Posts tagged ‘solomon alabi’

[Editor's note: While I was out in Las Vegas for the summer league, I caught up with David Thorpe to discuss Yi Jianlian, who Thorpe trained earlier this summer in Florida. Below is what I gathered from my initial discussion with him. Unfortunately, the second part of the discussion was nowhere to be found on my recorder, evidently replaced by around 42 minutes of summer league gym sounds instead. Oh well, I'll try to catch up with Coach Thorpe for a follow-up at some point, but I can't thank him enough for what he has already provided. -Kyle]

{image via bscup.tom.com}

His friends back in China call him “Lian,” says David Thorpe, NBA analyst for ESPN’s Scouts Inc. and executive director of the Pro Training Center in Clearwater, Florida. Thorpe has worked with countless NBA stars, college prospects and overseas basketball talents. And for five weeks earlier this summer, he worked with new Washington Wizard Yi Jianlian.

Back in February, when things were beginning to meltdown for Jianlian in New Jersey — his minutes per game stayed high at 30.8 over 13 games, but his averages dropped to 9.2 points on 34.1% shooting and 7.5 rebounds; this was down from 33.2 minutes, 15.4 points on 42.9% shooting and 6.7 rebounds per over 18 total games in December and January — the player’s group of advisers, including agency Lagardère and agent Dan Fegan, started talking with Thorpe.

“I think he was looking for more help in understanding the game,” Thorpe told me when I spoke with him during the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas. “He’s almost been like a stray dog … no one’s really hugged him to say ‘you’re mine’,” he said, indicating that the instability of coaching and team changes has caused a lot of strife in Jianlian’s basketball career. He was drafted, relatively unwillingly on Yi’s part, by the Milwaukee Bucks with the sixth overall pick in 2007 and traded to the New Jersey Nets, along with Bobby Simmons, in exchange for Richard Jefferson after one season. After two uninspiring seasons in the New Jersey, Jianlian was traded to the Wizards in late June for essentially nothing (apologies to Quinton Ross).

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[Editor's note: This is the second piece on TAI by John Townsend, check out his first one here.]

photo courtesy of K. Praslowicz (Sjixxxy)'s Flickr - www.kpraslowicz.com

“Just because you have money doesn’t mean you should overspend on someone that won’t be a part of your long-term future.  If the right opportunity comes along, I think you want to look at it, but I’ve said all along that we might save our powder for down the road, to see what the new CBA brings, to see if there’s a hard cap or a soft cap.  We don’t really know all the rules going forward, so just because you have the cap room doesn’t mean you should go out and spend it if it’s not for the right player.”[1]

These were wise words spoken by Wizards GM Ernie, a new herald for operational procedure and organizational preparedness, at a press conference on June 10.  As a long-time Green Bay Packer fan (my first memories of football were watching Packers games at 4am in New Delhi, India with my Wisconsin-born dad), I understand and fully endorse building a team through the draft.  There seem to be philosophical parallels between Grunfeld and Packers GM Ted Thompson, who firmly believes that the most effective way to build a winning football team is through the draft.  Thompson sees free agency as a complementary tool which can be used to add the types of players to a roster that may otherwise be difficult to find. In practice, this means that the Packers re-sign as many of their own players possible.  Rebuilding post-Mike Sherman, the Packers made 14 draft-day trades, all but one of them down, turning 31 picks into 44.  The Packers’ picks filled the roster with solid “glue guys” and have been able to add impact players including QB Aaron Rodgers, FS Nick Collins, OLB Clay Matthews, TE Jermichael Finley, WR Greg Jennings, and NT BJ Raji.  The result? The Packers are a team poised to make deep playoff runs every winter and are near the top of the NFL in just about every statistical category.[2]

Ted Leonsis, the Wizards new majority owner, made public his commitment to building a “generationally great team” that will ultimately win a championship.  Under new management, the Wizards will aim to hit their targets in the draft, spend prudently, create a competitive, cohesive team on the court that plays with an identity and within a system, and (most importantly) win games.[3] In an open note to Wizards fans, Leonsis also dismissed the generalized notion that the franchise was unwilling and averse to bringing in free agents.  Leonsis noted that that teams must consider using all of the tools at their disposal: the draft, free agency (small, medium, and large), rookie free agency, waiver wire pickups, developmental league players, and finding players in Europe.

All fans want to see that max contract free agent wear their team’s colors.  The addition of a superstar means that the team feels it is close to a winning a title and are prepared to kick down the doors of the championship fraternity. Read more »

On Monday, June 21, Solomon Alabi (C, Florida State, 7’1, 251 lbs.) worked out for the Washington Wizards along with Magnum Rolle (F/C, Louisiana Tech, 6’11, 225 lbs.), Devan Downey (G, South Carolina, 5’9, 175 lbs.), A.J. Ogilvy (C, Vanderbilt, 6’11, 250 lbs.), Samardo Samuels (F, Louisville, 6’9, 260 lbs.) and Bobby Maze (G, Tennessee, 6′3″, 195). Read about Alabi below…

Florida State’s Solomon Alabi has an NBA body, no question. Measuring 6’11.5″ without shoes and 237 lbs. with a 7’5″ wingspan, a 9’5″ standing reach and 5-percent body fat (tied for the 7th lowest measure in Chicago), it’s easy to see why Alabi has been present in the first round of most mock drafts (#26 – Slam, #19 – DraftExpress, #19 – ESPN/Chad Ford), despite being a relative newbie when it comes to the game of basketball.

Solomon tried playing soccer as a young boy in his home country of Nigeria, but says that his friends would make fun of him trying to play at his height. Among the other sports he grew up playing, tennis, volleyball, table-tennis, field hockey and handball, basketball became the obvious choice, especially when NBA scouts discovered Solomon and told him that he could potentially earn a scholarship playing college ball in the United States.

And that’s just what he did. Being exposed to competitive basketball for the first time at Montverde Academy in Florida, Alabi impressed enough to earn a scholarship to Florida State. But in his first season, he suffered from a stress fracture and was limited to just 10 games, forcing him to take a medical redshirt for the rest of the year.

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