The Journeyman & Return of a Legend (FBPB3/FBCB2)
 

It's 1955 and the NBA is fledgling. Little does it realize, there's about to be an invasion of talent from an unlikely European kingdom.

Sweden at this point has never generated its own NBA player and the sport there isn't hugely popular. But thanks to a coach from the U.S. Phil "Pip" Marcus, who moved to the country and taught the game of his youth at a local academy, he turned AIK Basketball into one of the biggest sports clubs in the country.

An old friend of his in the U.S., got wind of this development and wondered what those players could do in the growing professional ranks of the U.S., but before he could do that, wanted them to play in the U.S. at a college to get some experience. He was recently hired as the Head basketball coach at Clara Barton College in Dansville, N.Y. in 1955 and wanted to recruit their players to come to the U.S. to play at the independent school where few had heard of and that only boasts about 750 students.

Can the Swedish Invasion help the Heroes of CBC make their mark on the college basketball world? Will these guys factor as NBA stars?

We're going to see.

Job 1 is seeing if I can even get the Swedes to sign with Barton. Given these players are intentionally meant to fly under the radar, that should be relatively simple. But it'll take us a season to do it.

For the NBA part of this, I quick simmed because the NCAA dynasty is slow since I'm using my omnibus all levels version of that db.

Anyway, I am still going to start importing players but will be doing so in the 1980s. Also using the traditional NBA/ABA db in order was boring, so I decided instead to just do a random start DB and that's been a lot of fun to have these different era guys playing with each other and now to go ahead and mix fictional guys in with them when the Swedes start coming to the NBA.

We'll see.

Clara Barton College is located in North Dansville, New York near Rochester. The small liberal arts college claimed four straight NCAA titlse from 1956-1959. The school made the Sweet 16 twice in the 1960s and since then has mustered just one NCAA appearance (1988) in the past 24 years. The initial reason for the school's success is due to the Swedish influx of players to the NCAAs which Clara Barton College pioneered.

The year is 1993 and former head coach Sonny Newland has taken over as athletic director after 10 years at the helm of the program.

In 1955, the head coach of Clara Barton was a young, impressionable guy by the name of Jason Hurt who led the school to its first two titles before moving on. Thanks to an invasion of Swedish players to the NBA.

The 3rd coach in school history, he left after the 3rd title giving way to another former assistant Luke Hammack and he went to USC where he coached for four seasons before being fired in 1961.

He then effectively left coaching.

31 years later, Clara Barton has enlisted him back into service. They believe at going to the roots of the program will help them restore its former greatness. We also hired former Detroit assistant Ahmad McDaniel as Head Coach in Waiting to replace Hurt when he finally decides to call it quits.

The year is 1993-94 and the idea here really isn't about Clara Barton -- I'm hoping to get a player who we can eventually follow as a journeyman into the pro ranks -- but I want Clara Barton to supply us that player.

I originally planned to get Clara Barton an awesome new coach and so forth, but when I was looking in the ranks of coaches who were highly ranked, etc., I ran across Hurt and it tripped me out when I realized he'd just never gotten another coaching job after he was fired from UCLA. It was just crazy especially since he hadn't retired or even latched on somewhere as an assistant. So I had to revive this narrative when I stumbled onto him.

Here's the coach's bio:


Such a weird situation. He was never a human coach, either. So not sure why the game just gave up on him after USC, but sort of enjoy the boomerang story line here.

Here's head coach in waiting, McDaniel

So here's the school's history by record:



And coaching history

Meanwhile, I've decided to pick a journeyman out of the upcoming NBA draft class to really start this thing in earnest and then we'll revisit Clara Barton at some other point.

I searched the draft pool, looking for a guy who had a decent NBA career. Because the NBA I'm using has 40 teams, the draft goes a bit longer than in real life and means that guys end up getting nabbed if they have any kind of talent, meaning I need to dig deeper to find guys who maybe will be overlooked to identify a candidate for our journeyman story.

I'll identify a few guys and then see who goes undrafted and then pick someone from there.

Reggie Bishop is a 17-year old player from Scotch Plains, New Jersey who had academic issues qualifying for college. His parents make the decision that rather than spend his last year of HS in the U.S., he will instead take the GED (he manages to pass) and he will instead head to Europe and attempt to play his trade overseas.

Here's his recruit details.


He was ranked 60th overall in his class, so a solid player who surely would've made a decent college player, but he's no elite. We're going to focus on Reggie's free agency pursuit and see how he does overseas for a while and see if ever does make it to the NBA.

His first contract is a 4-year deal worth an undisclosed sum with the Montreal Jazz of the Canadian Basketball League. In my universe, the CBL probably is one of the more richer leagues, with teams owned mostly by Americans who want to have the NBA ownership experience without the excessive costs.

So they've injected a great deal of cash into making the Canadian league an alternative for younger talent and veterans who want to play closer to home without languishing in the D-League.

His parents think the move to Canada is a good start for him and a way for him to ease into the professional ranks.

After a 19-19 season where the Jazz failed to make the CBL playoffs, the team decided to cash its young asset in. Bishop, 18, thinks he's ready for the NBA, but most NBA teams are still wary of the young player feeling he's not as "battle tested" enough and afraid that by picking the youngster if he were to declare for the draft, it would give other young players hope that they should defer their education.

"It's a bad sign," said one NBA executive. "He's no-doubt talented, but let's see him produce for a long time and then we can revisit it someday."

Bishop said he's learned a lot in his first year in the pro ranks. "It's not high school man, I'll tell you that. It's a different grind all day, every day. But I think I'm getting better."

The Jazz, meanwhile, have sold Bishop's contract to Russia's CSKA Moscow. Bishop said he's not sure how he feels about going to Russia, but understanding that he'll have a chance to start rather than sitting on the bench in the NBA on a good team -- he's slated as a late 1st rounder -- he is poised to head to Russia and see if he can build on his accomplishments in the Canadian league.

Heading into the final year of his contract, CSKA Moscow wants to blow the bank open to keep Bishop in Russia after leading the team to two titles and winning a league MVP. For his part, the young star is reaching the NBA buzz he thought he'd get before college ceased to be an option and now he sits at a crossroads.

Does he head for the rough and tumble of the NBA and submit his name for the draft after this year? Or does he re-up in Russia for lucrative money. Most indications are that he will enter the NBA draft after being away for four years and only being 21 years old when the draft commences.

With his name bandied about as a possible lottery pick, many teams are bullish on him being a huge contributor to their squads, though he might just choose to stay in Europe even after being drafted since it's likely he can make more money which will hurt his draft stock considerably.

In this biggest year of his career thus far, facing free agency...Reggie Bishop ruptured his Achilles in the first game of the season and will be out for about seven months.



What will this mean for his draft stock?

If you're his agent, do you let him prove himself in the NBA? Long-term, especially at his age, it's probably a smart choice right? Why let him go overseas, possibly get hurt and never have a chance at proving he was really ready for the NBA in the first place? But now post-injury, it'll be a question of whether he's as good as he seemed to show in his time in Russia and Canada.

If the NBA flames, there should be decent work for him abroad. But we'll first have to see where he ends up. I'm going to let the AI draft him, I won't intervene for storyline purposes. I'm just really curious.

So here's the draft preview. He's projected to go at 14 to the Knicks. Without the injury, maybe he's a Top 5 selection? In any case, we'll see where it all flops out. One unfortunate thing about FBB is that players don't really "drop" in the draft after bad workouts or whatever, so you have to sort of suspend reality. I wish there was more of that, because it'd add to the intrigue of the draft. I've just taken to making sure the foreign league players are inserted, because that keeps stuff pretty honest.




At 14, the Knicks took German forward Silvester Voegler who fell in the draft after three years in the Bundesliga for some reason. In any case, the 24 year old went where Bishop was supposed to go. Reggie is still on the board.

Reggie ends up going 16th overall to the Kansas City Kings who have missed the playoffs every year since 1982 when they made the Finals. (It's currently 1997)

So there's no doubt they can use a guy with Reggie Bishop's ability. The problem for Bishop is mostly that the NBA rookie salary structure is less than what he was making as a professional in Russia minus endorsements.

So the dilemma he has now is, does he goes to the Kings and help this team out of the doldrums in the hopes that someday he can cash in on a large NBA contract (I'm playing with consistent modern finances) or does he go back to Europe where his reputation will earn him a payday of several million per year?

The Kings have stated they have no plans to trade his rights away, though several teams are interested. They hope that they can convince him to come play in the NBA for them. For his part, the 21-year old Bishop says "I do want to play in the NBA someday. But I have to be smart too. And I don't think it's smart to take a paycut to play on a bad team." Privately, some wonder if Bishop fears coming to the NBA off an injury and not performing well hurting his future chances at a longer career and believes doing so in the obscurity of Europe with a larger contract protects him.

Some doubt the youngster will be able to resist playing in the NBA, though some argue that Kansas City wasn't a big enough market to attract the New Jersey native back to US shores. "It'd be different if we were talking a New York team or LA. But Kansas City? I think he might prefer Moscow."

CSKA Moscow is undaunted and has offered him a guaranteed deal and there is also interest in Spain.

Who beat him out for RotY in the Canadian league?

Former NBA guy.

The Kings traded him -- I had nothing to do with this -- to the Indiana Pacers. So he's going to spend at least one year in the NBA because I ended up simming too far ahead. My original plan was to intervene and have him go to Europe and then have him eventually come back to the States.

But now there's going to be a different plan involving our man Reggie, who is most certainly not setting the NBA on fire.

Here's how his first season went overall.



All-NBA Rookie 2nd team isn't bad and he started almost all of the games for Indiana this year. They missed the post-season this year, however. It's almost assured that he will go back to Russia after this season, though, as he can make boatloads more than his NBA rookie deal. If nothing else, he proved he can play in the league and for him, that was prize enough.

"People doubted whether I had the talent or the makeup. They can't doubt me anymore. I proved them wrong," said Bishop.

Reggie Bishop signed with Real Madrid of the Spanish League. CSKA Moscow didn't have the money to offer him what he's worth and he wasn't willing to endure the wrath of their fans by playing for another Russian club, so opted against going back to Russia.

He signed with Real Madrid for 4 years and $32.2 million net income contract, a lot more than he'd have ever gotten under the 2nd year of his rookie deal, plus two more option years. The Pacers were undoubtedly disappointed with his decision to bolt back abroad, but have retained his rights should he decide to return to the NBA at some point in the future.

The contract does contain opt outs in each of the three years, so he can indeed leave and go back to the NBA should he choose to.

So Reggie's first year in Espana went all right. He won another ring with another Euro team, so that's not bad and was all league 1st Defensive Team.

The Pacers sent officials to Spain in the hopes of inducing him to come back to the NBA. The team made the playoffs last year and think that with Bishop they'd have a shot at getting farther in the post-season.

With the provision of his contract enabling him to opt-out and head back to the States, he is considering the move. If he chooses not to, it's expected they'll deal his rights to another club in an effort to acquire another draft pick in this year's draft.

Bishop opts to do another year in Spain, saying he doesn't want to let his teammates down and wants to win another championship. Pacers irritated, but don't deal his rights just yet.

The 1999 season in Spain resulted in another Finals appearance by Real, but this time they lost. Bishop was an All-Star, though.

Reggie Bishop opts out of his contract for the 2000-01 season. Besides the NBA, there's a chance he reconnects with CSKA Moscow, as they have the cash to pay him now.

Bishop signed with the Knicks. In his first year, the team made the playoffs for the first time in a decade.