K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune writes:
When Bulls training camp begins next week, center Kyrylo Fesenko will be there on a non-guaranteed contract, according to a league source.
Fesenko, a 7-foot-1-inch former second-round pick, has averaged 2.3 points and 2 rebounds in 135 career games with Utah and Indiana. He worked out for the Bulls on Monday.
The Bulls possess $758,550 under the hard salary cap of $74.307 million and thus can’t sign a 14th player like Fesenko for the season until a prorated amount of the veteran’s minimum of $854,389 drops to fit. That would be in late November.
Simply put…Fesenko is a notch over seven feet. And you can’t teach tall, right?
Unfortunately, Fesenko isn’t a very good player.
His total Win Shares over 135 career games is 0.9. His career PER is 8.5. According to the handy dandy reference guide, that ranks him between “Definitely Renting” and “Next Stop: D-League.” He’s a big man who does virtually all of his scoring around the basket and yet has compiled career True Shooting and Effective Field Goal percentages below 50.
Oh, and his Basketball-Reference similarity scores liken him to such end-of-the-bench immortals as Alan Ogg, Greg Kite, Mike Smrek and Stojko Vrankovic.
Heck, Fesenko didn”t even know Kyle Korver and Ronnie Brewer aren’t Bulls anymore.
Bottom line: he’s a big, warm, beefy body with six fouls.
I started to fear Bawful is gone forever. But he’s not! Last two posts, this one and the one about Pippen’s b-day party, just turned the clock back a couple of years. Good times!
On that note, my gut tells me we ought to see more of that old Bawful this season, with the kind of roster the Bulls have assembled…
Comment by Georgi Nalbantov — October 1, 2012 @ 9:19 am
I think Fesenko will fit in great with the Bulls. He played pretty well in limited minutes while at Utah and became a fan favorite. He just turned 25, so he still has a little room left to develop. He may even become just as good, or even better than the Bulls’previous backup Omer Asik.
Comment by Slap Dog Hoops — October 6, 2012 @ 12:45 pm