The low-down on Earl Boykins

He's 5-foot-5 of pure electricity, energy and enthusiasm and he now plays in Italy.
The 32-year old, Earl Boykins - the second shortest player in NBA history, signed a one-year contract with La Fortezza Bologna for $3.5 million to become the highest-paid player in Italy this year.
Not bad for the 9-year NBA vet, who only averaged 5.1 points a game last year with Charlotte after averaging over 12 ppg the previous four years.
He's doing much better this year after three games with Bologna - a non-Euroleague team - which is 3rd-place in the high-caliber Serie A Italian league.
His averages: 15.3 ppg, 5 apg, 3.3 rpg, and shooting more than 51% from the field.

Here are his game-by-game stats courtesy of keyhoops:

Age : 32 Height : 5'5'' Weight: 166 Position : Point Guard Birth : 02/06/1976 | Cleveland (OH) Nationality : American In Career : 236victories | 254defeats

Team For 2008-2009 La Fortezza Bologna

2008-20092007-20082006-20072005-20062004-20052003-20042002-20032001-20022000-2001

REGULAR SEASON | ITALY LEGA A1				Shots				Rebounds
Day	Opponent	Score	Min	2%	3%	S%	1%	Or	Dr	Tr	Ass	Ste	To	Bl	Fo	Pts	Eff
01	vs Angelico B.	83-72	32	75.0	100	80.0	83.3	0	1	1	5	0	3	0	2	14	15
02	@ Armani Mil.	68-70	35	40.0	50.0	41.7	75.0	1	2	3	3	2	4	0	1	17	12
03	vs Snaidero U.	91-74	34	60.0	0.0	50.0	75.0	0	6	6	7	0	0	0	3	15	21

G = Games W-L = Win-Lost Min = Minutes 5 = Starters	1M = Free Throws Made 1A = Free Throws Attempted 2M = 2Pts Made 2A = 2Pts Attempted 3M = 3Pts Made 3A = 3Pts Attempted SM = Shoots Made SA = Shoots Attempted	S1 = Free Throws S2 = 2Pts S3 = 3Pts ST = Shoots 1% = Free Throws Efficiency 2% = 2Pts Efficiency 3% = 3Pts Efficiency S% = Shoots Efficiency	Or = Offensive Rebounds Dr = Defensive Rebounds Tr = Total Rebounds Ass = Assists Ste = Steals To = Turn-Over Bl = Blocks Pts = Points
Eff (Efficiency) = Pts + Tr + Ste + Bl + Ass - To - missed shoots and free throws

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Jennings Makes Euroleague Debut

It is done.
Young Brandon Jennings is now officially a Euroleaguer.
Thursday, Lottomatica Roma's Jennings played 22 minutes, scored 9 points on 3-7 from the 3-point line, garnered 3 rebounds, 1 steal and 0 assists in a 68-63 loss to Alba Roma.
Not the most auspicious of Euroleague starts for the 19-year old.
But still better than his previous two club matches in the top domestic league in Italy, in which Jennings averaged 17.5 minutes, 5 points, 1.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists while shooting 33.3% from the floor.

It's obvious Jennings is learning to adjust to the European game.

As his teammate, Ibby Jaabar, pointed out, Jennings just can't expect minutes to be handed to him on a silver platter:

Everything is going to be earned. I’m sure he’s a competitor. I’m sure he believes that he’s talented enough to take that spot. Everything will be earned. Everything in due time. This isn’t the type of program that because you’re a No. 1 pick you’re going to start. You earn everything.

And when he does earn his minutes, he won't find team dynamics to be as consistent as they are stateside:

I think Europe is a lot different than the N.B.A. and college. Guys are in and out. You’re never playing on the same team. You don’t play on one team your whole career. The team is always changing.

Go to 5:10 in the following video to see Jennings knock down some of his first points:



Here's a shout-out to ca18804, who uploaded the video.

NBA Growth into China Unswervingly Meteoric

Despite world-wide economic woes, the NBA's relentless push into China continues. The latest news comes during a press conference at the O2 arena in London, in which NBA head David Stern - and the head of the company who built the O2 - announced plans to build 12 (!) arenas in China at unspecified locales on an unspecified schedule...

"We weren't going to start construction in the next couple of weeks," Stern said at a joint news conference with AEG president and CEO Timothy J. Leiweke. "We anticipate that in a relatively short order we will have laid out a road map of a dozen buildings or so throughout China."

Leiweke said it could take decades to complete the project.

"We think of this over the next 20 years, not the next year or two," he said, adding some would be new arenas and others would be created by renovating existing facilities.

One likely site for an arena is Guangzhou, a city of over 7.5 million, which has recently hosted its first NBA preseason game in a beautiful, though relatively small (sits up to 13,000), gymnasium.


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Besides Guangzhou, the NBA has also played on the mainland in Shanghai, Beijing, Macao, and Hong Kong since it the Washington Wizards played the Chinese National Team in 1979. The NBA returned with two teams in 2004 and two in 2007.

It semi-astounded me to learn that some Chinese paid upwards to $550 to watch last year's Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers preseason game.

But, then again, with 2007 statistics like the below testifying to the NBA's popularity in his nation, what well-moneyed Chinese basketball fanatic wouldn't give a unequivocal thumbs-up to finally see his heroes in vivo?

NBA merchandise is available in 50,000 retail outlets, and Spalding sold more than 1 million NBA basketballs last year. NBA games are carried by 51 networks and television stations (up from 32 last season), reaching an average of 36 million viewers.

After all, as David Stern and the O2 builders well know, sometimes TV exposure just doesn't do it: when it comes to reaping in revenue, nothing beats good ol-fashioned vis-a-vis marketing.

European Athleticism on Display

Those following the recent influx of international basketball talent into the NBA recognize that no longer do Europeans labor under preconceived notions of athletic inferiority to their American counterparts.

These days, the French are just as likely to fry an assuming defender with a posterizing dunk as a Queens-born rim-basher.

6-8 Nicholas Batum is one such Frenchman. His games smacks of Rudy Gay's, with the tendency to float on the perimeter instead of slash to the rim. I saw his European team, Le Mans, play last year in Istanbul and remember being impressed with the 18-year old's cool manner. It kinda reminded me of Barack Obama. Unfortunately, in averaging 12.3 points, 5 rebounds, and 3.6 assists he often underwhelmed with his apparent lack of fire.

Now he's in Portland, having been drafted at 25 in the 1st round. And, after a summer of seasoning, he's impressing.

The Blazers blogger Mike Barrett wrote:

He was always described to me as someone who could, in time, be a lock-down wing defender. He's got the wing span of a player 7'4", and those long arms caused everyone trouble in those early games. His silky-smooth jumper started falling with regularity, and he started showing the ability to finish, both in traffic, and from the perimeter.

In a recent game, he dropped 16 points, on 7 for 11 shooting (including 2-2 from three), and blocked 3 shots.

How soon until he starts treating NBAers like he did his contemporaries in the 2007 Nike Hoop Summit in Memphis?




In similar news, check out this sickly quick Englishman play ring-around-the-rosies with NBAer Devin Harris (in London for a preseason game)



Evidentally, the dribbling dervish, Stuart Tanner, isn't really that anonymous, at least in his neck of the concrete woods.

It's interesting to note that many of 2000+ posts on J.E. Skeets' blog are filled with people who acknowledge Harris' appropriately unharried nature and even laud Devin for being good lad about being royally burned by one helluva British street baller.

No Joshing Around

Prior to his transoceanic relocation, it seems Olympiacos' Josh Childress was already quite the worldly fellow. From a recent NY Times interview, I've learned that he and Jamal Sampson, who played at the University of Califonia at Berkeley, travel internationally every summer, to places like Brazil and Spain. One imagines he learned a thing or two about the quality of European basketball while in Spain.

Even the ardent Spanish fans, though, cannot compare to some of the Greek fans Josh is now experiencing. On Greece club basketball's strongest rivalry, Panathanaikos v. Olympiacos:

It’s to the point where if we have a home game, their fans can’t come. The same thing goes for our fans if we play there. I don’t know how long ago it was, but they were shooting flares to the other side and throwing firecrackers. After the games, they would organize places to meet and they would go brawl.

Childress isn't joshing around, either. Here's flare-filled proof from a 2006 championship game:



His experience, unbelievably, makes my Turkish one seem lame by comparison.

As I've pointed out before, Childress was drawn to European basketball because of its emphasis on a more team-oriented game. He's not expected to be the biggest block of cheese in the cupboard:

I’m not expected to come in and drop 30. They don’t want that. Me coming in and taking 20 shots a game is something that they really don’t want. It’s good, because it’s something that I don’t want to do. I’ve never been a volume shooter, I’d rather take the good shot than shoot to shoot.

He emphasized it's hard to score, period, because not only are FIBA games shorter (40 minutes compared to the NBA's 48) but:

It’s tougher to score here. There’s no defensive three seconds. They play zone. There’s all kinds of ways that make it tougher to score; the game is a lot more physical. It’s more of a team game. It’s a little more evenly spread. Like you [NY Times reporter] said, 15 points in 27 minutes is a good number.

Bensonic Flavor

Meet Rod Benson.
He's a 6-10, expatriating, board-grabbing, keyboard-tapping machine.
Benson, who plays for SLUC Nancy (in France's best league), is not your run-of-the-mill athlete blogger, serving up bland P.R. drivel with the wit of a soggy armband.
No. What Benson serves up is invariably fresh, tasty and off the still sizzling skillet of his mind.

Here's a taste:

Benson, who plays with Tony Parker's younger brother, partly through that connection recently met up with the French National Team at a discotheque. The night was memorable - not memorable in a 'Ah, that was sweet' kind of way but more like a 'Ah, at least that'll be able to generate some laughs if I blog about it' sort of way.
An excerpt from his first nightlife experience in France ...

Right off the bat I realized that arriving at 11 p.m. meant that I was arriving way too early. All the French guys arrived at like 1 a.m.. I later realized that the fact that I can't speak French, coupled with loud music and noise, means that there is almost zero reason for me to open my mouth at a club. I did a lot of talking to myself, dancing with myself, and kickin' it — with myself. It was kinda awkward being the only person who knew, and danced, the entire Soulja Boy "Crank That" song.

The D.J. started playing some Snoop Dogg and Tupac and soon enough I was the only person C-Walking, too. I kind of felt like I was a mime. I said no words, I made no eye contact, I just moved around by myself while many people drank and watched.

Going back to his Tony Parker's brother, it looks like young TJ Parker and Rod Benson have no problem making fun of TJ Parker. You see, Tony "Deep-pockets" Parker, evidentally not feeling the latest economic crisis in the least, has bet his broseph $22,000 that he can't grow his hair out for 6 straight months. Au contraire, brother said, and the race is on.

Hilarity, in the form of this apt comparison b/t Parker and Carlos from Desperate Housewives, has ensued:

Here's where Benson now plays - Nancy in Lorraine Province (where Joan of Arc was born):


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Jennings Flourishing Thus Far

Lottomatica Roma's Brandon Jennings, the preps-to-peninsular pro in progression, has had a fine first month of preseason play in Italy.

Dario Marra tells us that he's averaged almost 20 points in his first 5 preseason games and

has shown, in this first part, why he’s considered as a potential first 5 picks in the next draft. Still very skinny, BJ is very quick and can handle the ball with both hands, has a great capacity to find a way to the basket, being very aggressive in dribbling to the basket and in shooting from long distance... . Obviously, Jennings could find some hard moments with teams more physical and, in general, with the slower European game, but there is no doubt that the roman audience – and all the Euroleague fans - may have some fun (he’s spectacular in open floor) in the next season.

If you daren't believe Dario, then check out this video of a scrimmage in which he scored 16 points and dished out 7 assists in his first scrimmage against a team from Serbia.

The NY Times' Pete Thamel did a recent story on Jennings in which some interesting facts came to light:

1. Jennings makes $1.2 million a year in salary and endorsements, and the team provides a luxury three-bedroom apartment, a Volvo station wagon and eight round-trip tickets between Rome and the United States.

2. His mother and younger brother are living with him in Rome, providing him a support network. His mom drives him around, since he lacks a license. Jennings pays his brother's $20,000 international school tuition. “Right now, we have no worries,” Jennings said. “As long as those two are good, I’m happy.”

3. During the night's Jennings stays home, on his computer. This could be seen in a negative light - he's not experiencing the culture of a world-class city or a positive one - he's "staying out of trouble" and keeping in contact with him friends and family back home. It is after all his job to improve his basketball game and a boring social life is one of the best ways to free up time to do that.

4. One positive "cultural" influence the move has had on his lifestyle so far is a change in diet.

The dinners at Del Taco and In N Out Burger, two fast-food restaurants in abundance near the family’s Los Angeles home, have been replaced by salmon, chicken and vegetables bought fresh daily at a local market.

5. Jennings is at least saying the right things on the expanding-your-mind-when-you-travel front, even if he stays mostly in his apartment and gym. He said he'd ask anybody making the same leap: "What do you want to get out of it? If they’re coming over here for the money, don’t do it. If they want to learn and get better, they should think about it. If you have a bad attitude, it’s not going to be good.”

It'll be interesting to see if that attitude holds up as the season wears on.