Another Unnecessarily Exhaustive Guide To The NBA Prospects Of The Unsigned NBA Draft Picks, Part One
May 2nd, 2014

If your NBA team drafts a player, and yet never signs him, the chances are that they’ll still own his draft rights. The presence of those draft rights means that that player can sign only with the right-holding NBA team, and not with any others. Such draft rights can also be traded, either to a recipient team who values the player and thus gives something of value for them, or as arbitrary filler obliging the NBA’s rule that all partners in a trade must trade something outbound, however menial. In theory, there exists multiple uses for these draft rights, both as players and trade pieces. In practice, however, they are often of no use whatsoever. They exist as technicalities, for use in trades or for no use at all. Unless you actually want the player concerned, of course. The chances of that being the case are what this post seeks to document. If only it was something we could bet on. In fact, sportsbooks around the nation too watch these developments closely. It impacts the NBA Betting odds for the teams at play, not so much from a game to game perspective but in regards to a team’s chances come playoff time. This is something of an update to the previous such list, now three years old and in need of sprucing up. A quick check of that link will find much more detail about the player’s career to date than this one will contain – such is the needs of the update format. Additionally, a breakdown of the usage of these rights in trades can be found here, a link which also contains a much shorter-handed version of this list). The update of the whereabouts of the players concerned follows this picture of Kevin Garnett. Atlanta Alain Digbeu (50th […]

Posted by at 6:43 PM

2013 Summer League rosters, Orlando Summer Pro League – Boston
July 8th, 2013

Tim Abromaitis Abromaitis began his professional career this season in France, playing for perennial powerhouse ASVEL Villerbanne and averaging 8.1 points and 3.9 rebounds in 20 minutes per game. He shot his usual 41% from three point range, and didn’t make many mistakes, yet nor did he (or does he) do much other than shoot. He doesn’t have Kyle Korver’s ability to get open or shoot off screens, he’s not as tall as Steve Novak, not as athletic as James Jones, and not as lucky as Luke Zeller. Abromaitis could in theory have Pat Garrity’s role in the NBA, but Pat Garrity was considerably better than Abromaitis before becoming the specialist that he did. Courtney Fells Fells continues to plug away in summer league, hoping to catch on, and has built up one of the biggest resumes of anyone here. He’s spent the last two regular seasons in Israel and the last two summers in the Dominican Republic, rarely getting hurt and certainly putting in his work. The off-ball scorer averaged 12.3 points per game for Hapoel Jerusalem this season, and his decision making and shot selection skills continue to show incremental improvements. However, Fells is still not a playmaker, still average to mediocre in the rest of the game other than the jump shot, and, nice as his shot is, it still doesn’t have electric three point range. A shooting specialist can’t always shoot in the 30% range. Fells would potentially have a Von Wafer-like role if his jump shot could make the leap, but it still hasn’t. Jayson Granger Granger’s decision to come to summer league now, after spending his entire career to date in Spain, is interesting. With his contract with Estudiantes this summer, perhaps this is his best chance of making the NBA. Granger continues to […]

Posted by at 5:30 PM