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CBA wins battle of top draft pick with ABA

by Sam Amico
October 14, 2006 - American Basketball Association (ABA)


It looks as if the No. 1 pick in the CBA will indeed play in the CBA -- and not the ABA.

Initially, there were some questions about the status of Dayshawn Wright, selected first overall by the Minot Skyrockets.

Soon after the CBA draft, the ABA's Buffalo Silverbacks announced that Wright had signed with them. Then on Oct. 9, the Skyrockets announced that they had signed Wright.

ABA commissioner Joe Newman followed this news with an

e-mail to the media that blasted Wright's California-based agent,

Alex Yam.

Newman told ProBasketballNews.com that Wright "signed a

valid contract" with the Silverbacks, and that the team "provided

him with a home, money, personal training and other benefits."

But according to Newman, Yam voided Wright's contract with Buffalo, saying Wright had a better chance to reach the NBA via Minot.

"In addition, Alex wrote an inflammatory e-mail to me, with profanity, telling me how bad the ABA was, how bad our owners were and that he had doubts (if) Buffalo would complete the season," Newman told PBN.com. "He justified breaking a contract ‘because Dayshawn's mother' hadn't seen it. And he didn't have the courtesy to even call the owner of the Buffalo Silverbacks. It was a total out-of-control e-mail."

Either way, this is a lot of fuss for a guy who hasn't been much more than a basketball gypsy since high school.

Wright is a 6-foot-6 forward who was considered a top five recruit his senior year (2004). He played one season at Syracuse, where he disappointed with averages of 1.3 points and 1.3 rebounds in just 10 games. He was suspended for undisclosed reasons before the NCAA tournament.

Then Wright was declared academically ineligible before the start of his sophomore year of college. He transferred to NAIA power Mountain State -- where he was also an academic casualty.

So while Wright definitely has potential, Skyrockets coach Chris Daleo was correct when he called the top pick "a risk."

Interestingly, the Skyrockets left the ABA at the end of last season to join the CBA (they played in San Jose last year).

And Newman deserves credit for not saying anything negative about the Skyrockets -- or Wright, for that matter.

As for Yam, well, that's a different story.

"If Alex the wannabe agent is an attorney," Newman said, "he should be chasing ambulances instead of players."

UBL UPDATE

Here is what we know about the new Universal Basketball League:

• It will run from April until June, consisting of teams mainly from the Midwest. That means it will go head-to-head with the IBL, WBA, and USBL.

• Team and league fees in the UBL are considerably cheaper than those in other leagues, so get ready for the defections to begin. In fact, the Akron Cougars have already left the IBL to become the first franchise in UBL history.

• The league was originally based out of Canton, Ohio, but moved up the road to Akron once the Cougars came on board.

• Ray Yannucci was named UBL president. Yannucci has been involved in pro sports for more 30 years, and is the former publisher of Browns News-Illustrated, a widely respected team publication.

• Former CBA guard Andre Smith will be vice president of operations. Smith was a coach with the IBL team in Youngstown last season. He also played overseas.

• Canton businessman Joe Hoffman is a key consultant. Hoffman owns the Canton Legends, a professional indoor football team.

• The league expects to name a commissioner within the next two weeks.

• You can get more information about the new league at the UBL Web site, or by reading the most recent release on PBN.com.

AROUND THE MINORS

• The Minot Skyrockets have signed CBA veteran Desmond Ferguson. The 6-7 swingman has been in and out of the league since 2001, and was once given a 10-day NBA contract by the Portland Trail Blazers.

• The CBA has given its Web site a cleaner, slicker look. League officials are right when they say that the site "is now more fan-friendly and will make it easier to navigate player stats, feature stories, team information, and more." You can check it out here.

• Former Loyola-Marymount coach Steve Aggers is now the coach of the CBA's Great Falls Explorers, an expansion team. Aggers coached LMU from 2000-05. Before that, he was at Eastern Washington, and was named Big Sky Conference coach of the year in 1999. The Explorers got a good one.

• Sports Illustrated writer and ABA owner Alexander Wolff has penned his latest outstanding entry on his team, the Vermont Frost Heaves. Read it here.

• Ex-NBA guard Dennis Hopson has been hired to coach the ABA's Toledo Ice.

• Former University of Illinois standout Sergio McClain will coach the Peoria Kings, also of the ABA. McClain hired area high school coaching legend Dick Van Scyoc as his assistant. Van Scyoc is 82, and last coached in 1994. McClain played for Van Scyoc in high school.

• ABA officials announced that the league All-Star weekend will be held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, from Jan. 26-28.

• Dennis Justice of OurSports Central brings up a valid point when he writes that all of the minors must do a better job of updating their Web sites. That's especially true when it comes to providing results during the season.

• "Not having updated sites hurts every minor basketball league not named the ‘D-League.' It's frankly embarrassing," Justice wrote. "I'd even expel teams who don't give me information every game night. Time to crack down on this."

• Justice makes quite a few other valid points in his article. You can read the entire column here.

• Don't look now, but the Harlem Globetrotters may be joining the USBL. More info on this possibility throughout the week on PBN.com, and in future minors notebooks.

Sam Amico is the editor of ProBasketballNews.com. He can be reached at amico@probasketballnews.com.

Note: OurSports Central no longer actively covers the American Basketball Association (ABA) as a professional league due in part to its inability to publish and play a schedule and the transitory nature of many of its teams. For information on professional minor leagues, please see OSC's basketball section.

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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer(s), and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.


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