Signing Day

So it's all done with. Signed my contract to officially become a professional basketball player. Well I actually signed a little bit ago but had to keep it under wraps for a bit, but I'll get to that after. Going to be playing for a team called Bnei Hasharon in the city of Herzylia, Israel. I've never been there but I've heard it's really nice... like 5 min from the Mediterannean coast. Also not far from Tev Aviv, which is an awesome city. Here's a map http://maps.google.com/mapsq=herzliya,+israel&um=1&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=0x151d480dc125e56f:0x46a023cb144ac1c4,Herzliya,+Israel&ei=2foITqLwKKju0gGNitSBCw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ8gEwAA.


The team is supposed to be a really good organization too. Got a good reputation for developing players, being fair, paying on time, good accommodations and other stuff like that. Coach is supposed to be a pretty smart guy and the owner, who I've been dealing with during the contract stuff, is a good guy too. It was actually the owner who told me I had to keep it a secret for a bit... something about talking to the coach about me so that he wouldn't have to find out from some israeli reporter or something like that. I dunno, but it's good to be able to just tell people now and not have to hide anything.


If you don't know how it works in non-NBA professional basketball, it's a pretty great deal to go play overseas, especially if you're playing for a good team. Because my team is in the top league in Israel, they're hooking me up with a place to live, a car, usually some meals, and then my salary on top of that... so it's pretty sweet. Also, if you don't know, teams overseas pay the tax on your paychecks... so you end up getting all of the money promised to you.


Alright that's basically it. The team is still busy signing guys for next year and hopefully we'll have a good team with some cool people on it. I also just found out one of my best friends from home is going to be in Herzylia next year too so it'll be great having a close friend already there. Probably won't be writing anything on here until I get out there around the second week of August but here is the link to the teams website if your interested
http://bneihasharon.com/index.php?lang=en . Until next time my loyal fans. And if anyone knows anything cool about Herzylia lemme know

21 Hours in NYC

As some of you may have heard, last Tuesday night I flew to New York City to participate in one of the Knicks pre-draft workouts. Pretty whirlwind trip. Got to JFK at like 9pm, limo was waiting to pick me up... cool. Driver even had a little piece of paper with my name on it haha. From there we drove out to Tarrytown (about 45 min away) where the Knicks practice facility is and I got dropped off at the Marriot, pretty swanky hotel. The team gives you $50 for dinner so I checked in and got my room service on. Just hung out for the rest of the night in the king size bed.

 Next day after getting some breakfast and getting ready, the limo came and picked me and another player, Vlad Moldoveanu from American University, up and we headed over to the practice facility... which was awesome. Huge place with gym's for the Knicks, the WNBA Liberty, and a hockey rink for the Rangers. Anyways we got there and the Knicks people hooked us up with some fresh NBA gear which was sweet. Also got to meet the other guys we were working out with, Corey Stokes from Villanova and Mustapha Farrakhan from Virginia. Ran into Carmelo on my way out of the bathroom, he said hey, seemed like a nice enough guy. Also saw Andy Rautins, Landry Fields, and the leeegend Allan Houston. For the workout, we first did all the draft physical tests, which I clearly excelled at. Things like vertical jump, 60 yard dash, and the pro shuttle drills. Then we finally got to the basketball. Did a bunch of 1 on 0 shooting drills and then got into a lot of 2 on 2 games. The whole thing lasted about 2 hours. I was pretty happy with the way I played, although obviously didn't impress enough to get drafted (thanks for nothing Knicks...).

After the workout we got to meet coach D'Antoni, GM Donnie Walsh, the soon to be (and former Raptors) GM, Glen Grunwald and a couple other people. Had a quick shower and was driving to LaGuardia for my flight out within the hour. Got back Wednesday around 9pm, just in time to get a late night workout in at the gym. All in all was a really cool experience and a fun trip, not to mention some free NBA swag I can wear around which is obviously the most important thing

What's up everybody

So I decided to make this blog for a couple reasons. First, to let you guys know what's going on over here when we might be out of touch for a while. Second, because I think it will be cool to look back at later on when I'm done playing. And third, I have too much time on my hands right now, and probably will over there too. But anyways, the point of this blog isn't to get as many people to read it as possible, it's for the people I think actually care about what I'll be up to and are genuinely interested... In fact I'd rather you guys didn't send this link to random people or put it on facebook or anything, unless your telling someone who actually cares. So hope you enjoy it and send me a message (or whatever it is on blogs... I don't really know how it all works yet) if you want to ask me something specific