– Tommy Smith The last newsworthy thing that former Bulls forward Tommy Smith did was get arrested for kidnapping. Smith signed with Liaoning in China in November 2008, but played in only two games (totalling 2 points and 12 rebounds) before being released. A couple of months after he came back to America, Smith was arrested on multiple charges after allegedly punching his girlfriend when leaving a party, breaking her nose, driving her away, taking her phone off her and abandoning her at the roadside by a lake. He later came back for her and took her to hospital, but she pressed charges anyway. Smith’s basketball career has not existed since that time. In December, he pleaded guilty to the charge of aggravated assault and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, credited with 173 days of time already served. – Tyler Smith Former Penn State forward Tyler Smith spent his second season with the Hitachi Sunrockers of Japan’s JBL. He averaged 10.9 points and 4.9 rebounds per game, shooting 37% from three-point range. It is still not immediately obvious as to how he signed with the Jazz in 2006, although this is meant with endearment. – Tyler Smith Tennessee’s Tyler Smith – the other Tyler Smith – was kicked off the team in January. His professional career thus begun earlier than was intended. It’s off to a good start, though; playing for Bornova in Turkey, Smith averages 18.6 points, 7.4 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game, shooting 54% from the field and 45% from three-point range. Had he played enough games to qualify, those numbers would rank him third in the country in scoring, sixth in rebounding and fifth in assists. He remains a viable draft candidate, despite his acrimonious departure from the Vols. […]
– Chester “Tre” Simmons is signed with Maccabi Tel-Aviv, but is not in the rotation, averaging only 9.7 minutes and 4 points per game in the Israeli league with several DNP’s thrown in. Simmons was also this week reportedly involved in a fight in (and outside) a nightclub that saw teammate D’Or Fischer have his face slashed by unknown assailants, resulting in micro-surgery needed to correct nerve damage. Allegedly, this group of unknowns had gone to the club to seek vengeance on Fischer’s father, who was visiting Fischer at the time and with whom they had had a “run-in” earlier on. However, Fischer’s father, who was at the club, had already left, and that’s when it all kicked off. Simmons was unhurt, and it was him who took Fischer to the hospital, but by being out at the club in the first place, the two were violating a team rule, and so will probably be punished. In Simmons’s case, give how little they seem to need him (or like him), he might get released. – Courtney Sims is back in the D-League after his second ten-day contract with the Suns expired anonymously last month. He has totalled 53 points in the two games since his return to the Iowa Energy, and averages 23.0 points, 10.6 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game. The blocks per game numbers are coming way down, however, as Sims found it a tad tricky to keep up the average of 8 blocks per game that he held during the first two contests. (He had a 22-point, 17-rebound, 11-block triple-double on his debut for the Energy. That’s Olumide Oyedeji-esque.) – Ha Seung-Jin’s mate Nedzad Sinanovic is on loan from Real Madrid to Burgos in the LEB Gold (Spanish second division), where he frankly still underwhelms. […]
