Butch, Ahearn To Participate In All-Star Festivities
February 4, 2010 - NBA G League (G League)
Bakersfield Jam News Release
(Bakersfield, Calif. - February 4, 2010) - The NBA Development League announced today that Bakersfield Jam standouts Blake Ahearn and Brian Butch will participate in the NBA D-League Dream Factory Friday Night presented by Haier - Ahearn will look for back-to-back Three-Point Competition victories, while Butch participates in the inaugural Haier Shooting Stars event.
The NBA D-League Dream Factory Friday Night is an innovative skills competition modeled after the popular NBA All-Star Saturday Night - in addition to the Shooting Stars and Three-Point contests, the evening will include a Slam Dunk Competition. This marks the third consecutive year that the events will be featured during Center Court at NBA Jam Session presented by adidas on Friday, Feb. 12, at 7:00pm PT, and will stream live on NBA.com from 7-8pm PT.
Ahearn - who won the Three-Point Competition at the 2009 NBA D-League Dream Factory Friday Night in addition to being named the All-Star Game Co-MVP - will face off with sharpshooters Morris Almond (Springfield), Andre Ingram (Utah) and Rob Kurz (Fort Wayne), all of whom will make their first appearance in the contest. In his nine games with the Jam, Ahearn has averaged 14.3 points and 3.9 assists, and he is a 42.0% three-point shooter over his nearly three years of D-League experience.
Each competitor in the Three-Point Competition will have 60 seconds to sink up to 25 three-pointers from five shooting stations assembled around the three-point line.The initial four stations will have four orange balls (worth one point each) and one multi-colored "money ball" worth two points, while the competition kicks into high gear as the final station will for the first time consist of five two-point "money balls." The shooters will compete in two rounds of action with the top two scorers from the first round advancing to the final round.
NBA D-League Haier Shooting Stars makes its first appearance at NBA D-League Dream Factory Friday night presented by Haier, as does Bakersfield's Brian Butch. In 19 games with the Jam, the hot-shooting big man has averaged 17.0 points and 8.7 rebounds to become the team's leading scorer and rebounder. He will join fellow first-timers Romel Beck (Dakota), Pat Carroll (Iowa), Desmon Farmer (Reno), Curtis Jerrells (Austin) and Diamon Simpson (Los Angeles) as well as NBA D-League All-Stars Reggie Williams (Sioux Falls), Trey Gilder (Maine), Carlos Powell (Albuquerque), Mustafa Shakur (Tulsa), Mike Harris (Rio Grande Valley) and Dontell Jefferson (Utah) in the competition.
The Haier Shooting Stars contest features six numbered shooting locations of increasing difficulty, with each team attempting to make all shots in numeric order in the fastest time. Each team will select a specific player rotation to follow throughout the competition. Each shot must be made before the next player begins shooting in succession. Teams have up to two minutes to complete the entire shooting course and the team that completes all six shots in the least amount of time is declared the winner. In the case of a tie, a shoot-off will be used to determine the winner.
NBA D-League action in Dallas continues on Saturday, Feb. 13, when the fourth-annual NBA D-League All-Star Game tips off on Center Court at NBA All-Star Jam Session presented by adidas. The game features 20 of the NBA D-League's top prospects as selected by fans and the NBA D-League's 16 head coaches and will be broadcast live on NBA TV at 12pm PT.
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