Life In The DPC!

Nick Fazekas and Ramon Sessions both fell into the 2nd round of the 2007 NBA Draft. The Dallas Mavericks grabbed Fazekas with the 4th pick of the 2nd round, 34th overall, and the Milwaukee Bucks drafted Sessions 56th overall. Sessions had one year of eligibility remaining but opted out of his senior year to remain in the draft.

Sessions has three point guards ahead of him on their depth chart including Maurice Williams.who averaged 17.3 ppg and 6.1 apg for the Bucks last season. Based upon need Sessions will likely make the roster if he can maintain the top notch play he demonstrated at the Orlando Pre-Draft Camp.

“He’s going to bring a defensive element, and at 6-3, that’s a good size,” Bucks GM Larry Harris said. “He would make the team as a defensive player and obviously at some point guard. The challenge was to try and find someone and find a niche that he can make it.”

Fazekas goes to Dallas as Dirk Nowitzki’s backup and takes over a role once filled by Keith Van Horn, a player Fazekas has often been compared to. At this point Fazekas’ role on the Mavs will likely be limited to rebounding despite his collegiate reputation as a sharp shooter.

“We got a young guy who has plenty of energy,” Mavericks coach Avery Johnson said. “I called him on the phone and said, ‘We’re excited about having you and some of the things you can do,’ and he said, ‘Coach, I can do everything.’ So at least he’s confident.”

After a ten year sabbatical The Verve have reunited. Their last album, Urban Hymns, was released on 10/30/1997.

Since their demise Richard Ashcroft’s solo has been less than stellar. After a while it seemed that The Verve fell into the cliche that ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’. Or they need the $.

 I am an Oasis fan, through and through. But The Verve had (have? Well, that remains to be seen) more talent but less pop appeal than the brothers from Manchester. Even Noel knew that after dedicating ‘Cast No Shadow’ to Mad Richard.  But Urban Hymns and Ashcroft’s subsequent solo career showed a movement towards pop as opposed to the depressing tunes in all of their prior work and this is not neccesarily a good thing. The Verve’s appeal, like The Smiths, is that you need to be bummed out sometimes (or have your mood made worse) by your music choices.

By Jonathan CohenWed Jun 27, 3:26 AM ET

Silent since 1999, U.K. rock act the Verve is reuniting for a new album and fall live dates.

According to a post on the group’s newly launched Web site (http://www.theverve.tv/), Richard Ashcroft, Nick McCabe, Simon Jones and Pete Salisbury were in a London studio last week laying down tracks for the album, which will be completed in the fall.

The Verve will then return to the stage for six U.K. shows in November: November 2-3 at Glasgow’s Academy, November 5-6 at Blackpool’s Empress Ballroom and November 8-9 at London’s Roundhouse. It appears guitarist/keyboardist Simon Tong, who was last heard from in the Good, the Bad and the Queen, is sitting out the reunion.

The Verve rose to fame internationally in the early ’90s with a sound psychedelic enough for adventurous listeners but palatable to commercial radio as well. Internal tensions finally splintered the band in the wake of 1997’s U.S. breakthrough “Urban Hymns,” which has sold 1.34 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and spawned the megahit “Bittersweet Symphony.”

Ashcroft has since released three solo albums but has frequently played Verve songs in his live sets.

Reuters/Billboard

*Note: The 2007 NBA Draft is June 28, 2007 and here is DraftExpress’ take on Nick Fazekas and Ramon Sessions.

Nick Fazekas:

May 17, 2007
It’s tough to draw too many conclusions considering that we only saw one workout here and didn’t get to take in any 5 on 5 action either (he didn’t want to be the only big man out there we’re told), but there are some things to be quietly encouraged by from what Fazekas did show us in the workout we attended.

For one, his body obviously looks a lot better after spending the last 6 weeks here in Carson. He was criticized by some in the media for dropping out of classes and heading here to prepare himself as best as possible to maximize himself for his professional career, but after seeing the results, it’s impossible to argue with that. Fazekas has added 11 pounds to his frame so far while dropping 1.5% of his body fat, looking a lot better in his upper body in particular. Beyond just pumping iron and putting on weight the way a bodybuilder would, they seem to have restructured it completely the way you would hope it would be proportioned. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that most Nevada fans would have a hard time believing what the people at Athletes’ Performance have been able to do with his body in such a short time.

Beyond his frame, Fazekas has clearly spent some time working on his shot. It’s not like he was a bad shooter before he came here, but he’s an even better one now. We charted him at an extremely impressive 80% from the NBA 3-point line on over 100 shots over the course of the workout. For any player that would be considered a very solid showing in an NBA private workout, but for a player who measured out here at 6′9 3/4″ barefoot, that is especially noteworthy.

Any way you look at it, his shooting mechanics with his feet set are nothing short of gorgeous—especially the rotation he gets on his shot. In motion is where is percentages drop considerably, though, as his body tends to drift along with his feet and he lacks the same dead-eye accuracy he gets from a stand-still position. Considering what his role will be in the NBA, we’re not sure that is going to be all that much of an issue.

Fazekas in general is not the most productive player in the world once he gets in motion. He noticeably lacks quickness and explosiveness, which limits his ability to create his own shot either in the post or on the perimeter. For that reason exactly he will have to adjust to being the type of player in the NBA that keeps things nice and simple—catch and shoot jumpers from 18 feet and out with his feet set, pick and pop plays, jump-hooks and turn-around jumpers in the post, etc etc.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a role for a player like that in the NBA—maybe even a substantial one—but a team and especially their head coach will need to realize exactly what they have on their hands before they decide to commit to him. From what we understand, Fazekas will not be participating in the NBA pre-draft camp later this month. That might be a little disappointing for those looking to evaluate his defense and rebounding in a competitive setting against more athletic players than he normally went up against at Nevada, but the counter argument to that is that big men like him don’t usually touch the ball much in those settings. Regardless, it’s our belief that anyway you slice it, there is a place in an NBA rotation for a player like Nick Fazekas.