The South Korean basketball league (KBL) is an interesting one. Much like the Chinese Basketball Association, it is interesting for three main reasons; 1) It’s full of import players that you’ve heard of, 2) The domestic players’ talent level is pretty bad, 3) The import players’ talent level is pretty good. This leads to huge statistics from players that you’ve heard of. And that can never be bad. The KBL employs a draft process for its import players that is better described here. Also at that link is the list of 165 players who registered for the KBL’s draft pool; it is from that list that the drafted players were chosen. That listed was whittled down from 224 to 165, and it is reproduced below for no real reason. 1 1 Alfred Aboya 85.01.02 UCLA 2 6 Jeff Adrien 86.02.10 Connecticut 3 7 Uka Agbai 81.05.07 Boston College 4 8 Dokun Akingbade 84.06.05 George Washington 5 15 Ramel Allen 79.06.05 Bridgeport 6 19 Serge Angounou 83.09.01 Arizona 7 24 Julius Ashby 82.09.16 Univ. of Colorado 8 30 Kyle Austin 88.10.18 UC Riverside 9 35 Alpha Bangura 80.02.04 St Johns Univ. 10 39 Ousmane Barro 84.12.07 Marquette 11 41 Nashid Beard 83.02.16 Lamar 12 43 Romel Beck 82.05.29 UNLV 13 46 Rashad Bell 82.09.23 Boston 14 48 Rodrigue Benson 84.10.10 Cal State-Berkeley 15 54 Odartey Blankson 82.03.12 UNLV 16 62 Drelke Bouldin 80.07.08 Fresno State NCAA 17 63 Ruben Boumtje 78.05.20 Georgetown 18 68 Torraye Braggs 76.03.15 Xavier 19 69 Micah Brand 80.10.18 Massachusetts 20 70 Craig Bradshaw 83.07.28 Winthrop 21 86 Robert Brown 80.02.17 Buffalo 22 88 Keith Brumbaugh 85.09.29 Hillsbrough JC 23 89 John Bryant 87.06.13 Santa Clara 24 111 Dennis Carr 81.01.27 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Univ. 25 117 Marquin Chandler 82.03.11 San Jose St.Univ. 26 123 Ivory Clark 85.06.01 […]
– Josh Heytvelt Gonzaga graduate Josh Heytvelt is one of the best players in Turkey. His team (Oyak Renault Bursa) are third-last in the Turkish TBL with a 6-16 record, but it’s not the fault of Heytvelt, who averages 16.6 points and 9.7 rebounds per game. The scoring ranks tenth in the league, and the rebounds rank second only to Jamar E. O’Davidson. Bursa won a massive game at the weekend when they beat the high-flying Turk Telekom; Heytvelt played all 40 minutes and put up 26 points and 13 rebounds. (Ricky Davis had 20 for Turk Telekom in his second game for the team. He scored 8 in the first.) – Herbert Hill Providence big man Herbert Hill’s professional career has barely gotten going due to knee injuries. He was drafted by the Sixers in 2007 and stayed with the team all season, but never played in a game for them due to knee surgery, and the rehab from that overlapped into last year. Hill initially tried out for Le Mans in August 2008 but was not sufficiently recovered, and did not return to action until February, when he played the last 15 games of the D-League season with the Bakersfield Jam and Tulsa 66ers. Now healthy again, Hill has spent all of this season in South Korea with the Daegu Orions, a team whose name I keep misreading as the Daegu Onions. (Chuck Swirsky would love them.) Hill is averaging 19.1 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.2 blocks in 32.2 minutes per game. Hill’s American team mate on the Onions is a former Louisiana-Lafayette swingman called Anthony Johnson, which is quickly becoming the most popular name in basketball. Not only is there that Anthony Johnson, but there’s also THE Anthony Johnson (the one with no neck that currently […]
The South Korean basketball league [KBL] has some quirky rules. It’s a relatively new league, only ten years in existence, that unashamedly focuses on Korean national players. Part of that means heavily restricting the amount of Big Foreign Americans™ that so heavily permeate all the other leagues around the world. A few years ago, the KBL had a rule that barred any players standing 6’8 and above. What the intended purpose of that was, I don’t know, but presumably they quickly figured out how damaging that rule was to their basketball product, because they have now done away with it. Now, tall foreign dudes are allowed. And they’re prevalent. Every summer, the KBL holds a draft of foreign players who want to play in their league that year. The players that are drafted are mostly tall guys, as apparently Korea doesn’t produce much talented size of their own. (Ha Seung-Jin excepted, of course.) The criteria for entry in the draft, though, is pretty weird. The following is looted without permission from the Korean Basketball League website: [The] Korean Basketball League (KBL) Pre-Draft Tryout Camp for Foreign Players will be held from July 22nd (Wed) to 24th (Fri), 2009 at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, NV, U.S.A. The players who are interested in playing in Korea for the 2009~2010 season, which will start from the middle of October 2009 to the end of April 2010, and meet the qualifications below are asked to fill out the application form and send via a fax or by e-mail the required documents to KBL office by May 22nd, 2009. A: Qualifications: 1. Must have at least a high school diploma 2. Must be at least 18 years of age 3. Have not had a contract with teams in Europe Division I (Spain, […]
– Richard Hendrix is in the D-League, after being waived by the Warriors earlier this season, despite signing a guaranteed contract in the summer. I don’t really understand why, considering that they waived him while preferring to keep Rob Kurz and DeMarcus Nelson, whom they then waived three weeks later to avoid guaranteeing his contract, but whatever. Hendrix is still there if the Warriors want him, and apparently they don’t. Hendrix averages 13.6 points, 10.9 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 1.2 steals and 1.9 blocks in 32 minutes a game for the Dakota Wizz. – Axel Hervelle is still with Real Madrid in Spain, and will be for at least two more years after this one. I got in trouble last time we talked about him, when I said that he hadn’t really gotten very far, so I’ll instead cop out this time and just give you his numbers: 6.5 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 0.8 apg, 0.9 spg, 0.7 bpg in the Spanish league, and 5.3 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 0.2 apg, 0.8 spg, 0.4 bpg in the EuroLeague. He’s a defensive role player. – Tyrone Hill is now an assistant coach with the Atlanta Hawks. – Kyle Hill is playing for Lucentum Alicante Costablanca in Spanish second division, alongside Taylor Coppenrath. Hill averages 12.4 ppg, 2.2 rpg and 1.6 apg, and is also about to turn 30; I don’t think the NBA beckons any more. – Herbert Hill is unsigned, after a tryout with Le Mans in August showed only that he hasn’t recovered from his knee surgery yet. – Steven Hill is back with Tulsa in the D-League after being waived by the Thunder. Hill averages 7.6 points, 5.9 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per game in total, but here’s the thing; as intriguing as Hill is as a prospect (and he is […]
Players acquired via free agency or trade: Jack diddly Players acquired via draft: First round: Thaddeus Young (12th overall), Jason Smith (20th overall, acquired in draft night trade) Second round: Derrick Byars (42nd overall, acquired in draft night trade, unsigned), Herbert Hill (55th overall, acquired in draft night trade, unsigned) Players retained: Louis Williams (exercised team option), Shavlik Randolph (exercised player option) Players departed: Joe Smith (signed with Chicago), Alan Henderson (unsigned, might yet return) Bobbins: Trivia question: Which player did Billy King either sign or re-sign this offseason for way too many guaranteed years and guaranteed money, as is his yearly custom to do at least once? Answer: No one. This is extremely unusual behaviour from the man who in recent years has given out or taken on the contracts of Aaron McKie, Allen Iverson, Chris Webber, Samuel Dalembert, Dikembe Mutombo, Todd MacCulloch, Greg Buckner, Kevin Ollie, Derrick Coleman, Marc Jackson, Keith Van Horn, Eric Snow, Steven Hunter, Jamal Mashburn, Glenn Robinson, Brian Skinner, Kenny Thomas, Corliss Williamson, George Lynch and Willie Green, amongst others. Years of piling on payroll and trying to manoeuvre his way out of previous personnel decisions have left his team with a big tab to pick up, and not much to show for it. This, it would appear, has stymied King’s spending habits, if only for a bit (next year, the Sixers’ payroll predicts to be about half of where it is now). The offshoot from this, though, is that King has not improved his team in any capacity via trades or free agency. And this leaves him with all his eggs in one basket, having to address his team needs via the draft. Historically, this is where King does his best work. Having not had much in the way […]
