Whatever happened to... Robert Swift

Robert Swift is famous for being the first White player drafted straight out of high school. Robert was the Sonic's top pick in the 2004 draft, the 12th choice overall. He played four seasons.

He never really caught on in the league, peaking out in his second year, playing 47 games, averaging 21 minutes a game, 6.4 points and 5.6 rebounds. After missing a complete season because of severe injury, he played only 8 games in year three, and 26 games in year four. He had a brief stopover with his hometown team, the NBDL's Bakersfield team, before quitting the sport in 2009.

This past week it was announced that Robert will be resurrecting his professional career in Japan.



The BJ League announced today (Aug. 16th) that former NBA Player Robert Swift has agreed to terms to play for the Tokyo Apache this upcoming season.
Swift, a 216cm center, had previously played for the Seattle Super Sonics and Oklahoma City Thunder after jumping to the NBA straight out of Bakersfield High School.
As a player, Swift is not only talented around the basket, but provides a large interior presence that can run the floor.
According to his new teammate Darin Satoshi Maki's twitter feed, he also has Japanese heritage, being quarter Japanese. This should allow fans to become closer and help Swift get into touch with his Japanese side.

White of the Night: Luis Scola

Scola shoots like his name is Dirk or something, jacking up 20 shots tonight for the Rockets, leading the team in shot attempts and points. Nice work, Luis! I think he should definitely be more aggressive getting his shot off, but he is a great team player, and usually focuses on the dirty work, averaging only 9 shots a game. It is nice to recognize him as tonight's White of the Night.

Kirilenko missed the last two games with a dislocated finger, which was still slightly discolored and swollen after tonight's game, but he returned to his new role as Utah’s sixth man and flourished again, including a spectacular block of a Shaq dunk attempt.

Harpring was also back after some injury time off. Okur has returned and was available, but did not play tonight.

Kevin Garnett hit with suspension for striking Bogut in the face. This on top of last week's well publicized taunting of Jose Calderon and his refusal to acknowledge Pachulia. Can we say Garnett is an obvious racist? Or is he this much of a classless punk to black players too?

Ahearn plays his first minutes! Hitting a three pointer in his 4 minutes for the Spurs.

Mark Cuban, idiot owner of the Mavericks, will hopefully be serving jail time, charged today with insider trading.

Scola: 23p (20 shots) - 9 reb -- 34 min
Kirilenko: 19p (10 shots) - 7 reb - 3 a - 2 blk -- 32 min
Kaman: 17p - 13 reb (4 off) - 3 blk -- 38 min
Nash: 14p (10 shots) - 8 a - 3 reb -- 32 min
Korver: 11p (7 shots) - 3 reb - 3 a -- 22 min
Swift: 6p - 8 reb (4 off) - 2 blk -- 25 min

Whites of the Night: Biedrins and Brad Miller

Brad Miller filled up the stat sheet across the board tonight (20p/11r/7a), earning co-White of the Night honors. The Kings are becoming a very easy team to root for, essentially playing 3 white starters, with all three of them dominating the ball, really. Hawes is technically coming off the bench (for some reason), but he is getting the lion share of minutes at PF, including the crunch minutes in the fourth quarter and OT.

Biedrins earns co-White of the Night as he had yet another monster night last night for the Warriors (17p/19r). Andris is by far the best center in the Western Conference so far this season, scoring at an slightly higher clip while pulling down a full 5 more rebounds a game than Yao, for example (who will no doubt be the All-Star starter because of racist Chinese voting).

Other news of note for tonight:

Robert Swift finally gets the start in OKC and plays a solid game (hopefully the Petro experiment is finally over)! Good for you, Robert.

Kosta Koufos (7'0 265) comes into his own tonight, posting a very strong game, playing 29 minutes as starting center for the Jazz (filling in for Okur).

Larry Brown continues the madness in Charlotte, actually starting Matt Carroll, then playing him only 18 minutes.

Ryan Anderson finally gets off the bench for the Nets, outscoring (by far) and playing more minutes than the starting forwards, helping propel the Nets to victory.

Strong games, home grown:
B Miller: 20p (16 shots) - 11 reb - 7 a - 2 stl - 1 blk -- 48 min
Hawes: 14p (10 shots) - 10 reb - 3 blk -- 36 min
Ridnour: 14p (10 shots) - 7 a - 6 reb -- 1 blk - 38 min
Lee: 18p (8 shots) - 6 reb - 1 blk -- 27 min
Anderson: 15p (7 shots) - 5 reb -- 26 min
Swift: 4p - team high 13 reb - 2 blk -- 27 min
Koufos: 9p, 10 rebs (6 offensive) - 5 blocks -- 29 min
Foster: 10p (6 shots) - 11 reb - 2 blk -- 18 min
Collison: 14p (8 shots) - 6 reb -- 29 min
Morrison: 15p (8 shots) -- 24 min
Bonner: 11p (6 shots) - 19 min

Strong games, imported:
Biedrins: 17p (14 shots) - 19 reb (7 off) - 1 stl - 1 blk -- 35 min
M Gasol: 18p (8 shots) - 7 reb - 1 blk -- 39 min
P Gasol: 15p (11 shots) - team high 10 reb (5 off) - 6 a -- 40 min
Nowitzki: 24p (18 shots) - 6 reb (3 off) -- 35 min
Bogut: 12p (8 shots) - 15 reb (5 off) - 2 blk -- 39 min
Udrih: 18p (16 shots) - 4 reb - 4 a -- 40 min
Turkoglu: 12p (10 shots) - 5 reb -- 27 min
Fernandez: 10p (6 shots) - 2 a -- 29 min
Kleiza: 10p (7 shots) -- 19 min

White of the Night: Rudy Fernandez

Rudy explodes! Scoring 25 on only 11 shots (8-8 FT), throwing in 3 reb, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block just for good measure.

Notable events from tonight and yesterday:

Rookie Koufos plays strong, after riding the pine all year, starting for the second time in Okur's absense: 12 points (7 shots), in 21 minutes.

Swift is definitely on the rise: playing a full 18 minutes, gathering up 7 rebounds and blocking 2 shots.

Steven Hill gets his first NBA minutes for OKC as well, pulling 3 boards in 2 minutes of play.

Top two scorers for the Kings last night: 19 from Hawes and 18 from Udrih.

Quinn looks like he is working his way back into the rotation in Miami, playing almost 30 minutes, scoring 10 on 7 shots and dishing 5 assists.

Pachulia starts again for the second night in a row, but played only 25 and 22 minutes, scoring 12p (6 shots) and 9p (5 shots), with solid rebounding as usual. How good can you play, and still not start in this league?

Other solid games by whites the last couple nights:

Udrih: 30p (20 shots) - 7 a - 5 reb - 2 stl -- 38 min
Jeff Foster: 16p (8 shots) - 7 reb (4 offensive) - 2 blk - 2 steals -- starting PF
Brad Miller: 16p (10 shots) - 11 reb - 8 a -- 40 min
Pau: 22p (15 shots) - 11 reb (5 off) -- 35 min
Varejao: 13p (5 shots) - 10 reb - 2 blk -- 22 min
Morrison: 16p (11 shots) -- 28 min
Kirilenko: 16p (8 shots) - 8 reb -- 32 min
Bargnani: 15p (11 shots) - 5 reb -- 26 min
Aaron Gray: team high 10 reb (5 offensive) in his mere 17 minutes.
Lee: 15p (9 shots) - 9 boards -- 30 min
Bogut: 10p - 17 reb (7 offensive)
Biedrins: 13p - 15 reb -- 43 min
Pryzbilla: 7 p (4 shots) - 10 reb -- 22 min
Marc Gasol: 16p (11 shots) -- 28 minutes

On the WTF list: Reddick buried; Belinelli still getting only 4 minutes a game, like clockwork; Herman again disappears, Lee's minutes dropping game by game, not even starting anymore....

White of the Night: Steve Blake

Steve Blake, where have you been??? Showing off his skill and aggressive play tonight for Portland: 20p (8 shots, 10-11 FT) - 5 reb - 4 a - 2 stl -- 32 min

Rudy continues his solid play, rising to the top of the ROY chart: 16p (10 shots) - 3 a - 3 stl -- 32 min

Hedo goes off the way it is supposed to be done: 35p (21 shots, 9-12 FT) - 4 reb - 3 a -- 42 min

Jeff Foster puts together a solid game: 15p (8 shots, 7-9 FT) - 5 reb - 3 a - 4 blk -- 36 min

Kapono gets some decent minutes tonight to show his stuff: 14p (10 shots) - 6 a - 4 reb -- 29 min

Marc plays a solid game against a monster Sun's frontcourt: 15p (11 shots) - 5 reb - 27 min

Quinn puts together a tight game, leading the Heat in plus-minus: 9p (4 shots, 6-6 FT) -- 21 min

Dragic plays to perfection in his 13 backup minutes: 8 points on 2 shots, going 2-2 FG and 4-4 FTs.

Robert Swift continues to build momentum, playing for over 12 minutes tonight and showing his worth: 9p (4 shots) - 7 reb. Very nice production for such limited time, definitely earning more.

McRoberts finally gets off the bench, playing 10 minutes for the Pacers.

White of the Night: Brad Miller

Welcome back, Brad, reminding us why we love your game so much: 14 p (7 shots) - 10 reb - 6 a - 2 blk -- 30 minutes.

Hawes also had a solid game, as Sacramento goes for the Twin White Towers to power to victory: 14p (10 shots) - 11 reb - 3 blk -- 20 min

Pau Gasol goes off, coming in a close second for White of the Night: 20p (10 shots) - 15 rebs - 3 a - 3 blk -- 33 min

Lots of other excellent performances on Sunday night:

Bargnani: 18p (10 shots) - 5 reb - 3 blk -- 27 min off the bench, way more production than the starter.

Dirk: 33 points, on 26 shots! He is probably the leagues biggest shot hog, no doubt.

Paul Davis finally gets off the bench for the Clips, and proves his worth: 10p (6 shots) - 18 min
Kaman does well in the same game: 10p (6 shots) - 9 reb - 3 blk -- 32 min

Biedrins again plays monster in the middle: 16p (14 shots) - 18 reb (5 off) - 4 a - 2 blk - 2 stl -- 31 min

Kurz plays a full 22 minutes for Nellie in the same game, and even Belinelli gets 11 minutes to prove his worth, scoring 7 on 5 shots.

Scola has a solid game too: 12p (9 shots) - 9 reb - 3 stl -- 32 min.

Pachulia starts, but only plays 9 minutes. That is kinda weird.

Meanwhile, Swift finally plays for OKC, getting a whole 8 minutes of PT.