Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 30

February 5th, 2009

Snowman update: my dog ate the nose, someone stole the hat, and the pipe fell out. However, the weather hasn’t been above freezing yet, and so he still survives as before, slightly icier but just as large. Good times.

Before the list starts, here’s a quick TRIVIA QUESTION: which one of the following players has scored the second most regular season points in the NBA? Answer at the bottom.

– Herve Lamizana recently left his team in the United Arab Emirates and joined Al Ittihad (and his wife Jean) in the Egyptian league. I can’t imagine where I’ll ever say that sentence again. I don’t have any stats for Lamizana, but if you like your college basketball enough to remember the names of obscure American players from about a decade ago, then here are Lamizana’s American team mates: John Thomas III (college: St Francis), Derrick Franklin (Columbus State) and Chauncey Leslie (Iowa). Those three are nothing to be sniffed at: between them, they’ve won the Turkish second division, a Jordanian league championship, and a Hungarian Cup runners-up medal. You can’t deny experience like that.

– Maciej Lampe is still going, and getting somewhere. In his third season with Khimki, Lampe is averaging 14.1 points and 5.7 rebounds in the Russian league, both team highs, alongside 13.0 points and 3.0 rebounds in two EuroCup games. These numbers come on a stacked team that also features Jorge Garbajosa, Kelly McCarty and Carlos Delfino, amongst others. Lampe was a joke back in the day, but not any more.

– Sean Lampley is signed with Al Arabi (and his wife Jean) in the Qatarian league. As if he could be anywhere else.

– James Lang averages 8.5 points and 5.8 rebounds in 18.6 minutes for the Utah Flash. That’s extremely good production in such a short amount of time. That’s what Tyrus Thomas does on average every night, and he plays more minutes than that. So why does Lang only play 19 minutes a game? Because he also averages 4 fouls a game in that short time. And that’s….a lot of fouls.

– Kris Lang is in Turkey, averaging 5.7 points, 4.1 rebounds and 0.9 blocks per game in Turkish league play for Turk Telekom Ankara. Lang also averages 5.3 points and the same number of rebounds in the EuroCup. His full first name is Kristoffer, which is indefensibly bad spelling, although it does explain his abridged version.

– Trajan Langdon is with CSKA Moscow, and has been since 2005. Langdon averages 11.4 points in the Russian league and 11.8 in the EuroLeague, numbers slightly down on last year.

– Keith Langford is playing for Virtus (La Fortezza) Bologna, the team that won’t play Petteri Koponen, and that Earl Boykins briefly walked away from. Langford averages 11.4 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 2.6 steals and 0.8 blocks in the Italian league, and 15.7 points, 4.4 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 2.3 steals and 0.6 blocks in the EuroChallenge. Combined, Langford has totalled 293 points on 193 shots, which for points per shot fans is 1.52 PPS. And that’s a lot when you score that much.

– Dan Langhi is unsigned after a short stint in Puerto Rico over the summer. He didn’t play for the whole of the previous season, and was in Japan before that. Before that he apparently had a try-out with the Kings, which I totally don’t remember.

– Stephane Lasme plays for Partizan Belgrade, averaging 11.2 points, 6.8 points and 1.8 blocks in the Adriatic League, and 10.1 points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game in the EuroLeague. Partizan recently knocked off Lottomatica Roma in the EuroLeague’s Final 16 and continue to surpass everyone’s expectations, in no small part due to Lasme’s play.

– Charles Lee plays for Goettingen in Germany, alongside Santa Clara guard and porn star Kyle Bailey. Lee averages 13.2 points and 4.1 rebounds, doing quite a lot of scoring for a non-scoring role player. Such is the German league.

– Voshon Lenard is unsigned and unaccounted for.

– Maarty Leunen is playing for the wonderfully named team of Darussafaka in Turkey. Leunen leads the team in both points and rebounds, averaging 12.2 points and 6.1 rebounds, making him exactly 61% of a 20/10 player.

TRIVIA QUESTION ANSWER: Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was Trajan Langdon. The list is as follows:

Lamizana – 0
Lampe – 215
Lampley – 203
J. Lang – 11
K. Lang – 0
K.D. Lang – 0
Clubber Lang – 0
Lang Whitaker – 0
Langdon – 647
Langford – 2
Langhi – 393
Lasme – 83
Lee – 0
Lenard – 6,745
Leunen – 0

CONCLUSION: This list really scrapes the bottom of the barrel.