B-Ball Potpourri Post #1

[by Kris SANTIAGO] - Hi guys, this is B-Ball Potpourri, my new installment regarding some smaller stories and recent news which are taking you around the basketball globe, especially from my sight.
I'm hoping to keep you updated once in a while with a new post and giving you my perspective when it comes to our beloved sport (Wow, that last one sounds so cheesy to me…I leave it like that since it's kind of true, we do love this sport)

As recently mentioned by colleague Christophe Ney in a chat on Ball in Europe:
Stanko Barac shakes hands with German national-team guard Pascal Roller during the NBA Draft. He is now working for NBA-boss Stern after falling apart with Dirk Bauermann over playing time. Watch
Please tell Stanko how to wear a baseball-cap. I don't want to see him wearing a cowboy-hat...

Need a (FYRO) Macedonian passport? All you have to do is to play for Aris Saloniki in Greece. You don't believe me?
Ask Darius Washington, Kevin Fletchter, Mike Wilkinson and Ryan Stack. All these Americans play or played for Aris and received their Bosman-B status as players through some pipeline in Saloniki. Now Wilkinson and Stack actually represented "their" country internationally but I wonder what Washington and Fletcher did to get the passport?
Jeremiah Massey on the other hand is Slovakian...and guess where he currently plays? Yep....Aris.
Meanwhile, a "Macedonian-by-birth" won the MVP award in Bulgaria.


An old friend of mine made it finally back to Europe: Olumide Oyedeji, or better known as "Big Olu" , signed in Spain for a one week try-out with CB Granada. He played only five minutes in yesterday's game against Cajasol Sevilla, so I am worried that the former center of the Seattle Sonics and Orlando Magic will stay longer in Andalucia.
I used to hang out with him back in the days when he used to play for German-team Würzburg (Nowitzki was actually there when Olu played his first season), so I am hoping, that the Nigerian with a lot of experience on the Asian-continent (Played in Korea and China during the last years) is going to stick around here in Europe.


I'm hoping to catch the movie "Semi-Pro" (A comedy about the old American Basketball Association in the 70's) starring Will Ferrell here in German movie-theatres.
It's probably more fun to watch then an ABA-game nowadays, as most of their games have been cancelled and over the half of the teams disappeared through out the last season.
The ABA has some "special" fans on the web; you may check their opinion and stories here.
The board is always good for a hearty laugh, especially when user "Chuck the Writer" and his fictional "Utica Wreckers" come into play.

The U.S. minor basketball leagues are always good for spectacular stories, like this one here:
"Instead of traveling to Elmira, N.Y., for its inaugural NPBL game, the team named West Virginia Wild never showed up. After they failed to reach the Elmira Holiday Inn hotel on past Friday night, Bulldogs team management was left spending the day on Saturday attempting to track down team owner/player Daniel Hicks. According with the official team website, at that point the Elmira Bulldogs staff contacted former employees of the Wild from when the team was in the IBL in hopes of getting into contact with Hicks. It was at this time that it became clear that Daniel Andrew Hicks was not a good man and the Elmira Bulldogs management was given some concrete information on some details of Daniel Andrew Hicks recently checkered past with the law in West Virginia.... "From USBasket.com

Actually Hicks is facing drug charges, that's why he couldn't travel to Elmira...but unlike many other NBA-stars who are getting caught driving under the influence of alcohol , he won't be probably out of jail soon....

But it's not all negative here, as the PBL did quite well in its first year of existence and the IBL is also brining some stability to the currently riddled minor league circus.

If you ever wondered how much it cost to send a national team to a regional FIBA tournament (If players are willing to pay their own flights...), you may check this report regarding the troubles the Guyanan basketball national-team faced on their trip to Puerto Rico...

Here is a highlight-video in the previous blog-mentioned Ryan Gomes.
Maybe he can motivate himself to play for Cape Verde like in the video here.

Big Sofo is back and thanked his club for the weight loss therapy ...man, I may need such a rest (and weight-loss therapy) too, and can I spend some time in the FIBA headquarters in Switzerland to loose some weight?
I promise I will write some blogs while stopping to ruin every buffet...and I certainly won't elbow you guys on purpose like Jan St. Rose did against Lausanne...

Finally, I though I let you know about my favorite basketball players with a blog on the web:

1. Rod Benson - Dakota Wizards (D-League)
He gets credit for writing his blog in the latest issue of the "Slam"-magazine and Pony gave him his own shoe - The San Diego-native runs the blogger biz with his two blogs.
Rod regularly blogs out of Bismarck, North Nowhere and still has plenty of hilarious stuff to tell his readers who are waiting on his success to transform into a contract in the NBA but Europe is probably his next stop and I can't wait to get his thoughts on his life here in Europe.


2. Corey Underwood - Albuquerque Jalapeños. Thunderbirds (D-League)
New York's streetball star C-Wood is regularly updating his D-League blog and is giving you a great inside of what happens on his New Mexico-based team, especially in their locker room and their trips through the D-League. I share the same interests such as movies and music with him, so every blog-entry of C-Wood is read-worthy and is often hilarious when it's about some off-court stuff that happened to him.

3. Gabe Muoneke - Tau Ceramica aka The Troubled ones (Spain)
Gabe is multilingual and therefore you need from time to time a translator by hand to understand what he is trying to say.
Once you got the translation from (f.e.) Nigerian-Pigeon-English into your language, you have to recognize his writing skills.
His recent blogs give all readers a pretty good insight on what is going on behind closed doors and off the court, as well as some trivial thoughts beyond basketball.
Funniest story out of his column: Bashing self-proclaimed NBA-star Damon Jones.

4. Marcus Sloan - Fribourg Olympic (Switzerland)
This "bored" (According to him) baller knows how to entertain and who switched recently from Draft Express to Ball in Europe.
He has some good stuff to tell, read worthy and mostly about stuff that's going or not going on besides the basketball-court.


5. J.C. Mathis - Sioux Falls Skyforce (D-League)
A solid blogger, who is having some good stuff to tell, but its mostly related to his on-court experiences so he is far behind C-Wood and Too Mucho.

6. Pooh Jeter - BC Kiev ('Kraine)
One man standing...after C.J. Watson, Marcus loan, Jared Reiner and Rod Benson discontinued writing blogs on DX.
Tells some good stuff from Kiev, Ukraine which he calls the "Kraine" and which I think sounds pretty cool. As my grandpa comes from there, Pooh inspired me for my new nickname: Kris "The Kraine"…

7. DeJuan Collins - Zalgiris Kaunas (Lithuania)
A nice blog, not overwhelming but....nice like Borat would probably say.

Hall of Fame: Paul Shirley - Vive Menorca (Spain)
The godfather of player-blogs that are not only dealing with boring on-court activities is actually not writing for ESPN anymore.
That's why I did not include him in my list, although he is an all-time favorite of mine and his book "Can I keep my jersey" is a must-read for basketball fans. 

According to his blog on myspace, Paul is planning to retire from active basketball once the season is over.
Please message him to revoke his decision, it's not too late and we (Me, myself and I) are waiting on another book, so Paul please don't pull the trigger!

Note: You may wonder why I didn't include Agent Zero…well I am not really convinced that I like his blog and since I can barely relate to him, he is not in my list.

That's all for this time,

Keep reading my other posts - have a relaxed week!