Q&A with Parrish Brown

Eurobasket.net has a Q&A with Parrish Brown this week. Parrish is a free agent right now, after playing last season with Potros ITSON of Mexico's LNBP league. Here's a very brief excerpt (click the link to read the whole interview):

You left your team in Mexico in October. What happened?

The coach that brought me on the team ended up being fired, so the new coach that was hired brought in his own players.

What are you plans after parting ways with the Mexican team?

Well right now I just plan to keep working out lifting weights and working on my game until I can find somewhere else to play.

Update: Sigh... broken link. Eurobasket seems to be having some issues this week with all their news links, and lots of things on their page are broken. I found this interview week, but the link broke when I tried to go back to post it. It was broken all weekend, then worked again last night, so I went ahead and posted it, but now it's dead again. I will copy the whole thing if I see the link working again later.

Andre Collins Out for Four Months

Andre Collins (2001-04) will be out of action for four months (translation), according to his team, Virtus Bologna. He had successful surgery (translation) on two of his fingers in September and is now recovering.

Free Agents

As the international leagues start their seasons, several prominent ex-Terps are still free agents. Here is the run-down, including a few profile pages I found on their Agency's websites:

Chris McCray (2002-06), who played last season with the Rimini Crabs of Italy's Lega2 (Agent's Profile)

James Gist (2004-08), who played last season with Angelico Biella of Italy's LegaA (Agent's Profile)

DJ Strawberry (2003-07), who played last season with Fortitudo Bologna of Italy's LegaA (Agent's Profile)

Mike Jones (2003-07), who played last season with CSU Asesoft in Ploiesti, Romania.

Parrish Brown (2005-07), who played last season with Potros Itson in Mexico's LNBP (Agent's Profile)

Steve Francis (1998-99), who ended up on the Memphis Grizzlies roster last year, but never played for them.

Ryan Randle (2001-03), who played last season with Saint Etienne BC in France's ProB league.


Also..., I haven't had anything to post about them all summer, but Sarunas Jasikevicius (1994-98) and Drew Nicholas (1999-2003) are both signed for another year in Greece with Euroleague Champs Panathinaikos. Here's a story from over the summer about PAO re-signing Sarunas.

Laron Profit is back in Argentina

Laron Profit (1995-99) is playing in Argentina (translation, see also below) for Libertad Sunchales again this season. Laron also played for Libertad back in the 2007-08 season, but sat out last year recovering from a ruptured Achilles. Here's what the local paper (linked above) had to say about Laron (I edited for clarity from the Google translation):

Sunchales Libertad coach Juan Carlos Parola offered this opinion in a conversation about Laron Profit: "Laron is a very complete player. Technically gifted with great knowledge of the game. During his stay in Libertad, he managed to be loved by the people of the city and the club, and recognized and highly respected by his peers."

On the significance of his hiring, he added: "The addition is significant because his qualities as a player give us sufficient reason to believe that apart from his experience and knowledge of the game, he will provide a lot of quality minutes."

The only question is American's physical condition, since just over a year ago he suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon. In the midst of negotiations that seemed on track, the player had to face the injury, preventing his return for Libertad's 2008/09 campaign. In fact, he has now had 16 months of inactivity in professional competitions.

Profit made an excellent reputation for himself in his previous spell in the National League, where he became a game-changing player in the final leg of the 2007/08 season in which Libertad won the championship. In the final series against Quimsa, the forward was the leading scorer and was voted MVP of the finals.

Juan Dixon Signs with Aris in Greece

Juan Dixon (1998-2002), after being cut by the Atlanta Hawks last week, has signed to play this season with Aris Thessaloniki in Greece. Aris has recently been a very good team, finishing no worse than 5th place in the past 7 seasons. Aris was invited to the opening qualifying round for this year's Euroleague tournament, but was already eliminated last month.

Here are excerpts from the team's press release (translation here):

"It was a difficult decision to play for the first time in Europe after 7 years in the NBA. At the start of the season I participated in training camp with the Atlanta Hawks, then I was a free agent and I thought about what was the best choice for my family. After much thought, I accepted the proposal of Aris. I think I made an excellent choice," said the ace and added, "I promise that I will try hard to be good teammate for the team and hopefully that will help bring victories for the club, drawing on my experience in the NBA. [...]

As regards his role on the court, the American player said: "I can play both guard positions, either in position '1 'or the '2'. I spoke by phone with the coach of the team and he told me that he intends for me to be the second point guard on the court. I will try my best to do what is needed and what the coach expects from me."

At the same time, however, the leading scorer in the history of the Maryland Terrapins in the NCAA, Dixon showed a willingness to "bomb" the opposing basket, if necessary: "The past two years, I diverted from the road that led me to the NBA, meaning the scoring. I tried to make a transition from scorer to pure point guard, but that has not had the best result. My goal is to put the ball in the basket as much as possible. I came on to score!".

Note when reading the translation, Google is mistakenly translating the team name, Aris, as Mars.

Byron Mouton drafted by PBL Team from Maryland

The Maryland GreenHawks of the Premier Basketball League (PBL) drafted Byron Mouton (2000-02) in the first round of the PBL Draft this week. Here's part of the team's press release, with requisite cliché-ridden comments from the general manager:

The Maryland GreenHawks selected Byron Mouton, a 6’6” 225lbs guard/forward from the University of Maryland with the third overall pick in Thursday’s 2009 PBL Draft.

“Byron brings a tremendous amount of experience and leadership to our team,” [GM Adam] Dantus said. “We think that he is a tremendous well rounded player with a high basketball IQ and will fit in very well with our team.”

I just now learned from Wikipedia that the PBL is an offshoot of teams who left the ABA in 2007. The GreenHawks were formerly called the Nighthawks up until last week, and several other former Terps played for them over the years (including Travis Garrison and Johnny Rhodes). For those of you wanting to see Byron in action, the GreenHawks play their games at Wootton High School in Rockville, but they don't have this season's schedule up on their website yet.