According to basketnet.gr, Patrick O'Bryant(2.13-C) has received an offer he can't refure from Indios BCN and after tonight's game he will be leaving the team of Kavala BC. The offer is quite good and it's for 14,000 dollars a month for O'Bryant who came from the NBDL and had his break-out season in Europe.
The only other time that O'Bryant played outside Europe was in China for Fujian Xunxing. He has also played for Golden State, Boston and Toronto in the NBA and Bakersfield and Reno in NBDL. O'Bryant was the 9th overall pick in the 2006 NBA Draft but his stock didn't go up as expected. Nevertheless he had a productive season in Greece averaging 9.5 points 5.9 rebounds and 1.6 blocks in a total of 18 games.
Dominic James(1.80-PG) left Greece and went to Serbia to join Partizanbut that doesn't seem to be ending well for him. The player did try to make amends and return to Aris BC by calling his former players but the team's administration are sticking to their decision to let FIBA make a ruling through B.A.T.
According to basketplus.gr, Ben Uzoh(1.91-PG/SG) was offered to Aris BC as a "boon" in order to release the letter of clearance for Dominic James. Uzoh signed initially for Montegranaro but he left them out to dry and fled hastily towards the dollars of Lokomotiv Kuban. That didn't really end too well for him and after 2 games he went back home. Now he's playing in the NBDL for the Rio Grande Vipers averaging a decent 17.9 points per game. Uzoh might be a bit on the pricey side for the shoestring budget of Aris this season and there is always the compensation to the NBDL league to release him. The Aris administration want a compensation instead.
There will probably be more to follow in the James melodrama..
Union Olimpija signed center Eric Dawson (208cm, 1984) until end of season with option to extend him for another one. He started the season in D-League with Austin Toros where he had an average of 16,2 points and 10,6 rebounds per game. He played collegiate basketball at the Midwestern State University. He already played twice international basketball as he spent time in Japan and South Korea. This will be his first time in Europe.
Great Britain big man EricBoateng has signed with Greek side Peristeri B.C for the coming season.
The 6’11″, 260lb center spent last season in the NBA’s Development League, split between two teams, the Idaho Stampede and Austin Toros. He averaged 4.9 ppg, 4.8 rpg and 0.9 bpg in just 16 minutes per outing, with his best two outings coming in back to back performances for Idaho against Bakersfield in December where he had a 19 point-11 rebound and 16 point-13 rebound double double respectively. The Londoner also made 5 NBA appearances with DenverNuggets in the pre-season.
Peristeri compete in Greek’s top A1 league, where they went 12-14 last season finishing in the middle of the table (7th out of 14). They are 2-0 for the 2011/12 season so far.
Boateng averaged 1.5 points and 2 rebounds per game this summer for GB at Eurobasket in Lithuania.
BC Union Olimpija Ljubljana signed one-year contract with NBA-out option with former Tar Heel Danny Green. He will join Deon Thompson, his former teammate from University of North Carolina.
Green was drafted by the NBA in 2009 and played for Cleveland Cavaliers and San Antonio Spurs in the last two seasons. In the last season he was also part of D-League team Reno Bighorns where he averaged 20.1 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game.
One of the most underrated big men lands in Italy.
According to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports via a source, Jeff Adrien is set to sign a one-year deal with Benetton Treviso in Italy. Spears also added that the deal allows for an out whenever the lockout ends.
Adrien was cut by the Warriors at the end of August, so he could find himself in camp with a team via an invite in hopes of making a final roster on the other side of the lockout. If not, Adrien could try the D-League route, where he played for the Erie Bayhawks and Rio Grande Valley Vipers before joining the Warriors last season.
DannyGreen(1.98-SG/SF) is another player that was huge in college but didn't do as well in the NBA. Now he is in talks with Olympiacos according to basketblog.gr and he has been for quite some time as Dusan Ivkovic wants the team to sign him.
His talent is undeniable and he is a player that can do many things in the court but he has never played in Europe before. One might say that this is not really a problem but it begs the question why would a team like Olympiacos go for such a gamble when they could sign other players that have already had a career in Europe. Green was drafted at number 46 by Cleveland in the 2009 Draft and since then he has played for them and San Antonio in the NBA. He has also played for Reno and Austin in the NBDL. His last games were with Reno where he averaged 20.1 points 7.5 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 16 games in the NBDL.
This will be Kenny Hasbrouck's(1.91-PG/SG) second European contract after last season playing for Alicante. Oldenburg announced the deal with the player via the team's official website and it will be for one season. Hasbrouck tried to get a contract in the NBA but although he got a contract with Miami he never saw any playing time.
He graduated from Siena College in 2009 and he has also played for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers in the NBDL. Last season in Alicante he averaged 10.8 points 2 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 20 games in the ACB.
Marcus Landry(2.01-SF) is the new player of Gravelines Dunkerque as it was announced via the team's official website. The deal is for one season. He is the brother of NBA player Carl Landry(2.06-PF) and after a good season in the NBDL he will be taking his talents to the ProA in France.
This will be his first pro contract in Europe and he has also played for New York and Boston in the NBA and also Maine and Reno in the NBDL. This past season he played for RenoBighorns in the NBDL averaging 17.6 points and 4.4 rebounds in 53 games and also for Coamo in Puerto Rico averaging 11.9 points and 4.9 rebounds in 10 games.
Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv is proud to announce that it has signed Jewish-American guard Jon Scheyer (23, 1.96) to a two-year contract.
Scheyer, an intelligent, talented and competitive player, was born in Illinois. As a stand-out high school player, Scheyer led the Glenbrook North Spartans to an Illinois High School Association Class AA championship. In his senior year, Scheyer once scored 21 points in the final 75 seconds of a game, earning national recognition for what was called at the time one of the best high school performances ever. In his final year of high school Scheyer averaged 32 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals per game. In addition to his nickname, the “Jewish Jordan,” Scheyer earned the title of Illinois Mr. Basketball in 2006.
After Khalid El-Amin’s season was declared to be over, Lietuvos Rytas’ searches for a new point guard began.
Reportedly, the search is over as the Lithuanian champions inked Sherron Collins , formerly from the Kansas Jayhawks, on Friday. The 23-year-old American point guard started the season with the Charlotte Bobcats and played 16 games in the NBA before moving to the D-League. Collins averaged only 1.1 points and 0.5 assists for the Bobcats, but the statistics, as could be expected, got a noticeable bump, when the guard moved the Maine RedClaws, where he collected 12 points and 3.2 assists per game.
At his time in the NCAA with the Jayhawks, Collins was averaging 15.5 points and 4.5 assists, with his best season being the 2008-09 campaign where the guard was scoring 19 points per game and dishing out an additional 5 assists.
According to gazzetta.gr, Paok are very close to signing Sherron Collins(1.80-PG). This will be Collins' debut in Europe and the Greek team are reportedly offering Collins 20,000 euros for the remainder of the season. Collins will be replacing Gray, who left for undisclosed reasons and went back to the States. The irony of the situation is that Gray was one of the very few players of Paok that were actually paid..
Collins was until recently a player of the Charlotte Bobcats. He managed to win a contract with them this summer after going undrafted in the summer of 2010 and won a 2 season deal with the Bobcats. He spent some time with the Maine Red Claws in the NBDL and went back to Charlotte only to be waived again. He played 19 games in the NBA without any noticeable averages. He was the leader of the Kansas Jayhawks in his days in the NCAA.
Paok should also be signing another center from the European market to replace Lazaros Papadopoulos.
Lietuvos Rytas are making a last second push to sign a new point guard before Euroleague play resumes in the Top 16 stage on Wednesday.
It looks like former NBA player D.J. Strawberry is on the top of the Lithuanian champions list and talks have been steadily moving forward. However, the final agreement is yet to be reached, but things are moving in the right direction for the deal to come through.
“There are some issues with the D-league release and buyout that have not yet been finalized. We will know everything by tomorrow morning in the States,” the player’s agent Scott Nichols told LithuaniaBasket.com on Monday evening.
Strawberry was drafted 59th overall in the 2007 NBA Draft by Phoenix Suns, where he played 33 games averaging 2.2 points and 0.8 assists per game in an average of 8.2 minutes of court-time.
After a short stint in Italy, which ended in a meniscus injury, the combo guard returned to the States and spent the beginning of the season playing for the Reno Bighorns in the NBDL, where Strawberry is averaging 13.9 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game.
GoldenStateWarriors guard JeremyLin was assigned to the RenoBighorns, the Warriors’ NBADevelopmentLeague affiliate, it was announced today.
The assignment marks the 23rd time in the 2010-11 season an NBA player has been assigned to an NBAD-League affiliate, and it is the first assignment for Lin, a rookie out of Harvard.
Lin (6-3, 200) has appeared in 17 games this season for GoldenState, averaging 1.9 points in 8.5 minutes. In the 2010NBASummerLeague, Lin averaged 9.8 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.8 assists in five games with the DallasMavericks.
The Warriors signed Lin as an undraftedfreeagent in July. In four years at Harvard, Lin averaged 12.9 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.5 assists. He became the first player in IvyLeague history to record 1,450 points, 450 rebounds, 400 assists and 200 steals, and was one of 11 finalists for the BobCousyAward as a senior.
The almighty Barcelona was been exposed this season due to many injuries of key players, namely Pete Mickeal and Juan Carlos Navarro. This resulted to Barcelona losing games both in the ACB and the Euroleague and although some of the gap was covered with the signing of Joe Inglesthere is still need for another scorer in the team to take some of the heat.
Solobasket.com reports a rumor that started from a Catalonian radio station, where Alan Anderson(1.98-SG/SF) could be returning to Europe for the Euroleague champions. Anderson wanted in on the American dream and tried to secure a contract in the NBA but where Gary Neal succeeded he didn't. He is currently playing for the New Mexico Thunderbirds in the NBDL and he is doing quite well averaging 21.1 points 8.5 rebounds and 5 assists in 10 games. Anderson played for Maccabi Tel Aviv last season and he has also played for the Charlotte Bobcats, Virtus Bologna, Triumph Lyubertsy and Cibona Zagreb.
The question here is whether he would be able to adapt to the style of team like Barcelona where he wouldn't be the star of the team and his playing time would be diminished.
Last season in Spain did him good even for a while.
Jeff Adrien was recently released by the NBA's Golden State Warriors so that they could add veteran guard Acie Law, but he won't be out of action for long as he recently signed a contract to play in the NBADevelopment League.
The undersized power forward should soon be on his way back to an NBA if he's able to capture what he did this summer to earn a spot on the Warriors roster and apply it to his time in the D-League.
Adrien, a second-year pro out of the Universityof Connecticut, is expected to be claimed by the Cleveland Cavaliers' D-League affiliate, the Erie BayHawks, the top team on the waiver wire.
Adrien averaged 2.9 points and 3.3 rebounds in 15 games for the Warriors this season while averaging just over 10 minutes per game. But with Lou Amundson and Ekpe Udoh getting healthy, he became expendable.
The 6-6 power forward was able to acquire quite a few new fans -- both admirers and NBA employers -- while playing in both NBA summer leagues this past July. In the Orlando Pro Summer League, Adrien averaged 8.5 points and 7.3 rebounds for the Orlando Magic. In the Las Vegas Summer League, Adrien averaged a more meager 6.5 points and 8.5 rebounds, but his per-minute numbers were much more impressive as he averaged less than 17 minutes per game for the Memphis Grizzlies.
Oh, and he also made a number of highlight reel plays, possibly best captured in a YouTube clip where he drives around the D-League's Yaroslav Korolev before dunking right through Mark Tyndale.
Adrien should excel in the D-League as his motor and physical presence in the post, despite his size, will overwhelm the majority of the players in the Development League. A polished rebounder, one NBA scout told FanHouse that he wouldn't be surprised if Adrien averages 15 points and 15 rebounds while playing in the D-League.
With the BayHawks, Adrien will more than likely be closely scouted because he'll have a couple of other NBA prospects around him. Adrien's point guard will be Cedric Jackson, a scorer who played with the Cavaliers, San Antonio Spurs and Washington Wizards before playing as a rookie last season with Erie. On the wings, Adrien will be joined by ChristianEyenga -- on assignment from the Cavaliers -- and Tasmin Mitchell, a rookie out of Louisiana State who also played well on the summer league circuit. The BayHawks center will be 6-8 Ivan Johnson, the team's current leading scorer with 15.8 points per game.
The BayHawks will play the Iowa Energy Friday night, though it's currently unclear as to when Adrien might officially join the team's active roster.
The MadAnts are bringing back guard Oliver Lafayette, the leader of their late season rally last season.
Lafayette, whose late season play earned him a callup to the Boston Celtics, hopes to play in the games in Tulsa Thursday and Friday nights if he can gain clearance from FIBA from his contract with the Serbian team that recently released him. Lafayette averaged over 17 points and six assists last season in Fort Wayne.
Rashad McCants' NBA D-League foray lasted just fifty-six minutes as the sweet-shooting guard has decided to buy out his D-League contract and take his talents to China.
McCants, the 14th overall pick in the 2005 NBA Draft, had earlier turned down lucrative European offers to pursue another shot at the NBA, telling FanHouse last month "I think that playing in the D-League is the quickest option to return to the NBA."
Apparently, though, McCants decided that after averaging fewer than 20 minutes per game in his first three D-League games for the Dallas Mavericks-affiliated Texas Legends, the NBA was further away than planned, prompting him to take the overseas opportunity.
McCants' agent, E. Lindsey Maxwell, confirmed in an e-mail to FanHouse that his client is leaving the D-League.
"As always, as an agent, it is my job to communicate to him offers for his services (as) a professional athlete,"Maxwell wrote. "Yesterday morning, through one of our overseas contacts, we were contacted by a Chinese team with a fair monetary offer for Mr. McCants to come and play for them."
McCants did elect to give the Mavericks, whose general manager Donnie Nelson is also co-owner of the Legends, an opportunity to match the offer.
"This offer was promptly communicated to my client and he immediately asked me to contact the Mavericks organization to explain the situation and to give them the opportunity to match it, offer him a roster spot or some assurances of a roster spot in Dallas,"Maxwell continued. "After some discussions between myself, Donnie Nelson and (Legends President of Basketball Operations) Spud Webb, my client decided that he should explore his options in China. That process is ongoing and we hope to have that deal finalized later today."
This sort of deal isn't uncommon in the D-League as a similar situation occurred last season between Will Conroy, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers and the Houston Rockets. That ended differently, however, as the Rockets agreed to call up Conroy once 10-day contract options were available.
It is a bit surprising that McCants has elected to buy out his D-League contract, which will cost him $30,000, after originally announcing that he'd be donating his D-League earnings ($25,500 for the season) to charity. The relationship between he and the Mavericks, however, have seemed rocky since they originally brought him into training camp to make sure the Legends would obtain McCants' D-League rights.
"We are disappointed that it didn't work out with them and we look forward to Rashad getting a REAL shot at making it back into the NBA,"Maxwell wrote in a e-mail to FanHouse prior to joining the Legends. "If he decides to go to the D-League, he will have to play for that team. I can't speak as to Dallas' motives, but (McCants) did not get much of a chance to 'compete for a roster spot' as Dallas had announced a couple of days ago."
McCants averaged 12.3 points for the Legends, shooting 59 percent from the field.
In Aris Thessaloniki luck is not apparent. They lost Dimitris Verginis(1.91-PG/SG) only after a few weeks and he won't back until February or March. Now they lost Pierre Pierce(1.93-PG/SG)too who will back in the span of 5-7 weeks and they can't wait for him. They needed another guard to fill his shoes and since the opportunity has arisen they will try to go for someone different. Jason Hart(1.91-PG) and Sundiata Gaines(1.85-PG) were the last names that were added to a long list of offered players.
So far Curtis Jerrells(1.85-PG/SG) asked for too much money, Sean Singletary(1.83-PG/SG) hasn't replied because there are other offers on the table, (especially one from Eurocup opponents Azovmash Mariupol and they can offer a lot more dollars) and the last offer they made was to Kenny Hasbrouck(1.91-PG/SG), who was recently waived by the Miami Heat. According to Athlitika Nea, a newspaper affiliated to Aris Thessaloniki, the Thanksgiving holiday put the transfer on hold temporarily but it is expected that Aris will announced someone today after the game with Kolossos Rhodes for the Greek A1 league. It could possibly be Hasbrouck who averaged 4.6 points 1.4 rebounds and 3 assists in 5 games with the Miami Heat in preseason.
KK Zadar will be adding 2 new players according to tportal.hr.
DamirRancic(1.98-SG/SF) recently left Panellinios but he won't stay without a job for very long. The Croatian swingman will be playing for KKZagreb in order to help them in the AdriaticLeague and the FIBA Eurochallenge. Rancic left Panellinios citing personal reasons and he will be returning to more familiar grounds with KK Zagreb. Rancic has been around a lot and he has played for KK Split, Cibona Zagreb, BC Kyiv, Olimpija Ljubljana, KK Zadar and Panellinios but he also played for them in the past as well.
Trey Gilder on the other hand hasn't played in Europe before but he has played very briefly for the Memphis Grizzlies and also in the NBDL for Colorado, Maine and most recently for the Albuquerque Thunderbirds averaging 14 points and 5.9 rebounds in 10 games.
