After going undrafted out of Creighton in 2007, Anthony Tolliver played in summer league for the Miami Heat, and was granted the honour of being the 16th overall pick in the 2007 Continental Basketball Association draft. These things eventually parlayed themselves into a training camp contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Tolliver’s contract with Cleveland was a typical ‘summer’ (read as ‘training camp’) contract. It was a fully unguaranteed rookie minimum salary contract, which, in the 2007/08 season, was worth $427,163. Tolliver was one of several camp signings for the Cavaliers that season – alongside Noel Felix, Chet Mason, Hassan Adams, Darius Rice, and a re-signed Dwayne Jones – and was an outside shot to make the roster based purely on the numbers game alone. Concurrent with these moves, Cleveland was embroiled in the long-since-forgotten-about holdouts of Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic. Both restricted free agents out of contract that summer, both unhappy with Cleveland’s best offer, and yet both seemingly unable to get more on the market, the two held out of training camp, waiting for enormous deals that never came. From memory, Pavlovic wanted roughly six years and $40 million, while Varejao wanted $10 million per annum. The two held out all through the free agency period, all through training camp, all through preseason, and into the regular season. It is precisely because of this that Tolliver, as well as Demetris Nichols, made the Cavaliers roster that season. Pavlovic was the first to crack – he agreed to re-sign to a partially guaranteed three-year, $13,696,250 contract that he was waived after only two years of. He signed this contract on October 31st 2007, the second day of the regular season. And when he did so, Tolliver was waived to open up a roster spot. It seemed mostly innocuous that […]
Will Blalock Blalock’s recovery from a life-threatening stroke continues, as he gets back to nearer his NBA-calibre best. He started last year with the Maine Red Claws, and was traded after 25 games to the Reno Bighorns, for whom he averaged 11.8 points and 7.4 assists per game. Blalock has battled weight problems since his stroke, but he lost weight during the D-League season and improved as the campaign went along. Blalock turns 27 in February and will probably never get back to the NBA, but his good D-League season, aided by a decent summer league performance, should see some good European gigs in the near future. Andre Brown Brown is back for his seventh consecutive season on the cusp of the NBA. After hundreds and millions of summer league appearances, mini-camp tryouts and training camp contracts, the former DePaul forward has 75 NBA games played to his credit, and is looking for the big three figures. Brown is athletic and a good rebounder, but is not without his flaws; his defence is more energetic than effective, he never ever passes, and his jump shot and free throw strokes are poor due to a bad cross-handed release that he has never corrected. Brown is 29 years old now and hasn’t got any better; what he is is pretty good, but what he is is permanently juuuuuust on the outside. Brian Chase Chase is a 5’9 scoring guard with a 1:1 assist-to-turnover ratio. That doesn’t bode well for a man’s NBA prospects. Chase has actually spent time on an NBA regular season roster when he spent the first two weeks of the 2006-07 season with the Utah Jazz; however, he did not appear in any games. More than a little bit like Earl Boykins, Chase is extremely quick and a very […]
Of all the possible free agents this upcoming offseason, Golden State’s Anthony Morrow is one of the restricted free agents that is garnering the most attention amongst fans. Well, amongst Bulls fans he is, at least.1 Morrow only really does one thing; he shoots jump shots. He is not much of a ball-handler, nor much of a defender, nor much of an athlete, nor much of a slasher, nor much of a finisher around the basket. But he does own a jump shot. A really, really good jump shot. A really, really, really, really good jump shot. A jump shot so good that it spawned its own cult. And in this current NBA era, you can never have too many shooters. If you need a shooter, you could always sign Casey Jacobsen. He’ll need work this summer. You could also sign Desmon Farmer, Billy Thomas, Marcus Vinicius, Nikoloz Tskitishvili, or some old fringe NBA veteran who would happily sign for the minimum and relish the chance to sit on an inactive list. Worst case scenario, you could sign Ryan Ayers. But a lot of people want Morrow, for the simple fact that he has 47% and 46% from three-point range in his two NBA seasons. Can’t say I blame them. I want that too. However, if you wish to sign Anthony Morrow, there’s some things you should know. Morrow went undrafted out of Georgia Tech, and, after hitting some jump shots for the Miami Heat in summer league 2008, the Warriors signed him to a two-year minimum salary contract with conditional guarantees. At the time, they probably didn’t think he’d be a significant player; as it’s turned out, however, he’s been one of the brightest spots in a two-year cycle of struggle. Morrow has performed admirably and shown himself to […]
It’s been roughly two months since summer league started, and most of the players involved have been rehomed now. The following is a list of where everybody currently is, or where they might be going. This list gets a bit long, so if you want to just skip to your favoured team, you can do so. I’ll allow that. Boston Celtics – Nick Fazekas: Fazekas has signed in Europe for next year, with Dijon of France. The longer this goes on, the more it looks like Fazekas is never going to get back into the NBA. Even though he led this Celtics summer league team in points and rebounds, the NBA doesn’t seem to want to know. If that continues to happen, it’ll be…..well, it’ll be strange. – J.R. Giddens: Giddens is still with the Celtics, as Boston tried valiantly to convince Indiana that they wanted him as a part of a Marquis Daniels sign and trade. The Pacers refused. – Lester Hudson: Hudson hasn’t signed with the Celtics yet, but it’s likely that he will do. The Celtics really should try and find a veteran backup option first, even if the pickings are pretty slim now. But if they were going to do that, they probably would have done it already. – Coby Karl: Karl remains unsigned. He also played on the Nuggets’ summer league team. The Nuggets are publicly in the market for a good-shooting two guard. Coby Karl is a good-shooting two guard. The Nuggets’ head coach is George Karl. George Karl is Coby Karl’s dad. It’s going to write itself. You can just feel it. – Chris Lofton: Lofton is unsigned, but won’t be returning to Mersin, who have already replaced him with Richie Frahm and Jimmy Baron. – Bryan Mullins: Southern Illinois’s very own […]
On Saturday afternoon, I went to a non-league football match. Football is a sport that we have in this country, which involves people kicking a ball with their foot (hence the name). It’s a tremendous sport of flair, innovation and foul language, which unites the whole entire world in its single-minded appreciation of how wonderful the beautiful game is. (There is an American variant out there called “soccer”, but it is marred by terrible broadcasting, stupid gimmicks, and a bad standard of play. It is not recommended.) The game was between Tonbridge Angels and Oxford United, an F.A. Trophy first round match. Oxford United were at home, which meant for us Angels fans a day trip out to a 12,000 seater stadium. For those unaware, Oxford United were good, back in the day. Then they went bankrupt. A man named Kassam saved them, bailed out the finances, and built them a new stadium. But it hasn’t done the team much good, and they have since fallen out of the Football League (and also fallen out with Kassam, although they are stuck with the stadium named after him). They’re also now flat broke again. Despite the team not befitting the stadium that houses them, the importance of the event and size of the stadium made it a highly entertaining day out for us visitors. The official attendance for the game was 1547, and if you don’t know what having 1547 people in a stadium that seats 12,000 looks like, then either watch the Florida Marlins at home, or look at the picture below: Of the 1547 people to attend, about 220 were Tonbridge Angels fans who had travelled a hell of a long way to support their team. These 220 people gave great voice, and showed the world (or at least, […]
Golden State Players acquired via free agency or trade: Austin Croshere (one year minimum) Troy Hudson (one year minimum) Kosta Perovic (previous draft pick, three years, $5.832 million) Players acquired via draft: First round: Brandon Wright (8th overall), Marco Belinelli (18th overall) Second round: Stephane Lasme (46th overall) Players retained: Matt Barnes (re-signed, one year, $3 million), Kelenna Azubuike (re-signed, two year minimum) Players departed: Sarunas Jasikevicius (bought out, to sign in Europe), Adonal Foyle (bought out, signed with Orlando), Mickael Pietrus (unsigned, restricted, will probably re-sign but I didn’t know which category to put it in), Zarko Cabarkapa (left unrestricted, unsigned), Josh Powell (left unrestricted, signed with Clippers), Jason Richardson (traded to Charlotte) Bobbins: I would like to extend a hearty apology to Golden State Warriors Vice President of Basketball Operations, Chris Mullin. In the early part of his time as GM (I’m not typing “Vice President of Basketball Operations” every time, “GM” will do), I ragged on him somewhat mercilessly for his personnel moves. And it seemed justified. Inheriting a pretty poor team. Mullin did not do much to improve that, but did spend over a quarter of a billion dollars on re-signing his core players. In an 18-month period from his hiring in April 2004 to October 2005, Mullin gave out enormous contracts to Mike Dunleavy Jr, Jason Richardson, Troy Murphy, Adonal Foyle and Derek Fisher, contracts which totalled a mindboggling $261 million for only five players, two of whom came off the bench. The only surprise was that he didn’t give a similarly insane contract to Erick Dampier, a free agent who did get an oversized contract, but with Dallas. Mullin’s excessive spending forced him to then cut some salary, making moves such as having to deal a first-round pick along with […]
