Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 2
December 29th, 2009
– Akin Akingbala Akingbala came out of nowhere to be a decent rebounder and defender for Clemson in his senior season, and was a training camp invite of the Celtics in 2006 as a result. After that he went to the D-League for a bit, and has spent the last three years touring Europe. He is currently with Nancy in France (pronounced Noncy, which is even funnier), averaging 11.1 points, 7.4 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game in the French league. Akingbala exclusively does “big man things”, as evidenced by his 47% FT shooting and 2 assists all year. But as athletic interior players go, you could do worse. The King Baller also put up a 9 points, 7 rebounds, 8 blocks stat line earlier this month, which is not bad going. – Cenk Akyol After at least seven years there, Akyol finally left Efes Pilsen in his native Turkey this summer, and moved to Italy to join Air Avellino. He missed six weeks due to injury, and has appeared in only six of 11 Serie A games for the team, but he’s averaging 7.0 points and 2.2 steals in 21 minutes per game. The 17% three-point shooting is not a great start, and nor is the five total assists, but Akyol is still young. He’s only 22. Feels like he shouldn’t be by now. – Chris Alexander D-League veteran and occasional NBA flirt Alexander has ditched both of those on-off girlfriends in favour of going to South Korea. Playing for the LG Sakers, Alexander averages 14.4 points, 9.8 rebounds and 1.2 blocks in 28 minutes per game, shooting 65% from the field and 61% from the foul line. The South Korean league plays a huge, NBA-like amount of games; opening night was on October 17th, and LG […]
The Post-NBA Life of Tyrone Nesby
April 27th, 2009
I love to read when I’m on the toilet. Love it. Can barely go without it, in fact. Unfortunately, I don’t own many books. So I tend to read the same ones over and over again. True to form, I am currently mid-way through a repeat reading of “When Nothing Else Matters” by Michael Leahy, a exposé-type book about Michael Jordan’s comeback with the Wizards. It’s quite good fun, particularly if the Wizards-era Jordan was the only Jordan era that you were around to see, as was the case for me. I’m particularly enjoying reading about all the other characters in the story, like Doug Collins, Tim Grover, Jerry Stackhouse, Rip Hamilton, Tyronn Lue, Chris Whitney, Kwame Brown (who, it’s fair to say, struggles for good news throughout), Juan Dixon, Bobby Simmons, Courtney Alexander and others. But I am especially mindful of one name that I’d forgotten about, that of Tyrone Nesby, the former defensive specialist and hater of passing that had a few years of coming off NBA benches after picking up a surprisingly generous contract from the Clippers of all teams. Because of this, I decided to look up what T-Nes was doing these days. The last I had heard, he’d become a rapper, but that was about two years ago, now, so I looked again. After the Wizards’ 2001/02 season, Nesby’s $9 million contract had run out, and the Wizards looked elsewhere. No other NBA team seemed to want him, and Nesby hit the European trail, signing with Larisa in Greece and averaging 17.8 points per game. He then went to 2003 summer league with the New York Knicks, but didn’t get a full contract, and went back to Europe the following year visiting both Italy (13.4 ppg for Varese) and Serbia (21.1 ppg for Relfex Beograd). […]
Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 1
January 29th, 2008
It’s nearly the new year, so that makes it time to do something that’s nearly interesting. The “Where Are They Now?” series of posts – which last year landed me at least two job offers – are hereby making a spectacular return right here, in exactly the place that I said they wouldn’t be. Good times. As ever, these posts will feature players on this website’s horizon, but not in the NBA. Bring the noise. – In an anti-climactic opening entry, former Mavericks et cetera swingman Tariq Abdul-Wahad is doing exactly the same thing that he was last time we checked in on him – nothing that can be traced. Wikipedia suggests that he isn’t dead, though, so that’s got to be a positive. No news is good news, after all. – Shareef Abdur-Rahim is now a Sacramento Kings assistant coach. His wife has also done something about the flu, while simultaneously rocking the greatest name this side of Cornelius McFadgon. – San Diego State legend Mohammed Abukar’s career has taken a turn for the better, as he was unsigned until about 24 hours ago, when he was picked up by the Austin Toros of the D-League. Quietly, the San Antonio Spurs have managed to stash basically every one of their training camp signings on their D-League affiliate (which they own), as well as their former draft pick Marcus E. Williams. Owning your own affiliate seems to have some merit when the allocation players are handed out. – Kenny Adeleke was playing with Bulgarian powerhouse Lukoil Akademik up until last week, when Lukoil decided to release he, Nenad Canak and Kevin Kruger, their three best players. This is because they got knocked out of the EuroCup (which is what the ULEB Cup is called now; it’s […]
