious plus NBA skill the guy has is shooting. It’s nice to be athletic and strong, like he is, but if you can’t/won’t penetrate, and if you can’t/won’t consistently play defence, then that’s worth a whole lot. Still, Summers has potential, and should make the roster. He will have to improve the defense to make it twice.
– Clay Tucker: Tucker was on the Cavaliers team last year, where he was so keen to demonstrate his scoring ability that he didn’t make one single pass. He started last year with BC Kyiv, but left when the team released all of its foreign players due to bankruptcy. He then closed out the year in Spain, where he averaged 17.5 points per game for Cajasol Sevilla. Despite now being 29 and having had several goes at it, Tucker has still never gotten an NBA contract, and this time might not work out either. He can score, though.
– Deron Washington: Washington, supposedly, has a guaranteed contract lined up for next season, which isn’t something I’m prepared to believe right now. If he does, though, then that’ll be something of a surprise. Washington played in Israel last year, averaging 14.1 points and 7.0 rebounds for Hapoel Holon, but he still can’t shoot well, and, given their recent draft which I’ve kind of overrelied on lately, you can see how Detroit may have had other options at the small forward spot. And Arron Afflalo’s presence negates any spot minutes that Washington might have gotten as a big two guard. And that’s why I don’t really believe it. But I’ll report it if it happens.
Since Cleveland and Dallas haven’t announced their rosters yet, and Charlotte aren’t having one, we’ll advance list this along to Denver, whose summer league effort this year is a strange one. Their roster is only small, but they’ve made a decent effort nonetheless..
– Derrick Byars: Byars survives as a testament to the reign of Billy King as Sixers general manager. The Sixers acquired the 30th pick in the 2007 draft as a part of the Allen Iverson to Denver trade, but they decided that they didn’t want the guaranteed contract that it necessitated. Therefore, on draft night, the Sixers traded the pick to the Blazers for the #41 pick and cash, using the 41st pick on Byars. They then waived Byars in training camp, and wound up with just the cash. Nice return on a first-round draft pick, that, particularly one which featured a second-round with Marc Gasol, Ramon Sessions, Glen Davis and Carl Landry in it. Byars’ only other NBA flirtation came when he signed with the Thunder in training camp last year, but he didn’t make the team. He then went to the D-League, and averaged 17.7ppg and 4.9rpg for the Bakersfield Jam, but there’s a guy elsewhere on his list who has taken any potential roster spot that Byars may have had. (Clue: it rhymes with “creams”.)
– Dontaye Draper: Draper is a 5’11 guard out of the College of Charleston, who was also on the Nuggets 2007 summer league roster. He split last season between France and Belgium, averaging 20.7 points, 4.2 rebounds and 6.5 assists in the EuroChallenge for Hyeres-Toulon Var Basket (the French half of that split). Draper has been trying to establish himself as more of a pass-first guard over the years, which is kind of necessary when you’re 5’11, but while the assist numbers have continued to go up, so have the turnovers (he averaged 5.1 assists in the French league last year, but against 4.5 turnovers). He also doesn’t shoot well, shooting poorly from the foul line and inconsistently at best from three-point range. As quick and explosive as he is, it’s difficult to play in the NBA if you’re a 5’11 shoot first-player who’s prone to turnovers and not the best shooter. Although maybe it’s not all about the NBA – at most European levels, he is too quick to stop..
– Ronald Dupree: Dupree was in camp, too, but with the Cleveland Cavaliers. If you’re willing to count that, he’s now been in the NBA for parts of the last six years, which is not bad going. Dupree spent last year in the D-League, averaging 19.8/6.6/3.7 for the Tulsa 66ers, and 17.3/7.2/3.9 after a midseason trade to the Utah Flash. That’s not half bad from a guy who’s better on the defensive end, and if the Nuggets decide they can’t overpay Dahntay Jones, then Dupree is a minimum-salary replacement waiting to happen. But then again, Captain Creams might be in his way, too.
– C.J. Giles: Giles went to summer league with the Raptors last year, and played sufficiently well for them to get a training camp contract with the Lakers. If that makes sense. His only plus-NBA skill is his athleticism, but then again, the same can be said of DeAndre Jordan, and people love him. Giles spent last year in the D-League, averaging 12.5 points, 8.3 rebounds, 2.1 blocks and 4.5 fouls per game for the L.A. D-Fenders, and 8.9 points, 5.6 rebounds, 0.9 blocks and 2.8 fouls for the Sioux Falls Skyforce. He then went off to the Philippines in May for the Asian Club Championships, where he totalled 73 points and 46 rebounds in four games. Giles has no significant pre-NBA resumé to speak of, having been kicked off of two college teams, having only one professional season under his belt, and having underdeveloped skills outside of what his length and leap get him. But he’s tall and jumpy.
– Richard Hendrix: Last year, the Warriors drafted Hendrix 49th overall, and signed him to a three-year contract. They then waived him in December when Monta Ellis returned from the suspended list, choosing to do so over waiving Rob Kurz (who just left as an unrestricted free agent) and Marcus Williams (who they waived later anyway). Williams never appeared in a game for the Warriors, yet he got paid a guaranteed salary anyway, and is even going to get $100,000 from the team this season as well. His situation is kind of symptomatic of the Warriors management last season. Hendrix then went to the D-League, and averaged 11.6 rebounds in 31 minutes per game for the Dakota Wizards. If he sounds like a man who has NBA talent to you, that’s because he has.
– Coby Karl: Karl was covered in the Celtics round-up, but he features on the Nuggets roster as well because his dad is the head coach. And that makes it easier to make rosters. Walker Russell was once briefly a Knick because his dad is a scout for the team, and Jason Capel was a Bobcat for a couple of weeks because his dad Jeff was an assistant coach at the time. It’s all very who-you-know, this NBA thing.
– Tywon Lawson: I want it on record that I don’t think Ty Lawson will be a worse NBA player than Jonny Flynn, the man taken twelve places ahead of him. I will accept the shellacking if I’m wrong, but take your time in reminding me of that, since one of them has Chauncey Billups for company next year, and one of them have Sebastian Telfair.
– Kareem Rush: Rush is still a one-dimensional scorer, and he’s still not a very efficient one. He scored 54 points on 58 shots last year with the Sixers, lowering his overall career numbers to 2,204 points on 2,178 shots. The Sixers appear to have realised that they, as the employers of Willie Green, are the last team that needs another shooting guard like that. And they’re right.
– Cedric Simmons: If you’re an optimist, you’ll look at Cedric Simmons’ age and his draft position, and think that he’s a worthwhile prospect for your team to take a flyer on. “There must be something there”, after all. Well, if there is, it’s on one end, as he so far has been one of the worst offensive players in the league. He also is a sub-par rebounder, doesn’t move too well, hasn’t NBA size, and has all the polish of a schoolyard bundle. He shoots worse from the foul line than Ben Wallace or Chuck Hayes, and although he is good for one or two poster blocks a year and is a deterrent around the rim, he does not move outside of the paint defensively nearly as well. It’s all a bit limited..
– Sonny Weems: Weems is partially guaranteed for next season, to the tune of $174,284, a seemingly arbitrary amount the logic behind which I can’t figure out. Nevertheless, he should make the team easily enough, and might even get an expanded role if Dahntay doesn’t return. Weems spent most of last year in the D-League, where he averaged 21.3 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.2 assists in 28 minutes per game for the Colorado 14ers. Pretty good, that. And that’s why the first two players on this list need to turn to prayer.
– Alfred Aboya: In accordance with Murphy’s prophecy, we start with the one guy that I’ve not much on. There’s nothing wrong with that, though, since it means we get to learn. Aboya is a 6’9 big man who just finished his senior season at UCLA, a team that seems to have lost its entire roster over the last three weeks. He averaged 9.9 points and 6.3 rebounds last season, and, when I finally get around to those UCLA games that I keep promising to watch, I’ll be able to fashion a more formulated if still largely ignorant opinion of him.
– Rodrigue Beaubois: Beaubois was the Maverick’s first-round draft choice this past summer, when they traded the rights to B.J. Mullens for him. (I’m only upset that I missed out on a “Mark Cuban turned down a B.J.” joke, despite the predictability of it all.) He averaged 10.0 points, 2.5 rebounds and 2.3 assists in the French league last season, which isn’t particularly stand-out from a 6’2 guard in a weak standard of competition. Yet I read somewhere that they’re bringing him over immediately anyway, because there’s some potential in his burst.
– Andre Brown: Andre Brown keeps getting NBA contracts without getting NBA run. He has shown some decent offensive talent in the minor leagues – that is, if you’re willing to excuse his Shaq-like foul shooting – yet while spot minutes in 75 NBA games over three years might not be the biggest sample size, he has not yet shown yourself to be an offensive player at the NBA level, and survived in the big leagues largely as a rebounder. Now 28 and neither a shooter nor a shot-blocker, Brown is back for yet another summer league – Dallas could use a power forward, so he’s chosen well. But time is ticking away.
For the record, Brown split last season between the Austin Toros of the D-League (where he averaged 14,9 points and 9.5 rebounds), Banvit Kulubu in Turkey (where he averaged 12.1 points and 9.6 rebounds) and the Bobcats (where he totalled four points and 12 rebounds in four games).
– Nick Calathes: Calathes is a straight baller, who has already signed with Panathinaikos for next season. He did that even before he was drafted, facilitated in that quest by having a Greek passport. And when we get to the Clippers entry, I’ll tell you why this news confuses me. Calathes’ NBA prospects are hindered by his athletic disadvantages, but Europe will love him. And if he develops that outside stroke some, we’ll probably see him back here one day.
– Shan Foster: Shan Foster (pronounced Shane) is an out-and-out shooter who can shoot. That’s it from an NBA perspective, really. There’s nothing wrong with that, though, because you can never have too many shooters, and Foster’s a good one. Donnie Nelson states that Foster has improved his range out to ‘real’ three-point range, which will help him, but what won’t help him is his rather mediocre debut professional season last year. Foster averaged 10.4 points and 2.9 rebounds in 30 mpg for Eldo Caserta in Italy’s Serie A, shooting only 36% from three-point range and scoring a total of 311 points on 270 shots. That’s not the one.
– Mickael Gelabale: Gelabale spent two years with the Sonics, but just when he’d started to make some progress in his second year, he screwed up his knee. He was out of the game for about a year, and only returned in late March, when he played in six games down the stretch for the L.A. D-Fenders in the D-League, averaging 16.0 points and 4.3 rebounds. If his athleticism isn’t affected by the knee injury, then he’ll stay on the NBA radar for a while, but it would take a truly fine summer league showing to get him there this year.
– Luke Jackson: Try as he might, Luke Jackson has still never stuck around in the NBA for more than about eight minutes at a time. This is the one, Luke. This time. Jackson spent last season in the D-League with the Idaho Stampede, averaging 17.4 points, 5.4 rebounds and 4.4 assists a game, shooting 44% from three-point range and 85% from the line. So not only did he shoot better than Shan Foster, but he demonstrated a more efficient and all-around offensive game. Work hard on that D, Shan.
– Curtis Jerrells: As with Kevin Rogers before him, I saw a load of Jerrells last year, and he’s all right. His pick-and-roll game and his shot are his strengths, but his offense is also not strong enough to get him into the NBA on its own. His floor game is solid if unspectacular, but his half court offence is mediocre, he’s a shoot-first player, and he hasn’t the consistent-enough range to make you change your roster for him. Put 5 to 10% on that three-point percentage, C.J, and we’ll revisit this.
– Bryson McKenzie: McKenzie averaged 2.9 points and 4.4 rebounds in the D-League last year. Those numbers, they…..they do not overwhelm. And yet they’re about as much as the turns-26-next-week McKenzie has achieved in his three year professional career. But here’s a highlight mix anyway.
EDIT: Apparently this entry wasn’t favourable enough. An e-mail I received:
To Whom It May Concern:
This is [A Man Whose Name I Edited Out], the agent for Bryson McKenzie. Before you start posting stuff, please do more homework on players. Bryson did averaging 2.9 pts and 4.6 rebounds last year in the D-league, but he was only there for a month and a half and came towards the end of the season. Before that he was playing 1st Division internationally and in 2008 averaged 17 ppg, 13 rpg, and 3 bpg game. Then after that he left the NBA D-League and went on to play in the International Basketball League in the spring of 2009 where he averaged 17.5 ppg, 14.5 rpg, and 3.9 bpg. See Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20090601033924/http://www.vancouvervolcanoes.com:80/profile.php?playerid=61.
On May 8, 2009 he had a game where he had 26 points, 29 rebounds, and 9 blocks and . He led the league in rebounds and block shots and led his team in scoring. He was also with the Lakers in the 2007 NBA Summer League as well. If you can change your comments about my client, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.
So, there you go. Now you know more about Bryson McKenzie than I could ever teach you. Thank you, Mr Agent Sir, for filling the gaps in this Bryson McKenzie synopsis. I’ve got several thousand other players to cover if you want to help me with those too.
(You don’t? Oh.)
– Aaron Miles: Miles was on the Mavericks’ summer league season last year, too, where he did a decent job of outplaying Keith McLeod. (And yet McLeod was the one who got the training camp contract. Ho-hum.) Miles spent last season in Greece, where he averaged 11.3 points and 3.5 assists for Panionios, but he also did the usual Aaron Miles thing and shot only 10-51 from three-point range. And that persistent flaw continues to be the reason why this 26-year-old former Warriors guard, for all his craft and unselfishness, can’t get back into the league.
– Ahmad Nivins: I like Nivins. I’ve told you that before, but there it is again. And if the Mavericks find a way to keep both him and another favourite of mine, James Singleton, as the backup forwards, then I’ll be a happy bunny. But that might involve Donnie Nelson and Devean George being separated from one another. And I’m not sure either of them wants that. Maybe we should force it to happen. Tonya Harding one of them if necessary. (Note: don’t really do that. I don’t want an “incitement to riot” charge on my work visa application.)
– Trent Strickland: Strickland is another D-League veteran coming off of a pretty solid year. Strickland averaged 17.5 points and 6.1 rebounds in roughly 30 minutes per game for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. Those are especially good rebounding numbers from a 6’5 swingman. Unfortunately, T-Strick has always lacked a consistent jump shot, and still does, shooting only 31% from three-point range last season in over 100 tries. If he had one of them, he’d probably have had a modicum of NBA experience by now. But he hasn’t yet.
—-
EDIT: Quite a long time after releasing their roster, the Mavericks then released it again, with seven extra players on it. And here they are.
– Henry Dugat: Dugat is surely in part here because of Jerrells, his Baylor teammate. Dugat teamed with Jerrells and the immortal Tweety Carter to form a three-guard backcourt, and between them they took a lot of threes. Dugat took the least of the three, but was a very efficient shooter from out there through his first three years. Unfortunately, his shot also vacated him, and he shot 30% from three-point range in his senior season (down from 40% his sophomore year), and 41% overall (down from 47%). As a 6’0 shoot-first guard (and a shoot-second guard), Dugat would have to have an exceptional jump shot, exceptional speed, or an exceptional ability to get to the rim to be NBA calibre as an off-ball player. But he doesn’t have those, and prefers to be on the ball. If he is to be an on-ball player, it will count against him from an NBA point of view that Baylor thought he was not as good of an option of one as Jerrells was.
– Herbert Hill: Hill spent the whole 2007-08 season on the Sixers roster after being drafted by them late in the 2007 draft, but he didn’t play any games due to a knee surgery. He was allowed to walk unchallenged, and had a try-out in August for Le Mans in France. However, his knee still hadn’t recovered, and he wasn’t signed. It was six whole months before he reappeared, when he was acquired by the Bakersfield Jam in the D-League, averaging 5.9 points and 4.4 rebounds in 11 games. He later moved to the Tulsa 66ers, where things went a bit better, with averages of 17.6 points, 9.6 rebounds and 3.4 blocks in five games. Impressively, in those five games he managed to hit 43 field goals, but only two free throws.
– Quinton Hosley: Hosley started last season with Real Madrid, and averaged 8.6 points and 3.2 rebounds in the EuroLeague. But he left the team in February, and I seem to remember reading somewhere that he wasn’t asked to leave in a particularly polite manner. He then finished up the season in Turkey, playing 14 games for Galatasaray and averaging 15.9 points and 5.2 rebounds. What he would bring to the Mavericks at the moment, though, I’m not sure. Presumably, he thinks he can earn enough minutes on this 18-man summer league roster to get himself a little showcase in front of the baying crowd of dozens, and land himself another well paid European gig somehow. Why he wouldn’t find a smaller roster, though, I’m also not sure.
– Nathan Jawai: Jawai was acquired via trade from Toronto the day before summer league started. He played only 19 minutes with the Raptors in his rookie season, and spent quite a lot of time in the D-League. But he wasn’t dominating down there, averaging a comparatively sedate 11.1 points and 6.4 rebounds in 14 games. He does have a guaranteed contract for next year, however, so his chances of making the roster for next year have to be pretty good, Even if it comes at the expense of the superior Ryan Hollins.
– K.C. Rivers: I only saw Rivers once, and I was more mesmerised by Trevor Booker at the time, but I remember Rivers as being a spot-up shooter and decent rebounder, who didn’t really have NBA size or the speed to compensate for that. Googling him, that looks to be the case. The league always needs shooters, though, so if he becomes an inescapably good shooter, perhaps he’ll stay on the map.
– Damjan Rudez: If Kirk Hinrich and Michael Phelps had an illicit love child, it would look like Damjan Rudez. Rudez is a slightly skinny Croatian international forward who plays for Olimpia Ljubliana in Slovenia, and who averaged 5.5 points and 2.8 rebounds in the EuroLeague last year. He went undrafted in the 2008 draft, perhaps due to concerns about the versatility of his game. As the following video suggests, he’s largely a jump shooter. Albeit a tall and smooth one.
– Moussa Seck: When he was 19 years old, Moussa Seck was a street-side cosmetics vendor in his native Senegal who had never played basketball before. He was spotted on the street by a scout, who may have picked up on the subtle fact that Seck is 7’4 tall. He’s now 22, which means he’s far from a polished and experienced basketball product, while also not exactly at the right age for just starting out. But he’s still 7’4, so people are still interested in him. Seck spent last year with Poderosa Supernova Montegranaro, the feeder team of Serie A team Premiata Montegranaro. They play in a division so far below the big league team that I can’t tell you a single other fact about them. To play in a lower standard of basketball and still be Googleable is damn near impossible, unless you’re Bryson McKenzie’s agent. But, at the very least, it’s the start of a CV.
Seck is also 220lbs, which is only slightly more than what I weigh. Except I’m 6’3 and he’s 7’4. I don’t know what this says about either of us.
Yuta Tabuse was supposed to be on this team, but he didn’t partake in the free agent minicamp that preceded it due to injury.
– James Augustine: Something weird happened to James Augustine last year, something which took me a while to figure out. He was drafted by the Magic in the 2006 Draft, and signed a two-year rookie minimum contract with the team. He stayed with the team for the whole two years, barely playing, and was then tendered a qualifying offer when the two years was up. The second year of his first contract was only 25% guaranteed until July 30th, and the rule with qualifying offers is that they have to be at least the same amount of guaranteed money, with the same guarantee dates, as the final season of the previous contract. So when Orlando tendered him a qualifying offer, Augustine accepted it immediately, and was thus under contract for the 2008/09 season for $972,581 (the amount of the QO = minimum salary + $175,000), of which $243,145 (25%) was guaranteed, with a guarantee date of July 30th 2008. Orlando waived him before that date, meaning that they essentially paid Augustine a quarter of a million dollars to have him under contract for two weeks in mid-July. Way to do that “creative financing” thing that you do.
Augustine then went to Spain, where he averaged 7.7 points and 6.1 rebounds in the Spanish league for Gran Canaria.
– Tyrell Biggs: I saw a lot of Biggs in Pittsburgh last year, and it’s tough to say what he was good at. He had a decent set shot, but little interior offence, no finesse, and a bad rebounding rate. He was a decent defensive player, fairly aggressive and physical, but he’s also 6’8 and not of NBA size, so his NBA chances don’t much exist beyond this level. However, I wrote all this in a piece last week, and someone responded by telling that I “didn’t know anything” and that I should “just shut up,” for I did not acknowledge Biggs’ magnanimous and gallant willingness to sacrifice all personal goals for the overall benefit of the team, something which he supposedly did by being a role player for four straight years. I guess one of us is right, at least. Maybe we both are.
– Brandon Costner: Costner averaged 13.3 points, 6.0 rebounds and 1.0 blocks in 29 minutes per game for NC State last season, which isn’t that great compared what his 17/7 sophomore year suggested he might become.
– Chris Davis: Davis averaged 14.8 ppg, 4.3 rpg and 3.1 apg for Southern University last season. He shot 41% from the field. He will play pro, but he’s not making this team. Let’s move on.
– Taj Gibson: Gibson will make the team, no doubt, but he’s going to have to play well to win over Bulls fans, who remain bitterly mad at him for not being Dejuan Blair. (And if you’ve read my draft diary, you’ll know that I’m one of them. I’ll back off of this stance soon, though.) If he can show some offensive skill, some pick-and-roll defence, and the ability and/or desire to rebound, then we will begin to cope accordingly.
– Taurean Green: Green spent one year in the NBA, splitting the 2007/08 season between Portland (the team that drafted him) and Denver (who traded him for Von Wafer to save some money at the deadline). Denver traded him to New York last summer as a part of the Renaldo Balkman deal, but New York wanted him only for his salary and he was waived instantly. Green then spent last year in Spain playing for CAI Zaragoza, averaging 10.7 points and 2.0 assists functioning largely as a specialist shooter. The Bulls could use a specialist shooter, which gives Green a chance, but they also already have Anthony Roberson, which might wee on Green’s strawberries.
– Julius Hodge: Hodge was playing like LeBron James in Australia last season, averaging 26.3 ppg, 8.0 rpg and 6.0 apg for the Adelaide 36ers, before leaving the team due to a pay dispute. That was his version of events, at least; his team doesn’t necessarily agree. Although given Australian basketball’s current problems with solvency, I tend to believe him. Either way, it ended acrimoniously, and Hodge closed out the year in France, averaging 12.4 ppg, 5.7 rpg and 6.1 apg for Besancon in France. His shot is still broke, though – he hit only two three-pointers combined in the Australian and French leagues (who employ the shorter three-point line, remember), and was also a combined 55% shooter from the free throw line between the two. This probably keeps him out of the NBA once again.
– Linton Johnson: Johnson was a signing for the Bulls late last season as some emergency playoff depth, and played a few minutes decently. He started his career with the Bulls, and was better with them this time around than last time, so that was nice. However, he doesn’t have much chance of coming back to the team – Luol Deng’s return from injury, as well as the draftings of Johnson and Gibson, just took any potential minutes that the old Lintonian could have had.
– Nick Lewis: Lewis has been a professional for three years, and has spent at least part of all three of them in the D-League. Last year, for the Bakersfield Jam, he averaged 15.0 points and 7.2 rebounds, while shooting 48% from the field, 38% from the three-point line and 83% from the foul line. He also has a nice full head of blonde hair. If he could play defence at this level, he might have had a shot in the NBA before now. But he is not an NBA athlete. So he hasn’t.
– Lorenzo Mata-Real: Mata-Real played on the Lakers’ summer league team last year, as did about 48 other people, where he challenged Ruben Wolkowyski for the “most foul-prone summer league performer of the decade” award. He showed size and that he could board, block and box out, but it all looked a little quick for him. Prior to that, Mata-Real had averaged more rebounds than points in two of his three seasons in college, not a good thing when you consider that he only averaged four rebounds. In Mexico last year, Mata-Real averaged all of 9.0 points and 5.3 rebounds, and remember that that was in the Mexican league. He’s a 6’8 interior player to boot. The Mexican league will be an option for a decade, but, where’s the NBA resumé here?
– Bryan Mullins: Mullins, a good defensive guard with a jump shot, was briefly covered in the Celtics round-up. Then again, I didn’t really say anything there either.
– DeMarcus Nelson: Nelson has an unguaranteed contract with the Bulls next season, even though he didn’t play in a single game with them last year. He was brought in at the very end of the year as defensive cover at the shooting guard position in case of emergencies, but wasn’t needed. The Bulls are supposedly renewing their focus on defensive abilities with their personnel this season, and could as always use a bigger defensive-minded guard. So Nelson has a chance of making the team again, unless his lack of half-court offensive usage is deemed too painful on a team that was never great at offence in the first place and that just let its leading scorer of the last four years walk away in free agency. (It still stings a bit, this. Although I wouldn’t have paid him $11.6 million a year either.)
– Anthony Roberson: I fleshed out Roberson’s chances of making the roster in this Chicagonow.com piece. And remember; you can catch all Bulls news and views, including Anthony Roberson goodness, at chicagonow.com. Go go go go go!
– Josh Shipp: Shipp just finished his fifth season at UCLA, getting a medical redshirt in 2005/06 due to a bad hip injury. In his senior season, he averaged 14.5 ppg on 50% shooting, which is pretty good from a shooting guard.
– A.D. Vassallo: Considering that the Bulls need shooters (see the Roberson link), Vassallo has a chance. Vassallo averaged 19.1 points, 6.2 rebounds and 2.6 assists in his senior season for Virginia Tech, shooting 45% from the field, 37% from three-point range and 83% from the line. His major assets are his good size and strength, and a jump shot that has legitimate NBA three-point range. Since leaving school, Vassallo has been back in his native Puerto Rico, averaging 12.5 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.3 assists for Caguas in the Puerto Rican BSN league (which takes place during most other league’s offseasons). If he was 6’8, he’d probably in the league, and if he was as fast as John Salmons, he’d probably in the league. But he’s neither of those, so he’s not in the league. Europe will love him, though.
– Luke Zeller: Zeller did little at four years in Notre Dame, rebounding badly, playing little defence, and being a specialist jump-shooter. He turned a fine high school career (he was formerly Indiana’s Mr Basketball) into an underwhelming college career; Zeller averaged 4.9 points and 2.8 rebounds in his senior season, both of which were nevertheless career-highs. He worked out for the Bulls before the draft, albeit only because Gonzaga’s Josh Heytvelt missed a flight, yet went undrafted anyway. Shooting fives are rare, but given he has not proven he can defend at levels below this, let alone this one, Zeller’s NBA prospects are even slimmer his left leg. His best chance in the NBA seems to be if some team out there gets confused and thinks that his first name is spelt with a “Tyler” (his superior younger brother currently at North Carolina). Or if his last name is spelt with a “Schenscher“.
Beginning now, there will be a series of posts detailing the summer league rosters of every NBA team this year. This is because summer league is great fun, and because the lavish descriptions of fringe NBA players gets me going. But you probably knew that already.
We begin this excitement with the Boston Celtics, since the alphabetically superior Atlanta Hawks don’t have a summer league team this year.
– Nick Fazekas: Fazekas should be in the NBA, really. But he’s not. Even though he was paid $711,517 by the Mavericks last season, Fazekas wasn’t on their roster, as they waived him as a concurrent part of the Jason Kidd trade eighteen months ago. This decision would have been forgettable had the Mavericks not had the quad Devean George, Antoine Wright, Jerry Stackhouse and Shawne Williams on their roster last season, but anyway. Fazekas went to camp with the Nuggets last season, as did pretty much every player in the history of the game, and then spent the year with Oostende in Belgium and ASVEL Villeurbanne in France. I’d like to think that the team that has employed Brian Scalabrine for four years could find a spot for a similar but younger player like Fazekas, but it doesn’t seem likely.
– J.R. Giddens: Giddens played all of eight minutes with the Celtics last year. There’s no real need for this 24-year-old non-contributor to be on the roster of a veteran team with championship aspirations, but his D-League numbers from last year (36 games, 17.2 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 3.0 apg, 1.4 bpg, 58% shooting) suggest that there might be something for someone to pursue there. There’d better be, since the Celtics used a first-rounder on him. Giddens still doesn’t have a consistent jump shot, however, which still doesn’t help him.
– Lester Hudson: Hudson was the Celtics’ only pick in the draft, 58th overall, ahead of Chinemelu Elonu and Robert Dozier. He had averaged almost 28/8/4 at Tennessee-Martin in his sophomore season, and averaged much the same in his freshman season as well. Kind of makes you wonder why he went to such a small program if he’s that good. Hudson might make the Celtics roster, but if he doesn’t and Gabe Pruitt does, then you’ll know what stopped him.
– Coby Karl: Karl started last season in the D-League, averaging nearly 19 points and 6 assists for the Idaho Stampede, before leaving partway through the season to sign for DKV Joventut Badalona. He barely played in Badalona, though, and averaged less than five points per game. His chances of making the Celtics roster seem slim, considering Giddens is the incumbent with a guaranteed deal. Karl, an ex-Laker, was last heard of when it was reported that he was giving his dad – Nuggets coach George Karl – inside insight to the Lakers’ style of play and personal before the Western Conference Finals between the two teams. This news made some Lakers fans irate, annoyed that Karl would show more loyalty to the man that brought him into this world than the team that kept him on the inactive list for a year before waiving him for Sun Yue. That was fun to see. NBA fans are great like that.
– Chris Lofton: Lofton went undrafted last season and didn’t sign a training camp deal, instead going to Turkey and signing with a team called Mersin (also the home of Eddie Basden). There, he averaged 20.2 ppg, 2.6 rpg and 2.0 apg, shooting almost twice as many three-pointers as he did twos. Considering he shot 46.1% from three-point range, that doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Lofton also managed to break the Turkish league single-game scoring record when he scored 61 points, making 17 three-pointers in that game. This should tell you how he plays. Lofton had a workout for the Grizzlies back in May, but joined the Celtics for summer league instead, despite Eddie House’s presence seemingly closing the door on his chances here. Chris Lofton fact: Chris Lofton once had testicular cancer.
– Bryan Mullins: It was said that Mullins was going to join the Bulls’ summer league team, but that clearly didn’t happen. Mullins averaged 9.3 points, 5.6 assists and 2.0 steals last year for Southern Illinois, which aren’t huge numbers in a not-huge conference. He did, however, win all kinds of academic athlete awards, who majored in finance, and who had a 4.0 GPA. So if the basketball thing doesn’t work out, he should still be fine for employment.
– Gabe Pruitt: Pruitt played in 47 games last year and shot 31%, as the remnants of Stephon Marbury played ahead of him. To call it a tough year would be being pretty kind, especially since he got arrested for DUI somewhere in amongst that. Pruitt was drafted 32nd overall in 2007 (usually a high value position), and has a guaranteed contract for this season, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if he was dumped somewhere at some point – it hasn’t amounted to anything yet, and the Celtics are competing more urgently than that.
– Kevin Rogers: I watched Rogers quite a bit with Baylor last year (the NIT got a surprising amount of coverage over here), and I never quite figured out what it was that he was going to stand out as. He showed a reasonable outside shot, a reasonable inside game, some reasonable rebounding, the occasional nice bit of help on defence, but nothing really standyouty. If anything, he stood out at Baylor primarily because their other options as big men were Quincy Acy (athtletic, but about as technically refined as a nail bomb), Josh Lomers (no discernible skills profile other than being huge and slow with a tremendously full head of hair) and Mamadou Diene (who had about three minutes of stamina on his pokey knees, and the discreet touch of a drunk Captain Hook touching up a hedgehog). I came away with the impression that Baylor was a jack of all trades, but a master of none. That works in Baylor, but not in Boston.
– Bryce Taylor: Taylor was on the Timberwolves’ summer league team last year, where I watched him lovingly unfurl a good jump shot, and an efficient and pretty solid overall game with no outstanding attributes to it. Taylor spent last season with Premiata Montegrenaro in Italy’s Serie A, where he averaged 13.0 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.6 steals a game. On the down side, he also only averaged 0.5 assists in 29 minutes a game, which is very low for a guard, even if assists are far harder to come by in Italy’s slightly authoritarian scoring system.
– Mike Sweetney: WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!!! Sweetney’s back!!! Good times. Since his rookie contract expired as a member of the Bulls in the summer of 2007, Sweetney has not been heard from at all. He literally disappeared off the map. Wasn’t even on Facebook or anything. It looked bleak. But a sighting finally came; the Boston Globe reported that he was in the crowd for Bulls/Celtics game seven back in May, and maybe that was the precursor to this. Hopefully he’s found a way to solve his weight problems, and found what was the cause of them in the first place. I am eagerly awaiting to see what shape he’s in, because if he can stay under 280, he can resume an NBA career.
– Robert Swift: Swift showed some signs of life in his second year in the league. He showed some offensive talent, activity (that old chestnut) and defensive mobility, and averaged roughly 6/5/1 as a 20-year-old centre. And that’s not bad going. Then he grew his hair out, got tatted up, started to get weird in lay-up lines, and severely screwed up his knee. There followed only eight games in two years, as the knee recovery was repeatedly set back and not helped by other injuries. Swift played last year with the Thunder on his qualifying offer, but was still only healthy/good enough to play in 21 games, averaging 3.3 points and 3.4 rebounds. Danny Ainge finally gets his man, but by this point, he’s probably not going to see in Swift the very things that used to drive him wild with desire. A year in the D-League to recuperate his injuries and revive his CV wouldn’t be a bad idea for Swift, if he can tolerate going from a $3 million+ salary to the mere pittance that D-Leaguers get. But I can’t say his career options are particularly expansive.
– Bill Walker: It seemed the Celtics would do almost anything to not play Walker last year, even after a series of injuries that made the need for an extra forward become of paramount importance. Walker appeared in only 29 games for the Celtics, averaging 7.4 minutes and three points, while in the D-League, he played in 15 games and averaged 18.9 points, demonstrating a better-than-advertised jump shot. He’s certain to be back next season, as he’s signed for three more years and next season’s salary is guaranteed. I just hope that they’ll value his input more this year.
– Darius Washington: Washington had a great training camp with the Bulls last year, a team who then cut him anyway. Ostensibly, this was to save money for a team very close to the tax threshold, but they went on to sign Lindsey Hunter two weeks later and kept him for the entire year. So I think they just preferred the touch of the older man. Washington took the hint and went off to Russia, signing for Ural Great Perm, a team whose name is so brilliant that I can’t help but point it out every type it crops up. Washington averaged 13.1 points per game in the Russian league, and 16.5 more in the EuroChallenge. Like Lofton, Washington worked out for the Grizzlies last month, and yet like Lofton, he came to Boston instead. Maybe they both had bad workouts. Either way, like Lofton, his chances are minimal.
03.30: Discussion is taking place about why DeJuan Blair continues to fall, and about how not having any ACLs is no doubt the cause behind his falling draft stock. I’ve got news for you, analyst’s panel – intercourse his knees. He didn’t have any ACLs last year, and he rebounded better than all but one other player in the draft. This isn’t an ability he’s going to lose any time soon. He might not have a very long career projection on those pins, but it’s not like DeMarre Carroll and Taj Gibson are going to have ten-year careers, is it? Just draft Blair and end the charade.
03.30: Also, before you go on about how he’s merely a rebounding specialist, may I remind you that we just witnessed a shot-blocking specialist get picked second overall. Teams need specialists. Teams don’t need Taj Gibson. (I’m still a bit mad about this, as you might be able to tell.)
03.31: Adam Silver comes to the stage to a far bigger cheer than anyone before him. It’s a beautiful thing. Incidentally, why does the number #31 pick get five minutes to decide and not the two minutes that second-round picks should get?
03.32: At #31, Portland picks a power forward, and it’s not DeJuan Blair. Despite needing a physical power forward after a season of LaMarcus Aldridge, Channing Frye and Travis Outlaw, and despite their rebounding being almost solely reliant on the genius of Joel Przybilla (so says I), they pass on Blair for another finesse power forward in Jeff Pendergraph, who gives them nothing that they don’t already have. In fairness, Portland were the best rebounding team in the league last year, so it’s not like they need a prolific rebounder. But they could still use a physical power forward. And they could use one because I said so.
03.32: By the way, Sacramento were the worst rebounding team in the league last year, and they just traded away this pick when the second-best rebounder in the draft would have been on the board. Duly noted.
03.33: Jay Bilas describes Pendergraph as “efficient”, which I’m going to substitute for “ordinary”. Pendergraph’s graphic suggests that he needs to improve at “playing less mechanically”, which doesn’t seem like it’s physically possible. That’s like saying I need to “write more coherently and less wordily”. Just can’t do it.
03.35: The Washington Wizards – who absolutely, completely and totally do not need a shooting guard – draft Jermaine Taylor at #32, a 6’4 shooting guard. The Wizards were 23rd in the NBA in rebounding last season, by the way. Mark Jackson uses the opportunity to talk about Caron Butler, and, in that inimitable way of his, he asks us to do the same.
03.38: Portland pick again. They take another power forward. And it’s still not DeJuan Blair. This time, they pick Dante Cunningham from Villanova, the next Malik Allen himself. Still, when paired with their 2006 draft pick Joel Freeland, Portland appear to be developing a monopoly on British power forwards. And that’s a good thing. Sign Pops Mensah-Bonsu this summer and I might have to rethink my allegiances. Or even better, Robert Archibald.
03.39: BTW, Portland has now passed on Blair at #22, #31 and #33. Their general manager must be some kind of idiot. I wonder if he’s ever made a good move ever.
03.40: This draft is hard work. My ball soup right now is immense.
03.41: Off camera, the Nuggets draft Sergio Llull with the 34th pick. I love Sergio Llull, I really do. A short guy with crazy athleticism, a jump shot, some swagger and long enough arms to hug Jay Bilas. Whoever pries him away from the Nuggets is going to have themselves a fine player, because he’ll be going to waste on a team already with Chauncey Billups and Ty Lawson.
03.43: Things start to wind down at this point in the draft. ESPN has to make up for the fact that they went almost an hour without an advert break by ramming in as many as they physically can, and picks are getting missed as a result. We’re also not getting the post-selection interviews any more, not the photographs, because almost all of the draftees aren’t actually here. Bilas is taking all the analysis singlehandedly, the ticker seems to be getting larger with every passing minute, and the Stu-Scott-versus-anyone-else ratio is growing dangerously large. I wish ESPN valued the second half of the draft as much as I do. Give it the effort that you did the first round, and the comedy would never die.
03.46: Stu Scott is now interviewing Rod Thorn, and pointlessly asks him “what’s the mindset behind getting rid of one of the most exciting players in the world?”. A crowd member can be heard to shout “BECAUSE HE SUCKS!!!”. Good times. Perhaps the comedy isn’t quite dead yet.
03.47: By the way, the reason I struggle with Stu Scott is not because of his jauntily-angled glasses, or the way that he sounds like he’s breathing in the bathtub at all times. It’s because his eyebrows move independently and look like they’re trying to escape from his face. It’s freaky and off-putting. Let’s not talk about it any more.
03.48: I don’t think Rod Thorn is Stu Scott’s biggest fan either, because Scott just needlessly brought up some embarrassing Thorn quotes about Michael Jordan. Oooooooh, Stu. Always pushing the envelope, aren’t you?
03.49: Memphis pick Sam Young at #36, a player who also isn’t DeJuan Blair. Memphis has now passed on Blair at both #27 and #36, picking a small forward both times. Looks like another season of Darrell Arthur at power forward.
03.50: That said, I do really like the Sam Young pick; a versatile and pretty complete player, who can shoot, slash, defend and rebound, and who may well be the next Bobby Simmons one day. The only slight disappointment is that he’s not at the draft. I wanted to see him pump fake Adam Silver on the handshake.
03.51: Blair is finally put out of his misery. San Antonio pick him at #37, finding themselves a Kurt Thomas replacement within about 48 hours of even needing one. That’s efficient stuff. If they can get Robertas Javtokas to turn up next year, they’ll have largely rebuild their frontcourt with only minimal effort.
03.51: By the way, as much as I like Sam Young, he should never have gone before DeJuan Blair. And if Blair turns out to me a complete failure in the NBA, then I’m deleting this post.
03.53: The fans are starting to grate on me now.
03.54: The 38th pick belongs to Sacramento after they traded down from #31, and they finally realise their urgent need for some rebounding. So they pick up Jonathan Brockman from Washington, an undrafted talent picked about 22 places too high. For those not aware, the 6’7 Brockman does two things well. He rebounds, and he takes charges. That’s kind of it. His college career totalled four years, 131 games and 18 blocked shots. For averages fans, that’s an average of 0.1 blocks per game. Also known as a Claxton.
03.55: Stu Scott informs us that Jonathan Brockman broke his nose five times in his college career. That’s nothing. Meet the king of the broken nose, Steve Ogrizovic.
He broke that over 225,000 times, they reckon. It doesn’t show.
03.57: Christian Eyenga’s name finally appears on the draft board. It only took half an hour.
03.58: With the 39th pick, Detroit picks Jonas Jereb & Co, who incidentally plays the small forward position. With the 35th pick, they picked Dajuan Summers, who plays the small forward position. And with the 15th pick, they picked Austin Daye, who plays the small forward position. In last year’s draft, they selected Walter Sharpe (who plays the small forward position) and Deron Washington (who plays the small forward position). On their roster at the moment. they have Sharpe (who plays the small forward position), Richard Hamilton (who can play the small forward position), and Tayshaun Prince (who plays the small forward position better than everyone else combined). Therefore, it was not without a hint of irony that the story broke that Walter Herrmann (who plays the small forward position) would be allowed to leave the team as a free agent. Makes sense.
03.59: By the way, an entirely small forward lineup is not entirely unprecedented. The Bulls once fielded a lineup of Scottie Pippen, Eddie Robinson, Jalen Rose, Marcus Fizer and Donyell Marshall, which showed up on gamecasts across the country as being an all-small forward lineup. However, the Bulls of that season won all of 23 games. Can’t see why you’d want to be emulating that.
04.00: Adam Silver has only two jobs to do tonight. He has to read names off of a card, and occasionally shake someone’s hand. It can’t be that hard, really. But Silver is somehow underqualified for the job; the NBA had managed to find the only man in the world other than Abu Hamza who can’t handshake. Handshaking is predominantly an up-and-down motion, yet Silver persistently pumps his hand from the shoulder in a forward-and-back motion, like a man aggressively trying to fistf*** a Friesian cow. This is the only thing Adam Silver ever does in his role as deputy commissioner – he spends the rest of his time conjugating verbs and searching for faces in wallpaper patterns – yet he just can’t do it properly. You would have thought that this would have cropped up in his interview. Apparently not.
04.01: Silver announces that the Houston Rockets have bought the rights to Jermaine Taylor, the 32nd pick, for cash only. No future picks, just cash. This I think is more emblematic of the economy’s effect on roster moves; the #32 pick is normally a prized asset, where you get to pick the best of the overlooked first round talent without the burden of giving them a guaranteed contract. As a point of reference, last year, Minnesota gave up the #34 pick (Mario Chalmers) in exchange for two future second-rounders and cash, and the Bulls gave up the #39 pick (Sonny Weems) plus two future picks merely to move up to #36 for the rights to Omer Asik. Picks in the thirties generally carry great value, and certainly did last year. But this year, the Wizards are giving it away without so much as a future pick in return. They get no basketball value from this asset, no players, no picks, no nothing. Just money. And that’s because money’s talking more than ever. It’s a shame, but that’s how it is. So kudos to the tax-adverse Rockets for buying in a buyer’s market.
(Quick break from pseudo-real time – we later learn that the amount of cash was $2.5 million. And that’s a shedload of cash. Even more kudos awarded, and it makes far more sense for the Wizards now.)
04.01:Charlotte takes Derrick Brown from Xavier at #49, meaning that Derrick Brown, Shannon Brown and Andre Brown have all now been members of the Larry Brown-coached Bobcats in the last eight months. These are the things that entertain me.
04.03: Chris Wallace is being interviewed, and talking about Memphis’ pedigree as a basketball city. Hmmm. I see a town with no NCAA tournament championships and not a single NBA playoff game win, so I’m not sure I agree with him, really. But it’s a start.
04.06: …….and, if you take the name of the Lakers’ #42 draft pick and turn it around, you get Beverley Patrick. That’s three. We can still do this.
04.10: Dick Vitale comes on the screen for the third and final time of the night. As promised earlier, I counted; Vitale spoke for exactly 100 consecutive seconds, and made 79 hand gestures in that time. I’m not kidding, either. That’s a proper count. Do I have better things to be doing with my time than counting the hand gestures of an impassioned old man enjoying his best two minutes of airtime of the year? To be honest with you, no.
04.12: He also said something about Stephen Curry being Rookie Of The Year, but to be honest I wasn’t listening. Somewhere in amongst that, Miami drafted Marcus Thornton with the 43rd pick, which was a good move.
04.13: Silver announces that Houston also bought the rights to Sergio Llull, the 34th pick from Denver, for yet more cash and still without giving up any future picks. I promise you that that is brilliant business. Partway through last season – and prompted in part by my say so, maybe – Houston gave up the 36th pick in this draft to dump Steve Francis onto Memphis, thereby saving themselves from being over the tax threshold. Tonight, they have used the money they saved in that deal to buy the 32nd and 34th picks. Now tell me that that’s not extremely smoothly done. You just can’t do it.
04.13: Also, in the 2007 draft, Houston gave up a future second-round pick to Seattle for the rights to Carl Landry, the 31st pick, in one of Sam Presti’s few bad deals so far. The pick wound up being the #56 pick in 2008, which Seattle used to draft Sasha Kaun and promptly sold to Cleveland. So once again, Houston stole a high 30s pick for nothing. These boys are good. Pay attention.
04.14: For the fourth time tonight, it’s Detroit’s turn to draft. For the fourth time tonight, they draft a small forward, picking Chase Budinger with the 44th pick. Pretty incredible stuff, but Budinger’s a good pick that low, which justifies it a bit. Maybe they should just re-sign Herrmann anyway and really shoot for the moon.
04.16: Slightly overdue (which would be a foolish thing for me to criticise someone else for, considering), Stu Scott sends it over to Fran Fraschilla for insight on the #42 pick, Patrick Beverley, who spent last season in the Ukraine. Fran pays off that decision instantly by announcing that he can’t spell the word Ukraine. This ESPN broadcast is a well-oiled machine, I tell you.
04.17: Minnesota picks their fourth point guard of the night, drafting Nick Calathes with the 45th pick. Genius. Nonetheless, like Budinger and Thornton before him, Calathes is good value at that draft slot, if not exactly fitting a team need. The fact that he’s already signed in Greece for next season means that it won’t matter for a while yet anyway. Stu Scott announces between heavy breathes that this was Minnesota’s last pick of the draft. It isn’t.
04.19: Supposedly, we’re going to hear more talk about the Shaquille O’Neal trade after the break. Proof if ever it was needed that the draft is starting to get boring.
04.20: Cleveland picks Danny Green with the 46th pick, another good value pick of a player who could conceivably have gone 15 to 20 picks higher. (He could have gone at number 30, too. Just saying.) Proceedings are immediately revitalised when ESPN plays a clip of Green dancing on the sidelines during a game, moving rather well for a man who athletically tested rather badly. Clips of draftees dancing would be mandatory if I ran the broadcast, which is something that I’ll hopefully be doing one day. Vote ShamBulls.
04.26: America, you have great burger adverts. Seriously. This one wasn’t even the one with the girl in it.
04.27: During the advert break filled with brilliant burger ads, Minnesota drafted Henk Norel with the 47th pick. Henk’s not a point guard, and he is 6’10 tall, but maybe he can learn to play that position one day. It just so happens that Norel plays for DKV Joventut Badalona, the team that Ricky Rubio plays for. What a fortuitous happenstance that is.
04.28: Oh wow, Taylor Griffin got drafted. I had no idea that that was ever going to happen. There’s generally not much of a market for 6’7 interior defenders with scant little perimeter game, a 47% career shooting percentage in college and a bad rebounding rate. But the Suns picked him at #48 anyway, after picking Robin Lopez at #15 last year. Maybe they have a thing about inferior brothers. Kareem Rush, schedule a workout.
04.29: The Griffin pick also sees the Porno Five get within one pick of completion, and this year it’ll have more girls than boys. And that’s the way it should be, after all. Nobody likes to see a man naked.
04.32: After Taylor Griffin comes another “oh, really? I didn’t think he was good enough personally” pick, when the Jazz select Goran Suton with the 50th pick. I like Suton, but the reason why he got drafted is perhaps obvious; if we generously count him as one, Suton is only the third centre to have been in the entire draft, behind Hasheem Thabeet and B.J. Mullens. Power forwards aren’t doing much better, either; of this year’s crop, most of them (Dante Cunningham, Taylor Griffin, Dejuan Blair, Jon Brockman, Taj Gibson) are undersized. Might have been a good year for Luke Harangody to declare, thinking about it.
04.33:Jack McClinton is taken 51st overall by the Spurs. All I know about Jack McClinton is this – he didn’t lose to a girl in the NCAA Three-Point Shootout. Sorry, that’s not a very useful thing to say, is it?
04.34: The draft rights to Marcus Thornton are traded by the Heat, who don’t really need them, to the Hornets, who really do. In exchange for the rights, the Hornets gave up two future second-round picks, and no cash. Compare that to Houston outright buying the 32nd and 34th picks, and the message remains just as loud and clear as it was before – money talks right now. And New Orleans don’t have any.
04.36:Indiana select A.J. Price from Connecticut with the 52nd pick. This comes a couple of hours after they took Tyler Hansbrough from North Carolina with the 13th pick. Last year, they drafted Roy Hibbert from Georgetown and Brandon Rush from Kansas. All four of those players are four year seniors coming out of big programs. It is therefore clear that Larry Bird and David Morway watch the NCAA Tournament. This is the kind of observation that I couldn’t have made last year. I really think I’ve advanced myself as a person.
04.37: Jay Bilas said that A.J. Price “had to be pulled off in some practices this year”. That is all.
04.39: I can invest a lot of time and energy into a man named Nando De Colo. Whatever he sells, I’m buying. Crack? Yes please, Nando.
04.40: ……..We’ll talk later. The Audrina Partridge advert is on again. Congratulations, America.
04.41:Charlotte selects Robert Vaden with the 54th pick. I have watched Robert Vaden play only once. It was a game in which he shot 0-17. Perhaps my views on him as a player aren’t worth mentioning. They’re not going to be particularly objective when that’s the sum total of my ammunition.
04.44: Jay Bilas calls Robert Vaden “a shooter”. You’re right, he certainly was shooting.
04.45: Two running themes of this post have been Detroit’s fascination with small forwards, and Houston’s ability and desire to buy their way into the draft. Well, those two themes just united; the Pistons trade the rights to Chase Budinger to the Rockets, this time for cash (obviously) but in addition to a second-round pick. You can rest assured that I’ll be finding out and following which pick that is, and that, if it’s used on another small forward, that I’m totally going to mention it about 80 times. That’s just how I roll.
04.46: Also, Houston came into this draft with no picks, and potentially just bought three rotation players for nothing other than one future second. That, ladies and gentleman, is how you approach draft night. Take note, Orlando.
04.46:Patty Mills is picked 55th overall by the Trail Blazers, and the first comment that Stu Scott bestows upon us is “he plays the guitar”. Just stop trying now, Stu. Mills’s selection also rounds out the Porno Five, and, if you’re not happy with the selection of Beverley Patrick for the team, feel free to draft in B.J. Mullens instead, You can go either way with that.
04.47: Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson haven’t said a word for over half an hour. I think they might be dead.
04.47: Things get weirder when ESPN cut away from the riveting action to bring us an interview with David Khan, a man who just made six picks. Kahn wins me over almost immediately by going as far as mentioning that he’s Jewish without being asked. He also later calls Ricky Rubio “transformational”, which will surpass “ridiculous upside” as the draft cliché of choice if I have any say in the matter, Great times. Unfortunately, Kahn then undoes all his good work with a frankly awful Dick Vitale joke, which was so poorly delivered that it didn’t even draw a pity laugh from Stu Scott.
04.49: Incidentally, I guess we can scrub Minnesota off of the Potential Kirk Hinrich Trade Partners list.
04.52:Dallas take Ahmad Nivins with the 56th pick. I am a fan of Ahmad Nivins. That guy knows how to get to the foul line, and that’s an overlooked skill these days. He also takes a good three or four minutes over every foul shot, which for some reason makes me like him more. Maybe I’m not thinking rationally.
04.53: Wait, wasn’t Patty Mills the girl that Eric Clapton stole off of George Harrison, and about whom Clapton’s seminal smash “Layla” was written?
04.54: The Phoenix Suns draft Emir Preldzic with the 57th pick. I have absolutely no idea who Emir Preldzic is. This excites me, because it means there’s more to learn, but it doesn’t make for a very good draft diary. Sorry about that. Hope you’ve enjoyed yourself so far, though. Not long now.
04.55: The walking Just For Men advert that is Jim O’Brien gives an interview that would easily have been the most awkward interview of the night, were it not for David Kahn’s Dick Vitale joke. O’Brien, a veteran of the interview process, acts like he’s never given one before in his life. On his second question, he randomly stops talking halfway through his answer, and ends his sentence with absolutely no cadence whatsoever. The broadcast is left hanging for an awkward few seconds as Stu Scott tries to figure out if O’Brien is going to finish what he was saying. He doesn’t.
04.58: The Celtics, with their only pick of the night, draft Lester Hudson from Tennessee Martin with the 58th pick. Hudson is the only player in Division I history to have recorded a quadruple-double. With that on his resumé, he’ll be all right for work for at least five years. Jay Bilas (who has spoken more tonight than the previous three draft nights combined) handles the Hudson breakdown with aplomb. The man has stolen the show tonight, and he knows it.
05.01: Now the 59th pick of the L.A. Lakers, Junior Elonu is an NBA calibre talent, apparently. I never knew. What’s less cool is Stu Scott’s accompanying gag, an obvious effort that went something to the effect of “someone tell Kobe Bryant about the new superstar joining his team”. Thanks for that. Please wake up, Jeff Van Gundy.
05.02: We’re one pick away from the end of the draft, but I think we just crescendoed into the high point. A new shot shows Hasheem Thabeet and Blake Griffin posing together for a photograph; Griffin is holding up one finger, to simulate his going first overall, and Hasheem is holding up two fingers for the same reason.
05.04: The final pick sees Miami pick Robert Dozier out of Memphis. That’s R as in “Robert Dozier”, O as in “Oh my God, it’s Robert Dozier”, B as in “By God, that’s Robert Dozier”….
…and that joke marks the end of a draft for another season. Hope you enjoyed the last hour of your life.
01.27: To the surprise of literally nobody, Toronto takes DeMar DeRozan with the ninth pick. As unimpressed as I am by a shooting guard with little offensive skill, no range outside of 16 feet, inconsistent defence and unimpressive production, it’s still the right pick here, because he has a chance to be something, and the Raptors definitely need something. Their shooting guard depth chart was also to being Quincy Douby and Quincy Douby only, which is even worse than Minnesota’s was. DeRozan has completely butchered the knot on his tie, though, which is never a good first impression to make.
01.28: Jay Bilas tells us that DeRozan penetrates easily enough, but can’t shoot. There’s pills you can take for that.
01.29: An advert comes on that says “Kia – Official Automotive Partner Of The NBA”. Yes, NBA players are often to be seen in Kias, rolling on dubs, checking out them tight whips, and hooking up their Sorentos with fat chrome. They’re the new Maybachs. They really are.
01.30: (They’re not.)
01.31: Mark Jackson – whose first initial and surname are quite chilling considering the night’s events – says that Milwaukee’s biggest need in this draft is a point guard. They need a backup, sure, because near-All-Star Luke Ridnour is not up to par and everyone else is a free agent. But there aren’t a great many young point guards in the NBA better than Ramon Sessions, who just put up 12.4/3.4/5.7 in only 28 minutes per game, while also making strides with his defence. There’s not a point guard left in this draft better than him, and so no, Mark Jackson, I do not agree that Milwaukee need a point guard.
01.32: Apparently it doesn’t matter what I think, because Milwaukee just picked Brandon Jennings (a point guard) with the 10th pick. I might as well just not bother, really. Jennings chose not to attend the draft, because he figured he’d slide right out of the top 10 and be embarrassed with how late he was drafted. I guess that him being picked earlier than he thought means this was a somewhat last-minute pick. Nice to know that at least some war rooms have activity in them.
01.33: The panel credits Jennings’ “major physical ability”. This lavish description is often used as a synonym for “he can’t play”. And if you watch Jennings in Italy last year – and I did – then you’ll know that that’s true. Admittedly the odds were stacked against him in a European game that absolutely does not suit his style of play, and his coach seemed to use him off the ball more than was advisable, but Jennings threw up an absolute stinker and murdered his own draft stock, which was once that of a top five pick. I don’t see this ending well, but I do see it ending quickly.
01.34: By the way, even if Milwaukee did need a point guard, this wasn’t the best one left. Also, nothing grinds Scott Skiles’ more than mistake-prone rookies (see also: Joe Alexander and Tyrus Thomas), so Jennings is in for an equally rough season next year too. Especially if Ridnour isn’t traded. Go easy on him, Scott.
01.35:New Jersey picks next, and Stu Scott drops this bombshell of a stat: Lawrence Frank is the longest-tenured coach in the Eastern Conference. Wow. Hadn’t noticed that before. I guess they just don’t want to pay someone else. It was not a very well-kept secret that the Bulls have been trying to trade up for this 11th pick for quite a while, and so if the pick here is James Johnson, then I think we’ll know that they did it.
01.37: Nope, they didn’t. The Nets picked Terrence Williams out of Louisville instead, and that means they’re keeping the pick. Probably best. Jay Bilas immediately announces that Williams is not a very good shooter, and Stu Scott’s obligatory trivia informs us that Williams used to carry his books around at Louisville in a Barbie-emblazoned backpack. Hmmmm. Barbie backpack and shooting problems. Good thing he’s in the NBA now, or Terrence might have some problems with the ladies. (Proud of this joke.)
01.38: What I think about Terrence Williams; a decent player, but probably picked too high. Can be a very disruptive defender when he asserts himself on that end, but the offence is going to suffer at the NBA level. There’s no shot that you can call “his” shot, and his passing ability, while nice, will be negated somewhat by the fact that he won’t have the ball in his hands much. Thabo Sefolosha seems like a good comparison, but the fact that Thabo Sefolosha is still only a backup calibre player three years down the road probably isn’t a good omen. In a good defensive system, however, Williams could be a good player to have alongside Devin Harris and Brook Lopez; he doesn’t have the complimentary jump shot yet, but as a part of a faster-paced offence, and a defence that relies on aggressive perimeter contests and quick close-outs, he could be a solid contributor.
What I would have thought about Terrence Williams last year: “Nice suit.”
01.40: The revelation about Williams’ Barbie backpack leads to a discussion between me and Luke about sexuality in the NBA. It doesn’t last long, though, because a highly distracting advert appears on the telly. I missed the opening, but it featured someone called A. Partridge (“A-HAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”) eating a burger while writhing around in a bikini. I need to see this again before the night is over. Simply. There’s some things I need to know, and this is one of them.
01.44:Charlotte picks Gerald Henderson with the 12th pick, which seems to be about five picks too high. Then again, you could say that about the last 11 picks. It’s just one of them drafts. Gerald Henderson fact: he and his dad (Gerald Henderson Sr) are both actually called “Jerome”. How did they get Gerald out of Jerome. I don’t know. And I only want to know if it’s interesting.
01.45: Jay Bilas points out that Henderson can’t shoot. There’s a lot of impotent men being drafted tonight, it appears. He then congratulates Henderson on his penetration, and his “middle game”, which I consider to be my weak point. Talking her into bed is easy and fun, and so’s the foreplay, but after the penetration begins, I’d rather just hurry things along and cut out the middle game. Oh, and I realise it’s childish and predictable to turn everything into a bad sex joke, but when one man talks about another man’s “penetration” and “ball-handling” in the same sentence…..well, I feel like they’re making me do it. Cut me some slack.
01.47: Two things about Gerald Henderson that I didn’t know before draft night:
1) Gerald and his dad sound exactly the same, and give exactly the same interviews.
2) He once participated in the World Junior Golf Championships.
It is because of things like this that draft night makes for unmissable television. Well, these and all the transactions.
01.50: Bilas is having a great night. There’s only been two foreigners picked so far, and even one of them is American. This is therefore Jay’s night to shine. He’ll shine even more now that the Indiana Pacers have picked NCAA mainstay Tyler Hansbrough with the 13th pick. Before the Pacers pick, the analysts had talked about how the Pacers needed an upgrade at the point guard spot, and an overall upgrade to their defence. I don’t think Hansbrough counts as either of those. As Hansbrough makes his way to the stage, the crowd shout at him that he’s overrated. That doesn’t seem like his fault, somehow.
01.51: Thinking about it, Rasho Nesterovic and Josh McRoberts are free agents this summer. This would have left the Pacers with only two big men. Now it makes sense.
01.52: Hansbrough’s ‘Must Improve’ graphic says that he needs to improve “finishing above the rim”. Basically Tyler, we’re saying that you need to suddenly get really athletic. Do you think you can do that for us? Do you think you can somehow reverse-engineer your body into that of Josh Smith, and then we can start afresh? No? Why not? Because it’s impossible? Oh. Right.
01.53: The man with the nickname Psycho T just informed us that he’s a “hard worker.” Phewph. Also, Ric Bucher just announced that Amar’e Stoudemire is not being traded tonight. More phewph.
01.55: With the 14th pick, Phoenix takes the other Louisville standout, Earl Clark. However, it takes Clark all of about four seconds to become yesterday’s news; like Jennings before him, Clark didn’t show up to the draft, but in a dramatic turn of events, Jennings made his way to the draft after being picked 10th, and saunters through the mythical “Stern’s Door” to join big Dave out on the stage. The New York public, scared of a change in routine, boo him vociferously. For about the fourth time this month, Brandon Jennings has set himself up to fail in the public’s eyes, and he hasn’t even played a game yet. His time in Milwaukee is going to go much the same way, I reckon.
01.56: The following joke is stolen without permission from Kelly Dwyer: “Earl Clark’s nickname is “E5?” I thought that was Aramis Ramirez’s nickname?”
01.57: You know who Earl Clark reminds me of slightly? Boris Diaw. Just firing it out there.
01.58: The last few picks have seen Jay Bilas’ mock draft fall apart, and the faintest hint of a sulk can be seen to be spreading across his face. In contrast, my draft board is now doing rather well; with the last two picks, it is guaranteed that the Bulls will be able to pick one of James Johnson, Ty Lawson and DeJuan Blair should they so wish. Despite them having no need for Lawson barring a Kirk Hinrich trade, those are my three. And even though it’s inevitably going to be Johnson, it’s going to happen.
01.59: I’m telling you what you already know here, but one in every three Mark Jackson sentences starts with the opening gambit “You talk about”.
02.00: I kind of miss Stephen A. Smith, actually.
02.01: The Pistons pick Austin Daye with the 15th pick, taking a flyer on an athletic player with a fine jump shot who hasn’t done much yet to suggest that he’s not just the next Darius Rice. Daye brings to the table potential, if scant little production to show for it, and the Pistons could use some genuine potential if they’re ever going to start this rebuild. More importantly, though, Daye brings to the table a frankly rakish turquoise V-neck sweater, a pioneering fashion choice that puts him on a pedestal from which it’ll be hard to fall. I don’t think much of the pick with multiple more skilled players on board, but I do like the sweater. And that counts for a lot.
02.03: Dick Vitale is dusted down and fired up for his second airing of the night, a 65-second outburst interspersed with Tyler Hansbrough clips and mercifully cadence-free. However, I can’t help but noticed how much he moves his hands when he’s talking. Next time he comes on, I’m counting the hand gestures.
02.05: Excited for the Bulls pick. Truly. Even though I know it’s going to be James Johnson, I’m excited anyway, because this is the first draft handled by our new de facto GM, Gar Forman. I want to see if he makes a splash in some exciting and dynamic way, by buying some picks, trading up, making a blockbuster deal….anything, really.
Jeff Van Gundy wants the Bulls to “bridge that gap”. I don’t know what he’s asking for.
02.07: Sure enough, the Bulls pick Johnson, just like we knew they were going to. It’s kind of typical, really – this is the first year that I’ve been watching the NCAA, and my team manages to pick the first guy so far that I haven’t seen play. How inevitable.
Still, that’s not all bad. That means I can get to evaluate someone based off of the 25 seconds of clips that accompany their drafting. Just like old times. It’s nice not to know something. An oft-heard comparison that I’ve heard for Johnson is that of Ryan Gomes, and the clips seem to verify that. Ryan Gomes, I’ve heard. Ryan Gomes, I see. Ryan Gomes, I like. Therefore, James Johnson, I like. Good times.
(Kelly Dwyer is less pleased. He likes James Johnson to “a kickboxing Rodney Buford.” I don’t think that statement’s desired effect was to make me like Johnson more, but it did.)
02.10: Despite still having two picks to make, Steve Kerr finds time to pop in for an interview. He is his usual overly candid self, talking at willl about how he’s talking about trading Amar’e Stoudemire with many teams, mercifully stopping short of mentioning any specifics. This would appear to be a downside of hiring a General Manager straight out of a frontline media position.
02.12: Next up, the Philadelphia 76ers, the worst outside shooting team in the NBA. Last year’s starter at point guard, Andre Miller, is an unrestricted free agent who made clear his stance on potentially re-signing by refusing to turn up for his exit interview. His backup, Louis Williams, just had a really terrible year and isn’t even a proper point guard in the first place. And the third stringer, Royal Ivey, just opted out of a guaranteed contract and will be another unrestricted free agent. Therefore, regardless of Jeff Van Gundy’s redundant theory about whether Elton Brand can play center, I’m leaving if the Sixers don’t take a point guard. It has to be done.
02.13: Fortunately, I’m staying. The Sixers take Jrue Holiday with the 17th pick, and Jay Bilas is pleased that the man he had down as being the eighth-best player in the draft is finally off the board. Relieved, Bilas calls Holiday “a point guard for a long time”, which is comforting information to anyone who feared that Holiday might try and reinvent himself as a power forward or left wing back at any point. The Holiday pick also signifies the departure of the last of the ‘green room’ invitees (by the way, for those who have never watched the draft, the green room is neither green nor a room), which means we can avoid any embarrassing Darrell Arthur-like situations this season. That’s good news.
02.14: (EDIT – Luke asked me to point out that this is when he went to bed. Happy now, flowerpetal?)
02:15: The NBA is a weird entity. Holiday came off the bench all of last year, behind starting point guard Darren Collison. Collison is also draft eligible, and will be drafted at some point in this first round no doubt. Yet now, wherever he’s picked, he will be picked behind Holiday. Holiday came off the bench behind Collison because the UCLA coach felt that Collison was more likely to help the team win, and yet now he’s going to be drafted behind Holiday because the Philadelphia 76ers think that Holiday is going to be more of a help in the NBA. The games aren’t significantly different, yet the assessment of who will help more is. It’s odd. I don’t necessarily disagree with it – in fact, I agree with it, as will any fan of “tremendeous upside potential” – but it’s still pretty weird. Epiphany over, let’s move on.
02.16: In his post-selection interview, Holiday thanks God for him being alive. I don’t think this needs a follow-up comment.
02.17: Upon closer inspection, it’s not just Mark Jones’ table; the whole draft night studio is decked out in jigsaw motifs. I still don’t get it. Presumably it’s something about “missing pieces”. Ha bloody ha.
02.17: Just read that the Blazers are trading Sergio Rodriguez, cash and the 38th pick to Sacramento for the 31st pick, filling a Sacramento roster spot on the cheap at one of their positions of need while opening up more cap room for themselves. Figures. This deal, though, does mean that Rodriguez isn’t going to the Knicks, as was previously reported by Yahoo Eurosport. The lesson, as ever; Europeans don’t know a damn thing about NBA basketball and they should be roundly denounced accordingly.
02.18: The Michael Jackson jokes have started to flood in: “Jackson 5 tickets!! 20% off!!!”
02.19:Minnesota are certainly enjoying themselves tonight. They just picked their third point guard in three picks, this time taking Ty Lawson at #18. At this point, it seems like a good time to mention that the Wolves traded Rashad McCants at the deadline to Sacramento in exchange for Bobby Brown, a solid second-and-a-half-string point guard, a move which further opened up the shooting guard hole that they still haven’t filled. Brown now stands to be a fifth-stringer next season. I wonder what they would have done if they’d kept Mario Chalmers like they meant to.
I do like the pick, though. Lawson is a good player for an 18th pick, and personally, I’m not even sure that he’s any worse than Jonny Flynn, the cat-murdering bastard that Flynn is. Flynn has the upside advantage with his athleticism, but Lawson is a solid all-around player with quite a hefty defensive advantage over Flynn, who doesn’t seem to understand defence or to want to try to. Drafting for need with #18 picks when you suck is usually a flawed premise anyway, so drafting another point guard is fine by me as long as that player is the best player left on the board. And Lawson could well have been that.
02.21: No, wait, scratch that; Ric Bucher’s hair is informing us that Lawson is being traded to Denver in exchange for the Bobcats’ protected 2010 first-round pick, one which they gave to Denver last season in exchange for the draft rights to Alexis Ajinca. There’s some logic in there for Denver, given that they’ve just suffered through yet another season of big minutes for Anthony Carter, but wouldn’t you want to keep onto any Bobcats first rounders right now? They still haven’t ever made the playoffs, and despite the protection on the pick (top 12 protected in 2010, top 10 protected in 2011, top 8 protected in 2012, top 3 protected in 2013, unprotected in 2014), it might still be a lucrative down the road. Do you really want to give it up for a #18 pick in a weak draft? I wouldn’t. But then again, I’m European, so I’m to be denounced accordingly.
02.21: By the way, the Nuggets once traded away the draft rights to Jameer Nelson for a future first-round draft pick. It all comes full circle in the end.
02.22: Bilas is agreeing with me about Lawson and his virtues. I’m both honoured and worried.
02.24: The now-Jamal Crawford-lead Hawks add Jeff Teague with the 19th pick, making it three point guards in a row and seemingly spelling the end of the Mike Bibby regime. This may or may not be a bad move; having not seen a Wake Forest game (see also; James Johnson) it’s hard for me to say. Also, I’m European. But what I do know is that Teague’s post-draft graphic shows him rocking a well-groomed moustache that makes him look a little bit like a criminal. I like him already.
02.28: I wonder what Michael Jackson’s knackers looked like. How far did he really take that skin bleaching thing? Isn’t bleach a bad thing to have in close proximity to your penis?
02.29: It would be a little bit hilarious if Utah picked B.J. Mullens right here. Him and Jerry Sloan are made for each other.
02.30: Sadly, it didn’t happen. The Jazz draft Eric Maynor with the 20th pick, doing the sensible thing of filling their gaping back-up point guard hole with the best available point guard. Good teams drafting for need. It’s the future. Maynor now gets to play for the coach who once waived his dad, which should give Jerry an instant reason to dislike him.
Jay Bilas is a big fan of this pick, and credits Maynor for his “athleticism”, “speed”, “pace”, “agility”, “understanding of the game” and “ability to hit big shots”, stopping just short of crediting his charm, grace, penache and unselfish lovemaking technique. It’s basically the exact same speech that he gave over Ty Lawson.
02.31: ESPN cut to an interview with Larry Brown, whose very presence on the screen makes Knicks fans boo. Brown then name drops Michael Jordan, who illicits even more boos from the crowd. This is still funny.
02.32: Within a thirty second span, I was told by two different people that actor Jeff Goldblum had died, and from a third person that said that the story was merely a hoax. It was definitely a strange thirty seconds. By the way, you can safely assume right now that all semi-famous celebrities are wrapped up in a mountain of cushions, avoiding all dangerous activities and mildly unhealthy fatty foods. This is not the time to be dying. (He’s really not dead, by the way.)
02.32: If DeJuan Blair gets beyond the Hornets pick at #21, he might fall to #26. He could still be a Bull. Fingers crossed. New Orleans are also in the unenviable situation of needing help at all five positions, which means that they can’t really go wrong just as long as they draft a good player. Every hole’s a goal. Any depth at all would be a bonus for a team that featured Devin Brown, Hilton Armstrong, Antonio Daniels and Sean Marks way too heavily in its rotation last year. But a decent wing player wouldn’t be a bad start, and nor would an extra big man.
02.33: Naturally, they take Darren Collison, a point guard. Ah well. T’is the season.
02.34: The 22nd pick belongs to Portland, after they traded up from the 24th pick on the day before draft night. Presumably they have someone in mind for the 22nd pick, someone whom they figured Sacramento (who picked 23rd) would want rather badly. Given that Sacramento is a poor rebounding team, and one of the best rebounders in the draft (DeJuan Blair) remains on the board, maybe that trade will actually matter. Or maybe it has nothing to do with Blair at all. Either way, Mark Jackson’s assessment of the Blazers roster says that they “need [the] best available player”. The fact that this needs to be mentioned at all is evidence of how the draft plays out these days.
02.36: Not to be outdone, Jeff Van Gundy uses his moment of analysis to name as many Blazers players as he could think of. It’s a noble effort that sees him stopping just short of saying Michael Ruffin and Shavlik Randolph. Jeff’s earning his paycheck tonight, let me tell you. Not to be outdone, though, Jackson counters with a classic opening gambit, exclaiming how “you talk about LaMarcus Aldridge“. Actually, Mark, I don’t really. Not much. Not since the 2006 Draft.
02.38: It turns out that Blair was irrelevant; Portland drafts Victor Claver, a forward out of Valencia, who won’t be joining the team for a while. The funny thing is that I watched roughly five Valencia games last season, and yet I still couldn’t tell you a single thing about Victor Claver. This might be because I spent so long trying to follow Albert Miralles’ every move, yet it may also suggest something about Claver’s minimal impact upon a game. More accurately, though, it’s symptomatic of two key factors when watching European basketball:
1) Almost every team uses 10-man rotations in a 40 minute game, meaning no one ever stays on the court for all that long.
2) It’s really hard to tell the players apart because the numbers are so small. (Seriously. When watching Valencia, I could only tell the difference between Shammond Williams and Kenny Gregory, because I knew that Shammond was the guy with the headband on, and Gregory went without one. But when Gregory and Florent Pietrus were on the court at the same time…..well, then it was just downright difficult.)
02.39: Chicago pick in four picks time, and I really want DeJuan Blair to fall to them now. It looks pretty possible, too. Dallas pick 24th, and they intend to re-sign Brandon Bass, who is better than Blair and takes his spot in the rotation. Oklahoma City pick 25th, and they have D.J. White, who is also not entirely dissimilar and takes up their backup power forward spot. The only possible problem here is with Sacramento, who pick next at #23 and who sorely need some big men that can make a basket. This is the team that finished last season with Calvin Booth, Ike Diogu, Kenny Thomas and Cedric Simmons on their roster. They’re a real threat here.
02.40: An interview with Shaquille O’Neal goes a bit weird when Shaq mentions that he has had “mental conversations” with his new-fangled team mate, LeBron James. I have absolutely no idea what he meant by that. Maybe he was just trying to be quotable, as per usual. And since I just quoted him, it worked.
Shaq is also quick to point out that Suns GM Steve Kerr was honest and up front with him about trade discussions from the start, and that he would be willing to come off the bench in Cleveland if need be, both of which are rather noble things for him to have said. Although I only believe one of them. Jeff Van Gundy also doesn’t believe Shaq’s sincerity in his statement about coming off the bench, but then gets ahead of himself when he congratulates Zydrunas Ilgauskas for the humility that he’s shown in giving up his starting spot to O’Neal. Steady on there, Jeff. Z might not even know that there’s been a trade yet.
02.41: Shaq also calls both Jeff Van Gundy and Stanley Roberts “the great” in that interview. I’m not sure whom that does the biggest disservice to.
02.45: The Kings throw me a bone by picking Isreli small forward Omri Casspi with the 23rd pick, despite having Andres Nocioni, Francisco Garcia, Donte Greene and even a helping of Jason Thompson already at the position. Meanwhile, the incapacitated Kenny Thomas remains their only backup power forward under contract. I really don’t understand a good 75% of the moves that Geoff Petrie makes, but I’m sure some overly defensive Kings fans will set me straight on that in short order.
02.46: The Kings selecting Casspi means that, at the very least, one of DeJuan Blair, Sam Young and Wayne Ellington will be on the board when the Bulls pick. Good times. Blair at #26 will be the steal of the draft, I tell you.
02.47: There’s an advert break seemingly after every pick now, but Audrina Partridge is not appearing in any of them. This isn’t good enough.
02.50: Dallas picks B.J. Mullens with the 24th pick, moving the Bulls one step closer to my dream. Mullens always claimed that he could be compared to Dirk Nowitzki, and now he’s going to join Dirk’s team and realise how wrong he was. Sounds like karma to me.
By the way, speaking of B.J. Mullens:
1) He needs to improve both his overall offensive play and his overall defence play. He has good touch around the rim (as well as away from it, supposedly), but he has no moves or footwork with which to get these shots of. He gets tripped by little guys, blocked by big guys, outmuscled by stronger guys and confused by two guys at once. And his defensive instincts are about as intelligent as those of a hedgehog when confronted by a speeding car. It’s not pretty, and he makes no effort to hide it either.
3) He’s been stuck by Jay Bilas with the slightly unfortunate tag of “he needs to learn how to play”, which is always a worrying thing to find in a player when you’re wondering whether they’re worthy of joining the best basketball league in the world.
4) He came off the bench behind Dallas Lauderdale for a whole season. This is the same Dallas Lauderdale who boasts no offensive talent, a free throw stroke that borders on the criminally reckless, who averaged only 3.6 rebounds in 21 minutes per game and whose hefty blocked shots numbers stemmed largely from Ohio State’s out-of-conference schedule. Yet in spite of all that, he was better for them than Mullens.
But maybe it’s not a bad pick anyway. That’s how starved for size we are this year; Mullens is only the second centre picked in the entire draft. Bad times.
Just one to more to go now.
02.57: Good news! Oklahoma City picks someone called Rodrigue Beaubois with the 25th pick, and Blair is now free to be a Bull. Stern stumbles over Beaubois’s surname, and eventually manages a half-hearted attempt that sounds a little bit like “boob war”. This is what I’m calling Rod from now on. Ric Bucher quickly informs us that Boob War and B.J. are being swapped for one another (and, hopefully, jointly lending their names to one of the finest pornographic movie titles in the Western world), which undermines my Nowitzki joke of earlier a bit.
But, to the real issue here. The Thunder passed up on DeJuan Blair. And that means only one thing. We got Blair we got Blair we got Blair we got Blair we got Blair we got Blair we got Blair we got Blair we got Blair we got Blair we got Blair we got Blair we got Blair we got Blair we got Blair we got Blair. Yeahhhhhhhhhh boy. This is a good thing. The Bulls seriously need some interior muscle and rebounding, and the best player for that outside of the #1 overall pick just fell into our laps. Inside, I’m dancing. Outside, I’m yodelling. Good times.
02.58: Can I just point out at this stage how much better it’s going to be to have DeJuan Blair than it is Thabo Sefolosha. Thabo would have been earning $2.8 million next season just to be the 10th man, money which the Bulls can ill-afford to spend on a surplus player if they are going to be able to re-sign Ben Gordon. Yet instead of Thabo, we’re going to be paying a third of that price to a superior player, who plays a position of greater need and whose skillset fills this team’s weaknesses almost perfectly. It’s going to be fantastic. What could possibly g…….
03.04: Why the hell would you pick Taj Gibson there? What does Taj Gibson do, exactly? He blocks shots. That’s pretty much it. He’s not a rebounder, he’s not a scorer, he’s too thin for his position and he doesn’t have first-round talent. He also somewhat duplicates the skillset of incumbent starting power forward Tyrus Thomas, and we’re supposed to be UPGRADING Tyrus, NOT DUPLICATING HIM. Oh, and better still, Taj Gibson is already 24, limiting any upside his athleticism may otherwise have given him. To put that into some context, Taj Gibson is all of four days younger than Darko Milicic. And everyone knows that Darko Milicic ran out of potential three years ago.
Spiffing. Absolutely spiffing.
03.05: Memphis are up next, and I can only hope for some grave misjudgement on their part to cheer me up, still reeling as I am from the Taj Gibson selection. (It’s not even about DeJuan Blair, really. Blair was the obvious pick, but there are others who would have done, others with first-round talent and who fit the team needs. But Gibson? What good is he going to do us?) Jeff Van Gundy is straight back on the horse after a slight wobble, and launches into a meaningful and poignant diatribe about how the draw of having a team play an exciting brand of basketball is always going to be nullified if that team doesn’t win games, and that “anything is exciting when you win”. This point is way too salient for a draft night broadcast.
03.06: With big point guard and power forward holes still to fill, Memphis pick a backup small forward in DeMarre Carroll, who has long-term health concerns about his liver and an underdeveloped perimeter game so depressingly consistent with a college power forward trying to make the switch to the perimeter. Groovy. I guess Hakim Warrick is walking, then.
03.07: Stu Scott really needs a pop guard. Just move the bloody microphone further away from your face for God’s sake. This is day one stuff, surely.
03.08: No matter how bad DeJuan Blair’s knees are, they aren’t as old as Taj Gibson’s. Just saying.
03.10: Minnesota are on the clock for their fourth first-round pick of the night, and it is said that they wanted James Johnson with the 18th pick had the Bulls not taken him. This seems a little bit weird considering that Minnesota are the current owners of Ryan Gomes, the man to whom Johnson apparently projects so accurately. Not sure what to make of that.
When it’s their turn to draft, however, they don’t disappoint, and after a brief flirtation with David Stern’s playful side (more of this, please), the Wolves select Wayne Ellington with the 28th pick. Wayne Ellington is the next Voshon Lenard. You heard it here first. Unless I’m wrong. In which case, you heard it from someone else, so laugh at them instead.
03.12: I’m the same age as Taj Gibson. This isn’t on. I need some Doris Burke or something to get me through this. Or Audrina Partridge. Or anything, really.
03.14: Lisa Salters interviews North Carolina head coach Roy Williams, who is at the drafting watching three (and soon to be four) of his players getting drafted. Williams clearly hasn’t been paying too much attention, as he didn’t know about Ty Lawson being traded to Denver. Gotta love those interviews with coaches. They’re really the driving force behind the drama tonight.
03.15:New York will be picking 29th instead of the Lakers – even though it will be announced as a Lakers pick – after agreeing to buy the pick before the draft started. The Bulls could have bought this just as easily. I’m just saying.
Speaking of New York and of Darko Milicic, a long-rumoured trade has officially been announced that sees Darko being sent to the Knicks in exchange for Quentin Richardson. Both contracts are expiring, but Richardson is to earn more than Milicic next season. The Grizzlies just took on some money. I’m shocked.
The Knicks then pick Toney Douglas with the 29th pick, who is sort of a little bit like Stephen Curry if you try to be really optimistic about things. Either way, it looks like it might be goodnight Nate.
03.25: Stern takes forever to appear for the 30th pick, leaving Stu Scott having to think up some spontaneous comedy magic. You may as well have asked Brandon Jennings. When Stern does finally appear, he somehow manages to balls up a simple speech that he’s made hundreds of times before (“‘with the ____th pick in the ____ NBA draft, the ________ select………”), and has to talk his way out of it. He finally does so in a painfully awkward fashion, and then manages to mess up the draftee’s name. I guess he got on the beer a few minutes too early. Somewhere in there, the Cavaliers drafted Christian Eyenga with the last pick of the first round.
The Eyenga selection stuns literally everyone. The crowd do not discernibly cheer nor boo, his name is not placed on the draft board because there’s no board available with his name on, and there’s over a minute of dead air as ESPN frantically scramble for something to say about him and someone to say it. The broadcast is literally silent as Andy Katz is hurriedly contacted for insight, and for some Eyenga clips to be fashioned out of his ass. The silence is hectic.
The only person who knew that Christian Eyenga was going to be drafted was Christian Eyenga himself, who flew mercurially to the stage like an oversized lapwing and got in his photo with a still-drunk Stern. Then again, maybe not even Christian Eyenga knew he was going to be drafted. I’d instead like to believe that Danny Ferry was at the draft, panicking slightly, not knowing who to draft, and asking all the non-English speakers if they’ve ever played ball before, then just drafting the best one.
“Hey, you any good at basketball?”
“I play Spain three division?”
“Mint. Congratulations. You’re now a Cav.”
That’s my fantasy, you choose you own.
03.28: I’d never heard of Christian Eyenga before tonight, and neither had you, probably. So here’s what I’ve just read up about him: Eyenga is from the Congo, and turned 20 last week. He is the property of DKV Joventut Badalona – the team that won’t let Ricky Rubio leave – and spent the last two seasons at their feeder club, CB Prat Juventud, in the LEB Silver (which is the Spanish third division). Last year he averaged 13.3 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game, and was also fourth in the league in blocks with 1.6 per game. Not bad defensive numbers from a 6’5 shooting guard. But also a mediocre scoring output from a low standard of basketball.
03.29: The clips of Eyenga’s play all come from the same game, where he makes a dunk and a step-back three in a gym full to the brim with about 18 people in it. If only they knew they were watching future NBA first-round talent, they’d have turned up in droves. Eyenga still doesn’t have the dignity of his name being put on the draft board.
03.29: Stern announces that he’s off to get to the next level of drunk, and that Adam Silver will handle the difficult job of talking for the second round. The following people are going to be second round steals: DeJuan Blair, Sam Young, Nick Calathes, Patrick Mills, Danny Green, Marcus Thornton and Chase Budinger. Book it. Book it all.
03.29: By the way, this draft is not sufficiently weak that we have to resort to the Spanish third division in the first round. Cleveland, I think you may have shot your bolt prematurely.
Sham’s unnecessarily long 2009 draft diary, part 1
June 26th, 2009
Last year’s draft night was arguably the best day of my life. The 2007 draft night before that is its only competitor. I mean that, too. Sort of.
It never makes for especially brilliant television, but to know that dozens of executives all over the country are making more news in a 12-hour period than in the previous 12 months combined is kind of pulsating. In the course of a day and a night, rosters, directions and allegiances will change. We spend weeks and months in advance predicting what’s going to happen on this one night, only to find that, sure as hell, we’re all more wrong than a Myra Hindley Christmas album. It’s great fun.
I’m a bit apprehensive of this draft, though. This draft will be unlike any other for me, for this is the first draft I’ll have watched in which I know anything about the players involved. Before this season, I had not watched the NCAA before outside of a handful of games, for the simple reason that it wasn’t on the telly. However, this year, for whatever reason, it was. And so in keeping with my usual approach (take note ladies), I went at it hardcore, gave it my all, didn’t want to miss a single inch of skin/minute of action, and strove to be better at it than everyone else in the world (particularly that inferior man you’re currently with).
Because of that, I’m going to miss out on what I’ve always considered to be the highlight of draft night; the ability to judge people for life based off of a few short clips, what kind of suit they’re wearing, their post-selection interview, a short speech by Jay Bilas and the timeless “Must Improve” captions that so effortlessly make the work of drafting websites utterly redundant.
I don’t yet know if this is a good thing.
As was the case with last year’s draft, due to my social life full of partying, hard living and explosive excitement at all times, I missed the whole day of build-up to the event. I missed out on the moves that were made, not least of which were the Shaq and Vince Carter trades. (Speaking of, A: did Cleveland need to get slower and less athletic? and B: even as a fan of his, I’m far from overwhelmed by a trade that sees Courtney Lee be the best returning player in a Vince Carter deal. Hope the sale of the Nets goes well, Bruce Ratner.)
I also had to scramble to even watch the Draft in the first place, stuck as I am on an internet connection with speed that rivals an arthritic Pavel Podkolzin in a game of musical statues. So I went to my friend Luke’s house, to stay up all night and watch the draft downstairs as he slept upstairs, with him perhaps a little freaked out by the whole thing. Or that was the plan, at least. Gallantly, despite not knowing or caring a little bit about basketball, he watched a bit of it with me. He’s a good sport. It’s a good sport.
I got there at 11pm, 90 minutes before the start of the draft, and started to pick through the bones of all the news that I had missed out on. But this was soon sabotaged by the shock revelation that Michael Jackson had died. On draft night, too. The selfish bastard. When I would have liked to have spent the next hour reading up on completed deals, rumoured deals, and putting to paper my views on the Richard Jefferson deal (which may still be posted about a week too late, FYI), I instead spent that time talking about that while trying to think of the world’s best Michael Jackson joke to start via text message. (I ended up going with what I thought was quite a good Farrah Fawcett gag. It failed.)
Nevertheless, I got it all out of my system eventually, and settled in to watch the draft unfurl with a glass of milk and a half-eaten biro at the ready. Eleven pages of notes later, this is what I came up with. Enjoy it.
(NB: Written in real time, even though it isn’t, because it was. If that makes sense. Also done in a Twitter-like fashion, because the kids go for all that jazz these days. Apparently.)
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00.01: We’re underway. Tonight’s line-up: Stu Scott on the drums, Jay Bilas on the bass, Jeff Van Gundy on rhythm guitar, Mark Jackson on the keys and Dick Vitale as lead vocalist, with Fran Frischilla, Ric Bucher and Andy Katz as guest guitarists. The same as last year, basically. Except we’ve lost Stephen A. Smith.
00.04: Apparently the Jamal Crawford to Atlanta trade, which was initially supposed to be held up until July 8th for no reason at all, went through early. The value for Atlanta is great, and if given a sixth man role Crawford could thrive, just like Ronald Murray did last year. Then again, they could surely bring back Murray to do the same job for a far lesser price. But still. It’s a trade. And trades are good. Dictatorial and slightly authoritarian, but good anyway. Things have started well.
00.05: Also, the Lakers have apparently agreed to sell their 29th pick to the Knicks, in a deal which can’t be consummated until after the pick has been made due to the Lakers still owing Memphis their 2010 first-round pick as a part of the Pau Gasol deal. Selling this year’s pick seems silly. Someone should tell the Lakers that while they did just win the title, they also need to improve their team, and that if they spend all their money on only bringing back last year’s team, they’re going to lose. Late first-round draft picks are good ways to bring in cheap bench talent, something which every team could use. But now they’ve taken themselves out of the running. Also, I don’t know if you know this Jerry Buss, but you’re REALLY RICH, and the Lakers only make you richer. So up the payroll, you big jessie.
00.05: An early FYI: Amar’e Stoudemire either is or isn’t going to the Warriors, according to Ric Bucher and his slicked-back hair. It’s all good information. I’m writing it down. Also, their version of the proposed deal sees Amar’e Stoudemire going to the Warriors for Andris Biedrins, Marco Belinelli and Brandan Wright, taking great care to spell Amar’e’s new-fangled name right, but not Wright’s. Don’t worry, Brandan. When you’re as good as Amar’e is, they’ll care.
00.06: If there’s any legs to that rumour, then the Bulls had better top that deal, regardless of his eye surgery and the size of his extension. Some risks are worth taking. (Oh, in case you didn’t know, I’m a Bulls fan. Expect bias.)
00.07: Oh wow, Danny Larue died last month and no one told me. Sorry MJ, but you just got usurped.
00.07: “You got usurped” was the working title for “You got served”, by the way.
00.08: Last season, Stephen A. Smith suffered the ignominy of being bumped from the panel of analysts, reduced to the role of a mere interviewer. He looked simultaneously sad and listless all night, wondering how things could have gotten so bad. Well, they got worse after that, and he was fired by the network, so now he’s not here at all. Neither is Doris Burke, whose fine work of last season wasn’t enough to see her keep her job, as Lisa Salters gets a turn at being the only female this year. And someone called John Barr is in Cleveland, getting ready to do some cavilingus on whoever he can find to interview about the Shaq trade.
00.10: Someone just alerted me to http://www.ismichaeljacksonalive.com. Good fun. But how they got that site up within an hour of his death, I do not know. Someone must have bought that domain some time in advance. Spooky stuff.
00.11: Way too much ticker on the screen tonight. Seriously.
00.12: Apparently Steve Nash wanted Shaq traded. Can’t imagine why. I wonder who Shaq’s going to backstab this time. I vote Goran Dragic.
00.13: Interesting point someone just made: Shaq has now played with a prime Penny Hardaway, a prime Kobe Bryant, a prime Dwayne Wade, a prime Steve Nash, and now a prime LeBron James. Yet he has only four rings. How do you have only four if you’re one of the greatest of all time and you played with that lot? Tim Duncan has four, and he did it with either the shell of David Robinson, or the inherently flawed Tony Parker. Compared to that, Shaq just doesn’t compare.
00.16: I’m a heterosexual male, and so confident am I in that that I can tell you without fear of reprisal that Jay Bilas is just dreamy. Look at that jawline. Look at those shoulders. The teeth. And the soothing dulcet baritones. Such an alpha male. I’ll believe anything he tells me. Anyhoo….
00.18: ESPN has decided to focus their draft build up on Blake Griffin. Apparently they think he might be picked first overall. I’m not convinced.
00.23: I am distracted from the pre-draft Griffin-up by an interview that’s taking place on Sky News with Hollywood actor and musical legend, Joe Pesci, about the death of Michael Jackson. Anything that involves Joe Pesci talking is hard to ignore, and the fact that he’s talking about the death of a legend is secondary to his always-amusing vowel sounds. Good times. I wonder if Pesci will do a tribute to Jacko on his next album.
(You didn’t know Joe Pesci had an album? You should. It’s bloody brilliant, I tell you. Particularly the Jim Reeves cover. There’s also a music for a Pesci original rap song called “Wise Guy”, which I will proffer for you now.)
(No, I didn’t believe it at first either. But there it is. Remember kids; it’s the bitchez that’ll get yuz.)
00.25: Mark Jones is interviewing Ricky Rubio, which gives me my first taste of Rubio’s voice. And it’s hilarious. He sounds like Glenn Quagmire doing an impression of Speedy Gonzalez. More good times. Also, if you were wondering if this Mark Jones is THE Mark Jones – former Orlando Magic shooting guard Mark Jones – then let me help you with that; he is not. Shame.
00.26: Luke is wondering if he can get a refund on his Michael Jackson tickets. I’m pretty confident that he will, although I’m also pretty confident that the show won’t be any worse than it would have been anyway.
00.27: The first Dick Vitale moment of the night happens. Prior to this year, the only things I knew about Dick Vitale were these draft night cameos from his front room, his voice (lifted directly from a heavily constipated Johnny Vegas) and his frankly sensational porn star name. But now that I’ve watched him work as a commentator for over a year, I’ve got one more to add to that; I struggle with him. And the reason I struggle with him is because, when he gets excited, he ends every sentence in an imperfect cadence. Yes, this is reason enough.
He’s not doing that in this draft night rant, though, which is a relief. The rant goes on for 50 seconds, and included only one use of the term ‘baby’. That’s even more of a relief.
00.28: Here’s a picture of Blake Griffin.
That is all.
00.29: ESPN bridges the gap between the end of the 30-minute countdown and the start of the five-minute countdown with a montage of some of the high picks. Ironically (or foolishly) they have Hasheem Thabeet point at the camera as say “THIS IS MY TIME!!!” just before the #1 pick is announced. Even at this late stage, I’m not putting it totally past Dunleavy.
00.30: The customary Red Pepper voiceover happens. That means we’re starting. RIP Don LaFontaine. Let’s do this.
00.31: We are treated to the customary “war room” shot that is so unnecessarily obligatory before the #1 pick is made. Nothing’s happening. Lots of people are sitting around a table, and Mike Dunleavy is in the middle, smiling dauntingly, not wearing a tie. I don’t need to see this. I didn’t need to see it last year, either. The Clippers have only one pick; it’s the first pick, they know who they’re taking, and we know who they’re taking. It’s the ultimate formality. So instead of looking at men in suits getting ready to clap, here’s a monkey on a bike.
(Joe Pesci samples that tune on his album, by the way.)
00.31: David Stern comes to the microphone for the opening speech, and comments on the crowd being a “rowdy lot tonight”. He’s not kidding. Oh by the way, the NBA might be moving the draft to Los Angeles. These two facts are not related in any way.
00.31: Stern’s speech marks the beginning of a five-minute wait before the Clippers can make the first overall pick. The idea here is the team uses these five minutes to decide on who they’re going to draft, but, since we’ve already seen Mike Dunleavy loafing about, nonchalant, here’s another monkey on a bike.
00.32: ESPN throws up a ‘Clippers depth chart’ caption that features Zach Randolph coming off of the bench behind Chris Kaman and Marcus Camby. Either they know something that we don’t, or they know nothing.
00.33: Stern comes to the podium to announce the pick, mercifully before the full five minutes has elapsed. When he does so, a little ditty plays before he starts talking, just like it has done in every pick in every draft that I’ve ever seen. Does anyone know why this ditty plays?
00.33: Stern announces that Griffin is taken #1 over all, and Griffin gallantly puts on an oh-dude-I-totally-had-no-idea face as he hugs his brother, his family and two random people, before making his way up to receive his lifelong dream of a Clippers hat. The analyst’s brief run down of Griffin reveals nothing we didn’t already know (he’s quite good, apparently), and this prompts ESPN to find some filler material. They first cut back to the Clippers war room – where Dunleavy is now in only his underwear listening to Kenny Loggins records and dealing cards to himself – before showing us a replay of Blake Griffin standing up. I watched this replay really intensely to see if I’d missed something interesting that necessitated it being shown again. I hadn’t.
00.35: Mark Jones isn’t wearing a tie, either. Make an effort man, for God’s sake.
00.36: Here’s my question: if you’re 6’9, why would you choose to go into the only profession in which you could ever be considered to be “too short”?
00.37: It’s Memphis’ turn, and there’s genuine intrigue now. In previous years, the top of the draft has been about as subtle as a punch in the face. You know who’s going to be picked by whom, and watching the first five or so picks happening was just a procession. But not this year. As early as #2, we’ve already got a poser. The clear-cut #2 in this draft is Rubio, but he said he won’t sign with Memphis. Thabeet has pretty much said the same, and the other two candidates (James Harden and Tyreke Evans) play the same as last year’s #3 overall pick, O.J. Mayo. This puts Memphis in a quandary, where the logical pick refuses to play for them and the rest aren’t particularly good fits. They could trade down still, or they could trade out of the draft altogether. It’s all possible. Personally, I’m hoping they’ll call Rubio’s bluff and take him anyway. And why not? Who was the last top five pick not to sign with the team that picked him? Even Steve Francis would have signed with Vancouver, eventually. Maybe.
00.40: Failing that, I want them to draft James Harden, because a Harden/Gay pairing can’t fail. I’m still rueing the premature demise of the Gay/Love pairing of last year. It’s still funny to me. (Luther Head is a free agent, by the way.)
00.43: Cameras cut to the Grizzlies war room. Something’s actually happening in there – a man is adjusting something on a wall. In relative terms, it’s like an M. Night Shyamalan film, yet it’s still ultimately boring. If I had a childish mind, the proper means at my disposal, and a highly accurate impersonation of Mike Dunleavy in my arsenal, I’d ring them right now and talk about a Griffin trade. I really would. The lesson here; don’t give me a position of authority.
00.45: After a generous five minute wait, the Grizzlies ignore me and pick Thabeet. Brilliant. There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. This draft is so bad that a specialist was just picked second overall. Because that’s what he is – a specialist. He’s not Dikembe Mutombo and he’s not going to be. He’s not more than an opportunity scorer, and he’s not going to be. He is what he is – he’s a shot-blocking specialist. And now he’s going second. Nice draft, this.
00.46: Also, I don’t want to be the one who has to make him and Marc Gasol work together on the court. That’s a tough ask, since, you know, they’re both centres. Memphis now has two starting centres and no starting point guard or power forward. And I’m sure that they would have picked Rubio were it not for the hostage situation that would have unfolded.
That said, I don’t blame Rubio for standing his ground here. As much as we enjoy the draft, we have to realise that it’s an utterly stupid system bordering on slavery. (Maybe.) A system that promotes parity amongst the league is fine, but it only partly works, and it doesn’t take into consideration the wishes of the players involved. It’s pretty ridiculous that we see these situations where an American kid who pursues their dream of becoming a professional sportsman for his whole childhood, finally fulfils their dream and achieves the status of being an NBA-calibre talent, is then susceptible to a backwards system that sees his place of work dictated for him for a number of years, where he has to move across the country if someone tells him to, where he has no freedom to choose where he plays or what he gets paid, and where the only option available to him if he decides not to go along with it is to either kick up a stink (with the obvious negative connotations that would arise from that; ‘oooh, he’s a bad egg’), or to emigrate and play in another country, because he hasn’t the freedom to choose his own path in his own country. In a predominantly Christian society supposedly based on free will and determinism, in the self-anointed land of the free, we have this.
00.48: Thabeet’s on-screen profile says that he “Must Improve: Offensive Game”. You’ve got to love that caption when dealing with a #2 pick.
00.49: For some reason, Mark Jones’ interview table has a motif of a jigsaw puzzle piece. I don’t get this.
00.49: Thabeet mentions in his interview that part of his development as a player has been ‘going from kicking it with my feet to using my hands’. If your cockles weren’t already warmed by the caption, you’re probably soggy with excitement over the pick now,
00.50:Oklahoma City is up next, and if they don’t pick Ricky Rubio because of the presence of Russell Westbrook, then I’m leaving. Jay Bilas seems to disagree with me, as he wants Harden and Evans to be picked before Rubio. I know he’s wrong.
00.51: …nope, apparently he’s right. OKC picks Harden, so apparently they envision Westbrook as a point guard. The camera cuts to Ricky Rubio clapping the pick and smiling weakly. This needn’t have happened.
00.52: Not only does James Harden play like John Salmons, he also looks a bit like him. This somewhat parallels the Matt Devlin/Lionel Hutz likeness, which is both an audio and visual experience. It’s also not necessarily a bad thing, because John Salmons is pretty good. Although hopefully it won’t take Harden longer than his rookie contract to get to that kind of standard, like it did with Fish.
00.54: Jay Bilas is on a roll, and he has gotten the first three picks right so far. His tail is up, and now he compares James Harden to Brandon Roy. Once again I think he’s wrong, but that hasn’t done me any favours so far, so I’ll be pragmatic about it and acknowledge the possibility. I’m also forced to change my stance on Rubio-over-Harden once I see Harden’s outfit for the evening, a stunning combination of waistcoat and bowtie that I can only hope to be able to carry off some day.
00.55: Harden says “I will work hard”. That’s good. If he hadn’t said it, I would have had to assume that he’d work only casually.
00.55: A caption with the Kings’ depth chart on it flashes up, and I have to explain to Luke that Spencer Hawes’ first name is not “C”.
00.56: Jeff Van Gundy is on the panel again this year, and he’s clearly worked hard to make improvements over the offseason. Last season, Van Gundy dodged all questions about the draftees by instead talking about other player’s on the teams roster, a strategy which culminated with his utterly baffling claim that the Knicks didn’t need a point guard because they had Stephon Marbury. This year, though, he came prepared, and unloads onto us a packed diatribe about the strengths and weaknesses of Tyreke Evans’ game, and why he’d be a good pick for the Kings at #4. If he’s not picked now, Jeff’ll be crushed.
00.57: Fortunately, Jeff is spared. The team with Kevin Martin at two guard and Beno Udrih at point guard just picked Evans, who projects as a two guard, in a point guard-heavy draft with Rubio still on board. Yeah, I see what they did there. They chickened out of picking Rubio, that’s what they did. Presumably, had they picked Rubio, America would have had to go to war with Spain or something catastrophic, and the Spanish are fearsome in battle. They build big Armadas and things, they’re unsinkable. (Well, unsinkable unless you can enlist the English, that is.) Whether they choose to play Evans at point guard anyway is up for debate, but the answer had better be “yes”.
00.58: Jay Bilas is now 4-4, far surpassing last year’s 2-2 start before Brook Lopez’s inexplicable slide. A gentle excited squeaky noise can be heard from somewhere about his person.
00.58: In his post-selection interview, Evans reassures us that he will work hard. Wow! Two hard workers in the same draft! We got lucky this year.
00.58: Farrah Fawcett’s dead, man. Only now has it hit home.
00.59: You know, after Minnesota fleeced Washington for the #5 pick this year, it was rumoured that they might package the #5 with the #18 to move up and take Rubio. They obviously didn’t, but as it turns out, they didn’t have to.
01.00: Mark Jones surprises us with the news that Tyreke Evans’s nickname is “Hugo”. Here’s some more Tyreke Evans trivia that’s less broadcastable but equally true; Tyreke Evans was once accidentally the getaway driver in a murder his cousin committed. Easy mistake to make. Happened to me only last week.
01.02: Minnesota takes Rubio, and the cameras cut to their war room, where surprisingly a table can be seen without a massive open bag of coke on it. Sadly, we also don’t see a glimpse of Fred Hoiberg. Maybe it would have been better to cut to the Wizards’ war room instead. It can be fun to watch people cry.
01.04: A Rubio highlight montage consists almost solely of look-away passes. Jointly, me and Luke now anoint Rubio as “Mr Bait ‘N’ Switch”. It’s funnier if you know us, to be fair.
Also included in the montage was a clip of one jump shot. He missed it. The follow-up caption said “Must Improve: Jumpshooting”. Damn they’re good at this.
01.06: Rubio says “I know what is rough” and “I am Ricky Rubio” in consecutive answers. I’m now tempted to call him Rocky. However, he didn’t say at any point that he was going to work hard, so he’s clearly never going to reach his potential now.
01.08: JVG implores that Minnesota should pick a backup to Rubio with the #6 pick. Considering that the only shooting guard on their roster right now is Rodney Carney, who is an unrestricted free agent as of six day’s time, this seems like a weird thing to ask for. Nevertheless, Kahn and the Wolves oblige him by picking Jonny Flynn, Syracuse point guard and reputed kitten murderer. If they don’t think the two can play together at a later date, then the pick is extremely weird, and if they DO think that they can play together…..well, they’re wrong. Neither is a good defender of quick opponents, nor will either ever have shooting guard size, and neither is effective without the ball or a good outside shooter. Yet somehow they have to take those concurrent weaknesses and find a way to coexist. I think David Kahn just made his first whoopsie.
01.10: Jay Bilas says that Flynn suffers from being “only 5’11”. Within seconds, a caption shows up listing Flynn as being 6’0 1/2. It’s a slick production, this, made only somewhat less slick by the constant background noise of Stu Scott’s breathing. The caption also says that Flynn must improve his decision making; whether this applies only to basketball, or also to his feline homicide tendencies, we can only guess.
01.11: Flynn shows more charisma in his interview than the previous five draftees welded together, and like Rubio, he also talks about how tough he is. What’s better than one Rocky Rubio? Two Rocky Rubios. And Battenburg cake. (Good news! There’s still room for judging people on first impressions only. All is not lost.)
By the way, I’ve seen a boatload of Syracuse, and Flynn is probably too high here. He has more upside than most, with his athleticism, passing vision and aggressiveness, but he’s also a poor defender, mediocre shooter, and prone to going out of control. He’s pretty good, though, and he’s partly why Syracuse are my favourite NCAA team. The variety of other reasons:
1) They had about 786 televised games over here for some reason.
2) They only played seven guys, one of whom was an unskilled Belgian.
3) Eric Devendorf has a potty mouth.
Of course, all of these are going to have changed or become redundant by next season. But I can fair-weather it up if I so wish.
01.12: Tip for anyone with a lazy eye – put your glasses on straight, Scott has tilted his at a rakish angle to try and combat the fallen iris, but it’s not fooling anybody.
01.13: Mark Jones drops the word “seminal” in an interview. As a keen promoter of that word, I’m claiming some credit for that. If he says “giggidy” later on then I’ll know I have some sway.
01.14: Everyone other than a beaming Jeff Van Gundy is a bit confused by the back-to-back point guards thing, and a baffled Stu Scott throws it over to Ric Bucher for word on whether the Wolves picked Flynn only to trade him. Bucher announces, with a tinge of fear in his voice, that the Wolves are intent on keeping them both. They start two power forwards, I guess, so starting two point guards can’t be that hard.
Question: if Washington had kept the #5, would they have drafted Rubio, and if they didn’t, would a Randy Foye/Rubio backcourt have worked out? I vote no and yes. But nonetheless, the Timberwolves don’t have to play Sebastian Telfair any more, so it can’t be that bad. And if they really struggle for a shooting guard, let’s get Hoiberg to make a comeback.
01.15:Golden State picks Stephen Curry with the #7 pick, a move which the “rowdy lot” boo venomously. This leads to the following exchange:
Luke: “Why are they booing it?” Me: “Because the draft’s held in New York, New York pick next, and their fans really wanted Curry.” Luke: “Oh. He should have played worse.”
Good point.
01.15: You know, if you could do cut-and-shut jobs with NBA players, sticking Curry and Flynn together would give you one hell of a point guard. (That pointless thought and arbitrary statement was easily my most lucid moment of insight all night. I should get an analyst’s gig.)
01.16: Jay Bilas has now picked the first seven picks correctly. His smile stretches from shoulder to shoulder and can be seen from space.
01.17: Before interviewing Stephen, his dad Dell Curry gets interviewed, largely as he’s an ex-NBA player. This makes him no more exciting of an interview. But it does prompt the following exchange:
Me: “I had a dell curry once. Pretty tasty.”
Luke: “Well, Dell will sponsor anything these days.”
We’re taking this double act on the road, by the way. Book early. Book often. (NB: if one of us were to die, no refunds.)
01.18: As I watch Stephen Curry sit there in a mismatched tie and jacket, with a pre-teen boy’s beard on his chin, spouting a succession of generic statements in a voice handed down to him by his father, and being subjected to a realm of stereotypical analysis about how he “understands the game”, I am reminded of how much worse the world will be now that Michael Jackson is dead. It’s a bugger. Let’s do the man a favour; scrub the last 15 years from the record, and remember him for what he was before it all went wrong – weird, but a brilliant talent. (Unless, of course, he actually…did that thing. I guess we’ll never know.)
01.20:New York reacts to the Curry pick by picking Jordan Hill with the 8th pick, to a chorus of boos. It’s not a bad move, as it at least unites the next Chris Wilcox with the current Chris Wilcox for at least one week. But it’s roundly derided anyway. After about 40 seconds of booing, the director cuts to a shot of a small band of renegade Knicks fans cheering wildly, which is good fundamental directing. Jay Bilas is now 8 for 8, by the way.
01.21: Hill’s draft capsule implores him to improve at “finishing strong”. Giggidy. (Go on, Mark Jones. Say it.)
01.22: In his interview, Hill says “I’ll do what I gotta do” and “I’ll just play basketball” in back to back sentences. The next person to say something interesting in their post-draft interviews wins a bun. Don’t you know that millions of people around the globe are judging you for the first time at that moment? Because we are. So give us a reason to remember you. Wacky ties will suffice.
01.23: Bilas cuts down Hill with the scathing pseudo-compliment that he “must learn how to play”. Zing. The eighth pick in the draft must learn how to play, everybody. Charge your glasses.
01.23: Just looked it up, and apparently Jordan Hill is NOT a station on the Bakerloo Line, like I first thought. Nor was it an Australian teen soap opera. Sorry about that.
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That’ll do for now. The rest will come when I wake up.
ElUniversal.com:Marinos De Anzoategui signo ex estrella de la NBA Vincenzo Panadero.
Marinos reiniciará sus entrenamientos mañana en la noche. La franquicia aguarda por el ala-pivot Héctor Romero, quien está en fase de rehabilitación por un desgarro en el muslo derecho. Será sometido a una ecografía y dependiendo del resultado se sabrá si podrá unirse o no al cinco naval, que conserva en la reserva al ex NBA Vin Baker.
“Llegó fuera de forma y por ello no lo probamos”.
Always-amusing crude online translation:
Marine restarted their training tomorrow night. The franchise is looking for the wing-pivot Hector Romero, who is undergoing rehabilitation for a tear in his right thigh. Shall undergo an ultrasound and to the outcome will be known whether or not you can join the five ships, which kept in reserve to former NBA Vin Baker.
“He arrived out of shape and why they did not try.”
Does this mean that Hector Romero is out of shape, or that Vin Baker is? I don’t know, because I don’t speak Spanish. (Except for the words “horse”, “donkey”, “milk”, “hello beautiful lady”, “butter”, “oil” and “exit”. So far, I’ve found that this gets me everything I’ve ever needed in Spain.)
But there’s evidence that it’s the latter. Vin Baker had a trial in China earlier this season, but was released after a few days because he was out of shape. This counts against him.
Where Are They Now: The Special Derrick Murray Edition
June 16th, 2009
The look back at the compelling protagonists of the 1996 NBA Draft will be coming up soon, as soon as I can find 13 available hours in which to write it. Until them, I bring you a quasi-update from the 1994 edition.
In that post, I wrote this paragraph:
Last month, [Lamond] Murray signed back in the IBL for the third time, signing with the seminal Los Angeles Lightning, where he is currently averaging 25/6.
You weren’t expecting that, I’m guessing. But here’s the best part – the Lightning’s line-up is freaking stacked. In an otherwise poor league, the Lightning have managed to boast a line-up full of ex-NBA players, featuring Murray, current Clippers assistant and minor league veteran Fred Vinson, journeyman big man Jamal Sampson, the artist formerly known as Bryon Russell, ex-Suns guard Toby Bailey and former Rockets guard Juaquin Hawkins, who is with his first team since suffering a stroke last year. Did you see all that coming? No, me neither. In fact, apart from Murray, I didn’t know about all those players being there when I started writing this. Good times, maybe.
Well, I have an update on that.
Sampson left the team after only four games, but the team replaced him pretty quickly, signing ex-Kings training campee (a new word), Adam Parada. Bailey has also now turned up, as he was still playing in the German playoffs at the time of the last update. (He’s currently averaging a triple-double through his first two games, too.) The team also boasts California State senator Tony Strickland on the team, who hadn’t played competitive basketball since averaging a double-double at Whittler College in NCAA’s Division III almost two decades ago. That’s a PR move and a half, that.
But the big news is that the Lightning have since added more ex-NBA pedigree, adding Raptors legend Darrick Martin to the team.
You needed to know that.
This post also serves as an excuse to fire out the timeless Derrick Murray video, which I think I will never, ever get bored of.
– 1st pick: Smilin’ Joe Smith(Golden State) – Joe Smith still has lots to give. He has more good play left in him, lots of love in his heart, and endless toothy smiles that can change the dynamic of an entire room. I like Joe Smith, even if he did allegedly once bottle a gay stripper in a nightclub. You should too. (That is to say, “You should like Joe Smith”. Not “You should bottle a gay stripper in a nightclub”. By the way, Smith was acquitted on all charges.)
– 2nd pick: Antonio McDyess(L.A. Clippers) – McDyess had a decent resurgent season with the Pistons this season, his solid and consistent play often showing up the remainder of their frontcourt, which featured the underwhelming youth of Amir Johnson and Jason Maxiell, the remnants of Rasheed Wallace, and however you’d like to tactfully describe Kwame Brown. He also managed to annoy a lot of Celtics fans, which was a bonus. McDyess still has a year or two left, if he wants it.
– 3rd pick: Jerry Stackhouse(Philadelphia) – Stackhouse is done, and has been for about three years, even if Dallas didn’t realise it. Nevertheless, you’ll hear about him again, because Stack has that rarest of prized tags next to his name – he has a partially guaranteed contract for next year. And you’d better believe that executives around the league are lining up, ready to do things they’re not proud of just to get a hold of that bad boy. Therefore, sooner or later, Stackhouse is being traded and waived. You heard it here second. (By the way, on the subject of unguaranteed contracts, do you think Memphis regret buying out Antoine Walker partway through last season? Antoine had what would have been a fully unguaranteed contract for next season, and right now the Grizzlies might have been awash with offers for that thing. I know that no team wants/needs to save money more than Memphis does, but almost all teams out there are selling, and Memphis could have milked someone for some assets. For example, would Washington have been willing to deal the #5 pick, Mike James and Etan Thomas for Walker, Marko Jaric, the 27 and 35? Assuming they give up/fail with their plans to take on a veteran and power their way out of their strife, it’s possible, because they’re pretty desperate to save money for next year, and waiving Antoine would have gotten them under the tax. Some team would offer something like that, at least. But it matters not now.)
– 4th pick: Rasheed Wallace(Washington Bullets) – fading fast. Boston and San Antonio seem like obvious destinations for next year. By the way, what’s the technical name for that big blob of dead on the back of his head? I had it written down somewhere, but I’ve lost it. Thanks.
– 6th pick: Bryant Reeves(Vancouver) – After retiring midway through the 2001/02 season with chronic knee and back injuries, Reeves did exactly what you’d expect a man with the nickname Big Country to do – he went back to the country. With his enormous contract from the Grizzlies, Reeves bought 300 acres of land back in Arkansas, built a 15,000 square foot house on it, and started his own cattle ranch with his dad. He’s still there. He probably always will be.
– 7th pick: Damon Stoudamire(Toronto) – Stoudamire was bought out by the Grizzlies partway through last season, and saw out the campaign with the Spurs. With San Antonio, he was pretty awful, although he did get a small stint on Kobe Doin’ Work as a result. Stoudamire waited for the phone to ring all last season, but it didn’t, and now he’s turned to coaching, rejoining the Grizzlies recently as an assistant to new head coach Lionel Hollins.
– 8th pick: Shawn Respert(Portland) – Respert kind of busted in the NBA, struggling with injuries and having to adjust to being more of a point guard than an out-and-out scorer. But what he never told us – and it’s still kind of amazing that he went his entire career without mentioning it – is that he was diagnosed with stomach cancer in his rookie season. It’s not a surprise that we the public didn’t know – he didn’t tell his parents, nor his grandparents, or even his girlfriend at the time (who he has since married). Even his head coach at the time, Mike Dunleavy, didn’t know about it initially. Respert underwent radiotherapy for months and couldn’t eat solids, losing loads of weight and stamina in that time. But he kept trying, all the while taking all the contempt for his poor play on the chin, even when he didn’t need to. Respert didn’t announce his cancer battle publicly until 2005, well after his career had finished, and regardless of whether you think he made the right decision, you have to respect the sheer mammoth elephantitis-like testicles that it must have taken to go through someone like that, all the struggles on and off the court, yet never telling more than a couple of need-to-knows and confidants why it was. Respect for Respert right here.
Respert saw out his three-year rookie contract, playing in 160 total games and scoring 814 total points, but managed only 12 more games in his career after that, coming in the 1998/99 season with Dallas. An abortive European career followed, highlighted by an 18 ppg part-season with Milan, yet beset by more injury – after scoring 20.5 ppg for a season in Poland in 2002/03, Respert ended his playing career. Initially he became a volunteer assistant coach for Prairie A&M, but later he became the director of basketball operations at Rice. And then, last summer, Respert made it back to the NBA, hired by the Rockets as Director of Player Programs. Whatever that is, it sounds important, so well done Shawn.
– 9th pick: Ed O’Bannon(New Jersey) – O’Bannon’s NBA career was all of two years long, which isn’t much from a ninth overall pick. He played a year and a half with the Nets, was traded to Dallas partway through his second season as a part of the nine-player Shawn Bradley deal, played only nine games for Dallas, and was then salary-dumped on the Magic, who waived him. That came in 1997. O’Bannon’s only other NBA soirée came when the Magic re-signed him for 2000 training camp, but he didn’t make the team. You probably knew about his abortive NBA career already, though, so here’s what he did afterwards; after being cut, O’Bannon spent the 1997/98 season in the CBA with the La Crosse Bobcats (wait, who?), averaging 11/6, before signing in the Italian second division to end the year. He spent the following season in Spain, and then split the 1999/00 season between Greece and Argentina. After his unsuccessful tryout with the Magic in 2000, O’Bannon saw out the 2000/01 season in the ABA, where he averaged 12/7 for the L.A. Stars (wait, who?). O’Bannon then spent the next three years in Poland, had another arthroscopic knee surgery, and went for a tryout in China, where nobody knew who he was. At that point, O’Bannon retired in 2004, and went back to school to complete his degree. He then went to work as a salesman for a Toyota dealership, and has worked his way up over the years to the point that he’s now a managing director.
– 10th pick: Kurt Thomas(Miami) – Currently with the Spurs. Fell off a bit last year. Probably only one left to go.
– 11th pick: Gary Trent(Milwaukee) – Trent’s NBA career came to a perhaps premature end at age 30. He had been with the Timberwolves since 2001, and had played three seasons for the team as a pretty decent backup to Kevin Garnett. However, when he became a free agent in the summer of 2004, the Wolves had apparently had enough and left him alone. Trent then signed with the Bulls for training camp, and had a good chance of making the team, but he was waived early after reportedly showing a “bad attitude.” (A subjective term if ever there was one. Could have meant anything. However, with the Bulls at that time, it probably meant that Scott Skiles just hated him.) Out of the NBA and ne’er to return, Trent went abroad, and finished out the season with Panellinios in Greece, where he averaged a hefty 17/12, He went to Italy in the following season, signing with Roma, but he apparently aged really fast over that summer, and Roma released him after only two forgettable games. Trent’s final basketball employment came in the 2006/07 season, where, back in Greece, he re-signed with Panellinios for one final go-around. However, by then, Trent had seemingly forgotten how to score, and it ended quickly. No idea of what he’s done since then. Gary Trent fact that sounds better without context: Gary Trent once hit a man called Eric Penn in the face with a pool cue. That is all.
– 12th pick: Cherokee Parks(Dallas) – Parks’ last stint in the NBA came in 2003 with the Warriors. After that ended, he didn’t sign anywhere else ever again..
– 13th pick: Corliss Williamson(Sacramento) – Williamson retired in the 2007 offseason after no one showed much interest in signing him. He initially took a job as an assistant coach at Arkansas Baptist College. However, the school’s website has no mention of him, so maybe he’s not there any more.
– 14th pick: Eric Williams(Boston) – Williams’s last bit of NBA news was when he was traded by the Spurs to the Bobcats at the 2007 trade deadline for Melvin Ely. The Bobcats kept Williams around for a while, but then waived him for Alan Anderson. Williams is presumably retired, but his extremely common name makes this hard to verify.
– 15th pick: Brent Barry(Denver) – Barry signed a two-year deal with the Rockets this past summer, one that they are possibly wishing they also gave to Von Wafer. The second year was only conditionally guaranteed, but Barry played in enough games to guarantee it, and as such he’s now sure to be back with the Rockets for next year. However, he’s also a possible candidate for a salary dump at some point – unless Ron Artest walks for nothing, the Rockets will be rubbing their junk against the tax threshold (as per usual), and they’ve historically been keen to avoid that. Salary dumping Brian Cook would be better, obviously, but Jesus is dead, so we’re out of miracle workers.
– 16th pick: Alan Henderson(Atlanta) – After being salary dumped onto the Jazz by the Sixers at the 2007 deadline, Henderson was instantly cut by the Jazz, waited the prerequisite 30 days, then rejoined the Sixers for a meaningless last few games. It was reported that Henderson would re-sign with the Sixers for the 2007/08 season, but he didn’t. Nor did he ever sign anywhere again, ever. Henderson maintained throughout his NBA career that he’d like to go onto medical school once it finished, but he changed his mind when the time came, deciding that it was too late. He now lives in Florida, and now studies business at Indiana University through an online program.
– 17th pick: Bob Sura(Cleveland) – Straight baller Sura spent two years on the Rockets’ injured list, with chronic back and knee problems, before they finally cut him in 2007 training camp. He never publicly announced any retirement, but then again, he never needed to. Sura now owns a Saturn car dealership, but it’s not going well, and he recently sued General Motors. Maybe he could go to work for Ed O’Bannon.
– 18th pick: Theo Ratliff(Detroit) – Ratliff had a pretty damn good career for an 18th pick, and showed signs of a second wind in the 2007/08 season. However, he didn’t do much last season, and the Sixers have already explicitly stated that they wont be bringing him back next year. So this might be it for Theo, unless he can muster a third wind.
– 19th pick: Randolph Childress(Detroit) – Childress’s NBA career was a bit of a journey, totalling 51 games, 124 points, 33% shooting and three shoulder dislocations. He was waived in training camp 1997 after only two seasons in the league, and went to play in Turkey. After two high scoring years there, he signed in France for the 1999/00 season, but got injured early and didn’t play much. He spent the following season in Italy, Australia, and Switzerland of all places, before spending the next two seasons in Italy. Childress spent the 2003/04 season in France, then came back to Italy, and he has been there ever since. Last season, he played for Varese in the second division, and averaged 12.0 points and 4.8 assists per game.
– 20th pick: Jason Caffey(Chicago) – Caffey was bought out of his oversized contract by the Bucks in October 2003, and he hasn’t played anywhere since. And it’s allllllll gone wrong for him. Caffey served an eight-day jail term in September 2007 for unpaid child support payments (he has fathered 10 kids by eight different women), and a further arrest warrant was issued for the same offence in January 2009. (In the 2007 arrest, he owed $75,000 for one child and $100,000 for another. He also apparently has no relationship with the children outside of the money he sends them.) Caffey filed for bankruptcy in October 2008, claiming he owed $1.9 million but had only $1.1 million in assets, but the filing was dismissed. This video, featuring a woman with an annoying voice, shamelessly piles onto Caffey.
– 21st pick: Michael Finley(Phoenix) – Finley is still going, even if he does do a bit less every year. Fun Michael Finley fact: in true Mookie Blaylock fashion, Michael Finley has an Italian pop-punk band named after him. No, really, he does. And here they are, duetting with a girl called Belinda on a ballad:
(Seems they’re not exclusively pop-punk.)
– 22nd pick: George Zidek(Charlotte Hornets) – Zidek’s NBA career last for three years and 135 games, shooting 41% over that time, a bit low for a seven-footer. He then went back to Europe, playing two years in Lithuania, one in Spain, one in Germany, one in Poland, and then two back in his native Czech Republic, before retiring in 2005.
– 23rd pick: Travis Best(Indiana) – Best flumped out of the NBA in 2005 after an unspectacular season with the Nets, backing up Jason Kidd’s backup, Jacque Vaughn. After that, Best signed with UNICS Kazan in Russia for the 2005/06 season, before moving to Italy for the 2006/07 season, signing with VidiVici Bologna (as was). Best had announced that that season would be his last, but it wasn’t, and he spent the 2007/08 season in Poland playing for Prokom Sopot, before spending this past season back in Italy, averaging 8.9 points and 2.8 assists in the Italian league for Air Avellino.
– 24th pick: Loren Meyer(Dallas) – Meyer started 54 games in his first two seasons, split between Dallas and Phoenix (he was sent to Phoenix as a part of the Jason Kidd trade in late 1996). He then missed the whole 1997/98 season with a herniated disc in his back. There followed a brief comeback when the Nuggets signed him for the strike shortened 1998/99 season – highlighted by Meyer body-slamming Cedric Ceballos and breaking Ceballos’ wrist – but Meyer played in only 14 games that season. (Danny Manning had flagrantly fouled Ceballos the previous season, breaking his other wrist and ending that season early too. Maybe Cedric had a potty mouth.) Meyer then missed the whole 1999/00 campaign due to a “family issue”, before returning to play for the Chester Jets in mighty mighty England for the 2000/01 season. He beasted, averaging roughly 24/10/2/2, but that’s perhaps more of a reflection on English basketball than it is of Loren Meyer. Meyer had one more brief flirtation with the NBA when he spent a week at the Heat’s 2001 training camp, and later retired after a short stint in Venezuela in March 2002. Since retirement, Meyer has gone back to his tiny home town of Ruthven, Iowa, where supposedly he has bought thousands of acres of land in the area, which he’ll now either presumably farm on or rent out for nuclear testing. Fun Loren Meyer fact: while in college, Meyer and his friend went out and got drunk one night. Driving home while still trolleyed, his friend drove onto some train tracks as a train approached. Meyer broke his collarbone in the accident.
– 25th pick: David Vaughn(Orlando) – Vaughn played in 68 games in two years with the Magic, grabbing more rebounds than points scored, before playing for three teams in the 97/98 season. He was traded by the Magic in training camp, along with Brian Shaw, to the Warriors in exchange for Mark Price, and the Warriors later packaged him with two second-round picks to the Bulls in exchange for Jason Caffey. The Bulls waived Vaughn fairly quickly, and Vaughn saw out the season on a couple of ten-day contracts from the Nets. The following season, Vaughn got two more ten-day contracts from the Nets, who seemingly liked what they saw, but only enough to keep him for three weeks. Vaughn then spent the rest of that year in Greece, with a team I’ve never heard of called Near East, and spent the 99/00 season there as well. He was set to play there in 2000/01, too, but he failed the mandatory preseason drug test and was suspended for 45 days. (The team kept him on anyway, and Vaughn averaged a double-double.) That was the last consistent playing time that Vaughn ever got. The 2001/02 season was disjointed, featuring a month in Italy, an unsuccessful try-out in Poland, and another unsuccessful try-out in the Philippines. Then came a four game stint the following season in Greece, and later a try-out in Syria in late 2003. And that was it.
– 26th pick: Sherell Ford(Seattle) – Ford played only one season in the NBA, scoring 90 points in 28 games, and then he began a world tour. Here come all the leagues he’s played in during the last 14 years, in the order that he’s played in them: Sonics, CBA, Cavaliers (training camp), CBA, CBA, Philippines, CBA, Venezuela, Nets (training camp), Greece, Saudi Arabia, Bulls (summer league), Russia, Italy, Lebanon, Poland, Lebanon, Venezuela, Lebanon, Israel, Qatar, France, Germany, Argentina, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Argentina, Turkey, Chile, ABA, Argentina, Argentina, Mexico, Argentina, PBL, Argentina. Remember all that, because there will be a test later.
– 27th pick: Mario Bennett(Phoenix) – Bennet missed almost all of his rookie season, returning for the last 19 games only, and then was waived in 1996 training camp. He spent the next season in the CBA, and then made an NBA comeback the following year with the Lakers, playing 45 games. He was picked up by the Bulls to start the 1998/99 season, but lasted roughly a fortnight before being waived, and managed only three more minutes in the NBA on a 10-day contract with the Clippers in 2000. From there, he did the rounds, spending the 2000/01 season in the ABA, the 2001/02 season in Spain, and the 2002/03 season split between the ABA and France, with a brief training camp stint with the Hawks coming in the middle of all that. Bennett split the 2003/04 season between Russia and the CBA, before going to summer league with the Bucks that summer…and then he fell out of the mainstream, spending the 2004/05 season in Jordan and Kosovo. Two years in France followed, and since 2007, Bennett has played in Mexico twice, the Uruguay and the Czech Republic. His last stint came last season in Mexico, when he averaged 3.8 points and 6.3 rebounds for Panteras before leaving in December.
– 28th pick: Greg Ostertag(Utah) – Ostertag retired in 2006, and with him disappeared any Greg Ostertag news. If I were to guess, I’d guess that he’s doing a lot of fishing right about now.
– 29th pick: Cory Alexander(San Antonio) – as you will no doubt have noticed, many ex-NBA players bugger to off to Europe once they fall out of the NBA, to leagues like Italy and Spain, to continue their careers there. Many have aspirations of making it back one day, but most don’t. Cory Alexander, though, did things a bit differently. Alexander fell out of the NBA in 2001 after bouncing between Denver, San Antonio and Orlando for a few years, but he didn’t hitch on straight away with the first six-figure European contract that he could get. Instead, he sat out the 2001/02 season, and then went to the D-League for a year, where he starred as a veteran amongst whippersnappers and build himself a new CV. Alexander did sign in Italy with Lottomatica Roma for the 2003/04 season, and performed pretty well for a EuroLeague-calibre team, but the D-League came first for Alexander (and also afterwards; he went back there or the 2004/05 season too). Seemingly, it worked, because Alexander DID get back into the NBA, playing a few games for the expansion Bobcats as Brevin Knight’s mentor (maybe). This Bobcats gig was also Alexander’s last, though, and he now works as a radio announcer for University of Virginia games.
– 30th pick: Lou Roe(Detroit) – Roe is about to turn 37, and scored only 130 points in his NBA career, so it might surprise you to learn that he’s still playing to a high standard of European basketball. (Or it might not, if you’ve been paying attention to everyone else’s stories.) Roe played one season with the Pistons, then one season with the Warriors, before bringing his game to the better continent. Apart from a couple of stops in Italy, some time in the CBA and a random stint in South Korea, Roe has spent most of the last 12 years in Spain, and that’s exactly where he was last season too. Roe played for Bruesa-Guipuzcoa, a team you’ve probably not heard of who came 12th in the ACB with an 11-21 record, and whose roster includes Andy Panko, the former Hawks forward. (There’s two things to know about Andy Panko – one, he’s tied for the all-time shortest NBA career with 1 minute played, and two, he’s one of only nine NCAA Division III players to have played in the NBA. Can never remember the others.) Roe averaged 11.4 points and 5.4 rebounds last year, compared to Panko’s 13.5 points and 6.8 rebounds. It’s all good information, so write it down.
– 31st pick: Dragan Tarlac(Chicago) – The Dragan Tarlac saga was kind of hilarious. Tarlac joined Olympiacos in 1991, and was drafted by the Bulls in 1995 (obviously), yet didn’t leave Olympiacos until 2000. In all that time, we were expected to believe that we were waiting on someone significant. Yet, when Dragan did join for the start of the 2000/01 season…he sucked. Wasn’t an NBA athlete. Couldn’t even average 3/3. After his one season excursion to America died a merciful death, Tarlac played for Real Madrid for two years, and then CSKA Moscow for one, before retiring in 2004. In 2005, he donated office equipment and agricultural machinery to his home town of Riđica, to help support a local drive to build the community through agricultural means. Here is a frankly hilarious picture taken as a ‘celebration’ of Tarlac’s generosity:
You might be able to guess which one is Tarlac.
– 32nd pick: Terrence “Rencher(Washington Bullets) – As is becoming the norm here, Rencher played only one year and 36 games in the NBA before going abroad. His overseas career ran from 1996 to 2007, and included Israel, Germany, Italy, the CBA and Croatia, amongst other places. His last stint came in Greece in the 2006/07 season, when he averaged 12.8 points per game for Apollon. Then he retired, and went back to the University of Texas, where he graduated 12 years after first leaving. He has since taken a position as senior graduate assistant to Rick Majerus at Saint Louis University, but, to be honest with you, I don’t really know what that means.
– 33rd pick: Junior Burrough(Boston) – In keeping with tradition, Burrough played in only one NBA season, appearing in 61 games for the Celtics and not doing a whole lot with them. In keeping with tradition, he swivelled over to Europe to keep the dream alive. In keeping with tradition, he ended up going all over the world. In keeping with tradition, he’s still playing today. And, in keeping with tradition, I’m going to needlessly drag this out by listing everywhere he’s played since being drafted in a context-free order without timestamps; Celtics, Italy, Argentina, Venezuela, Italy, Germany, Japan, Venezuela, Japan, IBL, Bulls (summer league), Japan, Venezuela, Japan, France, CBA, Puerto Rico, Greece, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Puerto Rico, South Korea, ABA, South Korea, South Korea, CBA, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Venezuela. The last of those was a three-game stint for Gaiteros de Zulia back in February, in which Burrough totalled (not averaged) 30 points and 11 rebounds.
– 34th pick: Andrew DeClercq(Golden State) – DeClercq’s last NBA season was in 2004/05, and the Magic showed no interest in him after the season. He wasn’t very productive anyway, and he also had a bad knee. Nonetheless, DeClercq rehabbed the knee for 18 months, and tried a comeback in 2006 preseason, working out for the Bulls, in the summer that saw them try out every big man alive. But no contract came his way, and he gave up trying after that. DeClercq it seems does not do much with his time these days, other than working with kids basketball camps and being a stay at home dad. He also contributed $2,300 to Todd Long’s election campaign, whoever that is. Oh, and true to form, here’s his email address.
– 35th pick: Jimmy King(Toronto) – One of the Fab Five, King played 64 games in two years in the NBA, before hitting the minor leagues. However, outside of three stints in Venezuela and one in Poland, King always stayed in the US, playing for every American minor league that you’ve ever heard of – the USBL, the ABA, the CBA, the D-League, and the IBL. Basically all of them. King retired in 2005 and became a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch, but then left that job to become an athletic director at Highland Park High in Michigan. Here is a picture of the school in question;
Fugly.
– 36th pick: Lawrence Moten(Vancouver) – Moten played three years in the NBA, making him a better man than most of this list. He also spent a lot of time in the CBA and Latin America, as well Spain and the USBL and other such places. His last gig came in 2005 for the ABA’s now deaded (“oh no!!”) Maryland Nighthawks franchise, a team more famous for putting together the world’s tallest-ever team as a publicity stunt one day. This stunt also marked the only time that the 7’7 Gheorghe Muresan wasn’t the tallest player on a team, as 7’9 Sun Ming Ming was also playing. (I wonder who played point guard. Hopefully it was Ivan Chiriaev. We need him.) Moten later coached the Nighthawks, who have moved from the ABA to the PBL, but it doesn’t look like he’s there now.
– 37th pick: Frankie King(L.A. Lakers) – King played 13 NBA games in two years with the Lakers and Sixers before doing the usual European rounds. His stay in Europe was highlighted (or lowlighted, depending on how this works) by a stay in Germany in the 1999/00 season, when he choked future Laker Mike Penberthy during a game and was later kicked off the team for multiple unexplained absences from practice. Frankie’s last stint came in Cyprus in the 2006/07 season.
– 38th pick: Rashard Griffith(Milwaukee) – Griffith never joined the NBA, but his rights did get traded from Milwaukee to Orlando seven years after he was drafted, in exchange for the rights to Jamal Sampson. Never understood that one, really. Griffith is still playing, having just completed his second season in the basketball powerhouse known as Romania, where he averaged 9.8 points, 6.1 rebounds and 3.1 fouls per game last year.
– 39th pick: Donny Marshall(Cleveland) – Marshall was in and out of the NBA for many years, specifically with the Cavaliers, the Bucks, and then intermittently with the Nets from 2001 to 2003. He now continues a fine history of biased Celtics broadcasting as an analyst for Comcast Sportsnet.
– 40th pick: Dwayne Whitfield(Golden State) – Whitfield was traded to Toronto as filler material in the B.J. Armstrong trade, but Toronto kept him for all of about two months before cutting him. They re-signed him late in the season, and Whitfield played eight games with the team, but that was the sum total of his NBA career – the Bulls signed him for 1997 training camp, but he didn’t make the team. Whitfield played a string of lower-brow follow-up gigs over the years, culminating in a stay in Peru in 2002, and hasn’t been heard of since.
– 41st pick: Erik Meek(Houston) – Continuing the fine tradition of endless NBA success for former Duke players, Meek never played in the NBA. His European tour ended after an unsuccessful tryout in Italy in 2002, and so did his career.
– 42nd pick: Donnie Boyce(Atlanta) – Outside of three months in France and seven games in Argentina, Boyce stayed in America his entire career. He played eight games in his rookie season before breaking his leg, and then managed 22 games the following year. After that came some stints in the CBA and USBL, as well as a two-year stretch with the Globetrotters. Boyce’s last team was the Albany Patroons of the CBA in December 2005, for whom he didn’t score a point, and is now an assistant coach for the Reno Bighorns. Donnie Boyce fact: Donnie Boyce was once arrested for allegedly taking part in a drug deal. That’s all I’ve got.
– 43rd pick: Eric Snow(Milwaukee) – There’s always one second-rounder who goes on to have a much more successful NBA career than many of the players taken ahead of him, and in 1995, that someone was Eric Snow. Up until only a couple of months ago, Snow was on an NBA roster, even if he was inactive and incapable of playing. The Cavs claimed a medical retirement exemption thingy on Snow after failing to trade him at the deadline this past season, and Snow is inevitably going to be coaching somewhere very soon.
– 44th pick: Anthony Pelle(Denver) – Pelle never played in the NBA, and there’s a reason for that. He signed in Greece for the 1995-96 season, but quickly suffered a career-threatening injury, after an elevator that he was riding in fell three floors. Pelle battled back, and put ten more years of a career, but he was never NBA-calibre after the accident. His last gig came in November 2005 with a team called the Harlem Strong Dogs, an ABA team that predictably didn’t last.
– 45th pick: Troy Brown(Atlanta) – Brown never played in the NBA. He suffered a leg injury in his first training camp, and never made it out, then proceeded to average 6.4 points per game in the CBA in his first year as a professional, which didn’t bode well. He bounced back somewhat, and grabbed 13 rebounds a game in Germany the following season, but his NBA dream was pretty much over by then. Brown toured the world putting up big rebounding numbers up until 2007, when the ABA team that he’d been with for two seasons – the seminal Rochester RazorSharks [sic] – did the traditional ABA thing and folded.
– 46th pick: George Banks(Miami) – Banks never played in the NBA either, and he world-toured it up just like almost everyone else on this list did. He just completed his third straight season in the powerhouse Hungarian league, where he averaged a league-leading 22.4 points along with 7.2 rebounds for the incalcitrant Polaroid Lami-Ved Kormend, an otherwise-mediocre Hungarian team that went 9-17 this season. Speaking of the Hungarian league, a team called Enternet Hegyvidek went 0-26 this past season. Their leading scorer was former Albany Patroons bench player, Antione Johnson. If there’s a single person in the world that is interested in that, then you, sir, might want to snort some battery acid.
– 47th pick: Tyus Edney(Sacramento) – Edney averaged 11/6 in his rookie year, and was off to a fine start. He was in the NBA from 1995 through until 1998, but then he fell out of it. Not to be denied, though, he went and signed with Zalgiris in Lithuania, and was the starting point guard on the team that won the EuroLeague. And that’s a pretty good CV boost. Following that, he signed with Benetton Treviso for a year and won the Italian Cup, and these achievements were good enough to get him back into the NBA in 2000/01 with the Indiana Pacers. The rebirth lasted only one season, though. Soon, Edney was back in Europe, staying with Benetton for three more years, starring the whole way through, and then signing a three-year contract with Lottomatica Roma. He left after one year, signed with Olympiacos, left after one year, signed with Climamio Bologna for two years, left after one year, signed with Azovmash in the Ukraine, left after one year, and then split last year between Italy, Spain and Poland, where he finished the season averaging 12.4 points and 4.3 assists for Turow. Unlike most other players on this who went to Europe and journeymanned it up, Tyus Edney’s been over there starring. But the next fella hasn’t.
– 48th pick: Mark Davis(Minnesota) – it’s very difficult to find out much information about this guy without being overrun by pictures of penises, so I advise you not to search for the words “Mark Davis” unless you’ve made certain lifestyle choices that the Church of England would frown upon. But what I can tell you is that Davis last played in the 2007/08 season with the joyously-named Science City Jena in Germany, for whom he averaged 12/7. And before that he played for Dongbu Promy in South Korea. Some blistering team names there.
Nearly there now.
– 49th pick: Jerome Allen(Minnesota) – Allen’s NBA career consisted of two seasons, three teams, 117 games, 326 points and 35% shooting. Then came a world tour, one which focused on Italy. Allen spent two years with Napoli, and has spent fractions of the last four seasons with Snaidero Udine, who were also his most recent team. Allen averaged 8.7 points, 4.7 rebounds and 4.2 assists for them last season, while shooting an uncharacteristic 24% from three point range. Now aged 36, does Allen have another season left in him? I don’t know. But I do know that despite the presence of Allen, as well as Serie A’s leading scorer in Rashad Anderson, Snaidero still managed to come last with a 6-24 record.
– 50th pick: Martyn Lewis(Golden State) – The former BBC newsreader didn’t have much of a professional basketball career. Lewis played in 25 games over two seasons with the Raptors, but then has only IBA, CBA, USBL and IBL appearances to his name, with a brief 11 ppg stint in the early days of the D-League thrown in. Lewis’ last contract came in 2002 in the USBL with the mighty Kansas Cagerz.
– 51st pick: Dejan Bodiroga(Sacramento) – These days, it’s common practice for all potentially useful European players to be drafted in the NBA, lest they decide to come over one day. But in the 90’s, it wasn’t. Despite his low draft position, Bodiroga was arguably the best player in Europe for a decade; first with Real Madrid, then with Panathinaikos, before moving onto Barcelona and Lottomatica Roma, Bodiroga won basically everything there was to win in the only countries that mattered, superstarring it up the whole way through. Aware of all this, the Kings spent a few years trying to get a first-round pick in exchange for his draft rights. But they never did, and they never signed him themselves, so when Bodiroga retired on this very day two years ago, he did so without ever joining the NBA. And that’s a bit of a shame. Bodiroga is now the General Manager for his last team, Lottomatica Roma.
– 52th pick: Fred Hoiberg(Indiana) – Hoiberg retired in 2006 after an abortive attempt to come back from a serious heart problem, and he took a job as an assistant general manager in Minnesota’s confusingly-structured front office. Over the years, I have ummed and arghed as to whether Hoiberg, Rick Brunson or Marcus Fizer was my favourite player ever, but as time has gone on, the answer to that question has become deafeningly obvious. There’s only one of those three that I need to see play again, and it’s Hoiberg. Bad times. Might go and fire up some of the old Bulls 2002/03 VHS now.
– 53rd pick: Constantin Popa(L.A. Clippers) – Popa never played in the NBA. He spent the 1995/96 season split between Pau Orthez in France and the Florida Beachdogs of the CBA, before he went off to Israel, a country he would never leave. Popa played four years for Maccabi Tel Aviv, one for Hapoel Jerusalem and one for Maccabi Lev Hasharon before retiring in 2001.
– 54th pick: Eurelijius Zukauskas(Seattle) – Zukauskas is another one that never played in the NBA, although his draft rights survive as a trade technicality to this day. He never made it over to America seemingly because he was having too much fun and success beasting in Lithuania, first in Lithuania and then in Russia, with one year in Greece thrown in for good measure. Included in his list of achievements is a EuroLeague title in 1999 with Zalgiris, and a European Championships title in 2003. He retired last month.
– 55th pick: Michael McDonald(Golden State) – McDonald is now 40 years old, because he wasn’t drafted until he was 26 for some reason. His NBA career last one game and four minutes, played with the Charlotte Hornets on a ten-day contract in January 1998; he had previously spent time with the Raptors, after having been included in the aforementioned B.J. Armstrong trade from Golden State, but he never played for either team. McDonald’s career also saw him make stops in the CBA, France, Japan, Greece, the IBL, Venezuela, Turkey, Russia and Croatia, before it culminated with a three-year run in Cyprus between 2004 and 2006. McDonald used to run a charity basketball game in his hometown of Longview, Texas, but the last instance of it that I can find was in 2007.
– 56th pick: Chris Carr(Phoenix) – Carr retired aged 29 after failing to make the Cavaliers roster out of training camp. He did so so that he could set up his own academy, found at 43hoops.com. And here’s a YouTube video about it all.
– 57th pick: Cuonzo Martin(Atlanta) – Martin played seven games over two seasons with the Vancouver Grizzlies and the Bucks, before briefly playing in the minor leagues. He retired in 2000 to become an assistant coach at Purdue, and held that job for eight years, before leaving last summer to become the head coach at Missouri State University. He went 11-20 in his first year in charge.
And finally…..
– 58th pick: Don Reid(Detroit) – Reid managed the rare and special achievement of never playing outside of the NBA once he was drafted. He spent his first four years with the Pistons, was traded to Washington partway through his fifth season, then spent two years with Orlando, before one final season with the Pistons in 2002/03. Reid didn’t play again after that, although the Pistons almost re-signed him in February 2005 when their pursuit of Dale Davis came to nothing. The last we heard of Don Reid was a report last September that said he was working out again in the hopes of getting a training camp contract, but, inevitably, he didn’t. Ask Denver, Don. They’ll sign anyone.
If you’re hardcore, you’ll probably remember the name of that random second-round draft pick your team made back in 1999. And if you’re really hardcore, you might even care about him enough to spend 30 seconds reading up on where he is and what he does now.
Well, I’m here to oblige you with that. Starting as of, like, now, we will trace back drafts and draftees, from as far back as I can be bothered to go (which early estimates predict will be about 1994), to the most recent 2008 draft. Potentially, we might stumble across something interesting.
—–
– 1st pick: Glenn Robinson(Milwaukee) – Robinson signed two contracts in his life; the 10-year, $80 million one he signed after being drafted (one that catalysed the inception of the rookie scale the following season), and a prorated minimum salary contract with the Spurs the season after the first contract ended. With the Spurs, he coat-tailed his way to a championship ring. And then he disappeared. Last month, Mike Hutton of the Post-Tribune (a newspaper that apparently couldn’t decide what to call itself) wrote a piece that tried to track down the absent Robinson and find out what he does now. The answer appears to be…..not a lot. The comments on this follow-up post seem to confirm that.
– 2nd pick: Jason Kidd(Dallas) – Still going, and now back with the team that drafted him. Kidd is going to be a free agent this summer, and even though he’s declined a lot in the last two years, he’s still got something to give to a competitor.
– 3rd pick: Grant Hill(Detroit) – Also still going, and also a free agent this summer. Hill has said in the past that, if he was traded away from Phoenix, he’d retire. If he stands by that Phoenix-or-bust belief, then he’ll probably retire this summer, because it’s about time Phoenix had a rethink and youngened up a bit. And that would mean no more Hill.
– 4th pick: Donyell Marshall(Minnesota) – Also also still going, and also also a free agent this summer. Largely a catch-and-shoot offensive player now, with some occasional rebounding. Maybe he has one more season left in him, on someone’s deep bench.
– 5th pick: Juwan Howard(Washington Bullets) – Howard is kind of done, and has been for a while, but he got a career stay of execution when Larry Brown was hired by Charlotte, giving Juwan not only one more contract but also something resembling a spot in a rotation. However, Howard rebounds about as well as Mark Pope these days, and perhaps should call time on his career now.
– 6th pick: Sharone Wright(Philadelphia) – As I briefly alluded to this last summer, Wright is in Holland. He’s retired now, and serving as an assistant coach on an Eiffel Towers Den Bosch team that just won the Dutch Cup. Their starting point guard is former Warriors backup, Dean Oliver. You needed to know that.
– 7th pick: Lamond Murray(L.A. Clippers) – Murray just can’t stop. His last playing time in the NBA came in the 2005/06 season with the Nets, where he played rather badly for a season and showed his age. He then signed with the Clippers for 2006 training camp, but didn’t make the team, and that was the end of Lamond Murray’s NBA career. But it was not the end of his entire professional career. Murray sat out the rest of that season before signing in the IBL (a league that is run during other league’s offseasons). He then joined the Nuggets for their 2007 summer league team – as Denver are to always give a chance to basically anybody – and then signed in China to begin the 2007/08 season. He left in midseason, went to the ABA, left again, and went back to China, where he averaged roughly 14/7. Then, in the offseason of 2008, he again went back to the IBL, where he averaged as-near-as-is 27 points and 12 rebounds, in a low-calibre league with some slightly funky rules. This past season, he signed in China again, but left without playing a game, and then a couple of months ago he agreed to sign in Venezuela with a team called Trotamundos. However, he never reported to the team, claiming that he couldn’t find his passport, and the contract agreement was cancelled. Last month, Murray signed back in the IBL for the third time, signing with the seminal Los Angeles Lightning, where he is currently averaging 25/6.
You weren’t expecting that, I’m guessing. But here’s the best part – the Lightning’s line-up is freaking stacked. In an otherwise weaker league, the Lightning have managed to boast a line-up full of ex-NBA players, featuring Murray, current Clippers assistant and minor league veteran Fred Vinson, journeyman big man Jamal Sampson, the artist formerly known as Bryon Russell, ex-Suns guard Toby Bailey and former Rockets guard Juaquin Hawkins, who is with his first team since suffering a stroke last year. Did you see all that coming? No, me neither. In fact, apart from Murray, I didn’t know about all those players being there when I started writing this. Good times, maybe. And for some bad times.
– 8th pick: Brian Grant(Sacramento) – As reported the other day, Brian Grant is retired but has been diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s. Bad times.
– 9th pick: Eric Montross(Boston) – Montross was waived by the Raptors in early 2004, after having unofficially retired the previous summer due to relentless injuries. He hadn’t played since 2002. He is now the colour announcer for North Carolina Tar Heels games, but strangely he has also managed to get immersed in some political scandal that I don’t really understand. Didn’t see that coming, either.
– 10th pick: Eddie Jones(L.A. Lakers) – Jones was included as salary filler in the trade last season that saw Shawne Williams sent to the Mavericks, whereafter the Pacers bought Jones out. He presumably did this in expectation of catching on with someone else later in the season. But he then didn’t.
– 11th pick: Carlos Rogers(Seattle) – Rogers’s last NBA stint came in 2001/02 with the Indiana Pacers. I seem to recall that he left the team without giving a reason, and was waived, although I can’t find proof of that. He then did not play for six years, as best I can tell, until he signed in Columbia last October with a team called Canoneros Norte De Cucuta. He left in February 2009. Outside of basketball, Carlos was on a show last March called Oprah’s Big Give, in which he donated $1,000 in cash to help build a playground for an elementary school in Houston. That was nice of him.
Also, here’s a Carlos Rogers fact that you probably already knew: before he was drafted, Carlos Rogers’ sister got very ill and needed a kidney transplant. Carlos offered one of his, acutely aware of what it would do to his NBA career. His sister told him to keep it, and got a cadaver kidney from elsewhere. But it soon failed, so Carlos immediately retired so that he could donate one of his to keep her alive. However, she died before it could be done, and Carlos resumed his career, managing a few more years in the NBA before going on the above journey. Bad times.
– 12th pick: Khalid Reeves(Miami) – Reeves’ last NBA contract was a ten-dayer with the Bulls in their bleak 1999-2000 season. After that, he went to the IBL, then the ABA, the USBL, the Lebanon, and then Venezuela, before ending his career in Costa Rica in 2007. No idea of what he’s done since then.
– 13th pick: Jalen Rose(Denver) – Rose retired after the 2007 season, which he spent with the Suns in a small role. He is now a pundit for ESPN.
– 14th pick: Yinka Dare(New Jersey) – Dare died of a heart attack in January 2004, aged 32.
– 15th pick: Eric Piatkowski(Indiana) – Pike spent his last two years playing for the Suns on a minimum salary contract, but that ran out in summer 2008, and another one was not forthcoming. He didn’t play at all last year, wanting the phone to ring, but it didn’t. It’s not all bad, though, as he was recently inducted into the Rapid City Sports Hall Of Fame. Wherever that is.
– 16th pick: Clifford Rozier(Golden State) – Rozier’s professional career was like his life – pretty sketchy. He fell out of the NBA in November 1997 when he was waived by the Timberwolves, and he didn’t play anywhere again until a short stint in the USBL in 1999. He had a try-out in Poland to begin the 1999 season, but left to come back to the States, signing in the CBA. Then he went back to the USBL for two games. Somewhere in there came a brief stint with the Harlem Globetrotters. And that’s it, basketball wise at least.
In his real life, Rozier had a far worse time of it. On several occasions, his then-wife (now his ex-wife) had him sent to psychiatric hospitals, staunch in her belief that Rozier had a chemical imbalance in his brain that brought about depressive episodes, disappearances for days at a time, and a personality disorder that saw him sometimes fail to recognise his friends and family. That imbalance also seemed to bring about a violent streak within him; reportedly, he fought with a coach in his time in Toronto, and also had a fight with Vitaly Potapenko in his short stint with the Timberwolves. Furthermore, in July 1999, he was declared bankrupt, owing money to all manner of creditors, including his agent.
Worst still comes Rozier’s criminal history. I don’t have a whole lot of it to hand, but what I do know is that Rozier was a fugitive in the early part of 2001, wanted for stealing an off-duty police’s officers car as a means of fleeing the scene of an argument with his brother at a gas station. (He was later arrested in May for grand theft auto, presumably for the same incident.) He stayed in jail until his trial date in October, where he entered a plea of not guilty due to incompetence. Seemingly it didn’t reform him, as Rozier was arrested again in October 2002 and charged with category C burglary. Further information about all this is hard to find, but he reappeared in the news in May 2007, this time arrested for cocaine trafficking. Other crimes of Rozier’s include being arrested for assaulting his mother in August 1998 (charges later dropped), and an undated charge of larceny. He may or may not still be getting disability payments from the NBA for his mental problems – he certainly used to be, at least – but even if he is, he seems to have found other ways to supplement his income. Hope he finds peace.
– 17th pick: Aaron McKie(Portland) – After his much-documented and impromptu comeback in 2007/08 as a part of the Pau Gasol sign-and-trade deal, McKie saw out the season with the Grizzlies. However, he never played in a game for them, got inevitably waived, and then rejoined the Sixers as an assistant coach.
– 18th pick: Eric Mobley(Milwaukee) – Mobley’s career was either largely undocumented, or a bit weird. He played only three seasons in the NBA, the last being in 1997, and then he disappeared. The next we heard from him was a two-week stint in Puerto Rico in April 2000. Then he disappeared again. And then, in February 2006, he signed with the Pittsburgh Xplosion for a couple of months, a deliberately misspelt ABA team that Tyrell Biggs seems destined to join one day. Then he disappeared again, and I have absolutely no clue what he’s done for twelve years. Strange. (Eric Mobley was bloody awesome in Total NBA ’96, a slightly weird game that determined how good a guy was at three-point shooting by using his three-point percentage from the previous season. And Mobley had gone 2-2 the previous season, so you can guess how good that made him. You could shoot from half-court all night and hit a solid 85% or so. Good times.)
– 19th pick: Tony Dumas(Dallas) – Dumas fell out of the NBA after an eight-day stint with the Kings in January 1999. After that, he went to Greece, then signed in Italy in 2001, but was released for disciplinary reasons. He later had a try-out in the Lebanon in 2002, but didn’t make the team, and hasn’t been heard from since.
– 20th pick: B.J. Tyler(Philadelphia) – Tyler was waived before the start of the 1996 season. He had played 55 games in his rookie season, rather unremarkably so, yet was taken by the Raptors in the 1995 expansion draft. But he never played a game with the Raptors after suffering nerve damage in his knee, caused by falling asleep with an ice pack on it. A lesson for us all there.
– 21st pick: Dickey Simpkins(Chicago) – Simpkins’s last NBA stint was a three day try-out with the Hawks in November 2001. After that, he spent four games in Greece before seeing out the season in the CBA, where he averaged 21/12. He spent the 2002 offseason in Puerto Rico, averaging 16/11, then went to summer league with the Pacers. Simpkins spent the 2003 season in Russia and the 2004 season in Lithuania, then played one game in the 2004 offseason back in Puerto Rico as injury cover for Anthony Bonner, where he totalled 15/12. He started the 2005 season in the CBA, then moved to Spain to serve as another injury replacement, and then signed with the Alaska Aces in the Philippines. He split the 2006 season between Lebanon and Germany, and then he gave up playing. Simpkins now works as an analyst for ESPNU, and also operates Next Level Performance, a basketball skills development company.
– 22nd pick: Bill Curley(San Antonio) – Curley last played in the NBA in the 2000/01 season with the Warriors. After being waived, he seemingly did not try the European or minor league circuits, and is now the head coach at Thayer Academy.
– 23rd pick: Wesley Person(Phoenix) – Person’s last NBA gig came with the Nuggets in 2005. He is now an assistant women’s coach at Enterprise-Ozark Community College.
– 24th pick: Monty Williams(New York) – Williams was waived by the Magic in December 2003, and signed with Portland as an assistant coach two years later. He’s still there.
– 25th pick: Greg Minor(L.A. Clippers) – Minor retired in 1999 due to a severe hip injury, and was waived by the Celtics the following November. Since then he has gone back to school for a few years, acknowledged that the kids that he denied fathering are actually his after all, and sued some people about some horses.
– 26th pick: Charlie Ward(New York) – As mentioned here, Charlie Ward now coaches at a school. It seems to be a trend here.
– 27th pick: Brooks Thompson(Orlando) – Thompson fell out of the NBA in 1998, and is now the head coach at the University of Texas-San Antonio.
– 28th pick: Deon Thomas(Dallas) – Thomas never signed in the NBA and, until last year, had a fine European career going. He spent last year in Israel with Maccabi Haifa, averaging roughly 12 and 6 and helping them win promotion to the top Israeli league, but wasn’t with the team this year and recently retired. He now coaches JV.
– 29th pick: Antonio Lang(Phoenix) – Lang managed bit-parts of seven NBA seasons, the last of which was a preseason stint with the Kings in 2000, before hitting the ol’ world tour. In order, his following places of employment were; the CBA, the CBA again, Italy, the ABA, the USBL, the Philippines, Japan, the Philippines again, then Japan again. He continued in Japan until 2005, then retired in 2006 due to foot injuries. Lang is now an assistant coach for the Japanese team he spent four seasons with, the Mitsubishi Electric Dolphins. What a great freaking name for a basketball team. What a great freaking name for anything, really.
– 30th pick: Howard Eisley(Minnesota) – Eisley managed a lengthy and well-paid career, if one filled with lots of furniture removal vans. Eisley managed twelve seasons with seventy six different NBA teams, his final stint coming in Denver down the stretch of the 2005/06 season. After being traded to Chicago and instantly waived in the following summer, Eisley hasn’t been heard from again.
EDIT: According to some guy, Eisley is working as a volunteer assistant coach for the New Jersey Nets. I’m slacking in my old age, it appears.
– 31st pick: Rodney Dent(Orlando) – Dent signed with the Magic after being drafted, but didn’t play due to injury. He was then taken by the Grizzlies in their expansion draft, but it meant nothing, because he didn’t play there either. Dent’s only other basketball stint was in Finland in 2000-01 with a team called Forssan, where his teammates included his brother Anthony, who presumably was behind the move. Outside of this, I have no Rodney Dent news.
– 32nd pick: Jim McIlvaine(Washington Bullets) – McIlvaine, presumably still swimming in money, last played in 2000 and is now a colour commentator for Marquette games. Here is his really tall wife, whom he met over the internet after offering her a place to stay when she lost her home in Hurricane Katrina:
(True story, by the way.)
– 33th pick: Derrick Alston(Philadelphia) – Alston played three seasons in the NBA, albeit not very well, before embarking on a career as a minor league journeyman. He’s been a very good one, playing for Efes Pilsen (Turkey), Manresa, Barcelona, Valencia, Real Madrid, Lleida (all Spain), Gravelines (France), Ural Great (Russia), Türk Telekom (Turkey again), the New Zealand Breakers (Australia, strangely), and last year he played for Libertad in Argentina, for whom he averaged 13.6 points and 6.1 rebounds. Some pedigree gigs in there. And he might not be done yet, either.
– 34th pick: Gaylon Nickerson(Atlanta) – Nickerson never played for the Hawks, who drafted him in 1994 but who didn’t sign him until 1995, with Nickerson playing a season in Turkey in between. The Hawks did bring him in for 1995 training camp, but he didn’t make the team and spent the year in the CBA. The following season, Nickerson got another unsuccessful training camp deal, this time with the Kings, followed by two brief look-ins with the Spurs and Bullets, playing a combined four games between the two. He then had two decent years in Spain, a few non-eventful trips abroad to other places, and his last stint came in whatever the UPBL is for a team called the Mansfield Hawks back in 2003. (Who calls their son Gaylon, anyway? That’s just harsh.)
– 35th pick: Michael Smith (the Providence one)(Sacramento) – Smith managed seven fractured seasons in the NBA, the last of which was in 2000-01 with the Wizards, where he averaged 3.8 points and 7.1 rebounds a game. No, I didn’t type those the wrong way around. After that, he played three short stints over three years in Italy, Poland and the CBA respectively, before jacking it in in the early part of 2004. It’s too difficult to find out anything about him since that time because his name is too common, so write in if you have anything.
– 36th pick: Andrei Fetisov(Boston) – Before being drafted, Fetisov played in Spain. After being traded, with only a couple of exceptions, he played solely in his native Russia. At not point did he sign in the NBA, and even though his rights were traded to the Bucks on draft night, they were never used. He last played in 2007.
– 37th pick: Dontonio Wingfield(Seattle) – Wingfield played 114 games in four seasons with Seattle and Portland, shooting under 40% for his career despite being 6’8. After his NBA career dribbled to a stop in late 1997, he had two brief try-outs over the next few months, one in Spain and one in the CBA. However, neither of them amounted to anything, and Wingfield’s professional career ended in 1998 because of a nasty car accident in November of that year. In trying to avoid a deer, Wingfield hit a tree in a crash so severe that it resulted in four broken vertebrae and two broken hips. He nearly died, and even when he was out of danger, doctors wondered if he would walk again. But he pulled eventually through, and spent four months in hospital recovering. (Insult to injury, he was also cited after the accident for failure to control a vehicle.)
His problems didn’t end there, though. In August 1998, just before the crash, Wingfield was arrested and charged with assaulting two police officers after they came to his apartment to resolve a dispute between him and his girlfriend. Wingfield broke one of the officer’s fingers and tore his tendons in the fight. Later on, he showed up for his June court appearance two days late, was re-arrested, and sentenced to a year in jail. (He served six months, still only able to walk with a cane at the time.) Wingfield is now starting again; after getting out of prison, he got a culinary arts degree, and now works as an AAU coach with the Albany Hawks.
– 38th pick: Darrin Hancock(Charlotte Hornets) – Hancock played for four teams in three NBA seasons before embarking on a minor league career that spanned many seasons, featuring multiple stops in both the CBA and the USBL. (There was also a failed drugs test in the Philippines in there somewhere.) Hancock retired in 2005, a fact noted on his bizarrely long Wikipedia page. What did he do to deserve all that? I don’t know, but he’s got at least one highly devoted fan out there, it seems.
– 39th pick: Anthony “Pig” Miller(Golden State) – after playing mere shreds of the first seven years after he was drafted, and never playing in more than 35 games a season, Miller managed a bizarre return to the NBA after a four year gap, playing two games for the Hawks in 2004/05. Before, during and since that time, Miller has played for every team in every country ever (by which I mean, there’s too many of them for me to even begin listing). He’s still going, too, signing in the ABA in December for the Las Vegas Aces, although I have absolutely no idea how long he stayed there for. (It’s impossible to know with the ABA. This is a league where about 40% of the games don’t even get played, and where 50% of franchises don’t complete their inaugural season. Some don’t even make the two month mark. It’s pretty pathetic, really.)
– 40th pick: Jeff Webster(Miami) – Webster’s NBA career consisted of 18 points in 11 games, and his minor league career consisted of only a couple of stops, the last of which was in Japan in 2001. Currently, Webster is – or was – an assistant coach for the Texas Titans, a youth team run by a billionaire.
– 41st pick: William Njoku(Indiana) – Njoku never made it to the NBA, failing to make the team out of training camp in 1995. A lengthy minor league career ended in November 2004, after two games with the fabled and seminal KK Fersped-Rabotnicki Skopje in Macedonia. Njoku retired and is now the athletic director at Atlantic Baptist University. Here’s his email address. (By the way, I had literally never heard of William Njoku before this post. That’s why we do this, I guess.)
– 42nd pick: Gary Collier(Cleveland) – Gary Collier also never made it to the NBA, failing to make the grade in 1994 training camp. Between 1994 and 2003, Collier split his time between Germany and Belgium, before finishing his career in France in February 2004, averaging 9.2 points per game for Paris Basket. He is now the head coach at Arlington Heights High School in Fort Worth.
– 43rd pick: Shawnelle Scott(Portland) – Permanently armed with the name of a girl, Scott played in 105 NBA games over four seasons, the last of which came in 2001/02. The minor league stops in between them are too varied to mention, but his last stop came as a Globetrotter in 2005. I don’t know what his Globetrotting name was.
– 44th pick: Damon Bailey(Indiana) – Bailey was drafted by the Pacers after starring for Indiana University, so that should have been a storybook ending. But he never actually played for the Pacers, spending a whole season on the injured list before being waived. He then toiled in the CBA for three years (which, lest we forget, was the American minor league of the nineties, as there was no D-League then), looking for a way back to the big dance. He found one eventually, signing with the Cavaliers in their very delayed 1998 training camp, but he didn’t make the cut. Bailey later became the head coach at Bedford North Lawrence High School, where he used to play, but he resigned in 2007. He is now a businessman in Bedford, and co-owns whatever this is. Here’s his email address.
– 45th pick: Dwayne Morton(Golden State) – Morton managed a half season in the NBA in 1995, scoring 167 points in 41 games, before plundering his trade overseas. He has played in France, Bulgaria, the Dominican Republic, the ABA, Germany, the CBA, Japan, Israel and England (God bless him). He’s still going, too, and he just completed his fourth straight season in Bulgaria, where he averaged 10.8 points and 6.6 rebounds in the Balkan League. Although 38 years old now, he probably has one more left in him somewhere.
– 46th pick: Voshon Lenard(Milwaukee) – Boasting a better NBA career than the previous 18 people combined, Lenard hasn’t been seen or heard from since his last NBA contract expired in the summer of 2006. He does have the distinction of returning to school even after being drafted, however, and is (along with Charles Claxton below) the last player to have done so.
– 47th pick: Jamie Watson(Utah) – Watson played 102 games in the league over three years, before exploring a few other countries, such as China, Portugal, Lebanon, Cyprus, Columbia, Dominican Republic, Chile, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia….you know, all the usual haunts. His last stop came in Jordan (giggidy), when he averaged 17.8 points per game for Al Riyadi in 2006. He later played for the Jordanian National Team, believing perhaps rightly that his chance of joining USA Basketball had passed.
– 48th pick: JeVon Crudup(Detroit) – Crudup never played in the NBA, forging out a short European career that ended in 2001, after a trial in Poland went south. A brief and scoreless stint to the ABA later, and that was it for Crudup, who then moved into coaching. Crudup began coaching as an assistant coach at Raytown South High School, but was fired in January 2003 for a verbal tirade given to his team after a loss that was covertly filmed and made public. Crudup sued for wrongful dismissal (with his lawyer using the timeless “it wouldn’t have happened to a white person” defence), but the original trial was declared a mistrial in July 2005. The case was tried again, and Crudup won, winning $50,000 in actual damages and $250,000 in punitive damages. I don’t know what happened after that, but he did talk about going back to school one day.
– 49th pick: Kris Bruton(Chicago) – Bruton never played in the NBA, but did play in the CBA, the USBL, Japan, Portugal, the IBA, France, Cyprus, the Dominican Republic and the NBDL (as was). At some point in there, he got a serious thigh injury, stunting his career somewhat. Since 2002, Bruton has been a member of the Harlem Globetrotters, where he goes by the name “Hi-Lite” and just dunks for a living. He’s also opened a restaurant, which is nice.
– 50th pick: Charles Claxton(Phoenix) – Claxton, like Lenard above, returned to school after being drafted, but he didn’t have nearly the NBA career once he came back. He signed with the Cavaliers for 1995 training camp, but didn’t make the team, before Boston signed him the following month, where he played the only three games of his NBA career. Claxton also joined the Jazz for 1996 training camp, but didn’t make the team, and he never threatened the NBA again. After that, he went to Poland, then Lithuania, and then England, where he played his final season in 1999/00 for the Brighton Bears. I have nothing after that.
– 51st pick: Lawrence Funderburke(Sacramento) – Funderburke played all but two games of his NBA career for the Kings, albeit not beginning until he was 27. Those other two games were with the Bulls, and they were also the last team of his professional career.
– 52nd pick: Anthony Goldwire(Phoenix) – For no known reason, Goldwire signed in the Spanish fourth division last season with the newly reformed CB Girona. He didn’t do especially well. The NBA probably won’t come a-calling again.
– 53rd pick: Albert Burditt(Houston) – Guess what country he plays in now? China? Romania? Dutch Antilles? Micronesia? Wales? Nope, none of these; it’s Bolivia. Burditt never played in the NBA after not making the Rockets team out of training camp in 1994, and while he’s been employed ever since then, he’s been all around the houses to do it. Before Bolivia came Mexico, and going back in order from there, we find that he’s also been in Uruguay, Mexico again, Sweden, ABA, Mexico again, Argentina, Mexico again, Spain, Mexico again, Portugal, Mexico again, CBA, Mexico again, Italy, Spain, Puerto Rico, and then the CBA again. Can you sort of tell that he likes spending his summers in Mexico?
– 54th pick: Zeljko Rebraca(Seattle) – When he was waived silently by the Clippers after missing nearly two years with back problems, you probably thought that Zelly was done. I did. But he wasn’t. Not quite. He signed with Pamesa Valencia in Spain in the 2007 offseason, just to give himself a chance to go out on his terms. And not long afterwards, in December 2007, he did. Six not-especially-effective-but-reasonable games later, Rebraca announced his retirement, this time at his discretion rather than it being forced upon him. It’s a better story this way.
Those of you who like fringe NBA players may have enjoyed the series of updates recently about the Chinese Basketball Association. Any league that saw Olumide Oyedeji average nearly 20/20 can peak the interest of any of us. Players like playing in China; the exposure isn’t huge and the money isn’t great, but the CBA has the lure of the teams playing lots of games, with less emphasis on practice, copying the NBA model of basketball not imitated much around the globe. Furthermore, the standard of play was bad, which led to amusingly lopsided statistics that they could put on their CV; for example, Tim Pickett will now always be able to boast that he was a 39.4 ppg scorer at one point in his career. (It appears to be already paying dividends, since he just got a workout with the Memphis Grizzlies. It’s nice to know they’re checking out China. So would I.)
The Chinese league season has ended, as have most leagues, but the Puerto Rican one is just starting. It’s not a coincidence that the BSN (Puerto Rican) league begins in mid-April, which allows them to experience an influx of fringe NBA talent much like the Chinese league did. The standard of domestic players in the BSN is better, so the numbers aren’t as wonky, but it still makes for a great proving ground for players who need a small career boost, or some extra money from a summer job. And, for us keen observers, it’s a great chance to watch bit-part players play big. Here are the numbers of people you may have heard of.
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– Marcus Williams (Quebradillas): Williams (the Nets one) is possibly the best player in Puerto Rico. His scoring is inefficient, due largely to taking as many threes as he does twos and hitting them at only 33%, but he’s passing and rebounding, and even has a triple-double to his name. Williams averages 15.1 points, 9.1 assists and 5.3 rebounds for the best team in the country, playing well for the first time in three years.
– Peter John Ramos (Quebradillas): Former Wizards center Branches is averaging 16.0 points, 10.6 rebounds, 1.6 blocks and 3.2 fouls in 16 games.
– Elias “Larry” Ayuso (Santurce): Ayuso averaged an inefficient 13.2 ppg for the Iowa Energy to start last season, before leaving the team to take up an opportunity in Croatia. However, that never actually happened in the end, and Ayuso ended up unemployed before going back to his native Puerto Rico, back in his homeland and doing what he does best; hoisting up a load of threes. Ayuso averages 21.7 points per game, and little else.
– Josh Davis (Santurce): Davis was also in the D-League as arguably the best player for the Colorado 14ers after Captain Slow went down. Davis averaged 19.1 points and 7.3 rebounds in the D-League, and I hope to God he was looking for another NBA go-around from a team that hasn’t signed him yet. (I hope to all Gods that he gets it, too.) Davis currently averages 16.4 points and 9.6 rebounds in P-Rico.
– Rick Apodaca (Santurce): Former Magic signee Apodaca has been around the houses this year. He signed in Turkey, but didn’t play. Then he signed in China, but he didn’t play. Then he signed in Italy with Carife Ferrara, where he did play, averaging 17.2 points per game in five games, but then he tested positive for marijuana and was waived. And now he’s back in his native Puerto Rico, masquerading as a point guard. Apodaca averages 7.6 points and 3.9 assists per game in nine contests.
– Ricky Sanchez (Santurce): Sanchez, too, is playing in his native country, although it wasn’t without a fight. Sanchez played in the BSN last season for Humacao, but at some point his rights were traded to the Ponce Lions. Sanchez didn’t want to play in Puerto Rico this season, as apparently his agent didn’t want it to get in the way of his NBA aspirations (the man either aims high, or is high), but the BSN wouldn’t let him leave. He tried to sign in Venezuela, but that was denied, and a nasty holdout ensued; Sanchez refused to play for the Lions, so they refused to pay him. Eventually, he ended his holdout and returned to practice, but he never played in a game for Ponce, and they traded him at the end of last month to Santurce, where he has averaged 8.3 points and 3.5 rebounds in 12 games as a specialist three-point shooter.
– Jabari Smith (Bayamon): Smith didn’t play anywhere else this season, for reasons that I’m not aware of. Maybe he was saving himself for this. In any case, Smith is averaging 10.5 points, 8.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 17 games.
– Danilo “J.R.” Pinnock (Arecibo): Pinnock has been around the houses this year, starting in Italy’s Lega Due (which means “league two”), before moving to Argentina a few months ago. He joined his Puerto Rican team only this week, and has totalled 44 points and 13 rebounds in his two games so far. So either he learnt the playbook really fast, or his sheer talent overwhelmed the need for one. You decide.
– Marcus Fizer (Arecibo): Still working his way back from knee surgery, Fizer has averaged 15.7 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.9 fouls in 25.9 minutes of seven contests. The shorter three-point line employed by the BSN has had the expected effect – Fizer has shot 17 of them already. He’s hit five.
– Donta Smith (Carolina): Smith was the sixth man on the Australian championship-winning Melbourne South Dragons team, and he had a 21-point, 10-rebound, 7-assist performance in the title winning game. He averages 11.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.4 assists in 8 BSN games so far.
– Ebi Ere (Carolina): Ere (pronounced air-ARGH, at least in Australia) was also in Oz, and he played for the Melbourne Tigers, the team that lost to Smith’s Melbourne South Dragons. (Basketball is good in Melbourne right now, it seems.) He’s spent many years in Australia, and is one of the best players there. He’s also now one of the best players in Puerto Rico, averaging 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 2.4 assists in 14 games.
– Alejandro Carmona (Carolina): A former Piston for about a week, Carmona is back in his native country, averaging 21.4 points and 8.3 rebounds in 15 games. You’ll notice that those rebounding numbers trump those of most others on this list, a particularly impressive feat when you consider that Bimbo is a 6’5 guard.
– Ruben Wolkowyski (San German): Still plying his trade despite hurtling towards his 36th birthday. R-Wolk averages 16.5 points and 8.1 rebounds per game in 15 contests.
– Dan Langhi (Mayaguez): Langhi played in Puerto Rico last summer, but didn’t play anywhere else this year, so seemingly he likes it there. He averages 14.5 points and 8.5 rebounds in 15 games this season, but is shooting only 35%.
– Ryan Humphrey (Caguas): Humphrey spent much of the year with the Tulsa 66ers in the D-League, giving some consistent employment in a career that’s been very disjointed. He averaged 15.7 points and 7.4 rebounds in 36 games for Tulsa, alongside the slightly fantastic number of 3.3 turnovers in only 28 minutes a night. His Puerto Rican numbers are basically identical: 15.9 points and 7.3 rebounds in 28.8 minutes a game. Fortunately for Big Comfy, I don’t have his Puerto Rican turnover numbers.
– Matt Freije (Caguas): Freije averages 19.7 points, 6.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.5 blocks per game in 15 games, numbers almost identical to his Chinese league numbers from earlier this season (19.6/7.9/0.2/1.2 in 26).
– A.D. Vassallo (Caguas): Virginia Tech’s Vassallo did a Calathes, and chose not to wait and see if he was going to be drafted before getting his first pay checks in. (Being a native of Puerto Rico also helps.) His professional career is off to a fine start, as he averages 20.8 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists.
– SirValiant Brown (Ponce): If you remember SirValiant Brown (and you may well do, because names like that tend to stick with you), then you might be interested in his 2008/09 season, which has read as follows: Two games in Iceland with 49 total points, eight games in Canada with 62 total points, and two games in Puerto Rico…..with three total points. But still, they come in only three minutes, so that’s not bad going.
– Lee Nailon (Ponce): Nailon’s NBA career died a while ago, and since then, he’s been on the Dion Glover tour of middle and South America, with liberal dashings of Asia where he can get it. Since July, Nailon has played in Venezuela, Iran, Lebanon and now Puerto Rico, where he averages 21.6 points and 7.9 rebounds in 14 games. By the way, he hasn’t hit a three yet and he still doesn’t much pass.
– Darian Townes (Ponce): A Kings summer leaguer last year, Townes started the year in Poland, left before Christmas, and then came off the bench for the Erie BayHawks for the rest of the year. In four games for the unfortunately named Ponce Lions, Townes averages 13.5 points, 11.8 rebounds and 1.0 blocks.
– Nigel Dixon (Ponce): As with so many others on this list, Dixon played part of the year in China, averaging 26.3 points and 9.8 rebounds in 33 mpg for Zhejiang Lions. (Apparently he only plays for teams with Lions in the name.) Dixon’s sheer unrelenting size made scoring easy enough, and he shot 69% from the field, with the only successful strategy against him was to foul him and send him to line. (That worked; Dixon went only 91-204 from the line, which is Ben Wallace-like.) Dixon isn’t having as much success in Puerto Rico, averaging only 7.4 points, but he does averages 9.7 rebounds in 17.3 minutes, which is also Ben Wallace-like.
– DerMarr Johnson (Humacao): Johnson spent part of the year in the D-League with the Austin Toros, not playing much, and only signed in Puerto Rico this week. He has totalled 47 points and 13 rebounds in two games.
– Antonio Meeking (Humacao): Meeking was a D-League All-Star this year, scoring big points on inefficient shooting. He is doing much the same with Humourcow, averaging 14.2 points and 6.8 rebounds in five games, with 71 points coming on 63 shots.
– Kurt Looby (Humacao): The former Iowa centre exploded onto the scene in the D-League this year. He played little in college, but he was thrust into a starting role with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, and responded with fine big man numbers: 8.6 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game in only 24.9 mpg. His offensive numbers were deliberately not listed here so as to look favourable. Looby averages 10.7 points, 11.4 rebounds and 3.2 blocks per game in Puerto Rico, and recently worked out for the Grizzlies.
– David Monds (Humacao): The former Oklahoma State big man averaged a double-double for the Albuquerque Thunderbirds this year, if you round the rebounds up a bit, but averages only 11.6 points and 7.6 rebounds through seven games in the Reeko.
– Jumaine Jones (Guaynabo): You may recall that Jones was reportedly suspended for a year after a weird soap opera that saw him sign two contracts at once. I am not sure of how the specifics of that played out, but clearly someone backed down, because Jones ended up playing 35 games for Ural Great Perm in Russia, averaging 7.1 points per game. Currently, he is averaging 14.1 points, 9.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists for Guaynabo.
– Lee Benson (Guaynabo): Benson is now 35, and never cracked the NBA outside of a couple of summer league spots in his prime. He was in junior college when he was 28, which probably didn’t help. However, this minor league journeyman showed up all other minor league journeyman in China this year, averaging a staggering 34.1 points and 18.8 rebounds in 48 games for Shaanxi. He’s continued that in Puerto Rico, averaging 20.1 points and 14.2 rebounds in nine games. Does anyone out there want to sign Dale Davis, but only pay him the rookie minimum salary? If so, Lee Benson’s your man.
– Gabe Muoneke (Guaynabo): Despite employing both Muoneke and the previous two players, Guaynabo are last in the BSN with a 3-11 record. It’s not Gabe’s fault, as the journeyman scorer averages 20.8 points and 6.2 rebounds in 31 minutes per game; good numbers, albeit not comparable to his 34.6 ppg CBA scoring average.
Back on the 25th February, the “Where Are They Now?” series of post things that make up about 95% of this site’s interesting content included an entry on former Louisville and Miami Heat centre, David Padgett. The entry is quoted as follows:
David Padgett went to training camp with the Miami Heat, signed a contract immediately after it (essentially this meant just signing for training camp really early), didn’t make the team, and was waived. He has not signed elsewhere since, presumably living it up on his $35,000 guarantee.
Sorry, but that was wrong.
Padgett didn’t sign anywhere immediately after being waived by the Heat, but he did sign in Spain in December, with a LEB Gold team called Ciudad de La Laguna Canarias. (Translates roughly as “Canary Lagoons City.”) Padgett averaged 6.2 points and 6.3 rebounds in 23 games on 47% shooting, which isn’t particularly good in the LEB Gold. But he did give this interview, which I have crudely translated for you here.
Former Kansas star and Miami Heat first-round draft pick Wayne Simien retires from professional basketball, as explained in this email (courtesy of Eurobasket):
‘The family and I are un-jet-lagged, unpacked and officially settled. It is great being back’, said Simien, who lives with his wife and two children in Lawrence. ‘We had a fabulous time in Spain and it was a great cultural experience. I had a good season on the court and we made some really great friends.’
‘As far as my basketball future is concerned, I am officially retiring from playing professionally. I still love the game of basketball, can play at a high level and make a great living, however I have more of a passion to pursue other things. That passion being for Christian ministry and youth athletics.
“I will be ministering through the ‘Called To Greatness’ organization (iamctg.org) that I started last year, as well as working with Morningstar Church ministering to the youth and college students.”
Simien had been playing in Spain this past season, for a team called Caceres in the LEB Gold (second division). It wasn’t the greatest standard of basketball in the world, and Caceres only finished 11th with a 15-19 record, but Simien produced, averaging 16.8 points and 8.2 rebounds on 62% shooting in the 15 games that he played.
More importantly, the stay in Spain represented a return to basketball and to full health for Simien, who hadn’t played the previous season, and who only played eight games in 2006-07 due to contracting salmonella. This, sadly, is what many people will mainly remember him for. God knows how you catch it twice, but Simien did, and it’s a legacy he probably doesn’t want.
Simien’s college career was brilliant, but his NBA career was less so. Drafted by the Heat with the 29th pick in the first round of the 2005 draft, Simien had a fairly promising rookie year, averaging 3.4 ppg and 2.0 rpg on 48.3% shooting in limited minutes on a Heat team that won the championship that year. Unfortunately, Simien contracted his first case of salmonella during the NBA finals that year, and was sick for much of the summer. He returned for training camp, and began the season with the team, but then the disease recurred around about Christmas time. The illness, recovery, fatigue and hefty weight loss ended his season, and he played in only eight games in the 2006/07 season.
Worse still, in the 2007 offseason, Simien suffered the indignity of being salary-dumped to the Minnesota Timberwolves as a part of the Mark Blount/Antoine Walker/Ricky Davis trade thing. Minnesota waived him the same week they got him, and Simien didn’t play at all that season. In the summer of 2008, he got a roster spot on the Cleveland Cavaliers summer league team, but couldn’t play due to a hamstring injury. After that, he signed with Caceres…and now we’re back to the start, with Simien retiring to join the church.
He seems happy, though, so good luck to him.
In other retirement news, Bucks draftee and mere technicality Eurelijius Zukauskas retired this week, as did former Denver Nuggets guard Predrag Savovic. But you haven’t heard of them, so they’re not as important.
