PRO TEAM: Las Vegas Silver Bandits
VITALS: 6'8", 215 lbs.
YEAR DRAFTED: 2000 by Toronto (Round 2, Pick 46)
RIGHTS HELD BY: Toronto
DeeAndre Hulett was drafted 46th overall in 2000 by Toronto by then-GM Glen Grunwald. Hulett played one year of collegiate basketball at NJCAA school The College of the Sequoias in California. His stats were gaudy for the Giants, with averages of 28.7 points and 8.4 rebounds per game. Hulett felt this was enough to enter himself into the 1999 NBA Draft. However, he had a change of heart at the last minute and withdrew his name for consideration. Hulett, or his advisors, obviously didn't think he was ready for the big time of the NBA. That doesn't mean they didn't think he wasn't ready for professional basketball.
The NBDL was still in the planning stage at this point and DeeAndre received no attractive offers from non-domestic clubs. This prompted Hulett took his talents to Sin City. The Las Vegas Silver Bandits played in the International Basketball League. The IBL was founded in 1999 and had teams all across the country. Hulett played 56 games at small forward for Las Vegas in 2000 as they made the IBL Western Division Finals. That sounds like an accomplishment but there were only eight teams in the league and they all made the playoffs. The forward's numbers for the Silver Bandits were nowhere near what he put up at the College of the Sequoias as he averaged just 8.4 points and 2.6 rebounds per game in Vegas while shooting a beyond putrid ten percent from beyond the three point line. So what did Hulett do when his stock was probably at its lowest? Enter the 2000 NBA Draft of course!
Now before I continue on about our featured player, let me just take a brief minute of your time to give you some background on the 2000 NBA Draft. 1986 was considered a nightmare draft because of all the misfortune that came from it. However that draft (as I went over in DRR #7) produced some quality players that made impacts in the league for varying amounts of time. The 2000 draft's nightmare nature did no such thing. Only three All-Star appearances were made by draftees from this abomination. They all came in 2004 with career years from number one overall Kenyon Martin, 19th selection Jamaal Magloire, and #43 in the second round Michael Redd. Nobody else came close before or since. It was a cavalcade of busts and stiffs (no dirty thinkers, we're not shifting to porno talk) previously unforeseen and yet to be replicated. Even 2013's weak class is looking brighter than Y2K's.
Now I promise we'll get back to DeeAndre in a minute but I also need to give some background on the management at the time of Hulett's rights holder: The Toronto Raptors. They were only five years into their existence but had already produced two Rookies of the Year and were making good strides towards being a playoff team. The reason this was weird was because Isiah Thomas was the general manager in their infancy. A great deal of horrible, horrible things can be said about Isiah Thomas as an executive, coach, and as a person. One thing that cannot be uttered however is that Zeke was that he was a bad evaluator of talent. With the four picks made in his reign he netted the Raps Damon Stoudamire, Marcus Camby, and Tracy McGrady. The one miss was second rounder Jimmy King, of Michigan Fab Five fame. Then several months before the 1998 Draft, Thomas had a dispute with upper management about the direction of the team and left town. That left the job in the hands of Thomas' former college teammate Glen Grunwald. Grunwald had a roller coaster tenure with the team with highs (Chris Bosh (2003), Vince Carter via trade (1998)) and some really low lows (Aleksandar Radojevic (1999), Hulett (2000), & Michael Bradley (2001)) before leaving protege Jack McCloskey to eat the Rafael Araujo bullet (My ears still ring with the combined "WHAT!?!" from myself, John Sod, and analyst Tom Tolbert). Glen would come back to haunt me seven years later by undoing all the good Donnie Walsh did with the Knicks.
I felt those two asides were necessary because piecing together Hulett's career has been quite the undertaking. He was a third round pick in the 2001 D-League Draft. Granted there were only eight teams drafting at the time but a guy who was a second round pick in the NBA Draft going a round later in the D-League edition makes me chuckle. Nevertheless DeeAndre only spent one season with the Greenville Groove and averaged 11 points and 4 rebounds per contest. The trail doesn't exactly go completely cold from there, but it gets a bit of refrigeration. His Italian Wikipedia page was the most helpful in filling in the gaps but I had little luck in finding statistics for most of his stints outside his Italian, German, and French stays. With that being said here is a quick list of Hulett's career path with what information I could gather:
- 1999-2001 Las Vegas Silver Bandits (IBL) *DRAFTED BY TORONTO DURING TENURE*
- 2001 St. Louis Swarm (IBL) *HE WON A TITLE THERE*
- 2001 Florida Sea Dragons (USBL) *THEY FOLDED A YEAR LATER*
- 2001-2002 Greenville Groove (NBDL) *WAS IMPRESSIVE IN SPURTS BUT NEVER GOT THE CALL-UP*
- 2002-2003 Fabriano Basketball (Italy-Serie A) *SHORT STAY BUT WAS PRODUCTIVE, AVERAGED 15 & 4*
- 2003 Brest (France-Pro B) *FOUR GAME STOP GAP ON HIS WAY BACK TO THE USA, AVERAGED 15 PPG*
- 2003 Brevard Blue Ducks (USBL) *FIVE GAMES BUT HE PLAYED WITH VICTOR PAGE AND ROY JONES JR.*
- 2004 Oklahoma Storm (USBL) *ONE GAME THEN RELEASED, NO BOX SCORE*
- 2004 St. Louis Skyhawks (USBL) *FIFTEEN GAMES REUNITING W/ FORMER SWARM TEAMMATE AND SYRACUSE GUARD LAZARUS SIMS, ONCE PLAYED AGAINST A TEAM COACHED BY KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR*
- 2004-2005 Michigan Mayhem (CBA) *RETURNED HOME TO MICHIGAN FOR 23 GAMES*
- 2005 Uusikaupunki-Korihait (Finland-Korisliiga) *FINNISH IS A TOUGH LANGUAGE TO READ*
- 2005 Rome Gladiators (WBA) *WAS ON THE TAXI SQUAD FOR TEAM OWNED BY THEO RATLIFF AND FEATURING FUTURE NBA'ER JAMARIO MOON*
- 2005-2006 Knattspyrnufélagið Haukar (Iceland- Segni Distinvi) *ICELANDIC IS TOUGHER TO READ THAN FINNISH*
- 2006 Barreteros Zacatecas (Mexico- LNBP) *HE FINISHED OFF 2006 HERE BEFORE SIGNING IN GERMANY IN EARLY '07*
- 2007-2008 Tigers Tubingen (Germany- BBL) *PLAYED IN 34 GAMES WITH SINGLE GAME HIGHS OF 15 POINTS AND 11 REBOUNDS*
- 2008-2009 Potros Itson (Mexico- LNBP) *I HAVE NOTHING HERE EXCEPT THAT HE PLAYED HERE AND THIS TEAM EXISTS*
- 2010 Cupes de los Pepines (Dominican Republic- Santiago League) *THIS IS THE ONLY TEAM IN THE DOMINICAN WHERE I COULD FIND A TIME WHERE DEEANDRE PLAYED THERE. THE OTHER TEAMS WERE METROS STGO, VILLA FRANCISCA, AND BATEY TRES. I WAS UNSUCCESSFUL IN FINDING TIME PERIODS FOR THOSE TEAMS.*
- Retired in 2010 at age 29, Rights Still Held by Toronto
Wow, that was not a quick list. DeeAndre Hulett really got around. He showed me the real depths that people can go to in an attempt to keep playing basketball as a career. It is very commendable. What is also commendable is you the reader sticking with me and this mess for this long. I feel I need to reward you for reading and I believe this is the just the gift. During my "exhaustive" research, I found a random forum post talking about DeeAndre Hulett. It had nothing to do with basketball and the first poster references to a Million Dollar Man promo. The poster believes that "Sean" from the promo is actually DeeAndre Hulett. Whether or not it's so is irrelevant. You've earned this.
Thanks for reading the eleventh release of Draft Rights Retained right here on Bleeding Your Colors! I hope you enjoyed it and look forward to bringing you more wacky stories of players who the NBA has long since forgotten, but not their draft rights. Stay locked for a new profile until the list is exhausted. For more of me, check out my Twitter @TREVORutley. For less of me, submit your computer to the series "Will It Blend?".
Image Credit: DeeAndre Hulett (thedraftreview.com)
Video Credit: Youtube.com (WrasslinMachine)