– Dion Dowell Dowell is signed in Israel, putting up numbers quite impressively similar to those of his senior season in college. He’s playing for Altshuler Saham Galil Gilboa – a team that really needs to settle upon one name only – and is averaging 9.6 points, 4.8 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.5 steals per game. There are two types of players in Israel; Israelis and Americans. That’s basically it. Despite Israel being kind of in Europe, there are only a handful of non-Israeli European players in the league. And by “a handful,” I mean “two.” The breakdown of the nationalities of players on Israeli league rosters, according to Eurobasket.com, goes like this; – 60 Israelis – 50 Americans – 7 Americans with dual Israeli citizenship (Chris Watson, Jason Thomas, Jeron Roberts, Shawn Weinstein, David Bluthenthal, Derrick Sharp, and ex-NBA player Cory Carr) – 1 Australian (Julian Khazzouh) – 1 player born in Belarus, but who has lived in Israel since childhood, goes by an Israeli name, and who holds a dual Israeli passport (Vladimir Yiermish/Vladi Ermichin) – 1 Welshman who has played in Israeli since he was a teenager and who holds an Israeli passport (Tal Michael Dunne) – 1 Englishman/Nigerian (Ugonna Onyekwe) – 1 dual American/Panamanian citizen (Danilo Pinnock) – 1 dual American/Puerto Rican citizen (Jesse Pellot-Rosa) – 1 Israeli with a Polish passport (Yaniv Green; plays for the Israeli national team) – 1 Gabonian (Stephane Lasme) – 1 hybrid who was born in Sarajevo to Serbian and Bosnian parents, whose family fled to Israel during the war, and who then moved to America, but who considers himself Israeli (Robert Rothbart; read his quite amazing story here) – ……and 1 Serbian (Sasa Bratic) I don’t know if it’s all just a big coincidence, politically motivated, or […]
John Edwards spent two years in the NBA. He signed as an undrafted free agent out of Kent State with the Pacers in 2004, played spot minutes in 25 games, and the Hawks signed him to a two-year, $2.08 million contract in the summer of 2005. After one year with Atlanta – in which he totalled 70 points, 48 rebounds and 76 fouls – the Hawks traded him back to the Pacers as filler in the Al Harrington deal. The Pacers then waived him, and after a training camp contract with the Timberwolves in 2007, that was it for John Edwards in the NBA. Edwards has spent two of the last three years in the D-League, seemingly aware that the knock on him is his “rawness.” Last year for the Sioux Falls Skyforce, he averaged 9.3 points and 6.9 rebounds in 21 minutes per game, fairly sedate numbers for a centre-starved league. Those numbers are particularly sedate when you consider that Edwards is now 28 years old. You can’t be raw forever. He did not return to the D-League this year, instead signing with Kolossos Rhodes in Greek’s AI League. In theory, he was going to provide an NBA-calibre frontcourt along with recent Heat draft pick, Robert Dozier. In practice, though, he’s not been a stand-out. Edwards has played only 36 minutes on the entire season, totalling 12 points, 5 rebounds and 8 fouls. Now entering his physical prime, Edwards has never been able to stop fouling, has never dragged up his rebounding rate, and even though he’s offensively inclined, he still can’t score without a size advantage. Therefore, Kolossos have released him in favour of recent Lakers camp invite and another D-League veteran, David Monds. Monds doesn’t have Edwards’ height, but he has strength, athleticism and poise. Poise counts […]
