If your team drafts a player, and yet never signs him, the chances are that they'll still own his draft rights.

The presence of those draft rights means that that player can sign only with the right-holding NBA team, and not with any others. Such draft rights can also be traded, either to a recipient team who values the player and thus gives something of value for them, or as arbitrary filler obliging the NBA's rule that all partners in a trade must trade something outbound, however menial. In theory, there exists multiple uses for these draft rights.

In practice, however, they are often of no use whatsoever. They exist as technicalities, relevant only on a whimsical level, interesting only to the insanely boring. Luckily, I am such a person.

A longer breakdown of the usage of otherwise redundant rights in trades can be found if you scroll down here (a link also containing a much shorter-handed version of this list). An incredibly long breakdown of the whereabouts of the players concerned follows this amusing picture of Ronnie Brewer.

As of today, January 5th, NBA teams are able to start signing players to 10 day contracts. Up until now, players signed mid-season had to be signed to contracts lasting at least until the end of the season; as of Wednesday, however, you need sign them for no longer than 10 days, either as emergency cover or an extended tryout. This system is widely used every year, and sometimes leads to beautiful stories, such as the successes enjoyed by players such as Reggie Williams, C.J. Watson and Anthony Tolliver (all 10 day contract signees at one part), or the record breaking NBA career of JamesOn Curry (whose NBA career, despite technically being two years long, has resulted in 4 total seconds of playing time earned while on a 10 day contract with the Clippers last year).

Players signed to ten day contracts tend to be young prospects, and tend to be signed by teams destined for the lottery, either by accident, destiny or design. That said, the occasional veteran will sign one or two ten day contracts with a team, thereby enjoying something of a comeback. This has been the case for players such as Alvin Williams, Doug Christie and Darius Miles in the past, and is particularly good news for Antonio Daniels.

There follows a subjective yet comprehensive list of possible if highly unlikely ten day contract candidates, crafted from a combination of the current free agents list, as well as current D-League players (who, more often than not, are the recipients). Listed in no order other than alphabetical.

"POPPYCOCK!"

The first two rounds of games in the 2010/11 Chinese Basketball Association were played this week, giving us an opportunity to confirm once and for all who is actually playing there. With no major English language version of a Chinese Basketball Association website available - other than perhaps here - accurate information as to signings is hard to find. We are reliant upon snippets, leaks, the occasional accurate translation, and often the players themselves.

This is a pity because of the calibre and volume of import players to be found within that league. Every year China lands quality former and fringe NBA talent, normally fairly athletic ex-NBA big men, who put up double doubles and dominate amongst domestic players without the athleticism and strength to stop them. And it's fun to watch their statlines as they do it.

This year, it appears, will be the year of the guard.

Continuing the lengthy look at training camp invitees league wide, here's part three. Part one can be found here, and part two is here.

Continuing the lengthy look at training camp invitees league wide, here's part two. Part one can be found here.

No matter how much you may think you know, NBA training camp always offers an opportunity to learn more.

In that respect, it rivals summer league and draft night; all three present chances to learn more about players about whom you previously did not know about, and you get to try to understand what the NBA sees in them. If a player makes it as far as training camp, after all, then they must be doing something right, because all these players have signed valid NBA contracts. They're no longer just here for show; they're under contract, and even being paid a small stipend. In some cases, the player's presence is for no reason other than convenience and/or practice purposes, and some are there purely as fodder. Yet even then, it's intriguing. A contract is a contract. And as Jason Richards has proved in the past, even unguaranteed contracts can be lucrative.

There follows both predictions and analysis, if you will, of the upcoming training camp battles in October 2010. This post is so named because I like to imagine that this NSFW speech by Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross actually takes place at every team's media day. If it doesn't, don't tell me otherwise.

There follows a compendium of all players who have signed, or agreed to sign, for 2010 training camp. I could not find such a compendium elsewhere and thus decided to make one. This list also includes earlier signings of players with unguaranteed or partially guaranteed deals. In some cases, such as with Cucumber, certain players will obviously make it, yet they are included for the sake of uniformity. There exists the possibility that any of these signings could yet change - nothing is certain until the date that the contract is signed. This was recently proven to be the case with Jon Scheyer, who was going to camp with Utah as recently as last week, even seen saying so himself here. But then Utah signed Earl Watson and Scheyer/his agent changed their minds. However, with so little time left until camp starts, most of the signings can be assumed to happening now. Some already have.

The transfer markets are pretty much closed. In many places, pre-season has already begun. Euroleague qualifiers begin next week, as does the mighty British Basketball League regular season, and while signings continue to go down, most are done by now. By this time, if you're still a free agent without a training camp invite, you're struggling. Unless you're going to the D-League, of course.

There follows a list of the whereabouts of all the players featured on NBA summer league rosters this year. Summer league is a terrific catalyst for the worldwide basketball market; it's not just NBA teams who find their next players here. GM's, scouts and agents the world over find players here, and thus these moves often form the basis of the international import market. With that in mind, here's who has gone where. In the instances of players quite obviously under NBA contracts, I've tried to write something really interesting instead.

No attribution is given for these transactions for the simple reason that there's too damn many of them.

These things tend to tangent. Stick with it.

Luke Babbitt

I'm still not sure of why Portland has been trying to acquire small forwards so proactively. The Luol Deng rumour won't die, even if you want it to, and the team just signed Wesley Matthews to a full MLE contract. They also traded for Babbitt's draft rights and signed him straight away, despite already having Nicolas Batum on the roster. Batum is really good and already has a capable backup in Dante Cunningham in place; now with Babbittt as well, I don't see the need for this constant desire to get another one.

Free agency is going on, and big names are moving all over the world. However, so are the little names. And since half of this website is devoted to the little names, there follows looks at the summer league roster for all NBA teams. These posts will be in no particular order.

The South Korean basketball league [KBL] is a relatively new league, only thirteen years in existence, that unashamedly focuses on Korean national players. Part of that means heavily restricting the amount of imports that so heavily permeate all the other leagues around the world. Teams are allowed only two imports, and unlike in some other countries, dual citizenship is very hard to come by.

It also has some quirky rules. Each team is allowed two foreign players, but in the second and third quarter of all games, only one import is allowed to play at any one time. Additionally, a few years ago, the KBL had a rule that barred any players standing 6'8 and above. What the intended purpose of that was, I don't know, but presumably they quickly figured out how damaging that rule was to their basketball product, because they have now done away with it. Now, tall foreign dudes are allowed, and they're kind of prevalent. A combination of that, and the 54 game schedules that teams play, make the KBL highly intriguing to the hardened nerds amongst us.

Every summer, the KBL holds a draft of foreign players who want to play in their league that year. The players that are drafted are mostly tall guys, as apparently Korea doesn't produce much talented size of their own. (Ha Seung-Jin excepted.) The criteria for entry in the draft, though, is pretty weird. Players pay a $100 fee to be entered into the pre-draft list camp, and that list of players is culled down to a manageable amount of invitees by the KBL. The surviving list then go through one more cure, and the surviving few proceed (if they still want to) to the KBL pre-draft camp, which takes place in Las Vegas. And from there, the draft choices are made.

Here's the full list of the 224 players who were invited.

However, there are strict regulations on who is and isn't draft eligible. Even though the 6'8 rule is long since abolished, there remain some strangely Draconian ones. (Or rather, there were in 2009; I can't find a list of the 2010 regulations. I assume they are much the same, though.) This list of regulations includes two rather strange ones:

3. Have not had a contract with teams in Europe Division I (Spain, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Israel, France, Russia, Greece) Club for the most recent consecutive two (2) years

4. Have not had a contract with teams in NBA for the most recent consecutive three (3) years

The Chinese Basketball Association is an area of particular focus on this website, because it's fun. Every season, the CBA plays host to many former NBA players, and plays them for the vast majority of their 48 minute games, resulting in huge statistics and thereby being more fun over leagues such as Italy's Serie A, where teams employ 11 man rotations, nobody plays more than 25mpg, and everyone averages about 9/4. They are better standards of league for this reason, but they're just not as fun as the CBA. In the CBA, imports rule.

The Baloncesto Superior Nacional, Puerto Rico's premier basketball league, is much the same. The games are 40 minutes, and the season is shorter, but the import talent is highly comparable (often identical), and the homegrown talent is vastly superior.

Puerto Rico has a strong basketball pedigree, and a history of turning out high calibre international players. Those players are mostly guards, which is why I think a merger with Senegal, which exclusively produces quality big men, would change the international basketball game beyond all recognition. Nonetheless, there's always ability coming out of there, and also some NBA-calibre talent. Puerto Rican players in the NBA right now include Carlos Arroyo, Jose Barea and Carmelo Anthony. And Carmelo's backup, Renaldo Balkman, might soon be joining that list.

Apart from those select few, almost all of the good Puerto Rican players play in the Puerto Rican BSN. Even if they've been playing in other leagues, players generally go to play in the BSN once those other commitments have been fulfilled. NBA players do not go, of course, but the Puerto Rican players dotted around the clubs of the world usually return for some hot BSN action, bringing with them many of the ex-NBA imports that had previously been partaking in the CBA. This is because the BSN - by design - takes place during most other league's offseasons. Starting in March and ending in June, the BSN provides a place for good quality journeyman to earn some summer money, to stay in shape and work on their CV's while being paid for the privilege. It is a win-win situation; the players get paid, the BSN gets some quality players, and us hardened geeks get some stats to dribble over.

The ex-NBA players to have played in Puerto Rico in previous seasons are too plentiful to mention. Just bear in mind that, for many of the players below, this is not their first time at doing this. There follows a list of the statistics of all import players in the BSN this season, along with those of Puerto Rican players that you may want to have heard of. Teams listed by order of their final regular season standings. As you can see, import turnover is quite high.

Everyone remembers their first Mengke Bateer experience. Mine came in the 2000 Olympics. In a game against the USA in which Yao Ming beasted from three point range (true story), and in which Wang Zhizhi picked up four first half fouls, Mengke came in and hit some mid range jumpshots, in that way that he does. It was kind of fun, if ultimately kind of forgettable.

Bateer went on to enjoy a few years in the NBA. He started out as a training camp signee of the Denver Nuggets in 2002, yet was waived before the season started. He thus went back to China and averaged 24.3 points and 14.2 rebounds per game for Beijing, before returning to the Nuggets in February 2002 to see out the season with them. Bateer played in 27 games for that God awful Nuggets team and even squeezed out 10 starts, averaging 5.1 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.5 fouls in 15 minutes per game. You'll no doubt have noticed that that's a lot of fouls.

For no reason other than an itching craving to scratch my own Where Are They Now itch - I can't really start the 2009 series of posts until all leagues are underway, which will be about another six weeks - I have decided to revisit the whereabouts of all players on summer league rosters this past summer.

Eagle eyed viewers will have noticed that I've already done this once before, in a series of three posts back in September. This list is designed to update that list.

Everyone whose circumstances have changed since the last update is listed, as are those few who are still unsigned. Part of me hopes that this list might in some way help those players get some gainful basketball employment. Then the other part of me remembers that the only people who read this website are Chilean teenagers and my uncle Peter. Can't win them all.

At the start of the month, over the course of three posts united by the overused theme of Alec Baldwin's monologue from Glengarry Glen Ross, I attempted to anaylse and predict the training camp rosters of every team in the NBA.

For the hell of it, here's the monologue again:




Preseason is now over, and rosters have been set. Here are my predictions again, along with a depressing look at their whimpering inaccuracy and some half-baked excuses for my own failings as a person.

Continuuing the round-up of training camp invites.

Continuuing the round-up of training camp invites.

Training camp. Yes. Yes yes yes. Love it.

Ever since I grew up with a mild addiction to the Championship Manager series of computer games, I have nurtured a mild fascination and raging semi for transactions in sports. I know it's not healthy, but I also know I'm not alone. It might be harsh on the players involved, but it's always fun to us hardened sexless losers when players change teams. It gives us something to think about, something to analyse, and something to find important. Judging the people that are competing at the highest standard in a profession we could only dream of competing in is strangely fun, hence the existence of this website and the presence of your eyes on these words. We love it. Maybe we're crazy. Oh well.