Tag: DeJuan Blair

Splitter to play in Spain during NBA’s lockout

Spurs center Tiago Splitter is headed overseas because of the lockout, and guard is being recruited like a blue-chip prep prospect.

One season removed from being Most Valuable Player of the , the website of ACB team Valencia BC reported Wednesday that Splitter has agreed to join the team. His contract will have an out clause allowing his return to the Spurs should the lockout end in time for the 2011-12 NBA season to commence.

Though Ginobili, the All-Star guard, has said he would not consider playing overseas unless, and until, the entire NBA season is canceled, he has gotten offers from European teams on a daily basis, according to his agent.

“Nothing is imminent,” , Ginobili’s Chicago-based agent reported, via text message, “although we field inquiries from European teams every day.”

Ginobili offered Splitter congratulations for his signing in Valencia via a Twitter posting.

Splitter averaged 4.9 points and 3.5 rebounds in 61 games as a Spurs rookie. At the FIBA Americas tournament in Argentina in September, he helped Brazil capture the silver medal and a berth in the 2012 Olympic tournament.

He will join 2009 Spurs draftee Nando de Colo on the Valencia roster.

Splitter will be the fifth Spurs player venturing overseas during the lockout, now 140 days old and awash in litigation after the disbanding of the players union on Monday. Three-time All-Star point guard is the most prominent Spur playing in Europe, leading ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne in France. Parker is part-owner of the team.

Forward DeJuan Blair signed with Krasnye Krylya, in Samara, Russia, but was released by the team in mid-October.

Also playing overseas are swingman in Slovenia and point guard Chris Quinn for Khimki Moscow.

Attorneys who represent the trade association that has replaced the in dealings with the NBA on Tuesday filed an antitrust suit against the league in federal court in San Francisco. A second, similar suit was filed in federal court in Minnesota.

Player representatives from 27 of the 30 NBA teams met Monday in New York and voted unanimously to reject a proposal from the league for a new collective bargaining agreement. They then voted to disclaim interest in bargaining, disbanding as a union and becoming a trade association.

TP, Neal among the NBA’s non-dunkers

Tony Parker gets as many layups as almost any player in the NBA.

Despite all those trips  at the rim, the Spurs’ 6-foot-2 point guard was among a group of NBA players without a dunk  last season.

The Warriors-themed blog Golden State of Mind went through all of the NBA’s play by plays from last  season to collect information about .  It had several Spurs among the top and bottom in those categories.

Parker was second in the league behind Leandro Barbosa among players with the most layup attempts per 100 possessions. Parker attempted 9.23 layups per 100 possessions and hit an astounding 65.78 percent of them to lead all guards in field-goal layup percentage.

But Parker also was among 30 players who never made a dunk shot last season. Gary Neal also made that list. It was a predictable  type of  small players, but also included some surprises like Rip Hamilton and DeShawn Stevenson.

No Spurs ranked among the NBA’s top 30 dunkers. That list was topped by DeAndre Jordan (4.45 dunk attempts per 100 possessions), Dwight Howard (4.21), Blake Griffin (4.04), JaVale McGee (3.82) and Tyson Chandler (3.48).

Among other Spurs, DeJuan Blair was 13th in layups (7.87 per 100 possessions). Matt Bonner ranked seventh from the bottom in layups at 222nd in the league (0.95).

Blair was also eighth in tip-in attempts (1.38 per 100 possessions), but he also converted only 43.48 percent which ranked among the lower totals in the league. Marcus Camby led the league in tip-in attempts (2.01 per 100 possessions).

No Spurs ranked among the top 25 in hook shot attempts, which was led by Andrew Bogut (7.93 per 100 possessions).

It’s an interesting list that breaks down shooting attempts in an understandable manner, providing a clearer picture of some of the league’s rim-rattlers and hook shooters.

No lockout workouts yet for Spurs, but they could be coming

The opening of NBA training camps has been officially postponed, another casualty of the league’s ongoing labor dispute, but that doesn’t mean Spurs players won’t be working out together in San Antonio sometime in the near future.

No formal get-together has been formally organized yet, but with the lockout poised to eat up the first half of October and maybe more, Spurs forward Matt Bonner says he expects at least a handful of players will convene for voluntary camp-style practices at some point.

“Up until now, we’ve been hopeful we’d get (the lockout) solved before they cancelled anything,” said Bonner, a vice president of the players union. “As things have become more real, we’ll probably talk about getting something organized.”

It’s difficult to predict how well-attended such sessions might be.

Few Spurs players live in San Antonio full-time during the offseason — Tim Duncan being the most prominent exception — making large-scale workouts difficult  to organize this point.

In addition, up until recently four players — Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Tiago Splitter and rookie Cory Joseph — have been indisposed playing with their respective national teams in Olympic qualifying tournaments.

Complicating matters going forward, some players’ overseas obligations could mute participation at any future player-run workouts. DeJuan Blair (Russia) and Danny Green (Slovenia) have already committed to spending the lockout abroad. Parker, Splitter and Ginobili are also mulling offers to play overseas should the lockout continue.

Player-run workouts became en vogue during the NFL lockout, with players from numerous teams arranging mini-camps at local colleges or high school. Many members of the Dallas Cowboys, for instance, worked out at Southlake Carroll High School.

Among NBA teams, players from the Orlando Magic, Oklahoma City Thunder, Indiana Pacers and Golden State Warriors have pieced together lockout mini-camps this summer. Players in Cleveland are talking about doing the same.

The Spurs have yet to formulate team-wide workouts, though earlier this offseason, second-year guard James Anderson did organize workouts for a collection of young players, including Green, Gary Neal and Da’Sean Butler.

“It was mostly conditioning, a lot of individual workouts, getting up a lot of shots — a little bit of everything we could do with us four or five,” Anderson said. “We didn’t really have enough to play pickup. We were a little short on that end. But just getting together and getting some team chemistry between us was good.”

With Green in Europe and Neal enjoying the early glow of new fatherhood, even that group would be hard-pressed to reunite now. The longer the lockout persists, however, the more vital such workouts become.

Who knows? It might be fun for Spurs players to practice without Gregg Popovich yelling at them.