Supposedly, the Bulls still hold the rights to Mario Austin. Does anyone know if this is true? If it is, it wouldn't be a bad idea to see what he's got. He's about 6'8, 6'9 and 265 and at Miss St, he was known for his low post moves and his great skill with his back to the basket. Wouldn't be a bad PF to have.

Yeah, I loved the Austin pick when we drafted him, especially b/c I saw a lot of Miss. St. basketball on TV down here in the south, and I really thought he could be a very solid NBA PF. Unfortunately, if he hasn't made it with us by now (considering the low-post scoring problems we had), he probably never will.

Thats not always the case...the Kings STILL hold the draft rights to Dejan Bodiroga, arguably the best basketball player never to play in the NBA, and have had his right since like 1996. He just chose to stay in Barcelona and be the richest Euro baller ever.

Funny this guy should be brought up, I was talking about him a couple weeks ago with my friend. We were wondering how the guy fell off the face of the earth after getting drafted and never signed. We did some searching and found he plays in a league in Jerusalem, absolutely dominated the players there. He obviously still desires to play the game if he's doing it there, I just have to think he could be of use to some NBA team.

You're talking about Austin right?

Wasnt he the guy that got stabbed in the chest or something, and was lying in a sweaty, cramped, Jerusalem hospital?

There was some major fiasco with him a few times and I remember there being a long story about his career where he went to Europe, didn't like it, came back here and was kind of in a catch 22 because when he wanted to go back to Europe the other team was made that he left and he basically was stuck without a team to play for.

I'm probably inaccurate, but I remember it was quite the story and he was pretty solid, don't know if he's still considered an NBA prospect at all.

Yes.

what ever happened to him should't he be with the rest of the team why are the bulls not usiing him at all is he that bad.

for all of you who do not know who this is or have not been following him here are his statistics. Why do the bulls not seriusly look into him?
http://www.hapoel.co.il/hapoel.asp

Here's what basically happened:

Austin thought he misled and kinda tricked by his agent (Bill Duffy) into signing w/ a team in Russia. He absolutely hated it and wanted to go back to the US and void his contract w/ the team in Russia.

But, he had a lung collapse before he was planning on leaving. Supposedly, the Russian team he signed with payed off the doctors in the hospital he was in to leave a chest tube in him like 2-3 weeks longer than it should have been in him. This obviously prevented him from leaving the country.

And then, when he was released from the hospital, his wallet, passport, credit cards, etc. were mysteriously missing, so he had no way to pay his own way home. It took him a few more days before finally reaching someone here in the US to get him home.

Pretty sad story if what Austin says is really true.

That's crazy. I'd love to give the guy a 2nd chance and let him play Summer League to see what he can do. I know fore a fact that he's a good player and has a really good low post game.

I would too. If I were Pax, I definitely would give him a shot. It can't hurt. He was an offensive/rebounding force in college, which doesn't always transfer over to the pro game, but it's worth giving him a shot.

I mean, it's not like he was just any 15 and 8 big man for a crappy college team. Miss. St. was actually really good when he was there (Top 10-15 team, Top SEC team), and he was their best player.