Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 26
March 13th, 2010

In the previous post I talked about Hawks draft pick Sergiy Gladyr, but did so while omitting a potentially interesting/amusing piece of information. Gladyr has not played since Valentine’s Day, when he left a game against Meridiano after only nine minutes with an injury and never returned. The injury is a broken hand, one which Gladyr suffered by punching an advertising hoarding. Maybe he was feeling a little unloved that day. I feel your pain, brother. Additionally, the recent surge of Chinese Basketball Association-related material has brought a variety of feedback, much of it useful, some of it banal, some of it sweet and sincere, some of it rude. With that feedback in mind, here are some points for clarity; 1) Tim Pickett has returned for Shaanxi, and played the last three games. In those three games he has posted 50 points and 8 rebounds, 30 points and 8 rebounds, and 39 points and 8 rebounds. He has continued to shoot really really really ridiculously well from the three-point line, going 14-20 over that three game span. But Shaanxi have lost all three games anyway. 2) A number of people pointed out that Bayi are the team affiliated with the Chinese army, which is why they have no import players. I didn’t mention this because I thought it was no longer the case. I knew it used to be, hence all that furore with Wang Zhizhi a few years ago, but I thought they’d moved on from that. At the very least, they had changed the name. But I guess not. 3) No, I didn’t actually think Ding Jinhui the snooker player and Ding Jinhui the Zhejiang Cyclones big man were the same person. And no, I didn’t actually think Li Xiaoxu the Liaoning centre and Ling Xiaoyu the fictional […]

Posted by at 2:15 PM

Cartier Martin is the happiest man in the world
December 2nd, 2009

Last year, former Kansas State forward Cartier Martin started out in the D-League before earning an early call-up to the Charlotte Bobcats. He didn’t play a whole lot, and when he did it’s mainly because Larry Brown was using him as a defensive specialist (including occasionally guarding the point guard before Dontell Jefferson arrived), yet he spent the entire season with the team anyway. This summer, he signed with Benetton Treviso in Italy, a team that started the year in the EuroLeague. His teammates there include sure-fire lottery pick Donatas Motiejunas, as well as Gary Neal, Judson Wallace, Sandro Nicevic and Daniel Hackett. It was a decent team. However, from day one, Cartier Martin seemed unhappy. And he chose to document that unhappiness on Twitter. Despite his account having the tag line of “I’m out here grindin and workin hard,” Cartier never settled in Italy, and seemed to hate the place. He documented that hate with tweets such as: “Not as good as I thought.” “Chilliin in this terrible hotel somewhere in Italy! How are we one of the top teams in Italy and we stay in hotels like this…TERRIBLE!” “Man it’s time to just say f*** it and shoot that bitch every time I touch it.” “it look like it’s trashy out here” “Man some things just aren’t for certain ppl. That’s how I’m feelin right now!” “Man I can’t even tell you how I really feel bout it on here. I need to be there tho.” “I’m not passing it all when I touch it…I’m putting it up everytime.” “I ain’t doin nothing out here tho…I barely even play sometimes. Its cool tho..long as I get that bread.” “In weak ass Naples, Italy! I’m so ready to…..” …….as well as other, slightly more woe-is-me ones that seem to […]

Posted by at 3:00 PM