Greivis Vasquez Picking Up the Slack in New Orleans

With injuries to the backcourt ravaging the New Orleans Hornets' roster, the beneficiary has been Greivis Vasquez (2006-10), and he's making the most of his extra playing time. Here's what Sports Illustrated has to say about Vasquez:

With Eric Gordon's timetable for return just keeps getting pushed out further and further. With New Orleans at the bottom of the Western Conference, there's no real rush to get Gordon back on the court. He's the future of the franchise, so in the meantime, Vasquez has been given the chance to show what he can do. He's responded to his starting role and 30-plus minutes per game with double-digit scoring, big assists and pretty decent rebounding for a guard. It doesn't hurt that he's also making almost a three a game while getting more than one steal. Perhaps he has four arms like his nickname-sake, General Grievous.

[Jarrett] Jack is injured, [...] He'll be back in the starting lineup when he comes back (currently day-to-day), but Vasquez is playing well enough that he might be able to fill Gordon's vacation SG position.

In the last five games, Vasquez is averaging 16 points and 8 assists in 32 minutes per game, while starting the last three games. In the Hornets' most recent game, Vasquez played 40 minutes and led the team with 20 points and 9 assists.

Jordan Williams Back With the Nets

Jordan Williams (2009-11) is back in the NBA with the New Jersey Nets after his two week stint in the NBA D-League with the Springfield Armor. From InsideHoops:

The New Jersey Nets have recalled rookie forward Jordan Williams from the Springfield Armor, Nets General Manager Billy King announced today.

Williams appeared in six games with the Armor, all starts, and averaged 10.5 points, 7.8 rebounds and 1.7 blocks in 32 minutes. He shot .451 (23-51) from the field and .531 (17-32) from the line. He tallied three double-doubles.

In his first game back with the team, Jordan scored 9 points and 8 rebounds in a win over the Pistons for Team Williams... err.. the Nets, who dressed only 8 players for the game due to injuries and illnesses. Four players named Williams combined for 55 of New Jersey's 99 points.

John Gilchrist Joins Kosovo's Sigal Prishtina

John Gilchrist (2002-05) is now playing for Sigal Prishtina in Kosovo's Superleague. From the Eurobasket website:

Gerald Inman (208-F-87, college: Rutgers) and John Gilchrist (187-G-84, college: Maryland) are two players that will strengthen champions until the end of the season. They have arrived in Kosovo capital, Prishtina, and they have begun to train with the team.[...]

John Gilchrist is a guard and during his career had played in different continents also. Except Norfolk (USA), which was his last team he played also for Banjska Bystrica (Slovakia), 36ers (Australia), Ironi Nahariya (Israel), Texas (USA) and Ventspils (Latvia). Gilchrist is a 187cm guard and 27 years old.

Gilchrist even posted a photo of his first game's stats on Facebook: 17 points, 7 rebounds, 5 steals, 3 assists in 31 minutes, though the team lost on the road.

John Gilchrist had also briefly played in Slovakia last fall, but that stint was over before I knew about it, so I passed on posting about it. Gilchrist wrote a blog post about his short, frustrating experience there that says a lot about what life is like as an American playing for small market European teams.

Jordan Williams Assigned to Nets' D-League Affiliate

The New Jersey Nets have assigned Jordan Williams (2009-11) to their NBA D-League affiliate, the Springfield Armor. The New York Post says this should help Williams' development:

After forward Jordan Williams has barely gotten off the bench early in his rookie season, the Nets have decided to send him to their NBA Development League affiliate, the Springfield Armor.

The move makes perfect sense. Williams, 21, has played a total of 37 minutes over six games in the early going for the Nets, and after leaving Maryland after his sophomore season, will get a chance to play – and play a lot – for the Armor. And, because of the Nets' partnership with the Armor, Williams won't just be getting to play a lot for the Armor. He'll both be playing a lot and running the Nets' sets on offense and defense, as the Armor are using the same systems as their parent club.

New Jersey news site NJ.com says that the move was prompted by other roster needs to replace injured players, but Williams' season wasn't going well, hampered by a lack of practice time after he missed training camp and the first five games of the season:

Williams, 21, was a second round pick out of Maryland in the June draft, but he showed up overweight and out of shape when training camp began Dec. 9. The 6-9 power forward did lose weight and played his way back into shape and got into six games for the Nets, averaging 1.0 points and 1.5 rebounds. He scored his first points (four) in a loss to Boston Jan. 4, and played a career high 10 minutes in the next game, Jan. 6 in Toronto, but playing time was scarce for him otherwise. And with the Nets unable to practice much (they have practiced just twice since the season started) sending him down to Springfield of the D-League offers him a chance to practice and play some games.

Braxton Dupree Now Playing in Canada

Braxton Dupree (2007-09, then transferred to Towson) is now playing in Ontario, Canada for the London Lightning. The Canadian National Basketball League (NBL) is in its founding season, taking three former Premier Basketball League (PBL) teams which were in Canada and adding four new expansion teams to go with them.

So far in three games (all wins), Dupree is averaging 5.7 points and 3.7 rebounds (2.7 offensive, 1.0 defensive). The team is 16-4 and in first place in the 7 team league. The team's press release has this to say about Dupree's signing:

The first place London Lightning are pleased to announce the addition of Braxton Dupree to their NBL Canada roster, effective immediately. Dupree is a 6'8" forward from Towson University, who adds a dimension of rebounding and defense to the Lightning.

Lightning General Manager, Taylor Brown, had this to say about the acquisition. “We were lucky to get Braxton as he was coveted by many other teams after coming from Israel. Hopefully he fits in with our team this late in the season.”

As mentioned, Dupree played Division I NCAA basketball during his collegiate career. Most recently, he was playing in Israel first for Maccabi Ashdod and then was loaned to Ironi Nes-Ziona.

Nik Caner-Medley in the Eurocup Top 16

Yesterday, we talked about the Terps in the 2012 Euroleague tournament. But there's another tournament going on in Europe too, the Eurocup. It's sort of the NIT to the Euroleague's NCAA Tournament, but with the added twist that the Eurocup champion gets an automatic qualification for next year's Euroleague, so there's really something for these smaller, second tier teams to play for.

This year, one Terp has made it into the Eurocup's Top 16 round: Nik Caner-Medley (2002-06) and Valencia Basket of Valencia, Spain. In the first round, Valencia tied for first place in group D with a 4-2 record (but lost the point differential tiebreaker), and Caner-Medley scored 17 points and 3.5 rebounds per game in four starts and was the tournament's Week 3 MVP:

One of the road winners was Valencia Basket as forward Nik Caner-Medley led the performance of the team at Lukoil Academic for the win and an index rating performance of 29, that earned him the weekly MVP honors among those players in winning teams. Caner-Medley scored 27 points including 8 of 10 two-pointers and 3 of 5 threes, pulled 4 boards, had 2 steals and 1 block.

The opening round of the tournament also featured DJ Strawberry (2003-07) and Hapoel Jerusalem, but they went 2-4 in group A and failed to advance. Strawberry started 5 games and averaged 14 points per game.