2010 Summer League Rosters: Dallas Mavericks
July 10th, 2010
Roddy Buckets
The final year of Jason Terry’s contract is only partially guaranteed. Only $5 million of $10,658,000 is guaranteed; the rest becomes guaranteed dependent on how many minutes Terry plays. Terry’s contract will become guaranteed if he plays in more than 60 games and more than 1,500 minutes next year; if he doesn’t, and he’s waived before next July 15th, then whoever owns him could get a break of a few million dollars.
I’m telling you this because Boobwar is making Terry available.
Mouhammad Faye
Faye turns 25 in a couple of months, and just finished a season where he averaged 10/5 for Southern Methodist University in Conference USA. The Georgia Tech transfer would have potential if he was 19, for he’s an athletic 6’10 small forward with fledgling ball handling and shooting skills. But aged 25 with little to show for five years of college play, it’s not going to happen. He’s only three months younger than Darko Milicic, for God’s sake. And Darko’s been done for five years.
Shan Foster
Foster is a former Mavericks draft pick and shooting specialist who hasn’t added to his game outside of the shooting. He was drafted out of Vanderbilt in 2007 after shooting 47% from three point range in his senior season; however, since that time, he has been pretty ordinary. In Turkey last year, Foster averaged 9.1 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.6 assists in 26 minutes per game for Kepelz Bld Antalya. He shot 39% from three point range, but if it weren’t for his draft spot, we wouldn’t be talking about him.
J.R. Giddens
Giddens started last year with the Celtics, and with the news that he wasn’t having the third year option on his rookie contract exercised. This made him only the 7th player all time to have this happen to him; the other six were Patrick O’Bryant, Yaroslav Korolev, Julius Hodge, Shannon Brown, Morris Almond and Joe Alexander. He played only 99 minutes for the Celtics, spending 4 games on assignment in the D-League, and then was traded to New York as a part of the Nate Robinson deal. Giggidens then got a few more minutes, playing 140 minutes in 11 games and recording a PER of 10.5. Charged with the tasks of improve his shooting and ball handling coming out of college, Giddens didn’t; his best talent remains his ability to run around a lot. He wins possessions in this manner, but his offence in the NBA is still limited to the opportunities born out of athleticism. At 6’5, that doesn’t get it done.
Dominique Jones
Dallas bought Memphis’s draft rights from Memphis on draft night, despite Memphis’s supposed designs on being a team that builds through the draft. It gives Dallas a younger and better replacement for DeShawn Stevenson. This probably wasn’t their highest priority of the summer, but it’s a welcome bonus nonetheless.
Jeremy Lin
Lin’s major strength is his scoring efficiency. As a 6’3 guard, he shot 52% last year as a first option player, which is pretty hard to imagine. But that’s about it for the moment. He’s an unathletic 6’3 score-first player who turns it over too much to be a point guard, who is too small and grounded to he a two guard, and who doesn’t shoot from outside particularly well either. He defends fairly well, though, and neither is he timid. And if he can improve his ball-handling and jump shot, there’s enough guile there to override his physical tools. But shooting and dribble are prerequisite point guard skills for a reason.
Omar Samhan
Samhan lost a lot of weight in between his junior and senior seasons, in a bid to make himself into a serious NBA draft prospect. It worked, in the sense that he did become a genuine draft prospect. However, the main thing that held Samhan back was his athleticism, or his lack thereof. And losing all the weight didn’t change that. He went from being big and very slow, to being slightly less big and still very slow. Samhan’s speed and lack of leaping ability hurts him defensively – particularly on the perimeter, where he is absolutely terrible – and it also hurts him offensively. For all the good footwork and touch around the basket, Samhan can struggle to score against athletic big men, of which the NBA is never lacking. He rebounds, he scores, he’ll block your shot if you get near him, and he won’t lack for confidence or eyebrows…..but he’s just not quick enough.
I don’t know what to suggest that could improve his chances.
Moussa Seck
Seck was on the Mavericks summer league roster last year as well. At that time, I wrote this about him:
When he was 19 years old, Moussa Seck was a streetside cosmetics vendor in his native Senegal who had never played basketball before. He was spotted on the street by a scout, who may have picked up on the subtle fact that Seck is 7’4 tall. He’s now 22, which means he’s far from a polished and experienced basketball product. But he’s still 7’4, so people are still interested in him. Seck spent last year with Poderosa Supernova Montegranaro, the feeder team of Serie A team Premiata Montegranaro. They play in a division so far below the big league team that I can’t tell you a single other fact about them. To play in a lower standard of basketball and still be Googleable is damn near impossible. But, at the very least, it’s the start of a CV.
Seck is also 220lbs, which is only slightly more than what I weigh. Except I’m 6’3 and he’s 7’4. I don’t know what this says about either of us.
In the time since that was written, absolutely nothing has happened that I can tell you about. If Seck has played, I don’t know where or how well; if Seck has developed, I could not say. The Mavericks clearly see something that they like, yet that something might simply be his height. We as outsiders have nothing else to go on.
DeShawn Sims
Sims was covered in the Celtics summer league round-up from last week. The Orlando summer league has now finished, and Sims averaged 7.5 points and 1.8 rebounds for the team. He also totalled 0 assists.
Amara Sy
Sy came to the NBA last year, despite being 28 years old and a successful player in France, to give the dream a shot. He was going to sign in training camp with the Mavericks, but did not do so because he could not get a visa finalised in time. 9 months on, the Mavericks finally get their chance to see him.
When his visa finally came through, Sy was made the fourth overall pick in the D-League draft by the Bakersfield Jam. Sy was released by the team due to injury before the season started, but returned in early December to averaged 15.0 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. The veteran of the French league took the huge discount to come to America in order to see if he could make the NBA, but he changed his mind on that fairly quickly. After only 16 games and six weeks with the Jam, Sy was bought out of his D-League contract to go play in Spain with CB Murcia. In the ACB for the first time, Sy averaged only 5.8 points and 4.5 rebounds, and was not been able to do enough to prevent Murcia from being relegated to the LEB Gold.
Unless Dallas really like what they see, a return to France next year looks somewhat inevitable.
Eric Tramiel
Eric Tramiel is a 6’7 forward who just graduate from North Texas, and who thus gets a summer league chance due to local ties. In keeping with my policy of watching every player ever and taking notes – which runs concurrent with my policy of telling everybody I do this in a bid to look like the ultimate nerd – I took the following notes about Tramiel from watching him at North Texas last year:
OK rebounder, no assists, high turnovers, average shot blocker. A scorer. Lots of foul shots, but a poor %. Occasional 3. Face-up power forward.
Sounds like a young Dirk Nowitzki.
