Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 65
May 9th, 2010
– Raymond Sykes After going undrafted out of Clemson, Sykes signed a training camp contract with the Phoenix Suns. He had little to no chance of making the team, however, and was waived within a week. Sykes then took his energetic style of play to the D-League and spent the year with the Sioux Falls Skyforce, averaging 10.5 points, 4.7 rebounds, 1.1 blocks and 3.0 fouls in 23.9 minutes per game. His PER was 16.7; over 48 minutes, that equates to a PER of 33.5, which is almost Lebron-like (38.3 PER per 48.) – Wally Szczerbiak Wally Szczerbiak looks to be done. His contract with the Cavaliers expired last summer without incident, and he has not signed elsewhere since. Szczerbiak was a target of the Denver Nuggets back in November, but he declined their minimum salary contract as he was still recovering from left knee surgery. He also was supposed to work out with the Knicks, but it did not happen for the same reasons. No official announcement about his retirement has been forthcoming, but then again, they rarely do. The PER thing was a joke, by the way. – Szymon Szewczyk Bucks draft pick Shevcheck is signed with Air Avellino in Italy. Air Avellino have made the news for other reasons this week, but Shev has helped to keep the boat steady. He is averaging 11.0 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.2 blocks in 27 minutes per game; in Avellino’s absolutely must-win game last night versus Angellico Biella, Shevcheck played 41 out of 45 minutes, and totalled 16 points, 12 rebounds and 3 blocks to ensure victory. Szymon Szewczyk was born in Szczecin. This prompts the question; how much is the Z worth in the Polish version of Scrabble? – Yuta Tabuse Former Suns guard Yuta Tabuse […]
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 […]
