Korean Basketball League Draft Results!

The Korean Basketball League’s import player draft took place Thursday night in the Monte Carlo Hotel’s ballroom down in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada following two and a half days of tryouts – and I have the results.

Typically this sort of thing wouldn’t be news around these parts, but because there was a rather large amount of big men that either played in the NBA Development League or in the recent NBA Summer League I decided to follow it as closely as I could (which meant via texts from a coach that happened to be down in Vegas since ESPN apparently didn’t deem it appropriate for Thursday afternoon television).

The KBL has a few peculiar rules (players have to be three years removed from any NBA experience and at least two years removed from European experience unless that experience came in Spain, Turkey, Italy, Israel, Russia, Greece or China) and, beginning this year, teams are only allowed one import for the entire game – a change from last season when teams could play both of their imports during the first and fourth quarter of each game.

All that aside, they make up for it by signing imports to $400,000 contracts – $73,604 less than the NBA minimum contract that the majority of these players would have to fight through an NBA training camp to earn.

Notable players that weren’t selected include Memphis Grizzlies Summer Leaguer Jeff Adrien, Nuggets Summer Leaguer (and former Dakota Wizard) Romel Beck, Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje, Utah Flash big man Bennet Davis, Spurs Summer Leaguer Bryan Davis, Hornets Summer Leaguer Kyle Hines, former Phoenix Sun Dan Langhi, former perennial Jazz Summer Leaguer Kevin Lyde, 37-year-old NBA journeyman Amal McCaskill, Michigan State alums Drew Naymick and Raymar Morgan, Bulls Summer Leaguer A.J. Ogilvy, Tulsa 66ers stud Larry Owens, Fort Wayne big men Jared Reiner and Sean Sonderleiter, former Golden State Warrior draft pick Chris Taft, and last, but not least, motherfrickin’ Samaki Walker.

Pick Name College

1 Jasper Johnson Delta State
2 Chris Alexander Iowa State
3 Glen McGowan Pepperdine
4 David Simon IPFW
5 Herbert Hill Providence
6 Terrence Leather South Florida
7 Chris Daniels Texas A&M – Corpus Christi
8 Rod Benson Cal
9 Noel Felix Fresno State
10 Micah Brand Massachusetts

Second Round Name College

11 Laurence Ekperegin LeMoyne
12 Aaron Haynes Boise State
13 Victor Thomas LaSalle
14 Eric Dawson Midwestern
15 Michael Haynes Fordham
16 Ousmane Barro Marquette
17 Gavin Edwards Connecticut
18 Otis George Louisville
19 Marcus Hubbard Angelo State
20 Charles Rhodes Mississippi State

The majority of these players had previous KBL experience as Johnson, Alexander, Hill, Leather, Daniels, Brand, Haynes and Thomas all played in Korea last season – most of which were in the top 10 in scoring.

The rest, well, it’s a rather eclectic bunch, though Ekperegin will be the only rookie import – something that could be challenging for the small school player who looked decent with the Denver Nuggets in Vegas. Johnson, Alexander, McGowan, Hill, Benson, Felix, Dawson and Hubbard all have D-League experience.

http://www.ridiculousupside.com/2010/7/22/1583519/korean-basketball-league-draft