Paris Juggers

Season 1. The fly of the Phoenix.

Everything started with a 6th pick. The name of this pick was George Holt. He was going to be the main man of the team for 3 seasons. The offense, his low post play, everything was screeming for Holt to turn into the most dominant low-post play on the WBA, but at the end everything had finished badly. Let's talk about the start of a myth...

The ownership at that time did few trades, and one of the most important ones was to bring Peter Benton to Midlands, allowing George Holt to play at PF where he can be a dominant force. The team was one of the top ones, 41 wins for 21 defeats. They team took the Midwest Division title for first and only time. But what did it have was a great all-around play. They rebouded well, stole the ball, blocked it, went to the line more often than the others, they have anything a team needs to win.

The regular season went quite well as we have said. They took the division, George Holt was All-WBA Power Forward, Xavier Schneider was All-Defensive Guard. But they were not favourite to win it all. They seemed doomed to loose against almighty Los Angeles during the playoffs. But things went quite in another way. Once the playoffs started being played, they saw themselves on the second round of the playoffs playing 2nd best record of the season Sydney. Things were looking gloom, but Midlands arrived to push and win some matches to force the 7th game, when they had it their way and dominated Sydney giving them the chance to play the finals. What was surprising was their adversary. They had been expected Los Angeles and they found themselves in the face of Fernie. This was a big surprise as Fernie had beat Los Angeles 4-2 on the other semifinal. Game after game, everyone saw that this had to be decided on the 7th game. Was everything that Midlands would try not enough to stop Magic-Fernie ?

Extracted from 'The Midlands Star', interview with George Holt the day before the 7th game:

Reporter - What do you think of Fernie?

George Holt - You see, they have played very well, and they were able to surprise Los Angeles, but we are coming back home to play the 7th game and we are going to show them whose the boss here!

Reporter - Don't you think you are taking the match a little bit too lightly. They have been able to win 1 match at Los Angeles...

George Holt - Nah! They have a nice team, but we are the best ones! Playing at home we can not loose!

Reporter - Do you think the title is at hand then?

George Holt - I am sure that London will be another thing, but we have some chances to win it all.

End of the interview

And in their first and only appearance on the conference finals, Midlands lost on the seventh game playing at home. The team never came this close again to play the finals of the WBA. This was Holts hour of glory and from there everything went down.

Season 2. The season of dreams.

This was a sweet-bitter season. Sweet, because the team did many good things. They were allowed to dream, but bitter was the fall.

Midlans brought thru trades Larry Chapman, Joe Busby and Garth Donohue. So what? Well, so Larry Chapman was an all-star for the west season 1 bringing together one of the best frontcourt pairs you could dream off. So Garth Donahue turned into 20 points a night guy. Jose Hayes was bringing 10 assists a game. This team was huge. The season was going well, but at the end Midlands finished with only 64 win for 16 defeats. Then, what could have been a good postseason, turned into a nightmare. During the regular season, they lost their personal tiebreak with Colorado. That meant forth place. It could have been worse. It was! Even if Midlands had home court advantage their adversary was.... WINIFRED! Yes, Midlands had home court advantage. Yes Midlands had the better record. Yes, Midlands was the favorite, but on a best-of-3 series, going against red-hot Winifred (14 victories in a row to finish the season) was fatal for Midlands.

And then again, on the last game of the series, when he had to show who was the boss, George Holt missed the opportunity and his team was out of the playoffs. Again.

This time, voices were rising about his big contract and his lack of leadership to move the team thru the playoffs. There were hard times for a once proud team. All the hard work done by the management lost.

Season 3. The end of the dream.

This season was not what it was expected. Midlands had a good team. Midlands had the 5th and 6th pick in the upcoming draft. Midlands was dreaming of a title. Midlands didn't know how to draft. Let's see. Midlands took Cameron Diaz and Eugene LaMaitre. Now a little bit of info on what it let pass thru: Kevon Duke, Parker Mason, Heiko Van Brandt, Derek Vinyard, George Foster, Abudullah Chanda, Dexter Kodak, Christobal Dasher all this without talking about second round picks Shane Strom and Dave Williams. We could say that Midlands missed the draft. Missed it by a long shot. At least LaMaitre was good enough as a pick.

After this, the management decided to dismantle last season team, create a new one, and bring in a few picks on the way. They actually brought quite a nice team. Not as good as the one on season 2, but quite a good one. The starting lineup would look something like this: PG : Jose Hayes, SG : Eugene LaMaitre, SF : Berth Latham, PF : George Holt, C : Marty Williams. It is not the best team ever, but it was a good one. It was as good as to bring 51 wins and 29 defeats. This was not going to be an easy ride during the postseason. What was even worse is that Midlands didn't have home court advantage, and they were going to play against Tokyo... This means nothing to you? Then I will have to explain it using other words... I know, Lou Gonzales' Team? I knew you were going to understand it better like that. As you can imagine, Midlands was liquefied in 4 games. That was 1 too many for many people. In Midlands there were talks all around the place against Holt, who has shown again, that he was not the man. He was not the man by a long way. And the dream finished here.

Season 4. The begining of the nightmare years.

With the beginning of the new season, new management came into Midlands. I cannot say I am proud of what I did at that time. Fist of all, the new management asked George Holt to score more. Midlands's management was thinking about shooting better and more, and George Holt only understood more. So a guy shooting around 43% turned into a nightmare of 35%. Then I took Eugene LaMaitre and I sent it away getting a nice first round pick AND Dimitry Kolosov, one of the biggest busts I have ever seen. As the new management had come after the Free Agency, we picked no name players. We are better going to leave it at that. What was a 50 wins per season team turned into a nightmare having won only 7 games of his first 40. The season was looking very badly, when the management started to understand how the game was played. We brought Mike Reardon to help on the point. We brought Johnny Brose to help at the Forwards position. We shipped George Holt towards New York bringing Mike Sewell. We got Pedro Otis and Marty Williams to put together a team that could win something. The team had 19 victories during the other 40 matches, turning a nightmare into just something less frightful. At about the same time Johnny Brose left his dominant girlfriend, turning himself into a much better player.

After all this trades, Texas was a 26 wins, 54 defeats, and the worst record ever for the team. But the media surrounding Midlands was hoping they could get back into the playoffs the following season.

Season 5. The nightmare strikes back.

This season was the first full season for Midlands's management. First of all, they decided to send the team somewhere a little bit nicer. The first plan was to go to LA. But a big battle between Midlands and the now known as California Hellcats sent Midlands to Texas. So after building a new arena and a few swimming pools the team settled down getting ready for the league.

Texas had the 5th pick overall, and after some talks he decided to go down in the draft and traded his pick, for Colorado's 14th pick, and VI season 8 first. With the 14th we picked Greg Mitchell. The team sent away nearly every player they had, keeping only Johnny Brose and Marty Williams. During this season Texas had a frenzy of trades. Players came, players went, and sometimes they even came back. The team won 29 games improving the team by a magnificent 3 more victories. But, at least, the team had done one good thing. We had several picks for the future. And at the end of the season, like the one before, we had a group of nice players. On that group, maybe the most known was George Foster. At the time he was a big overpaid wannabe, and Texas shaped him during the following seasons into an All-Star.

For second year in a row, Texas management missed the playoffs. Something had to be done... or heads would fall.

Season 6. Rising from the Ashes.

Texas, at last, found a group of players that he liked. He actually kept them more than 10 games in a row. As pointed by the end of season 5 George Foster was a star in the making. He was named to the all-star game and he was one of the stones in this magnificent season for Texas. We are talking here of a 19 points a night, shooting 57%, 4.6 rebounds, 6.5 assists kind of player. This team had as well, Magic Toby. None had ever been on a playoffs situation with Magic Toby, and many people thought that a team with him on would not be able to get into the playoffs. Well, they were wrong. He put 22 points shooting 54% and giving 4.5 assist a game, and 2.5 blocks. Texas was not at that moment a 2 players show, there was at least 1 more player that actually was doing the show. Johnny Brose. He was the handle that kept the team in the fight. Putting 12 points and 11 rebounds a game, helped soften Magic Toby lack of rebounds. On the middle, at center we had a combination of Lou Boone and Kegan Salazar even if they were not the best, they took care of the situation.

All of this put Texas on a 46-34 season. The first winning season under the new management, and for the first time they went back to the playoffs, and with the 4th seed on the West. Blasting! During the playoff, first we took on Cincinnati, winning 3-1. Then we matched against Cancun that blowed us 4-1. The only good note on the playoffs was Magic Toby 29 points per game. A real show!! This season showed a nice team, but that needed something else at the C position to be able to do something big.

Season 7. The stay.

During the next draft Texas was a no show, with not picks on the first round pick. But there was something on this team that had changed. This team traded less. He did some mistakes trading, but it traded a lot less. And they kept a nice team just bringing in Al Lee during a trade at midseason, and Peter Langstraat at FA. Everybody thought Langstraat was a good addition. It was, but maybe not as good as many people thought.

Texas did bring back Pedro Otis, but a problem between the GM of Texas and Otis wife, brought the player into a rage were he decided not to play for the team. Texas offered money (a bigger contract), some nice cheerleaders and a visit to HOlland, but the player kept wanting to leave. So the management was forced to trade him.

At least during this season everything went like during season 6. Magic Toby and George Foster did the points, and the rest helped. This team was maybe better than last season ones, because the team played better defense and better offense, but without being really good on any of them. This improvement did show on a slight improvement on the number of wins. Texas went for first time under new management to win 50 matches, for only 30 defeats.

The first round of the playoffs was played against Roswell and at the end the victory came on 5 games thanks to home court advantage. On the second round we had to play against Nebraska's Wayne Taylor and Jim McCarthy. Magic Toby did use everything he had to push Texas thru the second round, but at the end we lost on game seven at Nebraska. Magic had several forty-something games trying to put Nebraska thru, but the lack of aggressiveness coming from George Foster during this series was a big problem for the Teams offense and defense. Magic finished the playoffs with 31.2 points per game. And again Texas went out on the second round of the playoffs.

Season 8. Three-peat.

This season, for a change, Texas had several picks. Exactly what we had the numbers 1, 15 and 27 overall picks. With this picks Texas got Jay Vasquez, called as well 'the real deal'. The 15th pick brought solid SG Scott Lio, and with the 27th maybe the steal of the draft, youth wonder Jarius Miles. This is what we call a great draft.

The season was like the last one. 49 wins for 31 loses. Jay Vasquez showed really good manners winning the rookie of the season award, but he showed too that he needed to improve his inside shooting averaging a lowly 41.9%. This was another solid team, but without the punch to win it all. The management traded quite a bit of players, especially at the SG spot, where there does not seem to be a fixed player to take over the position, and brought Sam Plummer as a nice future prospect.

All this trades didn't help the team get a lot of wins, but at least for the first time, the cap situation of the team didn't got worse. It improved for the first time since the new management took it. It took them four seasons, to understand that money wins as many games as players..

The team went into the playoffs as the fourth seeded and had to play Nebraska in the first round, with home court advantage for Texas. Things didn't go as expected and we kicked Nebraska out of the first round of the playoffs for the first time ever in 4 games, 3-1. After this the reality show was hard and Colorado put fast 4-1 to the series showing that we were not at the same level.

This season was the third season in a row with Texas on the playoffs. The third season in a row going to the second round of the playoffs. The third season in a row were we loose on second round. As many people says there is not two, without three.

Season 9. Waiting for the rescue.

This was not the greatest season ever at Texas. Not even close to it. The beginning was really bad, loosing several matches, going into a .300 record. Everything this season seemed not to work, until the TRADE. I don't mean a trade, but the last trade the team was going to do that season. We sent away quite a lot, to bring the most loved player by the management… Who is he? Well, Heiko Van Brandt. His sub par play at Montana gave us a chance, and even if many people things that we overshoot, we brought him here. He didn't actually improve his play during the first few days at Texas, but after a visit to an eminent psy and some work on a obsession with number 327 it brought back the player the management knew. This allowed the team to finish with 42 victories and a 6th playoff berth that would allow us to play against Oregon. This worked badly for the team and we were swept 3-0. The important thing is that the team has some good players to build around. Jay Vasquez and Heiko Van Brandt are a fine couple, but the team needs more depth to have a chance during the playoffs.

The team was really carried by 3 players during this season:

Jay Vasquez. 22.1 ppg, 8.9 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 3.2 blocks and 1.2 steals. The leader of the team.

Heiko Van Brandt. 16.7 ppg, 11.2 rebounds, 7.1 assists, 1.3 blocks and 1 steal. The heart of the team.

Al Lee. 17 ppg, 6.6 rebounds, 3.2 assist, 1.9 steals. The soul of the team.

With this players carrying the team and hopefully the addition of 1 or 2 seasoned Guards Texas is got a lot to prove. Hopefully season 10 will be the one…

Season 10. High Fly

Season 10 at Texas was a huge season. At last the team has showed signs of greatness. At last the team has made it to the top. This season is the first time Texas showed they can win the title!

We are going to start with the draft. We have nothing to say here. Texas didn’t have any draft picks. Management wanted to go to FA with the entire cap available for the team. We knew we needed at least a couple of guards to improve the team and were going to get them!! First of all we did a trade for Scott Lio so we got him. We still thought we needed help on the frontcourt so we went after Shawn McKick and Paul Carroll. We stole both of them from Cancun. If you cannot win, steal their players!! These were the biggest moves we made during FA and we thought we had the team ready!!

We started to practice and we saw that we were missing a good backup for the SF and PF positions, so we went and traded Lio for Kelvin Boice. This movement was good, even if at the end Lio finished at Capetown!!

The beginning of the season was quite rough. We had a good team, and we were leading the division, but then we started playing worse. The management blamed everything on young guard Carroll!! We tried to see if we could do without him, and we saw that McKick was steeping up his game on the post, so we traded Carroll.

During this time we were losing positions until we were 3rd in the division behind Cancun and Capetown. After this the team started to play like a good oiled machine and we started adding win after win. At the end of the season we were really close to Cancun but we managed to overtake them and to pick up the first place at the division with 60 wins!! At this moment there was a triple tie with Colorado and Oregon for the best record of the conference and for the best regular season team. The resolution gave us home court advantage!!

The playoffs started with Texas playing against Miami on the first round. The result was 3-2 for Miami. Even if they were never a threat for Texas they managed to win their two home games. After this we had to meet our foe Cancun. Here Texas played the best games of the whole playoffs kicking Cancun out with a clear 4-2 victory!! After that many people thought that maybe we had a chance to take on Oregon, the favorite to win it all. Everything finished quite badly for us with a 4-0 sweep. Every game was really close, but we never arrived to put the big shots in.

Texas showed a new face and the hope was in the heart of their fans, but will they be able to rise again the level and try to win the championship?

Season 11. Crash…

This season Paris had two picks. They were number 16th and 27th overall. With them we got Jesse Sczygiel and Kaniel Hobbs. Better forget them. What a lousy draft for Paris.

But it was not important!! Paris had already set-up the team they needed!!. This was going to be a wonderful season. Paris dominated the season from the first match of the first round until the last match of the regular season. No team was too strong, no game too scary and Paris brought home the best record ever for the team, with 69 wins and 11 loses. This gave Paris home court advantage thru the whole of the playoffs!!

This Paris team was really impressive and they showed that no defense was good enough to stop them. Jay Vasquez put some huge numbers, 25 points, 8.3 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 2.9 blocks a game. Shooting a whooping 54%. But the real show was Heiko Van Brand. He won MVP awards with 22.2 points, 11.1 rebounds and 6.3 assists shooting 49.5% from the floor. They were the dynamic duo and with them no one seemed to be able to stop Paris.

The first rounds of the playoffs were a real feast for Paris.First round, Paris 3, Boston 0. Second round, Paris 4, Brooklyn 1. Third one, Paris 4, Rochester 0. It was so easy, and the difference so big. But everything good finished there.

On the finals Paris met Oregon, the only team that could stop them. They had their own dynamic duo with Lou Gonzales and Bishop Stein. The series was hard fought from one side or the other. There was no easy match, and if last season Oregon won easily against Paris, this one it was going to be harder. The games were going back and forth and at the end of the week they were tied 3-3 the game going back to Paris for the last game of the year…

The reader: Hum, mister, mister!! The page is not finished. It does not say what happened during game seven.

Texas GM: You think you are smart, don't you kid.

The reader: Hem, I only want to read the end of the story…

Texas GM: You are too smart for you own good kid. [ Whistles. Two big bodyguards come in.] He wants to know what happens on game seven.

Bodyguards: Okay boss.

The reader: Hem, maybe it is not necessary, I will look in internet…

Texas GM: He thinks he is smart, come on show him.

Crush! Crunch! Aieh! Ay!!! Plock!! Dive!! Smash!

Bodyguards: Done boss.

Texas GM: This will teach you not to ask silly questions…