After going undrafted out of Creighton in 2007, Anthony Tolliver played in summer league for the Miami Heat, and was granted the honour of being the 16th overall pick in the 2007 Continental Basketball Association draft. These things eventually parlayed themselves into a training camp contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Tolliver’s contract with Cleveland was a typical ‘summer’ (read as ‘training camp’) contract. It was a fully unguaranteed rookie minimum salary contract, which, in the 2007/08 season, was worth $427,163. Tolliver was one of several camp signings for the Cavaliers that season – alongside Noel Felix, Chet Mason, Hassan Adams, Darius Rice, and a re-signed Dwayne Jones – and was an outside shot to make the roster based purely on the numbers game alone. Concurrent with these moves, Cleveland was embroiled in the long-since-forgotten-about holdouts of Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic. Both restricted free agents out of contract that summer, both unhappy with Cleveland’s best offer, and yet both seemingly unable to get more on the market, the two held out of training camp, waiting for enormous deals that never came. From memory, Pavlovic wanted roughly six years and $40 million, while Varejao wanted $10 million per annum. The two held out all through the free agency period, all through training camp, all through preseason, and into the regular season. It is precisely because of this that Tolliver, as well as Demetris Nichols, made the Cavaliers roster that season. Pavlovic was the first to crack – he agreed to re-sign to a partially guaranteed three-year, $13,696,250 contract that he was waived after only two years of. He signed this contract on October 31st 2007, the second day of the regular season. And when he did so, Tolliver was waived to open up a roster spot. It seemed mostly innocuous that […]
– Chet Mason Former Miami Ohio guard and Cavs signee Chester “Chet” Mason is spending his second season with Siroki Eronet in Bosnia. Most teams from the former Yugoslavia that we cover – Crveza Zvezda, Hemofarm, Cibona Zagreb, etc – are usually in either the EuroCup or the EuroLeague, and also play in the Adriatic League. The Adriatic League is one of the strongest in the world for this reason. Yet Siroki are in none of them, nor are they in the EuroChallenge. It’s pure Bosnian league for them. Mason is averaging 13.5 points, 8.1 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.4 steals per game, and three weeks ago he posted the David Lee-like stat line of 27 points, 18 rebounds, 8 assists and 5 steals. Not bad for 6’5. – Desmond Mason Mason started the year with the Kings. Despite already having Kevin Martin, Francisco Garcia (neither of whom were injured at the time), Tyreke Evans, Donte Greene, Andres Nocioni and Omri Casspi all available to play at the two and/or three spots, the Kings felt they needed another wing option and brought in Mason for training camp. Even though he didn’t really show much in preseason, Mason made the team, and he then bizarrely started five games to begin the year. The experiment quickly ended after Mason put up a 6.2 PER, and Mason was waived. He has remained unsigned since; proposed links to a couple of different ACB teams never came off. – Tony Massenburg Tony Massenburg is 42 years old and has not played since summer 2008, but this does not necessarily mean he is retired. He is Tony Massenburg, after all, the man who signed with the Washington Wizards aged 40 in an unashamed pursuit of the “most NBA teams ever played for” record that […]
– Darrick Martin was waived by the Raptors midway through last season, and chose that moment to retire. Martin then stuck with the team anyway, in a sort of informal consultancy capacity. Maybe he consults with Will Solomon on how to take more shats. Martin recently has a court dedicated to him, news which would have been funnier if they’d named it the Derrick Murray Court instead. (Inside jokes all!) – Torrell Martin started the season with Kepez BLD Antalya in Turkey, averaging 13.0 points and 6.7 rebounds per game, before upping sticks and moving about 20 feet to Greece. In three games for Kavala/Panorama, replacing Billy Thomas, Martin averages 11.0 points and 4.7 rebounds. – Jamal Mashburn now does studio work for NBA Fastbreak, and is quite good at it, too. – Chet Mason started the season in the powerhouse known as the ABA, playing for the Cleveland Rockers. Thankfully, he then stepped it up a notch, and was acquired by The Arsenal. Mason averages 11.3 points, 6.1 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.3 steals per game. – Tony Massenburg is the stuff of dreams. After shocking the world by signing with the Wizards for 2007 training camp, despite having been out of the game for two years and 40 years old by that time, Massenburg didn’t stop there. Perhaps unsurprisingly waived by the Wizards, Massenburg kept up the Tony Massenburg basketball legacy, by signing in Puerto Rico. In three games with Capitanes de Arecibo, Massenburg averaged 14.7 ppg, 9.7 rpg and 1.7 apg. Unfortunately, Massenburg is currently unsigned, and the dream of a thirteenth NBA team might be over again. But give it 18 months and he should get another shot. – Bryant Matthews is out of prison and in Romania, which is probably […]
