Solomon Alabi If you read my draft recap, you’ll know how I feel about the Alabi pick. I’m pretty much all for it, and believe he has a chance to be a good contributor in the NBA. At #50, I think he was a steal. Even with hepatitis. If you haven’t read my draft recap, go do so. But you might want to book a day off work in advance. It’s a bit long. Bobby Brown Brown just completed a two year guaranteed minimum salary contract, initially given to him by the Sacramento Kings. He won that contract because of his play in summer league 2008, where he scored a lot of points in a variety of different ways. The Kings didn’t play Brown much in any regular season games, and later included him in the trade that brought over Shelden Williams from Minnesota, as was their perogative. Minnesota forwarded him on last summer to New Orleans as a throw-in to the Darius Songaila trade, as was their perogative. Once in New Orleans, Bobby started to get regular minutes. Byron Scott played him as the primary backup guard, often ahead of Darren Collison and Marcus Thornton, but it really did not go well. Brown shot the ball every time he touched it, taking 152 field goals in only 328 minutes, and attempting only 8 foul shots. To put it bluntly, he chucked. (Byron Scott was later fired, Collison and Thornton started to play more, and the Hornets’ season was salvaged. These things are alll related.) Brown was traded to the Clippers in a salary dump later in the season, where he did more of the same; 191 minutes, 85 field goals, 7 foul shots. Brown took a three pointer every 5 minutes last year, and didn’t seem to mind that […]
– Marc Salyers After years of being a huge scorer, Marc Salyers has come back to Earth this year. Playing for Le Mans, Salyers is averaging 11.9 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game in the French league, He’s still pretty good, but in relative terms he’s having a down year – his PER is down five points from last year to an average of 15.2, and his EuroCup statistics were an almost identical 12.7/4.5/2.3. Le Mans are tied for the lead in the French league with Cholet, but lost to Cholet in overtime yesterday. Salyers had only eight points in 34 minutes. – Cheikh Samb Samb’s only contract this year was a one-month deal with Real Madrid back in October. He played in only one game and played only two minutes. He went for a tryout in Latvia with VEF Riga in early February, but they couldn’t get him a work visa. Samb remains unsigned. – Jamal Sampson Sampson played in China last year, and was said to join up with the stacked L.A. Lightning IBL team last summer, but never played a game for the team. This season, he joined up with Philippines team Smart Gilas to act as C.J. Giles’s replacement (and not his predecessor as I mistakenly wrote earlier). Statistics are unavailable, but it’s not gone well. Also, in a summer league round-up for the Golden State Warriors back in July, I called him “a pretty terrible offensive player,” citing it as a reason for his offensive struggles in China. Sampson wants it known that the reason he averaged only 10.7 points per game in China was because he was playing injured all year. Correction noted. – Ricky Sanchez Former Nuggets draft pick Sanchez, whose rights are now owned by the Sixers, […]
If it wasn’t for the NBA Draft – that hotbed of prejudice that can see the entire prognosis of the NBA change in six short hours – then the trade deadline would be my favourite time of year. There’s nothing like it; you cancel every event in your social calendar, turn off your phone, ignore real life world events, and mash the refresh key for three straight days, waiting for any trades to come in, even those with the dreaded “conditional second” tag on them. (Well, that’s what I do.) Recent trade deadlines have been disappointing. Last season saw many of the biggest trades (Shaq to Phoenix, the Jason Kidd/Devin Harris swap, Pau Gasol, Mike Bibby) take place in the weeks leading up to the deadline, with only the 11-player Ben Wallace trade of any major significance. And 2007 was a complete washout, with the Primoz Brezec for Juan Dixon swap being the highlight of the entire month. No matter how much I pleaded for Pau Gasol to come to Chicago, it didn’t happen. However, this year, things went down rather well. Six trades were made, involving ten teams, and that’s not even including the trades in the run-up to the deadline. There were some slight anti-climaxes when Phoenix decided not to be insane and kept Amar’e Stoudemire, and Portland’s big plans to land everybody available with a combination of Raef LaFrentz and Travis Outlaw came to nothing. But most teams got involved, and here’s what went down. (Note: list includes trades done in the fortnight prior as well, because I felt like it and didn’t comment on them at the time.) – Boston Trade 1: Traded Sam Cassell and cash to Sacramento for a conditional second-round pick. Trade 2: Traded Patrick O’Bryant to Toronto for another conditional second-round […]
