Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 69
May 28th, 2010
– Novica Velickovic Novica Velickovic did what all good Partian youngsters do eventually; he left. Partizan are forever churning out quality youth, but they haven’t the budget to keep them long term, and so Velickovic, Milenko Tepic and Uros Tripkovic all left last summer. (It didn’t hold back Partizan, who found enough good quality pick-ups to make the EuroLeague Final Four this season.) Velickovic moved to Real Madrid, and had a decent year. He averaged 7.9 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game in the EuroLeague, shooting 42% from three-point range, and is averaging 9.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.0 assists per game in the ACB. Real Madrid beat Cajasol Sevilla 2-1 in the first round of the ACB playoffs, and now face Caja Laboral in the semi-finals. – Vladimir Veremeenko Wizards draft pick Veremeenko has spent another year with Unics Kazan, still doing his impression of an entry-level Linas Kleiza. His numbers were slightly down this year on a deeper Kazan team, averaging 8.5ppg/4.2rpg in the VTB United League, 8.5/5.3 in the EuroCup and 7.6/4.1 in the Russian Superleague. He is the only Belarusian player we will be covering. – Filip Videnov Bulgarian international Videnov – who once played for Western Kentucky, something I hadn’t initially realised – started the year with Crvena Zvezda in Serbia. He averaged 8.9 points and 2.7 rebounds per game in the EuroCup, and 13.9 points and 3.2 rebounds in the Adriatic League; however, like almost all of Crvena Zvezda’s veterans, Videnov left when the money ran out. He moved to another Serbian team, Zeleznik, for whom he has averaged 13.1 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game in the Serbian league. He is the only actual Bulgarian person we will be covering. Mike Batiste and Ibrahim Jaaber don’t count. […]
30 teams in 524 or so days: Charlotte Bobcats
October 20th, 2007
Players acquired via free agency or trade: Jason Richardson (acquired from Golden State) Players acquired via draft: First round: Jared Dudley (22nd overall) Second round: Jermareo Davidson (36th overall) Players retained: Derek Anderson (re-signed, one year minimum) Jeff McInnis (re-signed, one year minimum) Matt Carroll (re-signed, six years, $26,900,000) Gerald Wallace (re-signed, six years, $57,000,000) Ryan Hollins (exercised team option) Walter Herrmann (exercised team option) Primoz Brezec (opted in) Players departed: Alan Anderson (signed in Italy) Jake Voskuhl (opted out, signed with Milwaukee) Brevin Knight (waived, signed with L.A. Clippers) Bobbins: In a recent debate with someone about who the eight playoff teams in the East are going to be this season, debate raged as to who would be the eighth team. We discussed the possibility of the eighth seed being Orlando, Washington, Milwaukee, and even Atlanta, before finally settling on one which I won’t mention (because it will spoil a later post). Neither of us debated the possibility of Charlotte being the eighth seed. This is because we had both already pencilled them as the seventh, with absolutely no contention from each other. There’s two possible conclusions that you can draw here. The first would be that the two of us basically don’t know what the hell we are talking about, which is a good point well made that I am unable to counter. The second would be to assume that, yes, Charlotte is a playoff-calibre team. And that point, I can defend. The franchise got off to a slow start after expansion, as you would expect, but slowly the Bobcats picked up pieces along the way. Starting around Emeka Okafor and building outwards, nothing much has gone right for the Bobcats before this summer. Mired deep in the lottery, and bound by the salary […]