Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 64
April 29th, 2010
– Brad Stricker Stricker played his first two college years with Texas A&M back in 1995-97. He averaged 4.4 points and 2.5 rebounds before transferring to Arizona State, but had sat only one semester of his required three at ASU before transferring again, this time to Georgia State. There, in the 1998-99 season, Stricker averaged 3.9 points and 3.9 rebounds, before leaving with a year of eligibility left to go and join the real world. Stricker started a construction company, Stricker Construction, and made a couple of returns to basketball. Although one of them is hard to verify. His CV says that he played briefly in the SWBL in 2001, winning the championship that year with the San Antonio Bombers; however, a Google search for “SWBL basketball” reveals the only such league in existence to be the Strathcona Women’s Basketball League, and a search for “San Antonio Bombers” reveals only this. After that, Stricker played the 2001-02 season in Mexico, where he averaged 18 points, 12 rebounds, 4 blocks and 3 assists per game for Correcaminos Matamoros in the LNBP. But Stricker did not play for the next three years in order to run the construction company. In 2005, having sold the business, Stricker attended offseason workouts with the Denver Nuggets and the San Antonio Spurs. Teams frequently let players work out with them during the summer, and Stricker worked out with Denver again in 2006. He signed with the Great Falls Explorers of the CBA in November 2006, but did not seem to appear in any games. (I tried to find out, but the Explorer’s website is now pornography.) And then in 2007, after a third summer of working out with the Nuggets, Stricker signed a training camp deal with the team. The chances of Stricker making the team […]
2009 NBA Summer League round-up: Boston Celtics
July 4th, 2009
Beginning now, there will be a series of posts detailing the summer league rosters of every NBA team this year. This is because summer league is great fun, and because the lavish descriptions of fringe NBA players gets me going. But you probably knew that already. We begin this excitement with the Boston Celtics, since the alphabetically superior Atlanta Hawks don’t have a summer league team this year. – Nick Fazekas: Fazekas should be in the NBA, really. But he’s not. Even though he was paid $711,517 by the Mavericks last season, Fazekas wasn’t on their roster, as they waived him as a concurrent part of the Jason Kidd trade eighteen months ago. This decision would have been forgettable had the Mavericks not had the quad Devean George, Antoine Wright, Jerry Stackhouse and Shawne Williams on their roster last season, but anyway. Fazekas went to camp with the Nuggets last season, as did pretty much every player in the history of the game, and then spent the year with Oostende in Belgium and ASVEL Villeurbanne in France. I’d like to think that the team that has employed Brian Scalabrine for four years could find a spot for a similar but younger player like Fazekas, but it doesn’t seem likely. – J.R. Giddens: Giddens played all of eight minutes with the Celtics last year. There’s no real need for this 24-year-old non-contributor to be on the roster of a veteran team with championship aspirations, but his D-League numbers from last year (36 games, 17.2 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 3.0 apg, 1.4 bpg, 58% shooting) suggest that there might be something for someone to pursue there. There’d better be, since the Celtics used a first-rounder on him. Giddens still doesn’t have a consistent jump shot, however, which still doesn’t help him. – Lester […]
Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 50
March 7th, 2009
– D.J. Strawberry is with Fortitudo Bologna, the same team as GMAC Bologna, but not the same team as La Fortezza Bologna. Can’t stress that enough. Strawberry averages 14.7 points, 2.7 rebounds and 1.5 assists in EuroCup play, alongside 13.8 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.2 assists in the Italian league. Strawberry however is a combined 16 of 76 from the three-point line, confirming once again that his major weakness is still a weakness. – Brad Stricker has been on and off of the Dakota Wizards roster all year, averaging 11 minutes, 2.6 points, 2.3 rebounds and 2.1 fouls per game. His playing time wasn’t exactly consistent; his last ten games with the Wizards saw him play 5, 4, 3, 5, 2, 2, 8, 30, and 8 minutes respectively. Stricker eventually asked the Wizards for an unconditional release, as he wanted to play for a team closer to his home due to some family issue. He was granted it, and now plays for the Albuquerque Thunderbirds, where he averages 17.6 minutes, 3.6 points, 3.6 fouls, 1.8 rebounds and 1.0 blocks per game. – Erick Strickland now works for the Mavericks in a capacity that I’m too confused to understand. Here’s Erick himself with an explanation. Did you know that Erick Strickland’s real first name is Demerick? Me neither. Fun fact. – Rod Strickland is the Director of Basketball Operations for the University of Memphis, while also taking classes there to finish his degree. Ever since his hire in 2006, Memphis have gone on to be slightly brilliant. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not. But, since Strickland’s role entails things like organising travel plans, checking on student’s academic scores, and scheduling visits for recruits, it probably is. – Curtis Sumpter averages 10.8 points and 5.9 rebounds for Chorale de Roanne […]
30 teams in 36 or so days: Chicago Bulls
September 23rd, 2007
Chicago Bulls Players acquired via free agency or trade: Joe Smith (two years, $10 million) Players acquired via draft: First round: Joakim Noah (9th overall) Second round: Aaron Gray (49th overall), JamesOn Curry (51st overall) Players retained: Andres Nocioni (re-signed, six years, $45 million) Players departed: Malik Allen (signed with New Jersey), Michael Sweetney (left unrestricted, unsigned), P.J. Brown (unsigned), Andre Barrett (made restricted, unsigned, may yet return), Martynas Andriuskevicius (left unrestricted, signed in Spain) Some words: (The following entry may well be written with a small hint of bias. Or, alternately, it may be written with huge seething dollops of it. I’m a Bulls fan, just so’s you know.) Has anybody ever told you that you need a dominant post scorer to win a title? If not, then you’re not a Bulls fan. Since the dawn of time (or since the Eddy Curry trade, whichever), this edict has been hurled at Bulls fans and management alike by people of all backgrounds and IQ levels, and never more so than in the immediate aftermath of the Pau Gasol trade-that-never-was at the last trade deadline. Forget the fact that Detroit managed this supposedly impossible feat just three years ago: these people remain steadfast in their opinion. And why shouldn’t they? People say it on the TV, after all, so it must be true. After General Manager John Paxson did not pull the trigger on a deal for Gasol due to the excessive demands of Grizzlies GM Jerry West and the continued breakout of Luol Deng, talk of the Bulls’ need for a ‘dominant’ post scorer continued. “Experts” then shifted their attention to Kevin Garnett, ignoring for a moment the fact that such a move was never realistically possible due to the Bulls salary cap position. After […]
