BATON ROUGE — With preseason games beginning in the National Basketball Association, seven former LSU Tiger basketball players are taking part in league training camps.
The seven players are Brandon Bass (Dallas), Glen Davis (Boston), Ronald Dupree (Cleveland), Shaquille O’Neal (Phoenix), Anthony Randolph (Golden State), Stromile Swift (New Jersey) and Tyrus Thomas (Chicago).
For four of the players it is their first preseason with their new teams although O’Neal and Swift finished the 2007-08 season with the teams they were traded to late in the season.
O’Neal, one of the NBA’s 50 greatest players and a three-time MVP of the NBA Finals, is entering his 17th season in the league where he has played 1,042 games with a career average of 25 points and 11 rebounds. O’Neal, who starred for the Tigers from 1989-92, was traded to the Suns in February 2008 from the Miami Heat.
Swift, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2000 NBA draft, will enter his ninth season in the league and his second with the Nets where he was traded in February from the Memphis Grizzlies. It was the Vancouver Grizzlies that drafted Swift and where he had played all but one season of his career before the trade.
Dupree has had a nice run in the league after having been undrafted after the 2003 season. He was on the 2005 Detroit Pistons team that went to the NBA Finals. He finished the 2007 season with the Seattle Supersonics which became the Oklahoma City Thunder. Dupree was waived by the Thunder as training camps began but has been picked up by the Cavaliers as he attempts to play in the league for the sixth season.
Randolph was the No. 14 pick in the NBA draft, the final pick of the lottery selections, by the Warriors. He played his first preseason game in New Orleans this past Sunday, scoring six points in his debut.
Bass, the 2005 SEC Player of the Year, will be entering his second season with the Dallas Mavericks and his fourth season in the NBA. Bass last year averaged 8.3 points and 4.4 rebounds.
Davis, the 2006 SEC Player of the Year, had almost a perfect rookie season as the Celtics returned to the throne room of the league, winning the championship. Davis played in 69 games his first year, averaging 4.5 points a game.
Thomas will have a new coach in Vinny Del Negro this season as he enters his third season with the Bulls. Thomas was the fourth pick of the 2006 draft by Portland and traded to Chicago later that evening. In 146 games he has averaged 6.0 points per game and 4.2 rebounds.
The NBA regular season tips off on Oct. 28.