"Tell them … tell the team to bear down"

Update on how former UA players are faring internationally

By Javier Morales

Former UA coach Lute Olson recruited 13 current NBA players, including four that are still alive in the NBA playoffs — Mike Bibby, Richard Jefferson, Luke Walton and Channing Frye.

Two of the 13 did not play at Arizona — Brandon Jennings and Stephen Jackson — but they signed national letters of intent. Add to that the 11 other former players who remain active professionally overseas, and that’s at least 24 players who have currently continued their careers after signing with Arizona.

Moreover, ex-UA greats Steve Kerr (Suns general manager and vice president) and Damon Stoudamire (Memphis assistant) remain employed with the NBA.

The legacy that Olson built in the professional ranks is a chore to follow for UA coach Sean Miller, especially in terms of establishing an identity with the NBA and professional leagues overseas. Here is the list of players alphabetically you may have forgotten about but are still involved with the game one way or another:

Bennett Davison

• Played at Arizona from 1996-98, averaging 8.6 points and 6.5 rebounds in 69 games overall.
• Recently signed a contract with the Gold Coast Blaze of the National Basketball League in Australia.
• Davison has played professionally in Australia before, with the Melbourne Tigers in the 1999-2000 season. He has also played professionally in Turkey, Napoli, Milano and Bologna in Italy, Greece and Venezuela. He signed a free-agent deal with the Clippers in 2002 but did not make the final cut.

Michael Dickerson

• Played at Arizona from 1996-98, averaging 18.4 points and 4.5 rebounds in 69 games.
• He was selected as the 14th overall pick by the Rockets in the 1998 NBA Draft and played one full (lockout-shortened) season before being traded in 1999 to the Vancouver Grizzlies. In the lockout-shortened 1999 NBA season, Dickerson led the league in games played (50), was sixth in three-point field goal percentage (.433), and was named to the All-Rookie 2nd Team. He played all 82 games for the Grizzlies in 1999-2000, averaging 18.2 points, 3.4 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.41 steals per game. His scoring average fell to 16.3 points per game the following season. After the Grizzlies relocated to Memphis he played in just four and six games over the next two seasons due to injuries. He was released by the Grizzlies in 2003, and retired due to severe hamstring and groin injuries from which he was unable to fully recover. In 2008 he attempted a comeback. He was invited to training camp by the Cleveland Cavaliers, but was waived before the season.
• This season, Dickerson returned to basketball as a member of Faymasa Palencia in Spain but he only played four games because he got involved in a contract squabble with Palencia’s owners. Dickerson, who averaged 11 points in those four games, has not announced whether he will return to basketball or not.

Daniel Dillon

• Played at Arizona from 2004-2008, averaging 1.6 points and 0.8 assists in 113 games.
• Dillon, who hails from Down Under, played for the Melbourne South Dragons in 2008-09 and did not sign with an Australian team in the NBL this season after the South Dragons folded. He averaged 1.8 points in 12 games. Dillon is rumored to be close to signing with the Melbourne Tigers.

Go to TucsonCitizen.com to read about more ex-Cats who are playing overseas, including Loren Woods, who let his anger get the best of him in a playoff game in Iran

Bookmark this post

Hide Sites

Ex-UA teammate Terry also on brink of elimination from playoffs

By Javier Morales

Some of the more notable players who have won championships at the high school, college and NBA level include Magic Johnson, Jerry Lucas and Quinn Buckner.

Former UA guard Mike Bibby has tried 12 years to join this list, but other than the 2001-02 season with Sacramento, he did not have a good opportunity like this season. Atlanta seemed prime to make a deep run in the playoffs with the third-best record in the Eastern Conference.

However, the Hawks are one game away from being eliminated by sixth-seed Milwaukee, which is playing without injured center Andrew Bogut. The Bucks won Game 5 of the first-round series Wednesday night to take a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Bibby played in the Western Conference finals with Sacramento in 2001-02. Bibby hit the game-winning jumper in Game 5 with 8 seconds remaining to put the Kings ahead 3-2 in the series, but the Lakers rallied to take the series, one of the best in NBA history. Sacramento finished that season with the NBA’s best record in the regular season but it did not amount to an NBA championship.

Bibby helped Arizona win the 1997 NCAA tournament as a freshman, a year after he averaged 34.3 points, eight assists and four steals for Class 5A state champion Phoenix Shadow Mountain.

Jason Terry won back-to-back state titles with Seattle Franklin High School in 1994 and 1995 before committing to Arizona. He was the sixth man in Arizona’s 1997 title season. He carries the same role for Dallas, which trails 3-2 against San Antonio in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs.

Terry has also never won an NBA title. He came close in 2006, when the Mavericks led Miami 2-0 in the NBA finals before losing four consecutive games.

Your Ad Here

FOLLOW US BY CLICKING ON THE LOGOS: Please help this site keep going:

Bookmark this post

Hide Sites

Ex-UA forward plays three straight seasons without injury

Former UA player Andre Iguodala had his better games this season against LeBron James

By Javier Morales

EDITOR NOTE: Just a quick note before I get into Arizona’s NBA contingent. I communicated with Miami-Dade Junior College power forward Eloy Vargas tonight and he indicated to me that he does not talk about his recruiting process. Vargas is one of two likely remaining Class of 2010 recruiting targets for Arizona (Manhattan, N.Y., Rice power forward Kadeem Jack is the other). Vargas was respectful when he communicated to me and I was understanding because of the amount of schools interested in signing him. More to come on this.

One of the more interesting developments of the recently-completed NBA regular season is that former UA forward Andre Iguodala completed his third consecutive season without missing game — a 246-game stretch.

He was the only one among the 10 former UA players in the league to play all 82 regular season games. San Antonio’s Richard Jefferson and Phoenix’s Channing Frye each missed only one game and Atlanta veteran Mike Bibby was out for only two games this season.

Some other newsworthy items and links concerning the ex-Cats in the NBA:

• Iguodala did not back down to Cleveland’s LeBron James this season. He averaged 22.7 points and 7.3 rebounds in three games against James and the Cavs this year. His only higher total was 24.5 points averaged in two games against Oklahoma City.
• Despite playing six games less and averaging 10 minutes less a game than Frye, former UA guard Jerryd Bayless almost doubled Frye’s free-throw total. Bayless, in his second season with the Blazers, shot 242 free throws, making 201. Frye attempted only 121 and made 98. That shows Bayless was much more aggressive to the basket and Frye relied more on his newfound perimeter stoke.
• That’s not to say that Frye did not mix it up on occasion. He posted a career high in rebounds with 427, averaging 5.3 a game.
• Iguodala comments on the firing of his coach at the end of the season
• Jason Terry and the Mavericks will face Jefferson and the Spurs in the first round of the NBA playoffs
• The Spurs’ general manager is more of a supporter for Jefferson than the San Antonio fans
• Arizona Daily Star reporter Bruce Pascoe offers an informative update on Chase Budinger
• Thanks partly to Frye, the Suns are closing in on the franchise record for three-point accuracy

FORMER UA PLAYERS IN THE NBA (Thru 4/14/2010)

* -- Rookie season. Bold -- Career highs

Your Ad Here

FOLLOW US BY CLICKING ON THE LOGOS: Please help this site keep going:

Bookmark this post

Hide Sites

FORMER UA PLAYERS IN THE NBA (Thru 4/14/2010)

* -- Rookie season. Bold -- Career highs

By Javier Morales

Thirteen years after leading Arizona to its first NCAA title, NBA veteran guards Mike Bibby and Jason Terry are still enjoying success on the court. Their respective teams — Atlanta and Dallas — are currently the No. 3 team in each conference with one week remaining.

Former UA guard Mustafa Shakur will not be in the NBA playoffs with Oklahoma City (which has signed him for the remainder of the season) but he is an important player for Tulsa in the NBA’s D-League playoffs.

Other former Wildcats assured to be in the NBA postseason include the ailing Luke Walton (out most of the season with a back injury) of the Los Angeles Lakers, Channing Frye with the Suns, Richard Jefferson of the Spurs and Jerryd Bayless of the Blazers.

Rookies Chase Budinger and Jordan Hill will be at home watching the playoffs despite Houston’s 39-38 record.

Also not in the postseason are the two best scorers Arizona has produced who are currently in the NBA — Gilbert Arenas of the Wizards and Andre Iguodala of the Sixers.

Arenas was sentenced last month to 30 days in a halfway house for bringing guns into the Wizards locker room. He avoided extended jail time. However, the three-time NBA All-Star will first serve two days of his sentence at the Montgomery County (Md.) Pre-Release Center, which means he will be behind bars at that time.

Don’t expect Arenas to be Tweeting while in the halfway house. According to a Washington Post report, residents can have visitors, and they are given access to a computer room to hunt for jobs. But Internet surfing, Facebooking and Tweeting are forbidden.

Also according to the Post, residents cannot have cellphones, laptops, video games or portable DVD players in their rooms. They can bring their own TV, no bigger than 13 inches, but they can’t have cable.

Read about career milestones reached by some ex-UA players on the jump

(more…)

Bookmark this post

Hide Sites

Telecast begins at 6 p.m. on Fox Sports Arizona

We received word this afternoon from Fox Sports Arizona director of communications and marketing Brett Hansen that FSA will be highlighting former UA center Channing Frye in its Suns: Planet Orange Primetime show tonight.

We have included YouTube previews of the show, which is hosted by FSA announcer Todd Walsh, who was a student manager with Arizona during the early years of Lute Olson’s tenure.

The Suns play Atlanta and former UA guard Mike Bibby at 7 p.m. in Phoenix.

NOTE: Hansen was the UA media relations director for men’s basketball when Bibby and the Wildcats won the NCAA title in 1997

Bookmark this post

Hide Sites

UA standouts from last season together again with Rockets

RELATED LINK: Don’t write of Jordan Hill yet (Dime magazine)

By Javier Morales

How’s this for irony?

Two of Arizona’s Three Amigos — Chase Budinger and Jordan Hill — from a year ago are reunited in Houston, hometown of the other amigo: UA senior guard Nic Wise.

Hours before the NBA trade deadline Thursday, the Knicks shipped Hill, Kevin Martin and Jared Jeffries to the Rockets in exchange for Tracy McGrady as part of a three-team trade that included Sacramento.

The Kings are sending Sergio Rodriguez to the Knicks. Meanwhile, the Rockets are shipping Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey to Sacramento, which also receives the Knicks’ Larry Hughes.

There are many cases in which former Cats have played together in the NBA, most recently last year when Channing Frye and Jerryd Bayless were together in Portland. The reunion of Budinger and Hill is one of a few of its kind involving players who also played together at Arizona.

That list includes:

• Steve Kerr and Jud Buechler with the Bulls from 1994-98.
• Brian Williams, later known as Bison Dele was a teammate of Kerr of Buechler with the Bulls in 1996-97. Williams and Buechler were teammates with the Cats in 1989-90.
• Sean Elliott and Kerr with the Spurs from 1998-2001.
• Mike Bibby and Michael Dickerson with the Vancouver Grizzlies from 1999-2001.

Hill, the No. 8 selection in last year’s draft, becomes the third ex-Wildcat to be selected among the first 10 picks of his respective class by the Knicks only to be released or dealt in three seasons or less. Larry Demic was the ninth pick overall in the 1979 draft but his injury-riddled career ended in 1982 after only 206 games with the Knicks. Frye was traded by New York to Portland two years after the Knicks picked him eighth overall in 2005.

Demic, Hill and Frye were all power forward/centers at Arizona.

FOLLOW US BY CLICKING ON THE LOGOS:

Please help this site keep going: Please remember to visit the ads on this site. Thanks.

Bookmark this post

Hide Sites