Maurice Taylor

Steven Barber and Maurice Taylor - The former Knick team mates, only one of whom you've heard of, started a personal training business together named "Premier Skills and Performance Training LLC," the website for which no longer exists. Taylor is also the CEO of Maurice Taylor Enterprises LLC, which, per his LinkedIn page, seems to involve investments of some sort.

- Maurice Taylor

Maurice Taylor was out of basketball for over two years. He signed with the Sacramento Kings in October 2006, who waived Justin Williams to open up a spot for him, but was waived a couple of months later, replaced by Justin Williams. Between January 2007 and January 2009, Taylor was unsigned, and presumed retired. But then out of nowhere came the news that Taylor had acquired an Italian passport and signed with Armani Jeans Milano, to a deal that was potentially three years long.

It didn't last three years, of course. Taylor averaged 8.5 points and 3.6 rebounds in 16.3 minutes of 17 Serie A games for Milano, but they did not invoke his option for this season, so Taylor moved to China. He played 29 games this year for Shanxi Zhongyu as Stephon Marbury's teammate, and averaged 18.8 points and 7.0 rebounds in 30.3 minutes per game. Unusually, the man who had shot only 5-33 from three point range in 537 NBA games and 13,324 NBA minutes had now become a three point shooter, shooting 43-100 from there in CBA play, including going 10-16 in one game.

When the CBA season ended, with Shanxi missing the playoffs, Taylor returned to Italy to play for Benetton Treviso. As a half of Benetton's bench big men tandem alongside Donatas Bumpyjunas, Taylor has totalled 27 points and 8 rebounds in 83 minutes. With one game to play, Benetton are one game back of Air Avellino for the eighth and final Serie A playoff spot. Unfortunately, Benetton's last game is against Taylor's former team, AJ Milano, who are second in the league, and Air Avellino are matched up against Vanoli Cremona, who are ina three way tie for last. The saving grace for Benetton is that Vanoli have more to play for. If they win, they might play Serie A ball again next season.

- Maurice Taylor: 30.2mpg, 19.0ppg, 6.8rpg, 1.7apg, 3.5fpg, 0.8spg, 0.6bpg, 51% FG, 41% 3PT, 66% FT

As you can tell from the sheer number of them, Shanxi have had a lot of trouble with their imports this year. They tried out about ten in the offseason, eventually settling upon three; Smith, Taylor and Michael Sweetney. The team had wanted to bring back Lee Benson, who was a star for them last year, but they refused to yield to his contract demands. Taylor has been with the team the whole season, but the rest has been a juggling act. Even though he played well, Smith was replaced after seven games by Adeleke, who got injured in his second game and was replaced for a short time by Benson, seemingly having yielded some on his contract demands. Benson was then replaced after five games by Marbury, which you probably already knew. (Sweetney never played a game for them, by the way.)

[E]ven though he's not been rebounding, Maurice Taylor went 10-16 from three point range in Shanxi's last game. That's the same Maurice Taylor as before, the one who hit 5 three pointers in his whole NBA career.