Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 39
April 7th, 2010
– Nick Lewis D-League stalwart Lewis finally left there this summer after nearly three years, and moved to France to play for Roanne. He has averaged 8.6 points and 3.9 rebounds in 17 minutes per game in the EuroChallenge, and 8.7 points and 3.6 rebounds in 15 minutes per game in the French league. Considering that scoring rate, maybe he should play more. – Quincy Lewis Former Minnesota Gopher and Minnesota Timberwolves swingman Quincy Lewis is retired. He was playing as recently as last year, playing in the EuroCup with Bilbao, and while he averaged only 5.4 points and 2.5 rebounds per game, it was at a good standard of basketball and on a deep team. Nevertheless, Lewis retired aged only 32, and became a volunteer assistant coach at DeLaSalle High School. He also majored in Sports Management back in 2007, and is now the CEO of 20/20 Sports Management. – Ron Lewis Lewis is playing his second season with Nymburk, a Czech Republic team. No one signs in the Czech Republic unless they have good reason, and Lewis does; Nymburk were in the EuroCup, and made it as far as the quarter finals before losing to Bilbao. Lewis averaged 11.7 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.1 assists in that campaign, alongside 12.5 points and 2.6 rebounds in the Czech Republic league. It was my very great pleasure to watch Lewis in several of Nymburk’s EuroCup games, yet it was a greater pleasure to watch Phillip Ricci, Michael Lenzley and Petr Benda. One has no neck, one is British, and one has a surname that is also a perjorative term. Something for everyone there. – Sergei Lishouk Former Grizzlies draft pick Lishouk, whose rights are now owned by the Rockets, is playing in Spain with Valencia. After spending […]
Where Are They Now, 2009: Part 31
February 10th, 2009
– Anthony Lever-Pedroza is playing for a team called Soles de Mexicali, in a country that you can probably guess. About two hours ago, I watched a FIBA basketball magazine show that bizarrely and unexpectedly featured clips from a Soles de Mexicali game. I didn’t spot Anthony James Norwood Lever Pedroza Durazo, though. Anthony James Norwood Lever Pedroza Durazo averages 20.3 points in three Liga Americas games; also on his team are former Timberwolves guard Dejaun Wheat (who barely plays) and former Suns centre Horacio Llamas (who averages 16.3 points and 7.0 rebounds). That unlikely duo are both 35, seeing out their professional lives at Soles de Mexicali – where fringe NBA careers wind down. – Ron Lewis is in Israel, averaging 16.3 points per game for Ironi Nahariya. Impressively, Lewis has shot 94 free throws to 140 field goals, for a 1.51 PPS average. Less impressive is the 72% that Lewis is shooting from the line, and the 25% that he’s shooting from three-point range. But he’s scoring at a very high efficiency anyway. – Nick Lewis had a try-out in the Spanish LEB Gold to begin the year, but didn’t sign, and went back to the Bakersfield Jam in the D-League. Building on his decent season of last year, Lewis is averaging 16.5 points and 7.7 rebounds per game, averaging 1.45 points per shot. I stand by that metric, even if I stand alone. – Sergei Lishouk is still with Azovmash Mariupol in his native Ukraine. Lishouk/Lischuk averages 7.3 points, 3.8 rebounds, 1.6 blocks and 3.0 fouls per game in the EuroCup, alongside 10.1 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.1 fouls and 1.2 blocks per game in the Ukrainian league. Since his rights were traded away by the Grizzlies last year, Lishouk can’t even get to the […]
30 teams in 36 or so days: Seattle Supersonics
September 27th, 2007
Players acquired via free agency or trade: Kurt Thomas (acquired from Phoenix) Wally Szczerbiak (acquired from Boston) Delonte West (acquired from Boston) Players acquired via draft: First round: Kevin Durant (2nd overall), Jeff Green (5th overall) Second round: None Players retained: None Players departed: Danny Fortson (unsigned) Mike Wilks (unsigned) Randy Livingston (unsigned) Rashard Lewis (signed and traded to Orlando for way too much) Ray Allen (traded to Boston) Andre Brown (signed with Memphis) Bobbins: It’s rarely the correct move for an NBA franchise to blow the doors of the thing, jack it all in, admit failure and begin again. It takes a special kind of situation to justify it, and the team has to be a victim of a number of extraordinary circumstances. However, Seattle did exactly that this offseason. And entirely justifiably. After their fluke season in 2004/05 (oh please, yes it was), Seattle endured two years of nothingness after that, winning 35 and 31 games respectively. In all that time, the prolonged soap opera of the team’s ownership and arena continued to play out – the team was sold to new owners in 2006, who invested in the on-court product (giving Nick Collison and Luke Ridnour extensions totalling seven years and $44.5 million, which seems a bit much), yet who have not particularly well-disguised intentions of moving the team to Oklahoma City. One of the minority owners said as much in August, drawing a big fine from the NBA, but telling us nothing that we didn’t already know. With off-court turmoil and on-court mediocrity, the Sonics weren’t going anywhere, and they weren’t getting there very fast. But then in June, they won the #2 pick in the lottery. Suddenly, things were looking up. In a two superstar draft, Seattle just lucked themselves into […]
