Schenschational Covers the CBA?!?

Looking over at my favorite forum, OurSportsCentral, I saw some people looking for what this years draft picks are doing.  Knowing that each team only picked 30 players, figured this was a task I could handle.  Knowing the majority of the players will wind up in either the D-League or overseas as they did last year, I'm assuming the majority of the nothing yet's will probably hear their name November 7th when the D-League drafts.  

I think I'd say East Kentucky had the best draft, as 4 of their 6 choices haven't been signed, but they're all pretty good players, so I'm assuming they'll go D-League.  Albany probably had the worst draft, as they only have 2 players not signed overseas, and one is Steve Dagastino out of St. Rose College in New York.

Anyway, here's what I found out:

ALBANY

1. Michael Jenkins – Apparently playing in Bosnia

6. Patrick Sanders – Los Angeles (D-League)

11. Charron Fisher – Signed in Serbia

16. Frank Elegar – Playing in Germany

21. Kyle Hines – Playing in Italy

26. Steve Dagostino – Playing overseas

EAST KENTUCKY

2. Roy Bright – Playing in Latvia

7. Emmanuel Little – EK Miners

12. Charles Rhodes – Nothing yet

17. Rashad West – D-League Draft

22. Terrance Whiters – D-League Draft

27. Brandon Cotton – D-League Draft

PITTSBURGH

3. Othello Hunter – Made the Atlanta Hawks

8. Mike Cook – Erie (D-League)

13. Keith Benjamin – D-League Draft

18. LaQuan Prowell – Playing in Turkey

23. Reggie Williams – Playing in France

28. Leon Williams – Playing in Turkey

LAWTON-FORT SILL

4. Aaron Smith – Nothing yet

9. Longar Longar – Signed in Turkey

14. Marcus Dove – Playing in Belgium

19. Steven Hill – OKC

24. Kyle Chones – Nothing yet

29. Jeremy Clayton – Nothing yet

MINOT

5. Brian Butch – Signed in China

10. Brandon Smith – Reportedly going back to school

15. Othyus Jeffers – D-League Draft

20. Dion Dowell – Overseas through December

25. Sasha Kaun – Playing with CSKA Moscow

30. Dominique Kirk – Signed in Turkey

Why Schenschational?

"Why Schenschational?" is a question that has come up a few times.  Easy answer: Luke Schenscher, what else.  However, since I've had 300 visits to my website already (That's an average of 13.6 visits PER DAY!), I figured I'd take a little time to explain myself. 

I root for the underdog.  Growing up, I was a Packer fan in a state full of Vikings fans (after the couple of Super Bowl wins, the state's shifted more toward the Packers).  I wore the black alternate Scottie Pippen jersey to 4th grade when Michael Jordan was the star, and then only because the local store's didn't have a Luc Longley jersey.  I stuck with the Bulls when they once started a lineup featuring Bryce Drew, Fred Hoiberg, Ron Mercer, Marcus Fizer, and Brad Miller.  I wear the Vote Obama shirt in a state that hasn't voted for a democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson. At last years D-League draft, I lobbied for Coach Ticknor to draft Royce Parran and Rashid "Seven and Sum Change" Byrd.  I am trying to get into the basketball industry, even though I'm coming out of Bemidji State University, my grandparents are farmers, my dad's a factory worker, and my mom is the produce manager at the local grocery store.  I'm a freaking underdog.

 

I suck at thinking of sweet names.  My whole life, I haven't been much of a creative guy, with any name I come up with either being really boring or just not making any sense, or both.  My favorite stuffed animal was a brown bear that was from my mom I had when I was adopted.  I named him Browny, presumably because he was brown.  The Y-Ball team I captained in 8th grade was nicknamed the Grizzlies.  Not sure if it was named after the Bryant Reeves led Vancouver Grizzlies or my elementary school Grimsrud Grizzlies, but we were the Grizzlies... and Terrible.  My best friend, Jordan Rosendahl, got the nickname JRose, though his basketball skills clearly surpass those of Jalen Rose's.  This weird cowboy kid that I worked with at Central Market was nicknamed DP, though his real was Dan Eberhardt.  One time when DP walked into the library and JRose kind of called him DPenis, and it kind of stuck.  My trivia team at Stadium Sports Bar has been called Andes Mountains the last few weeks.  I'm just not creative.  When thinking of someway to immortalize what I planned my blog around, a place to talk about (Mostly) the D-League, Schenschational hit me.  I hope someday to get Marv Albert to give me a sound clip, or somehow find him saying 'Sensational', as this is my inspiration.

Luke Schenscher is the man.  This I know is true because 7-foot-1 Luke Schenscher once took a picture with my drunk 5-foot-2 mom at Ground Round after a Forth Worth-Dakota game, along with the Mavericks Jose Juan Barea, who is also, in real life, 5-foot-2.  This would be a sweet posse.  I first became a fan of Schensch in 2004 when he was the most likeable player on a likeable team, including fellow future D-Leaguer's  Will Bynum, Ismail Muhammad and Anthony McHenry, along with future NBAer's Chris Bosh, Jarrett Jack, and Mario West.  Overall a stacked team, where Schensch provided the glue needed to hold a solid team together.  Even though he averaged just 10 points, 7 boards, and 2 blocks a game, he was still developing and went to Summer League twice.  Though both the Nuggets and Spurs passed on him and his flowing blonde-red locks, he caught on as a 2nd round pick of the Fort Worth Flyers.  Playing just 36 games and averaging 8 points, 6 boards, and a block, he was called up by the Chicago Bulls, who no doubt noticed how much of a stud he could be.  With the Bulls, he averaged 8 minutes, playing the final 20 games with the Bulls that season, averaging 2 point and 2 boards.   After playing with the Bulls that Summer, he was their last cut, but was assigned once again to Fort Worth.  Averaging 9 and 7 with the Flyers, he was once again called up in March, this time by the Portland Trailblazers, averaging 2 points, 2 boards, and a block.  After playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves the following season in the Vegas Summer League, he decided to go overseas and get paid, signing with Brose Baskets Bamberg in Germany to compete in Euroleague.  After playing in one game and struggling with knee tendonitis, he took the rest of the season off to rehab.  This season he's back in Australia playing with the Adelaide 36ers.  So far he's averaging 16 points and 8 boards, and over a block a game.

To sum it up, I'm a fan of hard working underdogs, and Luke Schenscher fits this perfectly.  As odd looking as he is, he still gets chicks, and even though he doesn't light up the stat book, if you watch him play, he can ball, and that's what counts.

Going Off on Nick Fazekas

Today, Matt, the main writer over at the other blog I write on, RidiculousUpside, had a post on how Nick Fazekas didn't deserve to get cut.  It was backed up pretty well, citing Dave Berri from Wages of Wins, letting readers know how he was the most underrated player in last years NBA draft and backing it up with a bunch of statistics that don't mean much to the average person.  Really, he "posted a WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] of 0.289 (average is 0.100)."

Amazing!

I don't care.  I'm glad he "produces a lot of wins", but getting off the bench at the end of the game in situations where he is not deciding the game and putting up decent numbers should not let him produce this random stat.  He put up the 2nd highest PER in the D-League.  Wow! 

Again, this doesn't take into account surrounding factors.  

Fazekas shot the best percentage when playing against the Bakersfield Jam last season, 75%, along with putting in 25 points.  Wow, great game, until you look into the surrounding factors: If you're playing on a team that features you playing next to Chris Ellis (who?), Scott Merritt (whox2?), and Keith Closs (you know him, but still, he's not so much a force after breaking the world record for most cigarettes smoked before a basketball game in Bismarck, North Dakota 10 years after being a bust with the Clippers in the NBA, then going on to play with the Pennsylvania Valley Dawgs, Detroit Motown Jammers, Orange County Buzz, and the So Cal Legends before surfacing with the Tulsa 66ers in their attempt to show Fazekas "Hey, if you don't improve, you're going to end up like this guy, AT BEST!"), you're going to put up numbers.  Especially if you're playing against the Bakersfield Jam, in front of their homecrowd of an announced 831, and you're matched up against the immortal Mustafa/Mufasa/Simba Al-Sayyad.  As predicted, he put up 25 points against them, shooting 75% from the field, though only pulled in 5 rebounds.  Ramon Sessions outrebounded him that game.  

Fazekas averaged the most rebounds last season when playing against the Anaheim Arsenal, pulling down 16.  Wow, that's a lot!  Anaheim started a lineup that featured Will Blalock, Davin White, Steven Smith, Kedrick Brown, and Ivan Johnson.  Tallest player of the bunch? 6-foot-8.  Why wouldn't Fazekas be able to board against those guys, especially when neither team shot better than 50% from the field?  Fazekas also scored 20 points in this game, adding 4 turnovers.

Alright, so against bad teams, Fazekas puts up good numbers.  What if he plays against average players that should be able to defend his limited post moves?  I looked at which team he put up bad numbers, and when looking at shooting percentage, it came against the Fort Wayne Mad Ants.  Really?  The Mad Ants, featuring a big man rotation that included NATE GERWIG?  The only thing he's got going for him is annoyingness and girth.  However, in his games against Fort Wayne, Fazekas shot just 39% from the field.  Being bodied up by Larry Turner, Lukasz Obrzut and Nate Gerwig, he wasn't very effective on the offensive end.

Against probably the best starting big combination in the D-League last year, Rod Benson and Kevin Lyde of the Dakota Wizards, Fazekas averaged 15 and 8.  Not bad, not great, but average.  Playing in the D-League, you don't deserve an NBA contract if you're going to put up average numbers against good D-League players.  He put 11 points and 8 boards when playing when Kevin Lyde was out and the Wizards big men included Rod Benson (whom Fazekas should match up well against considering he might be able to body him up), Wil Frisby (6-8 stocky forward) and Kibwe Trim (who?).  Not exceptional.  I attended the game and afterward, received a text message from a buddy that was at the game asking if I wanted to go get "Fazekased".  Fazekas that night meant going to the Elbow Room to get dominated by Georgia in Blackjack, and drinking enough Bud Lights to pull a JamesOn Curry and pee while walking over the train tracks to my vehicle.  Fazekased, not exactly a good thing.

Presumably Fazekased pregame in Tulsa

Alright, enough about the negatives, what are Fazekas postives?  Stumped? So am I. Coming out of Nevada, it was said that he has good touch and a high motor.  In his NBA and D-League career, he's made 3 of his 19 3-pointer's attempted.  He also runs like a fat girl, and not quick, so I'm not so sure his conditioning is there for him to still be considered a hustle guy.  Meanwhile, this 60-year old dude made 209 in a row with that form.  It can't be that hard.

Meanwhile, he was just beat out by Juwan Howard for the Nuggets last spot.  They have Chris "Birdman" Andersen, Renaldo Balkman, Steven Hunter, Kenyon Martin, and Nene for big men.  The two things these guys have in common are that they either lack polish or are injury prone.  Juwan Howard is polished, but injury prone. Fazekas isn't polished, but his career has been void of any major injuries.  I say major because there's got to be something that causes him to run the way he does.  It's scary.  Nonetheless, on a team full of "personalities", I guess, an aging Howard will be a good locker room guy, and add more to a lacking-since-the-Camby-trade-low-post game than Fazekas would have.

My Meeting With Paul Mokeski

Knowing my affinity for big white scrubs (Luke Schenscher and Les Jepsen among them), my biggest accomplishment is probably meeting Paul Mokeski.  This Summer, upon learning I was getting the chance to intern for the Vegas Summer League, I called former Wizards coach Dean Martin to see if he could find a good cheap hotel for me close to UNLV, as I didn't really want to pay too much to go down and watch a bunch of D-Leaguers play basketball.  After finding out that there wasn't too much available that was cheap and nice, I told him I'd just stay at the Candlewood, which wasn't very close and didn't have a very good rating.  The plus side, I could stay there for $29 a night, since I was a manager at the Holiday Inn Express and were under the same brand.  Fortunately, I found out that we wouldn't have to pay for our hotel rooms and would be staying at the Wyndham with a couple roommates.

Fast forward a couple weeks, to my first day in Vegas, and I get a text from Martin asking if I could still get a good deal on an employee room down in Vegas.  Assuming I could, but not having the employee card with me, I told him I'd have to call him back.  Since the Candlewood was certifiably ghetto, they were fine with me not checking in, not having my employee card or anything else.  This was helpful, so I booked a room for the week under my name and called Martin back the next morning to let him know we were set.  Later that day, when Martin texted me and let me know he was at the gym, I went over to meet him.  He was with Dean Murray, former assistant for the Anaheim Arsenal, and Paul Mokeski, former journeyman 7-footer who played 12 seasons in the NBA with six different teams, averaging 4 points and 3.4 boards a game.

The guys I had locked up the hotel room for were Murray and Mokeski.  I knew who Murray was due to my vast knowledge of the D-League, but didn't know too much about Mokeski other than that the name sounded familiar.  Upon going home and Googling him to find out why I would have heard of him, I found the above photoshopped picture that summed up everything.  I also learned that he's had numerous run-in's with the law. First in 1987 with the late great Dennis Johnson and fellow BSWG (Big Stiff White Guy) Jack Sikma where they were questioned about giving gambling tips to people as well as using cocaine.  Though they were never charged, Mokeski gave us reason to believe recently that the rumors were true.

In 2000 he was set to coach the Kansas City Knights in the ABA, but two months after being hired, he was fired after being charged with cocaine possession in Milwaukee.  He later pleaded no contest.  The Dallas Mavericks then hired him as a scout as well as working in player development. For the 2006-2007 season, he was the assistant coach for the Fort Worth Flyers, where he coached Luke Schenscher, among others.  Last season, he was an assistant of Sam Vincent's, though when Vincent was fired and Larry Brown brought in, Mokeski was apparently let go.  I hope he gets on with a team now though, as I'd attest to him no longer using, as well as for my personal benefits: I'm looking for a job, and having contacts are always helpful.  Really though, both he and Murray seem to be good guys that'd be fun to hang out with.

Anyway, to finish my Mokeski in Vegas story.  A few days after I had hooked M&M up at the Candlewood, I texted Murray to see what they were up to one night, wanting to show my buddy JRose how cool I was, hooking up a former NBA legend (kind of).  Murray told us to meet them at Terrible's.  I had never heard of Terrible's, but upon asking around, we learned that they had $5 blackjack.  Five-dollar Blackjack in Vegas, Wow!  

We met up with them after spending about $30 dollars getting from one end of the strip over to Terribles, which, as you may have guessed, isn't on the strip.  Upon arriving, we couldn't find them, though I'm not sure how, as Terrible's gaming area isn't much larger than the Bismarck Comfort Inn's gaming area.  We did however, find a lot of other cool people, mostly probably homeless, and one guy at the craps table with a grill in and wearing a Darius Miles Cav's jersey (Assume it actually was D-Miles, but not sure).

Once we found them, we played $5 blackjack with the scariest dealer I've ever played with.  I think I lost about 50, JRose won about 50, but it was fun.  Plus, everytime I got blackjack, they paid in 50-cent pieces, so I did have about 8 dollars of them in my pocket at the end of the night. Not sure how Mokeski and Murray did, I think left early that night, but I'm not 100% sure, as free Corona's and my first night out in Vegas didn't really help my memory.  

Good Night, EliteXC

EliteXC, home of Kimbo Slice and little else (so basically nothing), has finally shut down today, according to Josh Gross at SI.com. Good riddance. It was the first MMA promotion on regular cable, and though this should have been great for the sport, they found a way to ruin the integrity Dana White's UFC has worked so hard to achieve.  Using Kimbo Slice and his youtube bumfights as viral video that brought a lot of attention to the CBS telecasts, bringing new viewers to an otherwise usually hard to watch sport.  UFC has the Ultimate Fighter reality show and the odd live event on Spike, Fox Sports occasionally airs an old Pride event, and Versus airs World Extreme Cagefighting, but the average fan isn't going to stumble across these while channel surfing, and they're not very well marketed.

This is where EliteXC had a chance to show that mixed martial arts is actually a sport, complete with skilled athletes who train hard for fights, battling each other to determine who is the best all-around fighter at his or, in EliteXC's case, her weight class.  However, after the recent Slice fight, real name Kevin Ferguson, the sport took a bad turn after Seth Petruzelli told a radio station that EliteXC offered to pay him more if he stood up with Slice rather than take it the ground, where he surely would win.  Petruzelli, however, beat Slice with a jab that looked like it wouldn't have knocked out anyone reading this blog.

Once Petruzelli showed the world what a chump Slice was, being a no-name and capitalizing on his new-found fame, he did the interview enough about him getting paid more to stand up enough that the Florida State Athletic Commission decided to look into the promotion, which immediately hurt the sport's reputation.  UFC president Dana White explains why best:

Hopefully the sport doesn't take too much heat from the stupidity of EliteXC.  It's turning into a top-3 most popular sport among guys my age. The UFC and it's partners are making plenty of money off MMA with clothing company Affliction shirts showing up everywhere, bringing the sport mainstream.  If EliteXC didn't ruin it permanently, White would be smart to work out a deal with a broadcast cable company, because if it's promoted right, MMA could be plenty more popular than it already is.

Cut Day

Since this is Ridiculous Upside, today I'm looking at the players that got cut today in favor of guys with (the opposite of Ridiculous Upside?).

Today, the Chicago Bulls cut Darius Washington and Elton Brown, the Milwaukee Bucks cut Ron Howard and Kevin Kruger, and the Philadelphia 76ers cut Antywane Robinson. Though all of these cuts were expected, it's disappointing for it to have happened, as it would have been nice had these guys had their chances to prove themselves to be more worthy of a spot than some of the veterans that were in camp without as much upside.

Elton Brown and Darius Washington both have more upside, and possibly talent, than one of the other Bulls non-guaranteed contracts, Michael Ruffin, and the same amount of upside, minus the local ties, of Roger Powell. Brown plays the same position as Ruffin, and while Ruffin is a defensive stopper with no offensive skills to mention, so is every other big on the Bulls. Why not keep Brown around, at least let him show something in the last preseason games, rather than keep Ruffin sitting on the bench and playing Brown minimally to the point that he's not able to show what he is able to do. Besides, Ruffin is probably most famous for:



Darius Washington, meanwhile, did play well in the preseason. He averaged 8 points in the 2 games he made it into. Though the Bulls are filled with guards, I don't understand why they would have brought him into camp without giving him an opportunity. When given the opportunity he played well, but apparently that wasn't enough. The Bulls should have kept him around, at least until his contract became guaranteed, in case an attractive trade offer comes up where they're unable to unload one of their guards. With this many guards, it would have been smarter to keep a guy like Washington around, who won't complain about minutes. Get a serviceable big man in a trade for one of the guards, as the rest of the guards on the team probably aren't going to take to the bench as well as Washington would have.

Kevin Kruger and Ron Howard were both cut from the Bucks. Although Howard doesn't yet have the skills to compete at an NBA level and would be wise to play with the Mad Ants again this season, Kruger does have the NBA knowledge. While he's not very athletic, he is heady enough to play at the point and facilitate the offense, which goes along with his dad being Lon Kruger, the longtime coach. He's certainly got more upside than both Tyronn Lue and Damon Jones, two of the other point guards being paid by the Bucks. He played 22 minutes in 2 games, making one of his two shot attempts, a 3-point attempt, and dished 3 assists, shooting 5-for-5 from the line. Certainly not amazing, but I'm not sure why the Bucks wouldn't have given him more of a chance, considering they took a chance on other D-Leaguers that's paid off. Ramon Sessions, the projected starting point guard, and recently hired Joe Wolf are both D-League success stories.

Ummm... Really?

So, I didn't watch this game last night (LSU-South Carolina), but just came across this play, and loved Deadspin's comment about it.. If Ed Hochuli and Tim Donaghy had a baby, this guy would be it...



I'm not quite sure how this is legal, or even makes sense, but it kind of makes me wonder how many refs are legit...