Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 22
February 24th, 2010

– Luis Flores Domincan Republic native Flores has moved to the coldest climate of his career. Playing for Samara in Russia, Flores is averaging 13.8 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game in the Russian Superleague, alongside 19.5/4.5/1.9 in the EuroChallenge. His backcourt teammate is Bosnian national team member, J.R. Bremer. It’s not the tallest backcourt in the world.   – Gary Forbes Forbes started the season in Serie A, and averaged 13.3 points per game for Vanoli Cremona. He left the team last month, and hooked on with Ironi Kfar Hamaccabia Ramat Gan (better known as Ramat Gan) in the Israeli league last week. Ramat Gan were last in the Israeli league when Forbes joined, but Forbes scored 28 points in his first and only game for them so far to lead them to a victory over Ironi Nahariya. And now Ironi Nahariya are in last place.   – Alton Ford 28-year-old ex-NBA player Alton Ford was in the D-League last year after being out of the game between November 2005 and December 2007. He wasn’t perfect there, averaging 10/7/4 for two different teams, where the “4” represents his fouls per game. Ford didn’t start this year with anyone, but last month he caught on with Bourg in the French second division. In four games, he has totalled 13 points, 13 rebounds, 11 fouls and 1 block.   – Sharrod Ford Ford started the season in Russia, averaging 7.8 points and 6.0 rebounds in 24 minutes per game for Spartak St Petersburg. He left in November (i.e. before the team fell to 1-11 and last place), and signed in January with Carife Ferrara in Serie A. There, Ford averages 11.6 points and 7.2 rebounds in 25 minutes per game. He had 0 blocks in 92 minutes in Russia; […]

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Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 17
January 21st, 2009

– Gerald Fitch was unsigned until very recently, as he joined the Turkish team Kepez BLD Antalya only last week. Antalya are currently second to last in the Turkish league, and Fitch arrives as the replacement for leading scorer and former Magic training camp invitee, Torell Martin, who retired to run a country pub in the southernmost corner of Wales. (OK, no he didn’t. But he did leave.) Fitch has not yet played a game for his new team, and I’ll be sure not to tell you when he does.   – D’Or Fischer is with Maccabi Tel-Aviv in Israel, not exactly a rare and special boast for any big man to be making, given the extremely high turnover of big men that Maccabi have had this year. Also currently with Maccabi is one of my favourite players of all time, Marcus Fizer, who has just recently returned from a year-long absence due to a knee injury. (I do not really know why I like Marcus Fizer so much, so please do not ask.) Fischer averages 9.2 points, 6.2 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 2.0 blocks in Israeli league play, along with 12.6 points, 7.8 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.6 blocks in EuroLeague play. Fizer has totalled 13 points and 5 rebounds in the three games of his comeback.   – Gary Forbes was acquired by the Tulsa 66ers from the Sioux Falls Skyforce just a matter of hours ago. Tulsa traded Chris Ellis to get him, he of the recent update. For Sioux Falls, Forbes was the sixth man, and he averaged 16.7 points, 4.8 rebounds and 2.0 assists in his time there.   – Alton Ford has also just left his D-League team, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, and has signed with a team in Zhejiang, China. Which Zhejiang […]

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30 teams in 36 or so days: Seattle Supersonics
September 27th, 2007

Players acquired via free agency or trade: Kurt Thomas (acquired from Phoenix) Wally Szczerbiak (acquired from Boston) Delonte West (acquired from Boston)   Players acquired via draft: First round: Kevin Durant (2nd overall), Jeff Green (5th overall) Second round: None   Players retained: None   Players departed: Danny Fortson (unsigned) Mike Wilks (unsigned) Randy Livingston (unsigned) Rashard Lewis (signed and traded to Orlando for way too much) Ray Allen (traded to Boston) Andre Brown (signed with Memphis)   Bobbins: It’s rarely the correct move for an NBA franchise to blow the doors of the thing, jack it all in, admit failure and begin again. It takes a special kind of situation to justify it, and the team has to be a victim of a number of extraordinary circumstances. However, Seattle did exactly that this offseason. And entirely justifiably. After their fluke season in 2004/05 (oh please, yes it was), Seattle endured two years of nothingness after that, winning 35 and 31 games respectively. In all that time, the prolonged soap opera of the team’s ownership and arena continued to play out – the team was sold to new owners in 2006, who invested in the on-court product (giving Nick Collison and Luke Ridnour extensions totalling seven years and $44.5 million, which seems a bit much), yet who have not particularly well-disguised intentions of moving the team to Oklahoma City. One of the minority owners said as much in August, drawing a big fine from the NBA, but telling us nothing that we didn’t already know. With off-court turmoil and on-court mediocrity, the Sonics weren’t going anywhere, and they weren’t getting there very fast. But then in June, they won the #2 pick in the lottery. Suddenly, things were looking up. In a two superstar draft, Seattle just lucked themselves into […]

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