Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 8
January 8th, 2010
Drew Gooden was neither waived nor traded this week. Therefore, for all that fuss about his ‘novel’ contract, nothing actually happened with it. Now, he’s just a plain old expiring.
– Curtis Borchardt
Borchardt left Spain for the French league this summer, but he did so because the team he joined – ASVEL Villeurbanne – are a EuroLeague team this season. Unfortunately, the inevitable happened; after only one EuroLeague game and four French league games, Borchardt got injured. He broke his hand and will miss the remainder of the regular season.
In the one EuroLeague game, Borchardt totalled 20 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks. That’s good. But he also gets injured every year without fail. And that’s not good.
– Ruben Boumtje Boumtje
Boumtje Boumtje Boumtje Boumtje is also a EuroLeague centre this year, playing his second consecutive season with EWE Baskets Oldenburg. In the German league he’s averaging 6.6 points, 5.1 rebounds, 2.6 fouls and 1.4 blocks in 21 minutes per game, but he’s struggling in the higher standard EuroLeague, averaging only 4.6 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.0 fouls in 17 minutes per game.
Since EWE Oldenburg are a Bundesliga team, let’s play Count The Germans. Oldenburg employ a nine-man rotation, and, as is often the case, there’s only one German in it; backup swingman Daniel Hain. The rest is made of Boom Boom, four Americans, two Serbians and a Croatian. This is pretty much the case for the whole league. I am increasingly convinced that the Germans should tighten up their import regulations somewhat.
– Giannis Bourousis
Bourousis averages 10.3 points, 5.9 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 0.6 blocks and 0.8 steals per game in 20 minutes per game in the Greek league, alongside 9.6 points, 4.6 rebounds, 0.8 assists, 0.6 blocks and 0.7 steals in 16 minutes per game in the EuroLeague.
Some old farts are defiant in their belief that the 440-odd players in the NBA are the best players in the world, and that very very very few players from leagues outside of the NBA can compete. This myth is being slowly broken down over time, but some people cling to it, defiant as they are that D-League numbers are irrelevant and that European players haven’t the talent to succeed in the NBA. To those people, I ask the following; Bourousis is 7’0 tall, strong, athletic, quick, versatile, mobile and skilled. He can defend the interior and the perimeter, run the court, shoot, post up, rebound and finish with authority. And he just turned 26. Which part of that couldn’t translate to the NBA?
It is true that all of the world’s very best play in the NBA. But there’s many a player outside of it who could perform well in it. Bourousis is one of these, and it probably won’t be too long until he’s doing exactly that.
I have no idea how you spell his name in English, by the way. This is as close as I can get. It might he Ioannis. Who knows.
– Ryan Bowen
Bowen was signed by the Thunder this offseason in a move I’ve already talked about way too often. He made the roster ahead of Mike Harris, but was waived after a month to accommodate Mike Wilks. He has not signed elsewhere since, and nothing about his Twitter account suggests that he’s in a rush to do so again. But this is Ryan Bowen we’re talking about. In term of NBA staying power, this man is a pioneer.
– Bruce Bowen
As you probably already know. Bowen was traded from the Spurs to the Bucks, then waived, and retired this summer. He now works for ESPN as an analyst.
– Justin Bowen
After going undrafted out of Illinois-Chicago in 2006, Bowen spent two years in the D-League with the Austin Toros, where he was pretty decent. Last year he embarked on a world tour in pursuit of better money, starting in Australia (where he averaged 16.4 ppg and 7.4 rpg for the Gold Coast Blaze) and moving to Korea in February. There he played for two teams; Mobis Phoebus (10.6 ppg, 5.4 rpg) and Seoul Knights (14.0 ppg, 4.5 rpg), before returning to the Toros for the final two games of their season (6.0 ppg, 5.0 rpg). He’s stayed with the Toros this season, but his numbers across the board are down from two years ago; Bowen averages 9.0 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game with only 135 points on 126 shots.
Bowen is in and out of the Toros starting lineup, depending on that week’s opinion of former Duke forward David McClure, who is averaging 4/4 in 18 minutes. Speaking of McClure, he’s grown his hair out, and here’s the result.
– Brandon Bowman
Bowman has moved from Germany to Turkey, where he’s playing for Tofas Bursa. On the season he is averaging 14.8 points, 7.4 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.0 steals and 0.9 blocks, shooting 48% from the field, 33% from three-point range and 58% from the foul line. The points, rebounds and blocks are all team-highs.
In between those two gigs, Bowman appeared on the Sixers’ training camp roster. In the last two years, the Sixers have brought in 11 players for training camp, and kept none of them. They’ve improved 11 CV’s without spending a single penny of salary cap. Is that magnanimous? I can’t tell.
– Cedric Bozeman
Cedric Bozeman is signed in China with Beijing Ducks. Of all the animals to use as a basketball team’s nickname, I think “Ducks” has to pretty far down the list. I get what they’ve done with the ol’ food thing there, but a duck is a slow waddling animal with no discernible ball skills. It’s not the iconography you want in a basketball team. You may as well have called them the Lab Rats, the Chaffinches or the Beijing Hagfish.
Not many imports in the CBA are guards, although this year there’s more than usual. Bozeman is playing point guard and averaging 22.8 points, 7.0 rebounds, 4.0 steals and 2.6 steals per game, all team-highs except for the rebounds (which rank second). His offence has gotten better every year, and specifically so has the three-point jump shot. This has sort of continued; Bozeman is shooting 35.3% on three-pointers on the season, which sounds much more impressive than saying he’s 6-17 in eight games.
– Michael Bradley
Michael Bradley retired after the 2007-08 season, which he played in Spain. He initially wanted to develop a broadcasting career, but instead he and his wife Ellen started a business called Moksha Yoga, which does yogaey stuff. He is also now both an NBA and FIBA certified agent, starting a company called Bradley Sports Management. Being a fledgling operation, they don’t have a whole host of clients yet, but two that they do have whom you may have heard of include Louisville graduate Andre McGee (who started his first professional season in Germany but who left last month), and Providence graduate Jonathan Kale (who is still in Germany; both he and McGee signed with Phoenix Hagen, a Bundesliga team).
– Shawn Bradley
As was recently covered in the 1993 Draft WATN roundup, Bradley is long since retired and now works in a school. Here is the same gif from that article, as it can never have too many airings;
Finally…..
– Torraye Braggs
Ex-Rockets forward Braggs has been on a hell of a world tour these last few years. He last played in the NBA down the stretch of the 2004-05 season, when the Rockets brought him back, and yet even though he signed six NBA contracts with five different teams in his time, Braggs wound up only ever playing 22 games and 178 minutes in the NBA.
Since 2005, Braggs has played in South Korea, the D-League, Russia, China, Israel, Latvia, Iran, Jordan, Mexico and Venezuela. He is currently in Uruguay, plsying for a team called Malvin
