Detroit Pistons landed the Samb
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The name of the game in the NBA is International.
It is the promise of the unknown that used to be in America and now is overseas. The scouting in America leaves no stone unturned and other than late developers there are few surprises in NBA talent at home.
So NBA teams have taken to Europe, Australia, and even China.
One such star is Cheikh Samb from, get this, Senegal. Kind of like that Kevin Bacon movie “The Air Up There”.
Samb played in the Pistons summer league this summer and someday may play for the Pistons as a starter.
It is always difficult to evaluate the foreign player, due to the level of competition they play against. You also have to add in the fact that you are counting heavily on what your overseas scout is seeing and do not usually have any other evaluations to go on.
That being said, just how does Samb stack up?
The Pistons were obviously high on Samb on draft night last year as they traded Maurice Evans to the Lakers for his NBA rights. This season, Samb competed in the LEB2, the third division of professional basketball in Spain. Given the level of competition, you have to take his stats with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, it was nice to see this 7-1 lanky center get a chance to develop his game. Samb’s averages remained steady throughout the course of the season and finished at 10.5 points, 7.3 rebounds and 2.95 blocks in 24.0 minutes per game. Last July, Samb played in the Vegas Summer League with the Pistons summer league team. He checked in at just 195-pounds and showed a mix of promise and lack of preparedness for the NBA game. In 25.4 minutes per game, Samb posted 7.2 points, 4.8 rebounds, 1.8 blocks and 3.9 personal fouls. Samb proved he could shoot the ball nicely from 15 feet and block shots. Samb was a draft pick that may not pay off in the near future for the Pistons but three-to-five years down the road, sky is the limit as to how good he could be. source
Maybe another player a little closer to home for your intrepid author is Erazem Lorbeck. He played his freshman year for Michigan State University teaming up with Paul Davis, now with the LA Clippers. They made a formidable duo. Erazem went home to Europe and signed with an agent, not realizing that was the end of his college career. He bounced around for a while and finally got his chance.
Lorbek was sent to another Italian League team, Lottomatica Virtus Roma. It was there he finally received big minutes, and Lorbek ended the regular season campaign averaging 14.1 points and 5.6 rebounds in 28.9 minutes per outing.
Lorbeck belongs to the Indiana Pacers.
Samb, Lorbeck, and plenty of others are waiting for the NBA to find them.
NBA Basketball Fan Question Does your team have an overseas player?
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POSTED IN: Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers
3 opinions for Detroit Pistons landed the Samb
angelo
Oct 15, 2007 at 3:15 am
Desagana Diop of the Dallas Mavericks and Saer Sene of the Seattle Sonics are other NBA players from Senegal. Sene is still very raw while Diop took a while in the NBA to show what he can really do. I hope Samb can be like a Diop type player in the league down the stretch without taking as long to pan out. If so then the Pistons will be lucky they have him.
james
Oct 15, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Angelo was the former writer of NBA Obsessed and has taken his fine pen to wow obsessed where he blogs on world of warcraft.
Go to Angelo’s blog now! It is very slick!
angelo
Oct 15, 2007 at 8:14 pm
thanks James!
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