David Andersen

David Andersen - Andersen's contract with Fenerbahce expired this summer, and he spoke of looking into an NBA comeback. It didn't happen, of course, but he remains unsigned.

Eagle-eyed viewers will have noticed that, for all the prognostication about the need for a stretch big, my plan never actually got one at any point. True enough. Most of the available trade candidates - Matt Bonner, Andrea Bargnani, etc - either aren't easy to get or aren't worth it. (Or both.) Instead, we'll turn back to the free agency lists.

A deliberate omission from the previous list is current Hornets big man, David Andersen. For all of the success he enjoyed in Europe, and the relative expectation that accompanied his overdue arrival in the NBA, Andersen has rather underwhelmed. He's rebounded OK, and defended slightly better than may have been expected for one so long regarded as soft, but he's shot only 44% from the field, and has not yet found his touch offensively. Nevertheless, Andersen is a very skilled face-up 6'11 scorer, who can drive, shoot, play pick-and-roll, pick-and-pop, and create his own shot on the perimeter. And while he's under contract to the Hornets next season for $2,685,185, $2.5 million of it is unguaranteed. He will be cut by the league-owned team, and hence he will be available.

If Andersen thinks another year as a backup in the NBA at the minimum is more desirable than catching on with a Euroleague team that would carry a much bigger role for him, then Chicago could find a use for him.

When San Antonio do it, it's "shrewd." When Memphis do it, it is "cheap," and representative of a moribund franchise that needs contracting. This is the prevailing attitude born out of a desire to disparage the Grizzlies at every juncture, symptomatic of a wider problem of favouritism for certain executives by certain media. For example; Daryl Morey is a vastly superior general manager to David Kahn, but why did the very similar mistake signings of Ryan Hollins and David Andersen, and their subsequent correcting trades, get different levels of press? Because Morey is good and Kahn is bad, thus Morey's mistakes are all minor while Kahn's are all major. There's an element of truth to that logic, yet it is all overblown.