Eric Boateng

Boateng went to summer league with the Knicks, for which I wrote this:

Boateng is an English centre who played one year at Duke, before transferring to Arizona State, where he just completed his senior season. He barely played at all in his first four seasons, but finally got a chance to play last year, and responded with averages of 8.8ppg and 7.2rpg on 66% shooting. However, even though he turns 25 in November, Boateng is still an incredibly raw player. He turned it over 2.1 times per game in only 27 minutes, despite not taking any dribbles at any point, and shot only 50% from the foul line. He's also not much of a shotblocker; essentially, he's a 6'10 slightly above average rebounder.

Despite his nationality, it's not possible even for me to conclude from that skillset that Boateng could be an NBA calibre player. His summer league averages of 3.6 points, 3.2 rebounds and 4.4 fouls per game somewhat confirm that. But if you're American and you're easily pleased by English people (which happens a lot), you might dig his accent.

Eric Boateng

Boateng is an English centre who played one year at Duke, before transferring to Arizona State, where he just completed his senior season. He barely played at all in his first four seasons, but finally got a chance to play last year, and responded with averages of 8.8ppg and 7.2rpg on 66% shooting. However, even though he turns 25 in November, Boateng is still an incredibly raw player. He turned it over 2.1 times per game in only 27 minutes, despite not taking any dribbles at any point, and shot only 50% from the foul line. He's also not much of a shotblocker; essentially, he's a 6'10 slightly above average rebounder.

Boateng will play for the Great Britain national team this summer, but mainly others won't. Joel Freeland and Ben Gordon just dropped out this week due to injury, and earlier, Robert Archibald had also pulled out. Nick George and Andy Betts have also pulled out, leaving the team with almost no quality left on it, and its chances of qualifying for Eurobasket 2011 in tatters.

This is why Luol Deng is so unbelievably freaking important to us. He is now our everything.