The following post will features as many Head puns as I can think of, with varying degrees of subtlety. Earlier this month, free agent Indiana Pacers guard Luther Head came to terms with the New Orleans Hornets on a two year contract. A mere couple of days after this news was reported came the news that Head’s job offer was gone; he had failed his physical examination with the team, and that the signing had been called off. Head is now available for everyone. Controversy surrounded the decision. Head’s agent, Mark Bartelstein, slammed the Hornets’s decision. Bartelstein claimed there was ulterior motives behind the veto, and that the Hornets had claimed Head had failed the physical just to get out of the signing, when in actuality they’d just had a re-think. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports took that angle further, calling the decision a “slimy trick”, and loudly calling out Hornets executive Hugh Weber. That said, there’s always controversy when a player fails a physical. In all the time I have been following the NBA, the team trading away the player – or, in Head’s case, the free agent’s agent – have cited some kind of failure of the due diligence on the part of the recipient team as being the only reason for the vetoing of the transaction. On a case-by-case basis, that may be entirely correct; for all I know, the Hornets DID do what Barts and Woj suggest, and veto the deal on flimsy grounds because they’d simply changed their minds. Or maybe the Hornets were genuine about their claims on Head’s health. I don’t know. It’s not my place to know. And I don’t really want to know. But what it did stir within me was a desire to investigate failed physicals over the years, and […]
– Robert Whaley barely played in the D-League last year, averaging 4.0 points and 2.7 rebounds per game for the L.A. D-Fenders, and he has not signed anywhere this season. He also barely played in 2006/07, spending his time between the ABA, the Dominican Republic and Iran. Nevertheless, Whaley still received a full year of NBA salary back in the 2005/06 season, in spite of his relative failings in the professional game. He’s about to turn 27, he’s not yet played to a D-League standard, he’s got a lengthy criminal history, he lied to the police to his name to the Jazz about the cut in his hand, and he’s not even the most famous person with that name. But he made it briefly, and he got paid. – Davin White is signed in Serbia with Swisslion Takovo Lions Vrsac. White averages 4.8 points, 3.3 fouls and 2.0 assists in the Balkan league, but no word on whether his finger nails are still really, really pink. – Jahidi White has not played since an unsuccessful training camp bid with the Cavaliers in 2006. Since then, his only news-making appearance was in a non-speaking role on a sci-fi channel show called Showdown at Area 51. He played an alien. – Rodney White started the year with Maccabi Tel-Aviv, fell out of favour after one game and got waived. Not one to be kept down, R-White signed in China with the Zhejiang Guangsha Lions, and he leads the country in scoring. Considering how easy it is to score in China if you’re American and/or able to jump off the floor, this is no mean feat. White averages 1.1 blocks, 2.4 steals, 5.1 assists, 8.3 rebounds and 36.4 points per game. (See what I did there?) In his last game, […]
