The 2010 Puerto Rican BSN Season
June 7th, 2010
The Chinese Basketball Association is an area of particular focus on this website, because it’s fun. Every season, the CBA plays host to many former NBA players, and plays them for the vast majority of their 48-minute games, resulting in huge statistics and thereby being more fun over leagues such as Italy’s Serie A, where teams employ 11-man rotations, nobody plays more than 25mpg, and everyone averages about 9/4. They are better standards of league for this reason, but they’re just not as fun as the CBA. In the CBA, imports rule. The Baloncesto Superior Nacional, Puerto Rico’s premier basketball league, is much the same. The games are 40 minutes, and the season is shorter, but the import talent is highly comparable (often identical), and the homegrown talent is vastly superior. Puerto Rico has a strong basketball pedigree, and a history of turning out high-calibre international players. Those players are mostly guards, which is why I think a merger with Senegal, which exclusively produces quality big men, would change the international basketball game beyond all recognition. Nonetheless, there’s always ability coming out of there, and also some NBA-calibre talent. Puerto Rican players in the NBA right now include Carlos Arroyo, Jose Barea and Carmelo Anthony. And Carmelo’s backup, Renaldo Balkman, might soon be joining that list. Apart from those select few, almost all of the good Puerto Rican players play in the Puerto Rican BSN. Even if they’ve been playing in other leagues, players generally go to play in the BSN once those other commitments have been fulfilled. NBA players do not go, of course, but the Puerto Rican players dotted around the clubs of the world usually return for some hot BSN action, bringing with them many of the ex-NBA imports that had previously been partaking in the CBA. […]
Gallitos de Isabella waive Shaun Pruitt and Lee Benson for disciplinary reasons
May 8th, 2010
Puerto Rican BSN team Gallitos de Isabella yesterday released big men Shaun Pruitt and Lee Benson for “problemas de conducta.” The pair were released after Isabela’s 86-76 to the Arecibo Captains on Wednesday night, a game in which Benson had 9 points and 18 rebounds, and Pruitt posted 16/16. The team moved swiftly in replacing them, signing ex-NBA centre Jared Reiner and former La Salle player Reggie Okosa (mentioned at length here). Pruitt and Benson were first and second in the league in rebounding, at 13.5 and 13.4 rebounds per game respectively. Only two other players grab double-figure rebounds per game; Michael Sweetney of Santurce (12.3 rpg) and Manuel Narvaez of Ponce (10.4 rpg), so to release the duo is no small move. Teams around the world tend to be trigger-happy with their imports; Benson himself was a replacement for Alando Tucker, who was previously a replacement for Devin Green. Puerto Rican teams are no different in their treatment of their American players. Nevertheless, to release arguably your two best players due to their indiscretions, regardless of the calibre of their replacements, is a strong statement. This is one part of the worldwide basketball scene that the NBA will sadly never adopt. (“Gallitos de Isabela” translates as “the Cocks of Isabella”. Poor girl.)
Antoine Walker released by Puerto Rican team
April 1st, 2010
It’s been well-documented of late, but here it is again. Former NBA player Antoine Walker is broke. He earned (so to speak) $110 million over his career, and yet he spent it all. Now, only 15 months removed from his last stint on an NBA roster, Walker is in serious financial straits, facing legal troubles for both unpaid gambling debts and for failure to maintain properties that he owns in Chicago. His agent sued him for unpaid fees – and won – and the NBA pay checks stopped coming last year. Whatever Antoine had, he spent, and he spent it on things with no redeemable value. Clothes, cars, drink, food, blackjack hands and dishonest associates. None of that means anything to a creditor. It’s all gone. Antoine is broke. It’s also been well-documented of late that Walker had gone to Puerto Rico to start playing ball again. Playing in Puerto Rico is far from an abnormal thing for good basketball players to do; for many years now, fringe and former NBA talents have played there over the summer for some extra money. The Puerto Rican league takes place when most others don’t, and it’s in large part because of this that it holds the attraction for such talented players. It is a pretty high standard level of basketball, too; players to have there this year include former NBA talents Lee Nailon, DerMarr Johnson, Courtney Sims, Damon Jones, Robert Traylor, and all this lot. Puerto Rico is a regular stop for fringe NBA players grinding out their careers around the world, players who often play in the far East and central Americas in a rotation now known as the Dan Langhi Tour. It’s a common occurrence and, all told, a decent gig. But Antoine wasn’t a fringe NBA player. He was […]
