Mohamed Abukar

Not everyone changes teams in the summer. It seems like they do, but some stay on where they are. Those who have signed extensions with their current clubs include Slovakian scoring machine Radoslav Rancik, who has signed a two year deal with Galatasaray, and ex-San Diego State forward Mohamed Abukar, who signed a two year deal of his own with the Swiss champion Lugano Tigers. Dimitris Diamantidis snuffed out the 1% possibility of him ever joining the NBA as he signed a three year extension with Panathinaikos, and Mengke Bateer has re-signed with Xinjiang, staving off his retirement (and inevitable subsequent move into full-time acting) for at least one more year. Ex-Raptors draft pick Roko Ukic took a buyout from Milwaukee part way through last season to join Turkish team Fenerbahce, and he's just signed for two extra years there. And another Raptors draft pick, Giorgis Printezis, has taken a pay cut in signing a two year extension with Unicaja Malaga. For some reason.

- Mohamed Abukar

Abukar was in the D-League last season with both the Austin Toros and the Idaho Stampede, and after the D-League season ended he went to Switzerland to sign with the Lugano Tigers. While there, he averaged 19.1 points and 5.9 rebounds in the final seven games of the year, and has stayed there this season, averaging 16.2 points (second on the team) and 6.4 rebounds per game (third).

Swiss basketball is pretty poor, which is why we don't often talk about players being there. To give you a yardstick on that, the current leading scorer in Switzerland is a small guard named Kenny Thomas (not THAT Kenny Thomas), who averages 21 points per game for Lausanne. But last year, Thomas was playing for Radford, a Big South Conference team that made it to the first round of the NCAA tournament, only to lose to North Carolina by 43 points. Thomas averaged 14ppg last year on 41% shooting for Radford; he's doing better in Switzerland than he was in the Big South.

Also, the Lugano Tigers employ a ten man rotation that features only one real Swiss player. Four players have Swiss passports, but, as their names might suggest (Derek Stockalper, Dusan Mladjan, Slavisa Pantic), three of them are naturalised. Even the real Swiss homegrown, Luka Vertel, has mixed Croatian heritage. The Tigers roster is made up of five Americans (Abukar; Stockalper, who plays for the Swiss national team on the side; former North Carolina bench player Byron Sanders; former Pacers summer leaguer Scott Vandermeer; D-League veteran Mike Efevberha), one Brazilian (Gustavo Lo Leggio), one Croatian-Slovenian (Martin Mihajlovic), Vertel (part Croatian), Pantic (naturalised Bosnian) and Mladjan (naturalised Serbian, although he's been in Switzerland for the best part of a decade). And that list does not include former Michigan State guard Travis Walton, who went home last week. Switzerland isn't turning out a great amount of homegrown international basketball talent, and the Lugano Tigers definitely aren't.

But, although it was via Italy, Switzerland DID produce Thabo Sefolosha. So it's not all bad.