The following post will features as many Head puns as I can think of, with varying degrees of subtlety.

Earlier this month, free agent Indiana Pacers guard Luther Head came to terms with the New Orleans Hornets on a two year contract. A mere couple of days after this news was reported came the news that Head's job offer was gone; he had failed his physical examination with the team, and that the signing had been called off. Head is now available for everyone.

Controversy surrounded the decision. Head's agent, Mark Bartelstein, slammed the Hornets's decision. Bartelstein claimed there was ulterior motives behind the veto, and that the Hornets had claimed Head had failed the physical just to get out of the signing, when in actuality they'd just had a re-think. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports took that angle further, calling the decision a "slimy trick", and loudly calling out Hornets executive Hugh Weber.

That said, there's always controversy when a player fails a physical. In all the time I have been following the NBA, the team trading away the player - or, in Head's case, the free agent's agent - have cited some kind of failure of the due diligence on the part of the recipient team as being the only reason for the vetoing of the transaction. On a case-by-case basis, that may be entirely correct; for all I know, the Hornets DID do what Barts and Woj suggest, and veto the deal on flimsy grounds because they'd simply changed their minds. Or maybe the Hornets were genuine about their claims on Head's health. I don't know. It's not my place to know. And I don't really want to know.

But what it did stir within me was a desire to investigate failed physicals over the years, and what they actually represent. If someone fails a physical because a team sees a possible long-term health problem down the road, how accurate have those assessments been? Armed with the benefit of hindsight, I was intrigued to find out.

There follows a list of all failed physicals in the NBA since the advent of the 1993-94 season; as the very least, it's as accurate of a list as I could compile. If any failed physicals in that time span have been overlooked, let me know.

This one might be shorter than the last one.

One final note on Keon Clark: despite what I said earlier about Clark's mandatory weekly court appearances being "almost universally described as good", Clark failed a drug test as recently as late November. So maybe it's not all coming up Milhouse after all.


- Victor Claver

Windpipe is still with Valencia, his hometown team and the team he's been with since he was 15. He's averaging 11.5 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game in the Eurocup, alongside 9.4 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.5 assists in the ACB. Good numbers all, with only one drawback; Claver is shooting a combined 26 of 87 from three point range between the two competitions, which is .298%.

- I have no idea where Keon Clark is, specifically, but the answer is probably jail.

- Milone Clark averages 4.8 points and 3.4 rebounds for the Sioux Falls Skyforce. I openly admit to knowing basically nothing about Milone Clark, but, as a player who has never put up good numbers at any stage of his career (he even only scored 15ppg in the Ecuadorian league) yet who somehow landed a training camp spot with the Knicks in 2006......well, Milone Clark is either a very good defensive guard, or Isiah Thomas was knocking him off too. In which case, Milone, you'd better sue. You'll make a mint.

- Mateen Cleaves is also in the D-League, where he averages 13.2 points and 8.2 assists for the Bakersfield Jam. (Also note - the jumpshot is still broken.) The 8.2 assists is good for second in the league, behind only Walker Russell, who is way out in front with 11.1 apg. But only six players in the entire D-League average over 7 apg, which is somewhat unremarkable in a league with an unsubtle emphasis on pushing the ball and stat padding. Then again, maybe they're all too busy shooting.

- Keith Closs is still an amusing sideshow. Closs spent last year in the D-League with the Tulsa 66ers, where he admitted to his alcoholism and posted a season featuring nearly as many blocks per game (2.8) as rebounds (4.7), yet this seaspn he left the D-League to go to China. Signing with the Yunnan Honghe Running Bulls, Closs averaged 14.2 points, 9.9 rebounds and 4.5 blocks in the Chinese league, which frequently boasts amusingly lopsided statistics (speaking of, if and when we get to the letter W, have a look at Bonzi Wells's scoring average), but left the team for reasons unbeknownst to me. Closs then had a trial with another Chinese team, the Liaoning Panpan Hunters, but left earlier this month and is currently unsigned. Somewhere in amongst all that, Closs managed to apply for Phillipino citizenship, for reasons that are also unbeknownst to me. And Slam Magazine also carried this story about him, which, like most Keith Closs stories, is kind of fun. While we're on the subject of fun Keith Closs moments, here is Keith Closs blocking two shots in what looks dangerously like a high school game, and flexing afterwards:



And here's the old classic of him being beaten up:



Ladies and gentleman, Mr Keith Closs.


- Coleman Collins is also in the D-League, averaging 12.4 points and 6.4 rebounds on a disappointing 43% shooting for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants.

- Will Conroy leads the D-League in scoring, with a 25.0 points per game average for the Albuquerque Thunderbirds, and he is also tied for third in assists at 7.6 apg. The little git also averages a handy 4.4 rebounds, and fills up the stat sheet further with 2.6 steals per game. However, rather than being instantly deemed the next Chris Paul, Conroy's averages need some kind of context - he puts up these numbers in a numbers heavy league, while averaging a whopping 44.9 minutes a game. Conroy also leads the league in turnovers with 4.5 a game, leading to an assist/turnover ratio of a mediocre 1.7:1, and while he shoots a huge number of free throws (169 FTA to 283 FGA), he hits them at only 70%. Nevertheless, Conroy is behind only Eddie Gill in the Order In Which D-League Point Guards Are To Be Called Up To The NBA (note: such a list does not really exist), and if the Lakers sign Gill - as they are threatening to do - then things are looking good for Conroy when Phoenix need another mandatory 13th man.

- Montenegran legend Omar Cook averages 5.2 points, 1.8 steals and 4.9 assists for Unicaja Malaga in Spain. That might not seem like much - and the points certainly aren't - but it comes in only 22 minutes per game, in a country where assists are far harder to come by. That 4.9 assists is good for third in the Spanish league, and Cook's averages in the Euroleague - 5.0ppg, 5.1 apg - had him tied for the tournament lead in assists there, too. So there's some more context for you.

- Ryvon Covile is in France, playing for Orleans (not New Orleans, but the old one). Covile averages 10.8 points and 6.8 rebounds while still boasting the greatest name in the Western world.

- Chris Crawford has now been out of basketball for about 5 years, and yet I still feel morally obligated to tell you that he's not playing every year. Since the last time I told you this, only one new shred of information has come to light, that being this quote from his Wikipedia page:

During the summers they [Crawford and his brother] often golf at Milham Park Golf Course in their hometown of Kalamazoo, MI.

Milone Clark is playing for the Colorado 14ers of the D-League. And, while we're on the subject of the 14ers, Matt e-mails in to say that the name comes from the 14,000 feet mountains that Colorado apparently has. Oh. Well, that makes some sense. But the Anaheim Arse is still a far better team name. So the 14ers should follow The Arse's lead, and have a team nickname that easily corrups into something childish. My suggestion - the Colorado Ballers, which easily turns into The Balls. The Arse against The Balls. Much better.

Mateen Cleaves is playing for the Bakersfield Jam of the D-League, and seemingly playing rather well, as he just recently earned Player Of The Month honours for March.

Jason Collier, if this news somehow passed you by, died of a heart condition.

Will Conroy was recently nearly signed by the Sonics, before they plumped for Eddie Gill instead. Conroy is playing for Armani Jeans Milano in Italy, one of only two teams in the world to be named after a brand of clothing and a Charmed actress. (The other is the Gimp Suit McGowans, who play in Honduras.)

Omar Cook is playing for Crvena Zvezda in Serbia, better known as Red Star Belgrade, and he still hasn't really done anything with his career except to win the heart of Scott Skiles.

Ryvon Covile is playing in Israel for Gilboa Afula Migael Haemek, but as far as I'm aware, he still hasn't pioneered a brand of cleaning detergent named after his first name. And that's a damn shame.

Chris Crawford hasn't played since leaving Atlanta, and that was freakin' ages ago. The chances are that he has permanently retired, even though he's only 32, and that's a conclusion that I come to based off of his 4 year absence from the game, and the fact that he was always bloody injured anyway.

Michael Curry has retired from playing, and briefly became the NBA's Vice President of Player Development (whatever the hell one of them does). He's now an assistant coach for the Pistons.

Erik Daniels is playing for Akasvayu Girona in Spain.

Antonio Davis has hung them up, officially or otherwise.

Dale Davis was nearly re-signed by the Pistons last month before they went for Theo Ratliff instead. He remains unsigned, and probably always will be.

Josh Davis was, once upon a time, threatening the most-NBA-teams-played-for-in-one-season record, after playing for 4 teams in the 2005/06 season. (Bobby Jones set that record this past fortnight after signing with San Antonio, his sixth team of the year.) Since then, however, ol' Josh seems to have fallen off of the NBA landscape. And that's a shame. Davis is currently playing for BC Kyiv in the Ukraine.

Justin Davis has not played for two years. I'm not sure that I even know who he is.

For those amongst you who, like me, have a strange fascination with transactions, both those finalized and those possible, this is a bad time of year for you. This is late August, the draft is long since gone, and most of the juicy bits of free agency have passed us by. Of the remaining free agents, only a select few are good enough to be starters in this league - Ruben Patterson to name......one - and merely the journeyman remain. This is the NBA's equivalent of what it's like to try and completely scrape clean an almost-empty pot of jam - you can try and try and try to clean every last morsel out of the jar, and occasionally struck it lucky with a decent sized chunk. But most of the residual jam offers up stubborn resistance, and is not even worth your time - even if there was a practical way of getting it off there, you wouldn't garner anything useful from it anyway.

Additionally, when writing these new player profiles for the site, I have had a very tough time trying to keep them interesting. How, for example, do you make the profile of JamesOn Curry read wildly different to that of Jannero Pargo or Salim Stoudamire, when they are very similar players? It's a quandry that has cropped up all too often. Too many players are too alike too many other players, and too many players conform to stereotypes.

So, let's look at those stereotypes and give them broad definitions based around the pioneer - the trendsetter, if you will - of that particular stereotype. Every team needs their role players, after all.


1 - The Jerome Williams: The athletic forward whose only real skill is the fact that they are an athletic forward. They're too small to play power forward unless against others such as themselves, yet they have not the dribbling skills, jumpshot or defensive footwork to play much small forward. They compensate by running around a lot. A classic player-without-a-position situation.

Notable examples: Darvin Ham, Linton Johnson (although he's nearly good enough to not qualify), Jerome Williams, Ryan Bowen
Pencil them in: Mike Harris


2 - The DeSagana Diop: They're tall. They're athletic. They're often foreign. This perks your interest. It's rarely worth it.

Notable examples: Boniface N'Dong, DeSagana Diop (the poster child), Peter John Ramos, Mile Ilic, Didier Ilunga-Mbenga
Pencil them in: Cheikh Samb, Marcin Gortat


3 - The Esteban Batista: They're tall. They're strong. They're far from athletic. They're often foreign. They're often white. They don't do much else. This also perks your interest. It's also rarely worth it.

Notable examples: Esteban Batista, Dalibor Bagaric, Mengke Bateer, Jake Voskuhl, Jared Reiner
Pencil them in: Aaron Gray, Marc Gasol, Kyrylo Fesenko


4 - The Zoran Planinic: Dedicated to those taller guards - often European - who are touted as being tall point guards, yet who are basically shooting guards (or, occasionally, small forwards) with slightly above average dribbling skills. These players are generally exposed during any subsequent attempts to play point guard due to their lack of foot speed, and also aren't exactly primed for the two guard position due to their decidedly temperamental jumpshots. The old saying goes that your position in the NBA is defined by the position that you are best at defending, yet it wouldn't go amiss for these players to get themselves a defined position on offense. For the "bit of one, bit of another" thing isn't really working.

Notable examples: Zoran Planinic, Marquis Daniels, Thabo Sefolosha, John Salmons, Jiri Welsch, Sasha Vujacic
Pencil them in: Cedric Bozeman (in anticipation of a fairytale comeback), D.J Strawberry (sorta)


5 - The Eddie House: Small guards who come into a game solely for the purposes of putting up lots of long jumpshots and running around enthusiastically. The genre is named after Eddie House himself, a man so perfectly awesome at this role that it defies any attempt of mine to explain it. If you're short (or tall by normal human standards) and want to make it in the world of basketball, this is probably your best bet.

Notable examples: Eddie House (obviously), Jannero Pargo, Salim Stoudamire, Quincy Douby, Damon Jones
Pencil them in: JamesOn Curry, Guillermo Diaz, Robert Hite


6 - The Eric Piatkowski: A logical extension of the Jannero Pargo type. Decent sized perimeter players whose offense is limited to an extremely good outside jumpshot, and whose defense is just plain limited. Something of a retro position that I cannot ever say enough good things about.

Notable examples: Eric Piatkowski, Casey Jacobsen, Voshon Lenard, Fred Hoiberg, Matt Carroll
Pencil them in: Brad Newley


7 - The Pat Garrity: A further extension of the Jannero Pargo genre, this role has similarities to the Jerome Wiliams genre above, in that the player concerned has no defined defensive position. They're power forwards with no power to their game, forced to play the position due to their lack of speed. The other slightly massive difference between this group and group one is that this group of extremely unathletic players also happen to have fantastic outside strokes. These players tend to share other common traits - they are usually absolutely abhorrent defensive players, and piss weak rebounders. They also seem to nearly always be white. This group compromises the most one trick ponyness of all the groups listed here. And yet, every year, one or two fresh faces pop up, despite the continued failure of all those to have previously trodden this path. It's dumbfounding, but it's faaaan-tastic.

Notable examples: Pat Garrity, Steve Novak, Scott Padgett, Matt Bonner
Pencil them in: Nick Fazekas (not quite yet, but just you wait.......)


8 - The Malik Allen: One final twist to the one dimension shooter saga. These guys are tall, with centers size. And they can shoot. Yet they also all suck at every other facer of the game. But, then again, it landed Troy Murphy a $58 million contract.

Notable examples: Troy Murphy, Malik Allen, Martynas Andriuskevicius, Kevin Pittsnogle, Damir Markota, Pat Burke, millions of others
Pencil them in: Kosta Perovic, Oleksiy Pecherov


9 - The Chuck Hayes: They may be undersized, but by God, that doesn't mean that their rebound is not theirs. Not tall enough for traditional power forward/center size in this league, and without the eye popping vertical to overcome this, these players choose to go the other way - they beef up, and work harder than the other guy for the rebound. Try and take it off them, and they'll kill you, no questions asked. This is especially true for Lonny Baxter, who has a thing for guns and shooting - if the White House doesn't scare him, then neither will you.

Notable examples: Chuck Hayes, Craig Smith, Lonny Baxter, Brandon Hunter
Pencil them in: Chris Richard, Carl Landry


10 - The Bruce Bowen: Decent sized reasonably athletic small forwards who play good defense on the perimeter, but who are contractually mandated on offense to stand in the corner and wait for an open three point attempt. To attempt to do anything else would result in asyphixiation, death, or worse.

Notable examples: Bruce Bowen(the master), Ime Udoka, Jumaine Jones
Pencil them in: Thabo Sefolosha


11 - The Ibrahim Kutluay: Disenfranchised European player who was pretty good back on home soil but who is not good enough in the NBA to crack a rotation. Rather than accept this, though, they opt to play off of their misguided sense of entitlement, sulk, and invariably wind up being bought out for a minimal amount so that they can return to Europe and vent. A relatively modern genre that I'm truly enjoying.

Notable examples: Ibrahim Kutluay, Arvydas Macijauskas, Sergei Monia, Vassilis Spanoulis
Pencil them in: Viktor Khryapa, Sarunas Jasikevicius


12 - The Mateen Cleaves: If you're not good enough to get into the game, you may as well act like you're happy to have been given such good tickets to see it. This genre is for those players who like nothing more than to come flying enthusiastically off of the bench after a good play, smacking arse and waving towels, and acting like nothing could be more right with their life. And why shouldn't they be happy? They get paid to sit down. I wish I did.

Notable examples: Mateen Cleaves, Ronny Turiaf, Eric Piatkowski, countless more
Pencil them in: Um, don't know. Hopefully, everyone.


13 - The Kelvin Cato: "Why does no one want me? I'm tall, I used to be good, what gives? Come on, just give me a minimum salary, I'll make it worth your while".

Notable examples: Kelvin Cato, Bo Outlaw, Michael Olowokandi, Alan Henderson
Pencil them in: Michael Sweetney, Vitaly Potapenko, Danny Fortson


14 - The Gary Payton: The former star who still wants the ring really, really badly. They'll forego their pride, their legacy and their reputation to sign for pittance just to try and get it. Named after Gary Payton, a man who has done this twice - once with the Los Angeles Lakers and once with the Miami Heat. Strangely, having won the ring, Payton still did not then retire, and eked out one more season of poor player for the minimum salary in a bid to win a second. He did not do so. Now, hopefully, that will be it.

Notable examples: Gary Payton, Alonzo Mourning, Kevin Willis, Chris Webber
Pencil them in: Reggie Miller (oh God I hope not), P.J. Brown, Jalen Rose


15 - The Jacque Vaughn: The "heady veteran" point guard who doesn't run nearly as well as he used to, yet who continues to look for (and sometimes get) NBA work as an old timer whose "experience" will help the team's younger point guards, and also provide a calming influence on the court. But basically they just aren't very good any more and are out for what they can get.

Notable examples: Jacque Vaughn, Randy Livingston, Howard Eisley, Anthony Carter, Darrick Martin
Pencil them in: Jeff McInnis, Brevin Knight


16 - The Michael Curry: You have absolutely no idea what this guy is supposed to do.

Notable examples: Michael Curry, Michael Ruffin, Scot Pollard, Adrian Griffin
Pencil them in: Hopefully, no one. Ever.



These people are not to be overlooked, though. Not in any way. The defending champion San Antonio Spurs, for example, have two number 10's including the poster child himself, a number 4, a number 6, a number 7, recently traded away a number 2, recently traded for a number 11 to go along with the one they already had, have THE number 15, and have themselves an extremely successful number 14 in Robert Horry.

Of course, they also have Tim Duncan, which counts for a lot. But do they really win their three recent titles without checking off a good half of the criteria thrown up by this list?


(Yes, probably)