Kings sign Louis Amundson

[KingsFan93]

One day later than expected, former UNLV star Louis Amundson found an NBA team that wanted him.

Several teams pursued Amundson, who was overlooked in Wednesday's draft, and he chose to sign a free-agent contract with the Sacramento Kings on Thursday.

The 6-foot-9-inch forward admitted he was surprised not to be among the 60 players selected in the two-round draft. But he has a realistic shot to make the Kings' roster.

After an NBA predraft camp in early June at Orlando, Fla., Amundson was projected by nbadraft.net as a first-round pick. He was more likely to go in the second round.

"I was considered one of the top performers in the Orlando camp, and I thought that would bode well for me in the draft, but obviously it didn't work out," Amundson said.

"It's tough, but that's kind of how it goes, and I go forward from here. I can still make a team."

The Denver Nuggets were reportedly interested in taking Amundson in the second round with the 49th pick overall. But the Nuggets drafted California forward Leon Powe and traded his rights to Boston.

Amundson was not alone in his draft-day disappointment.

Several other players from high-profile programs went undrafted, including San Diego State's Marcus Slaughter, Memphis' Darius Washington Jr., Syracuse's Gerry McNamara and West Virginia's Kevin Pittsnogle.

Tennessee point guard C.J. Watson, a former Bishop Gorman star, also was not selected, but he signed a free-agent deal Thursday with San Antonio

Amundson and Watson are both represented by agent Michael Higgins of SFX Sports Group. Higgins said Watson landed in a good spot.

"He fits in their system," Higgins said. "He can hit open shots. They like his maturity. I thought they were going to draft him (in the second round), but they traded the pick."

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Jun-30-Fri-2006/sports/8251187.html

 

[KingsFan93]

Birthday: 12/7/1982
NBA Postion: SF/PF
College: UNLV
Class: Senior
Ht: 6-8
Wt: 221
Int Team: N/A
Hometown: Boulder,CO
High School: Monarch


NBA Comparison: Ryan Humphrey

Strengths: Tremendous rebounder at the small forward position ... A late bloomer who has long been an extremely athletic player and has worked very hard to add offensive abilities to his game ... An energy player who gives great effort every game ... Plays within himself ... Extremely quick and explosive, plays the game with passion ... Long arms and great leaping ability ... Crashes the boards especially hard, a tenacious rebounder on both ends of the floor ... Tough to guard close to the basket ... Very good defensively with quick feet and the desire to work hard on the defensive end ... Wiry strong athlete who absorbs contact well ...

Weaknesses: Limited offensively, he has little range on his shot past 12 feet (although it has greatly improved in the past year) ... His ball handling skills are weak ... He gets most of his points in close to the basket with garbage (rebound and putback) buckets ... Lacks the strength to play power forward and is not highly skilled on the perimeter, however his foot speed makes him solid defensively ... Poor free throw shooter, but has showed some improvement ... Lacks great vision and passing ability ...

Notes: An excellent student who graduated cum laude with a bachlor's degree in university studies with a focus in English and philosophy ...

http://www.nbadraft.net/admincp/profiles/louisamundson.html

 

[Kings113]

This seems like the story I read in the Denver paper, just longer... maybe it's updated? Any how...

Guess he'll be the third PF. While Nicholson or Justin Williams probably gets the third or back-up center spot.

Since obviously they aren't blowing off the others, and they're all center-like.

I like what I've read of Amundson, interesting player. Need to read more though. Wonder if this'll be the end of Kenny, since he is like him, I think

http://www.draftexpress.com/viewprofile.php?p=550 - longer profile

 

[BMiller52]

So wait we actually signed him to a guarenteed contract? Why didn't we make him earn his roster spot in summer league? I think he'll definitely be outplayed by Justin Williams and Taj Gray but now I bet we don't even get one of them.

 

[KingsFan93]

In his last year at UNLV, he averaged 14.3 ppg, 8.6 rpg, 1.1 apg, 1.1 spg and 1.3 bpg in 28 minutes.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/player/profile?playerId=8032

 

[nebs]

Booooooooooooooooooo

 

[walker60]

We all knew this, this is an old article. We signed him to play in the summer league. He doesn't have a contract for next year. Read the article carefully and Louis says, "I can still make a team." We haven't signed him yet.

 

[Kings113]

Yeah, and it says "thursday". This is the old story from the Denver article, just longer. Another case of rehashing and to create discussion and news.

Even if we did sign him to a guaranteed contract, we'd still need a third center. Since Amundson is not a center.

 

[Bricklayer]

Nor a true PF by the time he hits the pros.

Somebody's little birdie told me that we really liked this guy on draft night, and that's fine I guess -- sounds like a scrappy hard worker. But he's small and will be no defensive presence in the pros. Getting compared to Ryan Humphrey isn't exactly a compliment. Not sure about his man defense, but maybe if he can hang at the NBA level he can be kind of a Najera-type figure. Not that talented, but able to have some impact on raw hustle.

Does absolutley nothing for our interior woes though, and if we end up with Amundson or Songaila or whatnot instead of long shotblocker types it means we've learned absolutely nothing and are still stuck in perpetual tweener forward hell.

As an aside, don't be so sure that we didn't offer him some sort of minimum guaranteed contract -- remember Geoff did that last year with Price even though it seemed unnecessary at the time too. Its possible we could have done the same thing here.

 

[Kings113]

Yup, Amundson's a tweener.. probably ends up like Najera/Evans type player. Which would be nice to have on the roster.

Does absolutley nothing for our interior woes though, and if we end up with Amundson or Songaila or whatnot instead of long shotblocker types it means we've learned absolutely nothing and are still stuck in perpetual tweener forward hell.

I fear we are gonna sign Songaila... I'd rather not unless he's a third man, and I'd rather one of the summer league bigs there for youth and athleticism.

SAR/Kenny Thomas (?)/Songaila/Brad/Potapenko/Corliss Williamson - would be our great front-court.... more like medicore and little compliments.

 

[mcsluggo]

he sounds like he defends the 3 but has an inside game. Actually that doesn't SOUND like it would be abad matchup for some of our lineups, since we have the big "finesse" players (Miller, predominately) who like to play outside. Sounds kinda like corlis, but with the ability to guard someone (and to rebound).

Yes he's a "tweener", but his tweener skils go the opposite way of most tweeeners, who can't guard anybody on the other team (like a 6'6" power forward to slow to guard the 3). who knows, it might work as a rotation filler.

 

[Kings113]

Indeed ^.

 

[HndsmCelt]

Sorry it's REALLY hard for me to get excited about a 6'8" forward at this point.

 

[SacTownKid]

Remember we gave guaranteed money to a few others as well.

 

[Troy]

Remember we gave guaranteed money to a few others as well.

Can someone clear this up? Did we sign this guy to our main roster, or does he just have an invite to our camp which we know already? I sure hope we pass judgement on guys in a few weeks after we've played some summer league games. I hear a lot of good about Williams and Gray. Well with Monia going back to Russia, I guess Amundson would fill that spot. Don't worry, we will get our big guy, well over 6'9" that is...look at how many we have in camp, we have to sign at least 1 of them right?

 

[CruzDude]

Nor a true PF by the time he hits the pros.

Somebody's little birdie told me that we really liked this guy on draft night, and that's fine I guess -- sounds like a scrappy hard worker. But he's small and will be no defensive presence in the pros. Getting compared to Ryan Humphrey isn't exactly a compliment. Not sure about his man defense, but maybe if he can hang at the NBA level he can be kind of a Najera-type figure. Not that talented, but able to have some impact on raw hustle.

Does absolutley nothing for our interior woes though, and if we end up with Amundson or Songaila or whatnot instead of long shotblocker types it means we've learned absolutely nothing and are still stuck in perpetual tweener forward hell.

As an aside, don't be so sure that we didn't offer him some sort of minimum guaranteed contract -- remember Geoff did that last year with Price even though it seemed unnecessary at the time too. Its possible we could have done the same thing here.

From his bio:
Extremely quick and explosive, plays the game with passion ... Long arms and great leaping ability ... Crashes the boards especially hard, a tenacious rebounder on both ends of the floor ... Tough to guard close to the basket ... Very good defensively with quick feet and the desire to work hard on the defensive end ...

Sounds more like a bigger (6-8, 225) and quicker version of Bonzi who, like Bonzi, has poor outside shooting. With Kevin, Ronnie, Cisco and one new one putting up outside shots, we need someone off the bench who can rebound. Don't have that now. So seems on the surface a good choice for now.

 

[Bricklayer]

From his bio:
Extremely quick and explosive, plays the game with passion ... Long arms and great leaping ability ... Crashes the boards especially hard, a tenacious rebounder on both ends of the floor ... Tough to guard close to the basket ... Very good defensively with quick feet and the desire to work hard on the defensive end ...

Sounds more like a bigger (6-8, 225) and quicker version of Bonzi who, like Bonzi, has poor outside shooting. With Kevin, Ronnie, Cisco and one new one putting up outside shots, we need someone off the bench who can rebound. Don't have that now. So seems on the surface a good choice for now.

I sincerely doubt Louis Admundson and Bonzi Wells have anything at all in common beyond their hustle. He's certianly not quicker than Bonzi, and they are in completely different positions. Bonzi a guard with a power game, Amundson a college big who is likely going to have to make the transition downwards in the pros. As I mentioned before, your hope would have to be that he turns out to be Najera or Nocioni, but he's got nowhere near the skill level of a guy who plays on the perimeter.

Form the downsides portion of the draftexpress analysis:

There are some questions to be answered about his position at the next level and how his skills translate to what is expected from players there.

Defensively, he does not have any experience defending the perimeter and shows average lateral quickness regardless, meaning that he is certainly a power forward in the NBA. Offensively he is a back to the basket center in college who possesses very little skills outside of the paint. His ball-handling is virtually non-existent and he has no range on his jump shot outside of 12 feet. Amundson shot 29% from the free throw line as a junior, but improved to 57% this season. That, along with the poor touch he shows on his jump shot tells you everything you need to know about where his mid-range game stands at the moment.