2010 Summer League Rosters: Los Angeles Lakers
July 11th, 2010
Derrick Caracter Caracter stayed out of trouble in his time at UTEP, and began developing into the player that he could always have been. He’s lost weight, shaved his stupid hair cut, and doesn’t have to worry about academic problems any more. Now, barring any petulance relapse, Caracter gets to just be a player. He’s becoming a decent one, too. Devin Ebanks Given time, Ebanks will be able to do a decent if slightly lesser impression of Trevor Ariza during his Lakers days. Ebanks can’t dribble or shoot, but he will run the court and defend whomever you want him to. I have been saying this since about February 2009, so the fact that Ebanks is now a Laker is pretty cool. It gives me the opportunity to say it for another seven years. Gerald Green Last year, Gerald Green played in Russia. Playing for Lokomotiv Kuban, Green averaged 16.3 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game, shooting 44% from the field and 35% from three point range. Unfortunately, there’s no stat for whether he “gets it” yet. Rob Kurz Kurz was a Chicago Bull as of 9 days ago. He never played for them, but got a few grand and great playoff seats for the privilege of spending two months with the greatest team in the world. Kurz is an NBA calibre player with very good rebounding numbers, decent defence and an old-school one handed jump shot, a face-up combo forward with occasional post offence who should be in the NBA somewhere next year. However, I’m not sure it will be with the Lakers. He would be a luxury for them, i.e. a non-rotation player. And they can’t really afford those. Ibrahim Jaaber Jaaber was announced as a member of the Pistons summer league roster last year, but […]
Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 60
April 24th, 2010
A previous post showed a tizzy featuring Charles Gaines and Du Feng in game two of this year’s CBA Finals. What looked initially to be Gaines dropping Feng cold with a swift and well-placed right hand later emerged to be a flop of the highest order; after a lame headbutt on Gaines, Feng then went down to the ground like he’d been knocked clean out, whereas pictures of the incident showed that Gaines actually open-handed Feng in the mandible. It was a shove more than a punch, and a valid retaliation to a headbutt. So far from being an inevitable suspension, Gaines was absconded from blame. And Feng looked like a big wuss. Both played in game three. Gaines was not suspended, and Feng (amazingly!) was not dead. Guangdong won the game and took a 3-0 lead in the first to four. – Josh Shipp Even though he spent quite a lot of his UCLA career deferring offensively to NBA-calibre scorers, Josh Shipp has plenty of offence of his own. He is currently second in the Turkish TBL in scoring, averaging 19.3 ppg for Bornova (along with 5.6 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 2.0 steals). The Turkish league is not the best in the world, and it’s not got a lot of parity in it, but it’s not a bad one, and scoring 19.3 ppg in it is no small achievement. Shipp is second only to Quincy Douby (23.6 ppg), and ranks just ahead of Mire Chatman (Besiktas, 18.4 ppg), Kedrick Brown (also Bornova, 18.1 ppg), Quinton Hosley (Aliaga, 17.9 ppg) and Lonny Baxter (Besiktas, 17.4 ppg). That list is made up of all Americans, which alludes to the self-fulfilling prophecy that the best Turkish players don’t play in Turkey. But Josh Shipp does, and he plays well. – […]
2009 NBA Summer League round-up: New Orleans Hornets
July 15th, 2009
– Earl Barron: Barron had played three straight seasons with the Miami Heat from 2005-2008, but his luck with that ran out last offseason. He next signed with Upim Bologna in Italu, but got injured before the season started and never played for the team. Barron didn’t reappear until March, when he was acquired by the L.A. D-Fenders of the D-League. He averaged 28 minutes, 9.9 points, 7.2 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 0.7 blocks and 3.5 fouls per game, shooting 41% from the field and scoring 128 points on 131 shots. For a seven-footer in the D-League, that’s pretty inefficient, and Barron is a finesse long-twos merchant. Still, if the Hornets decide not to re-sign Sean Marks, then Barron has a chance. – Earl Calloway: Calloway went undrafted in 2007, but instantly put up a blistering season in the D-League, averaging 19/5/6 on 49% shooting (40% 3pt, 88% FT). He still didn’t make the big league, and signed in Croatia with Cibona Zagreb, for whom he averaged 12.7 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.8 assists. Counting against Calloway’s NBA prospects is the fact that he’ll be 26 by the time next season starts, and that he has only a couple of good seasons under his belt. The numbers are good, though, and he keeps landing these gigs. Why he’s chosen the Hornets is a valid question; as thin and skint as the team is, small guards are the last thing they need. Then again, it shouldn’t really matter to Calloway, who has already signed for Khimki next season as the replacement for Milt Palacio. – Jaycee Carroll: Carroll was a spectacularly efficient scorer for Utah State, leading the WAC in his senior season with a 22.4 points per game scoring average on percentages of 53%/50%/92%. His NBA prospects suffer from […]
Where Are They Now, 2009: Part 47
March 5th, 2009
– Chester “Tre” Simmons is signed with Maccabi Tel-Aviv, but is not in the rotation, averaging only 9.7 minutes and 4 points per game in the Israeli league with several DNP’s thrown in. Simmons was also this week reportedly involved in a fight in (and outside) a nightclub that saw teammate D’Or Fischer have his face slashed by unknown assailants, resulting in micro-surgery needed to correct nerve damage. Allegedly, this group of unknowns had gone to the club to seek vengeance on Fischer’s father, who was visiting Fischer at the time and with whom they had had a “run-in” earlier on. However, Fischer’s father, who was at the club, had already left, and that’s when it all kicked off. Simmons was unhurt, and it was him who took Fischer to the hospital, but by being out at the club in the first place, the two were violating a team rule, and so will probably be punished. In Simmons’s case, give how little they seem to need him (or like him), he might get released. – Courtney Sims is back in the D-League after his second ten-day contract with the Suns expired anonymously last month. He has totalled 53 points in the two games since his return to the Iowa Energy, and averages 23.0 points, 10.6 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game. The blocks per game numbers are coming way down, however, as Sims found it a tad tricky to keep up the average of 8 blocks per game that he held during the first two contests. (He had a 22-point, 17-rebound, 11-block triple-double on his debut for the Energy. That’s Olumide Oyedeji-esque.) – Ha Seung-Jin’s mate Nedzad Sinanovic is on loan from Real Madrid to Burgos in the LEB Gold (Spanish second division), where he frankly still underwhelms. […]
Third Prize Is You’re Fired (2008 NBA Training Camp)
October 6th, 2008
“Anybody wanna see second prize?” “Second prize is a set of steak knives.” – Milwaukee signed Ron Howard, T.J. Cummings, Matt Freije and Kevin Kruger for camp. If you’re wondering who Ron Howard and T.J. Cummings are…well, you have yourself a valid question, but both are represented by Elfus-Siegel Management, an agency quite adept at landing their players places on training camp rosters. (If you were wondering, this is how Garth Joseph rolled up on the Bulls training camp back in 2003, for one beautiful week.) Be very careful when you Google-search T.J. Cummings’s name. Freije gives the Bucks a weak-defending jump-shooting power forward, as they only have two right now, which just isn’t enough. And Kruger gets to spend a couple of weeks in the NBA, even though he has little chance of making a roster that sees Luke Ridnour, Ramon Sessions and Tyronn Lue ahead of him, whether he likes it or not. Sham’s prediction: The Bucks told Damon Jones not to report, and they’ll try to trade him, but he will probably be waived if that can’t be done. That would open up a roster spot for someone, but what would be the value of any of those four filling it? – Minnesota made me a happy man this summer. Their camp signings were Kevin Ollie, Blake Ahearn and Rafael Araujo, while Chris Richard accepted his qualifying offer. Blake Ahearn is a nice player. Kevin Ollie is a moustachioed legend with something of a Brunson complex. But….Araujo? There’s so much right about that move. Part of it is the way that Rob Babcock won’t let go, part of it is the fact that it’s Rafael Araujo, but also because his signing allows for the existence of this picture. Only Rafael Araujo could use training camp media day […]
