Where Are They Now, 2009; Part 22
January 28th, 2009
Many of the following people are called Hamilton. If you don’t want to know the result, look away now.
– Brian Hamilton signed with the New Jersey Nets for training camp after playing for their summer league team, which guaranteed him a free trip around Europe. Hamilton didn’t make the team, though, and is currently unsigned. By the way, speaking of the Nets summer league team, look how stacked that bad boy was. They could have put together a depth chart of this kind of calibre:
PG – Jamar Butler, Will Conroy, Yuta Tabuse
SG – Chris Douglas-Roberts, Jaycee Carroll, Donell Taylor, Maurice Ager
SF – Julius Hodge, Marcus Slaughter, Brian Hamilton
PF – Ryan Anderson, Anthony Tolliver
C – Brook Lopez, Sean Williams
That team is friggin’ stacked, even if it is (as are all summer league teams) a bit short. This wasn’t quite how it worked out, as Jamar Butler didn’t turn up, Sean Williams started at power forward, and a combination of Conroy and Carroll did most of the point guard work. But, still. In relative terms, that team is heaving. God I love summer league.
– Venson Hamilton is into his fourth season with Real Madrid. However, his playing time has all but disappeared. In the Spanish league, Hamilton averages 1.1 points and 1.8 rebounds in 6.7 minutes a game, slightly raising his scoring average to 1.6 ppg in EuroLeague play. On the year, he has 18 points and 21 fouls. The money must be good, because the opportunity isn’t.
– Vernon Hamilton was acquired yesterday by the Colorado 14ers of the D-League, where he can back up Eddie Gill at point guard, or replace him should Gill get a call-up. Fun Vernon Hamilton fact: the highest that Vernon Hamilton has ever shot in a single season from the free throw line is the 55.1% that he shot in 2005-06, while still a junior at Clemson. Nice.
– Zendon Hamilton is still going, albeit currently unsigned. The journeyman started the year in Russia with Spartak Primorie Vladivostok – the last-placed Russian Superleague team that currently boasts Desmon Farmer amongst its members – but left after four games, totalling 28 points, 20 rebounds and 30% shooting in that time.
Zendon Hamilton never got a fair shot in the NBA. Despite numerous try-outs and a career that spanned six fractured NBA seasons, Hamilton was better than a lot of the players that he kept losing out to. But because he never had a multi-year contract, he never stuck like he could have. There, I said it.
– Former Suns and Jazz centre Ben Handlogten hasn’t played in three years. I seem to remember once finding a source that cited his retirement as being official, but I can’t seem to find it again. But since he is 34 and has been out of the game since early 2006, you can probably go ahead and assume it.
– Tyler Hansbrough averages 22.7 points in less than 29 minutes a game for North Carolina. A senior, this is going to be the year that he finally gets drafted, whether he likes it or not. Watch as he plummets down the draft board, as teams pass over his prolific production in light of his lack of size and athleticism. (I’m not saying that they’re necessarily wrong for this. Just that it’s going to happen. Just like it happened with J.J. Redick. And just like it should have happened with Adam Morrison.)
– Travis Hansen has been a very good swingman in Europe for a while now, and he’s still with the Russian team that Jannero Pargo just left. Only just, though; there were strong rumblings of Hansen being signed by Lottomatica Roma. But it didn’t happen, and Hansen remains in Russia, where he averages 15.8 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.5 assists in the Russia Superleague, alongside 14.4 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.1 assists in the EuroCup. Now that Pargo and Hollis Price have left Dynamo, maybe Hansen will start getting paid on time.
– Penny Hardaway is unsigned.
– Thunder draft pick DeVon Hardin signed in Turkey to begin the year, but left without playing a game as he was still recovering from injury. Seemingly better now, he signed this month with ESTIA Egaleo in Greece, and scored 7 points with 9 rebounds in his debut last Wednesday.
– Finally, I do requests, and here are some of them now. Former Sixers centre Efthimios Rentzias retired in August 2006 due to chronic injury problems, aged only 30. In his final season, playing for a team called Forum Filatelico Valladolid (made up of Spanish stamp collectors, presumably), Rentzias averaged 7.8 ppg, 4.0 rpg and 1.2 bpg in 10 games, before being waived due to his injury, and retiring for good a few months later. Former Louisville standout Taquan Dean is in Spain, playing for Polaris World Murcia, who are unfortunately second to last in the ACB. This isn’t Dean’s fault, as he averages 16.6 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.8 assists while starting at shooting guard, shooting more threes than twos. And another former Louisville Final Four starlet, Juan Palacios, averages an uninspiring 9.2 points and 4.3 rebounds for CB Vic, one of the worst teams in the LEB Gold.
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