Darius Washington, Jr.
Darius Myron Washington Jr. ( born December 6, 1985 in Winter Park, Florida) is an American - Macedonian basketball player. The 1.88-meter point guard played in the 2007/ 08 season briefly for the San Antonio Spurs. Since 2013 he is with Olin Edirne Basket in Turkey under contract.
Playing career
College
Darius Washington played for the Memphis Tigers college basketball after he came home from Edgewater High School in Orlando ( Florida). As a freshman, he was able to record 15.4 points, 3.8 assists and 1.7 steals per game and was selected to the Conference USA Freshman of the Year. He led Memphis in his second college season in the Elite Eight ( quarter-final ) of the NCAA tournament in 2006, where they lost to eventual champions UCLA. Then he was honored with an All - America Honorable Mention.
Professional career
On 25 April 2006, he introduced himself for the 2006 NBA Draft available, signed with an agent and thus forgoing his final two years of college. However, he was not selected by an NBA team.
He still tried to get into the NBA. He played in some clubs in try- outs before (for example, with the Dallas Mavericks for which he was able to achieve 4.4 points on average in five Preseasonspielen ), but received no annual contract. He was later drafted by the Austin Toros of the NBA D- League. He decided, however, for it to go to Greece to PAOK Salonika. In seven games for PAOK Darius made an average of 11.0 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 2.0 steals. He also denied seven ULEB Cup games in which he was able to achieve 10.6 points per game. Later in the season 2006/ 07 he moved to the Czech NBL league to CEZ Nymberk, where he recorded 12.8 points in 26 games, 3.2 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 2.0 steals and the team to the national championship could result.
On October 2, 2007 Washington was taken by the San Antonio Spurs in their training camp roster. There he sat in the Preseason somewhat surprising against the rookie Marcus Williams by, who was elected in the 2007 NBA Draft by the Spurs in the second round. In seven Preseasonspielen (in one he was even in the star formation of the Spurs ), he made an average of 9.3 points, 3.0 rebounds and 3.4 assists. Darius Washington was thus in the 15 -man squad of the Spurs for the 2007 /08 NBA season.
After Washington played 15 games for the Spurs, he was sent on 29 November from the Spurs to the Austin Toros in the NBA Development League. In the first game for the Toros Darius scored 32 points, 12 rebounds and 5 assists during 114:109 victory over the Sioux Falls Skyforce. On December 8, Darius was recorded against the Tulsa 66ers, the first triple -double of his professional career. He made 26 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. He start all four games for the Toros, led the D -League with 28.2 points and scored an average of 8.5 rebounds, 6.2 assists and 2.0 steals in 38.5 minutes per game.
On 13 December he was brought from the Spurs back in the NBA, who had some injury problems at this time, before he was sent on December 21 after just three games back to the Toros. In the D -League, he played two more games until Darius Washington but was then released on December 28 in San Antonio. In a total of 18 games for the Spurs in the NBA Darius made 2.9 points and 1.1 rebounds in 8.1 minutes.
On January 5, 2008 Washington signed a contract in the Greek league during PAOKs city rivals Aris Salonika.
2008 Washington graduated from the Milwaukee Bucks for a few games in the Summer League. On 26 September 2008 he was sent to the training camp of the Chicago Bulls. After two completed preseason games but was released on October 20 by the Bulls again. Then he moved to the Russian Super League Ural Great Perm to which competed in the 2008 /09 season in ULEB Eurocup. Then he stood for a season at Galatasaray Cafe Crown under contract.
In the following years, he worked at other clubs around the world worked ( see box ).
Macedonian national
Darius Washington received in 2008 the Macedonian citizenship. In 2009, he played for the Macedonian national basketball team.