Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 63
April 29th, 2010
– Latrell Sprewell We’ll start by confirming the obvious; Sprewell has not played since his Timberwolves days. If he had done, that would be one of the transactions you’d have heard about without needing my input. Since that time, Sprewell has made the news for four reasons; a foreclosure on his yacht, a foreclosure on his home, an alleged assault on his girlfriend, and a foreclosure on his other home. The yacht’s gone, Spree paid the debt on the first home, and the assault charge was dropped 14 months later. But as for the second home foreclosure, on a $2.3 million home in the wonderfully named town of Purchase, Sprewell lost that in November. This was also the last time he made the news. It’s quite the depressing story of yet another athlete who burned it all away. Then again, as I sit here on my bed at 8.32am staring down the barrel of a long morning of essay writing, I find it slightly unfounded for me to be criticising a man for spending millions of dollars on twenty years of (presumably) wall-to-wall high living that I can only dream of. He may have lost all his money, but he probably had a load of fun doing it, so that’s something. – Ondrej Starosta Czech Republic big man Ondrej Starosta crept onto the NBA scene in 2004-05, when he averaged as-near-as-was a double-double for Chalons-en-Champagne in the French league. He was 26 years old at the time and had been a member of Real Madrid before that, so he wasn’t unheard of, but he also hadn’t done high-level stuff in his career before then except be 7’1 tall. After that season, Starosta went to summer league with the San Antonio Spurs, averaging 5.5 rebounds per game. The Spurs didn’t […]
2009 NBA Summer League round-up: Milwaukee Bucks
July 12th, 2009
– Joe Alexander: If you had expected the Joe Alexander/Scott Skiles marriage to end well for Joe Alexander, then…..well, you’re wrong Alexander is going to be a hollow shell of his former self, destroyed, a broken man, by the time he gets free from Skiles’s leadership. Skiles is a great defensive coach with the permanently contrite face of an “angry-looking man” (a real quote, yet sadly not mine), but if there’s one thing he hates, it’s players who repeatedly make defensive mistakes. And Joe Alexander is a player that repeatedly makes defensive mistakes. John Hammond, do yourself a favour, and trade Alexander while you can still get someone like the calibre of J.J. Hickson for him. Because if you don’t do it now, you’ll only get less later. (It also didn’t help Alexander that he supposedly receive an in-house suspension from his team for digging all up in one of the cheerleaders, which is depressingly against the rules.) – Paul Delaney: In part three of my exceptionally long draft diary (no one really read parts two and three; I might have to make it about 9,000 words shorter next season), I mentioned how I had seen Robert Vaden of UAB play one game, a game in which he shot 0-17. Well, Paul Delaney was Vaden’s backcourt mate at UAB, and last year he averaged 16.1 ppg to Vaden’s 17.6 ppg, on 9.8 FGA per game to Vaden’s 15.4 FGA per game, on 5.8 FTA per game to Vaden’s 2.9 FTA per game, on 56% shooting to Vaden’s 40% shooting. Indeed, only one other player in UAB’s small rotation shot over 45% – 6’8 junior forward Howard Crawford. Delaney led his team in field goal percentage, steals and assists, while being second in scoring and fourth in rebounds. Yet Vaden […]
Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 49
March 6th, 2009
– Tiago Splitter is into his sixth season with Tau Vitoria, averaging 16.1 points, 5.8 rebounds and 1.1 blocks per game in the Spanish league, alongside 15.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.8 blocks in the Spanish league. Splitter recently missed a couple of weeks with a torn muscle and the death of his sister, but he returned to be week MVP of the EuroLeague last week, which is not bad going. – Latrell Sprewell was in court yesterday. not on it. – Ondrej Starosta is in the LEB Gold, averaging 4.0 points and 4.8 rebounds for Plus Pujol Lleida. – Vladimir Stepania hasn’t played since March 2004, which, for calendar fans out there, was five years ago. The last thing that I’ve got for him is this ominous-sounding forum post from November 2006. I’m guessing it didn’t work out. – Blake Stepp has not played since 2006 after a stint with Valencia in Spain. The only thing that I know since then is that he’s started playing a lot of poker. Whether it’s a full time thing for him now or not, I don’t know, but he did cash at the 2008 World Series Of Poker. Another former Gonzaga player, Nathan Doudney, is also playing a lot of poker now, and doing better than Stepp. – After Michael Stewart’s six-year contract ran out with the Hawks in 2005, he managed one more basketball stint with Huelvas in Spain, averaging 7.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game. He has not played since April 2006. This old version of his Wikipedia page says that Stewart is now a businessman living in Florida, and, while it’s not the most fool proof of sources out there, I see no reason to disbelieve it. – Frans Steyn […]
