Joyeux Noel

Well I am happy to say that I have fallen into a pretty good little routine over here in good old Roanne. We have continued to play well and are sitting in 2nd place. So I am feeling good about the whole thing. I have found my way in our rotation playing pretty well when I get my minutes. I have reached a comfort level finally with the European style of basketball. Do I miss home and maybe even Bakersfield? Umm yah... wow did I just say I missed Bako? Guess so, that little dust pot really found a place in my heart. We had a good run up there and I credit it a lot for developing my game with great support and opportunities.
Now being in France has become very nice. Jessica and I have adapted very well and I have felt that we have made ourselves part of this little community. Minus the language barrier its almost like we are living anywhere back in the states. So to say the least we are enjoying the lifestyle over here.
Ok enough juicy stuff...on with the battles and war stories from the Hardwood. Ok so I will start with a little trip to Cypress. The little island in the Medditeranian Ocean. I have heard it to be a nice place but I guess we went to the wrong spot or made a wrong turn. The place that I saw was basically like Phoenix, meaning desert and hot. No sandy beaches with blue waters. But what do I care I am here for work! So we were to play the Cypress team that is in our group for the Euro Challenge. I have played in a few bad gyms in my day but their gym was right near the bottom. It was like playing at the Boys and Girls Club we used to play at when we were kids. Baskets hung right off the wall with that little 1/4 inch pad underneath which is supposed to protect you if you are smashed into the wall (those work really well right mom, remember the acromion process game). The "Arena Seating" consisted of layered cement benches, I think five high. Much like the seat at an old Roman Amphitheatre. So needless to say they were empty. But whatever, we are here to win and get out. Silly me though I didn't bring my football pads as this game turned into a gladiatorial contest (guess the seats were appropriate). This game simply put was hand to hand combat. It went really well for us and thankfully, minus some lacerations and deep bruises we walked away with a 20 point win. To really appreciate it you have to watch the game film. But hey winning is the best medicine. So we returned home to continue our French league conquest.
We have since played 2 more games in our league winning one and losing one. So we have maintained our seat at the top. Our remaining games before Christmas are very important to solidify a spot at the top to start the second half of the season. I get to go home on the 20th December and can't wait. Much needed R & R and maybe some good Mex food. Hope this update finds you all well!! Au Revoir

Land of the Beginning

Wow, recently returned from Jerusalem and it is truly an amazing place. I have visited many places including Notre Dame, the Coliseum, and the Vatican but nothing has had such a spiritual feel as the old city of Jerusalem. We traveled to Israel to play a game for the EuroCup Challenge so again I was able to travel to an amazing place for free. The team arranged for us to have a walking tour through the streets of Jerusalem. We had a guide who walked us through the walls starting at the new gate. We proceeded to walk the streets that Jesus, Muhammad, and Constantine had also walked. How is this even possible? The city is the birth place of 3 of the major religions of the world. As I had said before visiting some of the other major sites of the world was truly incredible and I continue to be in awe of the buildings and how our ancestors could accomplish such amazing things. Jerusalem on the other hand has a whole different feel. I can't explain it and I can only say that it almost brings you to tears and you can't really explain why? It may have been the fact that I walked on the same streets and touched the same walls as Jesus Christ. I was able to see the Dome of the Rock where the profit Muhammad rose into heaven. There are not too many places in the world that really reach a person on a level that transcend the physical. You walk down the streets and realize you are walking in spiritual history. The final stop through the city is the Wailing Wall, one of the most holy sites for Jewish people and I was able to place a prayer note in the wall. Placing a prayer in the wall feels like asking God face to face for a personal prayer. The wall has a presence that transcends anything I have ever felt. I was able to place a prayer in a place that has been a keystone of Jewish faith for centuries. There are just not enough ways to describe how amazing an experience the City was. I visited the birth place of my Faith which many Christians only dream of.
The basketball end continues to be good. The team is doing very well and I have been playing well. I have been fortunate to have a european coach who treats his players with great respect. The team as a whole continues to be a great thing. We play well together and I must say that of all the teams I have played for we have really meshed well and hopefully will continue to smash it up on the court. Prayers and love to all back home, Jessica and I miss you all and can't wait to be home for Xmas!

Here We Go in France

Well I am on my way for another season. I signed a new year contract with Chorale Roanne, which is in France. It's located in the central-south of France. Smallish town about 100,000 people which makes it really easy to get around and get to know some of the locals. I arrived here about a month ago to start the preseason. It has been a pretty smooth transition, minus the language barrier. Don't believe what people say about how knowing Spanish will help you with French cuz the French people just like to drop letters from words and spell things all crazy. So my French is a work in progress but I am happy to report that I can successfully count to 12. (small victories right?)
Basketball-wise I am having a really great time. The first month has consisted of learning the European style of basketball which is very much system oriented as a opposed to American one-on-one. But I am playing well and have been able to maintain my weight which for me is the most important thing. My team I think is going to do very well based on how we have played in our 9 preseason games. We lost only one game by one point and won the rest by at least 8 or 9. So it's a pretty good start considering we have only been together for a month. My team has 4 American players and 2 guys who are pretty much Americans but have European passports so they don't count. See in Europe countries have rules regarding how many American players can be on a team. Here in France the limit is 4 so only 4 guys with American passport are allowed on a team. But in our case we have two guys that have skirted the rules. One guy has an African passport but lives in the US and played in college in the States so he pretty much is an American guy. The other guy has his French passport because his mom is French born and his dad is from the States. So he has dual citizenship but has the French passport so doesn't count against us. This can prove to be a big advantage. It may sound silly but American's are sought after and we play a little different game. So with all this put together we should do very well. Our first league game is this Saturday so it all starts for real.
On a side note our team also qualified for a Euro Cup series which puts teams from countries all around Europe and Asia, pretty much everywhere except the States and we all play for a European Championship. Our first round match is against a team from Jerusalem. They come here to play on October 20 and then we get to travel to Jerusalem to play a game. It's a pretty sweet deal to get to travel to the holy land for basketball. I am really excited about that. I will definitely take lots of pictures.
Jessica and I have traveled here together following our amazing wedding back in August. We were so blessed to have all our friends and family in Seattle to celebrate with us. We send many thanks and tons of love to ALL of you!! I will be posting now for the year so keep tuning in. The team website is http://www.chorale-roanne.com/ but unless you are fluent in French you are gonna need to visit a translation site for some help. CHEERS for now!!

Summer is Here

The summer has arrived which means the end of the D-league season and the beginning of another journey through the NBA summer league. The end of the D-league season was not very good, well in a word it was shit! We made the playoffs which is a first for the Bakersfield Jam but we didn’t last very long. We drew the Utah Flash in the first round which was in my mind a very good thing. We played well against them all year and matched up with them. The bad part was that it was another road game for us and the D-league first round of the playoffs is only a one game series, so do or die. Die, well we more like we were slaughtered. It was the worst game that we had played all season by far. Not exactly how you like to end what was essentially a very good year for us. So it was over very quickly. Again ending a season is always a tough thing but for us it was made even tougher because of the way it ended. A loss is always hard to deal with but when it is your last game of the season it hurts just a bit more. The only bright side to the whole thing was that it meant that I could get back to Bakersfield a week earlier then we had hoped, back my bags, and head on down the I-5 towards San Diego and never look back.

Bakersfield had been very good to me and I have definitely taken alot more good then bad away from the place but let’s be honest it was a smelly, dirty place that I will not soon be returning to. Now if anyone took offense to that just check out the study done this year that listed good old Bakersfield as one of the worst cities in America in terms of air quality and pollution, which is good when you are an athlete cuz it’s not like we train really hard and breathe alot. But like I said my overall feeling of Bakersfield was very good, hey it’s another pin I can put on the map. (Special thanks to Julian and his amazing family)

So moving forward with my career is turning out to be very good so far. I wasn’t home 4 days before the phone started ringing with an offer to head to Belgium for a month or so to finish their season and help a team in the playoffs (yes that was not a typo, you read correctly Belgium). But the team ended up not needing me and I honestly was ready to just be home for a while. But it was very exciting to know that offers were starting to come in so quickly after the season. Last year I pretty much sat around hoping the phone would ring, this year different story. I am on the radar screen and have been given the opportunity to play for the Chicago Bulls this summer in the NBA summer league in Las Vegas. The summer league, for those of you who are new to the blog, is an opportunity for NBA teams to put together a team of free agents (ME), rookies, and recent draft picks. We meet as a team and play for about 10 days in Vegas against other NBA teams that are doing the same thing. So it is great for guys to showcase their skill and earn a spot on an NBA teams roster for camp that starts in the fall. The camp is the start of the season when all the members of the team actually start practice for the up coming season. This is what you want to achieve through summer league, the opportunity to be with the team in camp and make the final roster.

In the mean time I will be headed to Bradenton, Fl to begin training for the summer league. I have gone down to Florida for the last 2 summers and worked out on the campus of the IMG Training facility. It is a great place to go and just work on your game with other NBA players in an environment where there is now pressure in trying to make a team. This training is completely independent of any teams. It is strictly a workout facility with weights, courts, and food for guys to come on their own and train. The program is run by David Thorpe who is well known in the basketball community and I must say a big part of why I am where I am. He is great to work with because he really focuses on what you individually need to work on to get to the next level. There is no media or outside interference allowed and we just get in there and bust ass twice a day everyday to sharpen our game and get into the greatest shape I have ever been in. It is the perfect way to prepare for the summer league. I will be headed down there around the 2nd of June and will be there until I go to summer league. The basketball lifestyle never ends. By no means is this a complaint I LOVE what I do and have no intentions of stopping anytime soon!

To those of you I got to see this weekend in Phoenix it was absolutely amazing and Jessica and I love you all so much. We are truly blessed to have all of you in our lives and hopefully we will be seeing you all 1 August!

Grind it Out!

Well we had our first call up of the year. Our point guard Trey Johnson received a call up from the Cleveland Caviliers. He spent 20 days on their roster and from what he said gained a ton of experience and more importantly he was on an NBA roster so he is in the system. That is all we are hoping for is to get into the NBA fraternity as it were. Once you break through the initial barrier of the NBA it is much easier to stay on someone's depth chart and receive more calls. But who knows how the final decision about who gets called up works. I must say that after watching a few NBA games over the last few weeks, some teams really look terrible and I know I can do what some of these clowns on these teams are doing. I cant get caught up in this game though I can only control how I play and hope that someone finally takes notice.
I know this update was short but I am really just at a loss for words right now trying to finish this season strong and get that phone call that I have been working for.

Halfway Through....

Well we have officially passed the halfway point of the dleague season. As of late we have not been our JAM that started this season so strong. But we have also experienced some serious changes all the way along our roster. The initial incident was the unfortunate loss of our veteran point guard Matteen Cleves who tweeked his hamstring during the Iowa game. He come back a little to soon and pushed to hard and set himself back last week when he tried to plat against New Mexico. So that put a little more stress on Trey Johnson and Johvan Harris. Trey had to move back to the point guard position which is not his natural position. He had been totally dominate at the 2 guard position, attacking from the wing and really running in transition. But we have done well with him back at the point. Secondly we got another guy back from the team last year. Justin Reed arrived in Bakersfield about the same time I did last year and we started to work toward this year. Justin unfortunatley was not with us from training camp because he suffered a broken foot while in Vet camp with Philadelphia. But his return means that we have more size but more importantly another guy on the floor with NBA experience. Finally in the last week or so we also added a point guard by the name of Terrell Everett who played at the University of Oklahoma. He is a solid player who has moved right in and taken the reigns and really begun to run our team. He is a very athletic point guard with great court sense. So now that we have all been put together we must find our way back to the yellow brick road.
So now we have the parts we have to get back to working together and playing our basketball. Unfortunately we have dropped a few games as of late and I must say I have not been playing as well as I should be. My rebounding has dropped slightly to about 8 boards a game which needs to get back up toward 10. But I have to keep working and that's what the league is all about. We have a bunch of home games over the next month so we can really do our thing and stay in good old Bakersfield the whole time.
Now my mind isn't really on writing this blog about me, I am still so excited and upset over my beloved Cardinals play for a world championship. We came from absolutely shit to playing for all the marbles. I have been a die hard fan for as long as we have lived in Phoenix, 18 wonderful years. I must say that the Cards ripped my heart out time and time again. As my dad and I came to realize is that no lead is too big, the Cards can blow anything. This year however we had a SQUAD!! By far the best recieving core maybe ever assembled and a 40 year old quarterback who wears gloves on both hands. But no one gave us any chance. We beat the Cowboys and the Bills at home this year on our way to the NFC West championship. But like my dad and I always said no lead is safe with the Cards. They played a hell of a game but the same old stupid mistakes kept us from reaching the top. An interception right before half that was returned 100 yards by a 300lb line man was embarrassing. Let me tell you I don't think anyone was a pissed as my little brother. He would have killed Kurt Warner if he could have been close enough (he still might if he runs into him in PHX). It was very heartbreaking that despite taking the lead back with under 2 minutes to go we couldn't stop anyone. We gave it right back the the steelers and walked back home with our tail between our leagues. Well there is always next year except we are the Arizona Cardinal we probably wont be back to the Super Bowl for another 60 years so I have plenty of time to watch them piss away all their talents. I still love them and they are my team but I am a realist.
Sorry this update didn't have more basketball info but I will post again later this week as we approach the All Star game. Thanks to all those who voted for me!!

Long Time no Post

Well first I apologize for not keeping up with my postings. We just returned from a 21 day road trip that started before Christmas and ended Sunday morning. I didn't bring my computer for reasons I am still not sure of, mainly because I am an idiot but that is in the past. On with the update. We are currently sitting pretty in second place in the league behind Boise. Our trip started with a game in Ft. Wayne, Indiana where we played very well coming off our Christmas break. I think we really needed some time to recover and hangout with our families. The game went very well and we started our trip with a W. From there we drove to Chicago to spend 4 hours in a hotel to wake up and catch a 6 am flight to Cleveland, Ohio where we then jumped on a bus to drive to Erie, Pennsylvania. I think it was my dad who said "Does our travel agent not own a globe cuz the drive from Ft. Wayne to Erie is like 5 hours?" But hey more time on the bus the better! Upon arrival in Erie we slept for 2 more hours and then headed to the gym to play our game. Unfortunately we got our butts kicked by a team that we should have beat. After that great trip we got to fly to Des Moines, Iowa my favorite place on Earth! We lost that hard fought game in overtime which sucked. I hate losing to their coach who was my coach for half of last season. That just really pisses me off! I had a pretty good game but we just weren't able to pull it all together in the end. We have been playing short handed since our point guard Mateen Cleeves pulled a hamstring in the Iowa game on New Years Eve. I got to spend New Year's Eve having a great time sitting and having dinner in the hotel bar thinking to myself "I left Des Moines for a reason and now I am back and on New Year's Eve, Damn it!" Well what are you gonna do this is life in the d-league? The next day we were back on the bus headed from Des Moines to Omaha and the airport (cuz we can't fly out of Des Moines that would be too easy). The drive should take about 1 hour maybe an hour and a half. We arrived at the airport 3 hours later. Man I love this traveling!! The bus driver had a GPS unit that he didn't use, instead he was using a hand drawn map that his boss gave him. That definitely makes more sense to me. It wasn't for about an hour that he realized he had been looking at the map upside down. Once he realized this he was able to get us back on the right track and on our way. Nothing like mingling with the good old Midwest folks.
Anyway when we finally reached the airport, we made our flight no problem on our way to Boise, Idaho. We finally got a chance to rest for like 5 minutes before we had to go into a hostile environment and play the best team in the league. We lost that game too, wow we were pretty bad early in our road trip. In fact we were god awful!! The bleeding finally stopped when we arrived in Utah for the D-league Showcase. The Showcase is set up to bring all the teams together in one place to play games in front of all the NBA teams and GM's and many European scouts. Each team plays 2 games which are part of your regular schedule we just play all at the same place over a week period. It is pretty much the big event for the D-league season. We were to play LA and Austin. We handled both teams pretty well and got ourselves back on track. I played well in both games averaging 19 pts and 13 rebounds earning All-showcase honors. During the Austin game I played the whole 48 minutes of the game and I must say I have not been that tired in all my life but it was a great feeling to play your heart out and walk away with a win on such a big stage. It was a very good time for me.
After the Showcase we had one more stop on our road trip in Reno. I redeemed my horrible performance the first time through with a 16 and 10 performance but we again were unable to pull out of there with a win. Man we were bad again. I hate being on the road this year. After the game I ventured out to spend some time with some family friends I had not seen in a long time. I met up with the Harrigan family who was celebrating big Mike's 50th birthday. It was great to see all of you!! We for sure need not go that long between visits. Well we are home now and have some great games coming up here in Bakersfield. I never thought I would be so happy to be back in Bako, yea I said it what? Keep checking the website for all your Jam news. Love to All!! http://www.nba.com/dleague/bakersfield/