Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 66
May 12th, 2010

– Milenko Tepic Tepic went undrafted this past summer, yet made the step up to the big time anyway when he moved from Partizan Belgrade to Panathinaikos. As luck would have it, Partizan have made it further than Panathinaikos in the EuroLeague this year, but they couldn’t pay him what Panathinaikos have. They might have overpaid, though, because Tepic has not had a good year. He averaged only 3.5 points, 2.1 rebounds and 1.0 assists per game in the EuroLeague, alongside 6.3 points, 2.7 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game in the Greek A1 League. It probably didn’t help that Panathinaikos already has Vassilis Spanoulis, Dimitris Diamtantidis, Nick Calathes and Sarunas Jasikevicius as ball-handling options ahead of him. But Tepic is one for the future, so it doesn’t matter yet. Incidentally, for the first time in the award’s history, Diamantidis didn’t win the EuroLeague Defensive Player of the Year award. The award instead went to ex-Bulls and Blazers forward Viktor Khryapa, and that more than anything highlights the difference between European and NBA ball; the athleticism. Khryapa couldn’t defend particularly well in the NBA because everyone was quicker than him. (This was particularly evident the one time Scott Skiles put Khryapa on LeBron James one on one after DNP-CDing Viktor for the previous month.) But in Europe, where the athleticism is not as prevalent (or as important), Khryapa does just fine. An elite all-around player, in fact.   – Reyshawn Terry Former Mavericks draft pick Terry has spent the year in Spain, playing for Xacobeo Blusens. He has averaged 12.2 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.5 fouls in 25.5 minutes per game, shooting 34% from three-point range. The points are god, but Terry shot only 32% from three last season and 31% in 2007-08; for a guy who made his name […]

Posted by at 2:33 PM

Preview Sort Of Thing: Sacramento Kings
October 20th, 2008

As an aspiring GM with no qualifications or career prospects to speak of, and whose sole outreach into the world of the NBA is this distinctly amateur and unattractive site full of mild slander, I enjoy certain advantages. One of those is the ability to do what I want, to a half-baked standard, and then to abandon it prematurely. This explains what happened with last year’s “30 teams in 30 or so days” series of predictions, where I started well, fell behind early, and then gave up roughly half way through. Get in. This year, we’re going to do it again. There will be predictions, and by the power of Greyskull, they’re going to be woeful. Even better than that, it’s October 19th, and the season starts in just over a week, yet there are 30 teams to cover. So don’t be surprised if I only do about…oooh, five? ShamSports.com – run by an amateur. The few posts that will be made are to be undertaken in a completely random order, with no semblance of logic or reasoning. And with that in mind, we begin with the Sacramento Kings.   Sacramento Kings The Kings’ glory era ended a while ago. The days of the Adelman-era Kings, with Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, Hedo Turkoglu, Peja Stojakovic, Doug Christie and friends, are over. Webber’s knee stopped working, Turkoglu surprised us all by actually getting good, Christie’s now the white Dame Dash, and Divac now works for the Serbian government. Other than the incumbent Brad Miller, the final player from those days – Mike Bibby – was pawned off to Atlanta earlier this year for a rather generous return. And that was that. With a end of an old era should come the start of a new one. “The King Is Dead”, and […]

Posted by at 12:02 AM