Well you read it right, I have accepted a contract in Spain. As in the country of beautiful Spain. Well the truth is it is a kind of a tryout over here for 2 weeks but as my agent tells me it shouldn't take that long and as my playing has been so far I think I am in. Ok so now the logistics of the whole thing. I was getting ready to spend an amazing weekend with Jessica and Jake and his girlfriend at our family cabin in the Sierra Nevadas. We were scheduled to leave last thursday and I recieved a phone call from my agent that tuesday that a good deal in Spain may be in the works. Well needless to say I was very concerned to miss the vacation with Jake and Jess. But if it came down to it I was gonna have to leave the cabin early. Well we left thursday night for the cabin and were able to enjoy the entire Labor Day weekend up at the cabin. On the drive down on monday I was on the phone with my agent working out the details for the contract and getting the final itinerary in order. So inside of a week I had made a decision to move back across the pond and start a new European basketball career. This time however I would be moving to a country I knew something about and had visited a few years back, so I have to say I was pretty excited.
Well the plane departed San Diego International Airport bright and early Sept. 2. I flew to JFK in New York and continued on to Madrid, Spain on my way to Malaga and then Los Barrios. The drive from Malaga to Los Barrios reminded me a lot of Phoenix but with ocean front property and San Diego weather. So far so good. Upon arrival in Los Barrios I went straight to the club's office and met with the coach and the president of the club. We chatted for a few minutes and exchanged expectations on the up coming days. First on the list was practice that afternoon after moving my stuff in with an American teammate. The first practice went over very well considering that I had been awake for nearly 24 hours with 13 of those spent in an air plane. But practice went really well minus the fact that it is almost completely done in Spanish, so if nothing else I will become very comfortable with spanish pretty quick.
The last few days have been a blur for the most part consiting of practice, sleep, and 1 exibition game in which we played Malaga which is a first division team in Spain ACB league. This league is supposed to be right up there with the NBA. The league that my team is in is the next group of spanish teams so the league is as good if not better than most other countries 1st division teams. It seems to be a great stepping stone not only for spanish ACB but NBA as well. The website for the team is cbvillalosbarrios.es (you will need to work on your spanish or find a translator) This next week brings 2 more exhibition games and a whole lot of practices. It wont take long to find out if this league is the place for me.
In response to my poll question many of you wanted to know how the whole process works in terms of getting picked up. To tell you the truth the whole thing seems to me to be a crap shoot. Some guys get good contracts and invites to NBA vet camps who have not had great numbers in their career and some guys get great Euro contracts with no NBA interest. So overall who knows. You just have to play your game and hopefully good things will end up happening. Also it helps to have a good agent (thx B)
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
End of Summer
So if any of you ended up following the summer league you would have seen a very active time. I played in both the Orlando and Utah/Rocky Mountain Review summer leagues which ended up being a very productive time. The Orlando summer league was great mainly because I had the opportunity to play with Kevin Durant and learn from some of what he could do. Also us playing together gave the team a look at us on the floor at the same time. I played well with him and averaged 9 points or there abouts playing about 15 minutes. So overall not a bad run. The greatest thing about this experience was getting the opportunity to play in front of many scouts and GM's letting them see me play against the draft picks and do pretty well. But they are draft picks and they get a lot of slack when it comes to performance. (some of these guys were flat out bad) But keeps me working hard and wanting to kick their asses!!
The second summer league was even more of an opportunity as I played with the D-league Ambassadors. It was basically an all star team from the d-league. We only had 10 guys on the roster which meant we would all be playing a lot of minutes, this was so great because some of the NBA teams were carrying 15-18 guys on the roster. This meant that on average there were 5 guys that had DNP on the stat sheets. (DNP means Did not play) The whole point of summer league is to play. These guys were buried on the bench the whole week and never even sniffed the court. But our team was averaging at least 15 minutes per guy, so everyone had a great chance to show what they could do. Also because we were a d-league team we were written off as an experimental team that would probably not show very well. Were they sadly mistaken. We played harder then any team in the league and showed more team ball ability then any one of the NBA teams. We lost 3 very close games by a total of 10 points. Some of the teams were losing by 15-20 every night and these were the NBA teams. So we proved that the guys in the d-league can easily compete with guys from the league and even out play many of them. But we are the d-league and the logo on our jersey did not give us any respect from the referees. But hey we played very well and proved that the d-league should continue to have a team in the summer leagues.
The second part of the experience was our opportunity to play against the Iranian National Olympic team. I mean this is something to write about. We are practically at war with this country and here they are playing in the United States and asking to play us in their scrimmage games. The ability of athletes to come together from countries, that are ready to blast each other apart politically and militarily, to play a game just shows that sports truly are the greatest ambassador in the world. We came together as competitors who love a sport and love to play that sport and for 2 hours we were just playing a game as hard as we could showing that politics can often get in the way of everything. Twenty guys came together with no hostility at all just wanting to play basketball. Hey President Ahmadinejad chill out man. Hey Pres Bush put the guns down and enjoy a little sport. Maybe WE should lead the negotiations cuz the Iranian team was intelligent and realized that we are all just people and people can come together and enjoy something as simple as basketball and not care about nukes or political bullshit. We had dinner with the Iranian team and over steak and chocolate sundaes we learned more about each other than our politicians have in 20 years. Just follow our lead we will take it from here....We could have the whole thing resolved in an hour.
So chalk another one up for an experience of a life time....this game of basketball just gets better and better. I added a little survey for you all so let me know what you think and I will try and update all that I can.
Love to all!!
The second summer league was even more of an opportunity as I played with the D-league Ambassadors. It was basically an all star team from the d-league. We only had 10 guys on the roster which meant we would all be playing a lot of minutes, this was so great because some of the NBA teams were carrying 15-18 guys on the roster. This meant that on average there were 5 guys that had DNP on the stat sheets. (DNP means Did not play) The whole point of summer league is to play. These guys were buried on the bench the whole week and never even sniffed the court. But our team was averaging at least 15 minutes per guy, so everyone had a great chance to show what they could do. Also because we were a d-league team we were written off as an experimental team that would probably not show very well. Were they sadly mistaken. We played harder then any team in the league and showed more team ball ability then any one of the NBA teams. We lost 3 very close games by a total of 10 points. Some of the teams were losing by 15-20 every night and these were the NBA teams. So we proved that the guys in the d-league can easily compete with guys from the league and even out play many of them. But we are the d-league and the logo on our jersey did not give us any respect from the referees. But hey we played very well and proved that the d-league should continue to have a team in the summer leagues.
The second part of the experience was our opportunity to play against the Iranian National Olympic team. I mean this is something to write about. We are practically at war with this country and here they are playing in the United States and asking to play us in their scrimmage games. The ability of athletes to come together from countries, that are ready to blast each other apart politically and militarily, to play a game just shows that sports truly are the greatest ambassador in the world. We came together as competitors who love a sport and love to play that sport and for 2 hours we were just playing a game as hard as we could showing that politics can often get in the way of everything. Twenty guys came together with no hostility at all just wanting to play basketball. Hey President Ahmadinejad chill out man. Hey Pres Bush put the guns down and enjoy a little sport. Maybe WE should lead the negotiations cuz the Iranian team was intelligent and realized that we are all just people and people can come together and enjoy something as simple as basketball and not care about nukes or political bullshit. We had dinner with the Iranian team and over steak and chocolate sundaes we learned more about each other than our politicians have in 20 years. Just follow our lead we will take it from here....We could have the whole thing resolved in an hour.
So chalk another one up for an experience of a life time....this game of basketball just gets better and better. I added a little survey for you all so let me know what you think and I will try and update all that I can.
Love to all!!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Summer League
Well the phone finally started ringing. After my last game is Bakersfield I returned home to San Diego for some must needed R&R. Just some time to get away from basketball for a bit and hang out with Jessica. So anyway we finished up ok out in Bakersfield and I really loved playing for Coach Roth. He has really pushed hard for me and talked to a lot of teams which for the first time has started to get me into some mini camps and in front of the right people.
Ok so here is the rundown: First took the time off, then hit the weight room hard and was able to get my weight up to 250 pound which will be a great help in the low post. Secondly was invited to the Seattle Super Sonics mini camp up in Seattle first part of June. The mini camp was three days of workouts and playing games for the coaches and most of the front office people. I ended up playing pretty well. According to my agent he said that the front office people said I was definately one of the top players there. SO that is good to hear but doesn't mean much if you don't keep working. So back to the grind stone. After camp I headed down to Bradenton Florida and the IMG Training Facility for two weeks with Coach David Thorpe. This is a great opportunity to train with NBA draft pick and many current NBA players. We workout 2 times a day and really get after it. This program is probably one of the best that is available for players who are looking to really improve their game. Weight room, courts, and rehab facilities are all in house so you can really focus on basketball with no outside distractions. Other than the fact that it is in Florida where the humidity is 236% it is not bad. Good beaches for sure!!
Ok so then after that I was invited to Orlando summer league with the Sonics (for those paying attention they are now the Oklahoma City Team). THis is a huge step for me, my first NBA summer league. We came down to Orlando on the 2 July for 3 days of team practices and then started playing games on Monday. We are currently 1-1 and playing pretty well. It has been a great chance for me to play in front of tons of GM's and coaches around the league. Just keeping my eye in the prize.
At the conclusion of this week I will be headed back to San Diego for 3 short days and then off to the Utah Summer League where I will be playing for the d-league all stars. Playing for this team will really allow me to continue playing in front of the right people. Also there will be no draft picks to have to compete for minutes just play my game. But the first job is to continue playing hard in Orlando and follow that all the way through. Good things will hopefully come out of all this, it is good to finally have some opportunities. Well you can follow the rest of the action in Orlando at the Magic team website http://www.nba.com/magic/news/summerleague.html
Love to all!!
Ok so here is the rundown: First took the time off, then hit the weight room hard and was able to get my weight up to 250 pound which will be a great help in the low post. Secondly was invited to the Seattle Super Sonics mini camp up in Seattle first part of June. The mini camp was three days of workouts and playing games for the coaches and most of the front office people. I ended up playing pretty well. According to my agent he said that the front office people said I was definately one of the top players there. SO that is good to hear but doesn't mean much if you don't keep working. So back to the grind stone. After camp I headed down to Bradenton Florida and the IMG Training Facility for two weeks with Coach David Thorpe. This is a great opportunity to train with NBA draft pick and many current NBA players. We workout 2 times a day and really get after it. This program is probably one of the best that is available for players who are looking to really improve their game. Weight room, courts, and rehab facilities are all in house so you can really focus on basketball with no outside distractions. Other than the fact that it is in Florida where the humidity is 236% it is not bad. Good beaches for sure!!
Ok so then after that I was invited to Orlando summer league with the Sonics (for those paying attention they are now the Oklahoma City Team). THis is a huge step for me, my first NBA summer league. We came down to Orlando on the 2 July for 3 days of team practices and then started playing games on Monday. We are currently 1-1 and playing pretty well. It has been a great chance for me to play in front of tons of GM's and coaches around the league. Just keeping my eye in the prize.
At the conclusion of this week I will be headed back to San Diego for 3 short days and then off to the Utah Summer League where I will be playing for the d-league all stars. Playing for this team will really allow me to continue playing in front of the right people. Also there will be no draft picks to have to compete for minutes just play my game. But the first job is to continue playing hard in Orlando and follow that all the way through. Good things will hopefully come out of all this, it is good to finally have some opportunities. Well you can follow the rest of the action in Orlando at the Magic team website http://www.nba.com/magic/news/summerleague.html
Love to all!!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
In the End
As the end of the season approaches things are more of the same. This game is becoming a little more clear to me. There is no team concept at this level and nothing but selfish attitudes. It is tough to take Dusty's advice when you can't even find a single teammate willing to work with you. Team play is a LOST art. I am filling my role and trying to play ball the way it should be played and see what happens. 20% of this game is skill and the rest is selling people out and working behind their backs to get what they want. Also it helps to have a few connections or have some favors owed to your agent. But none the less I still love to play basketball and wish that was all it took.
This evening we had a dinner with season ticket holders in appreciation for them. It also gave them a chance to see us up close in a personal setting to sign autographs and share a drink. It is great to see how much people love watching sports and being involved with a team even if it is just sitting in the stands cheering us on. The kids are especially excited and most are so overwhelmed they can't even look you in the eye. It is a great feeling to have kids look up to you. One parent told me that when their kids play ball out in the back yard, their one son always says " I am NIck Lewis" In what other career can you have that in your life??
The owner of the Jam pulled me aside before dinner and told me that he really thinks I am a great asset to the team and the city of Bakersfield. He said he has talked with people all over the city and they really enjoy watching me play. They love the attitude I bring not only on the court but to the whole community. Whether it be signing autographs after games or making appearances at local schools I have apparently made an impression. Basketball has been a great experience that I have really enjoyed.
I now have 3 games to finish out the season strong. Then the waiting and working out game begins. Summer league is in July and I will again be busting my ass to make a big impression when it comes around. Thank you to all the great fan support this year especially from my family and friends.
This evening we had a dinner with season ticket holders in appreciation for them. It also gave them a chance to see us up close in a personal setting to sign autographs and share a drink. It is great to see how much people love watching sports and being involved with a team even if it is just sitting in the stands cheering us on. The kids are especially excited and most are so overwhelmed they can't even look you in the eye. It is a great feeling to have kids look up to you. One parent told me that when their kids play ball out in the back yard, their one son always says " I am NIck Lewis" In what other career can you have that in your life??
The owner of the Jam pulled me aside before dinner and told me that he really thinks I am a great asset to the team and the city of Bakersfield. He said he has talked with people all over the city and they really enjoy watching me play. They love the attitude I bring not only on the court but to the whole community. Whether it be signing autographs after games or making appearances at local schools I have apparently made an impression. Basketball has been a great experience that I have really enjoyed.
I now have 3 games to finish out the season strong. Then the waiting and working out game begins. Summer league is in July and I will again be busting my ass to make a big impression when it comes around. Thank you to all the great fan support this year especially from my family and friends.
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