A total of eight former LSU men’s basketball players including two off last year’s 2009 SEC Championship team are in NBA Training Camps that opened Tuesday around the league.
Marcus Thornton, a second round choice of the Miami Heat who was subsequently traded to the New Orleans Hornets, is in his second day of camp in Lafayette where they Hornets are holding the first week of their preseason drills for the 2009-10 season that begins at the end of the month. Thornton averaged over 20 points a game for the Hornets in the Las Vegas Summer League.
Garrett Temple is a free agent signee of the Houston Rockets who also played for the Rockets summer league team in Vegas. Temple is one of 16 players presently working out for the Houston team which will not have Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady to start the season.
LSU returns six players to camp that have NBA experience and one of those spots was just sewn up Monday night when Stromile Swift signed to join the preseason roster of the Philadelphia 76ers. Swift, was the No. 2 pick in the 2000 NBA draft by the then Vancouver Grizzlies.
Tyrus Thomas returns for another season in Chicago, while Glen Davis has recently signed a new contract entering his third year with the Boston Celtics. Anthony Randolph, after starring in the Vegas summer league, will begin his second season with the Golden State Warriors and Brandon Bass starts his fifth season in the league, his third with the Dallas Mavericks.
Rounding out the LSU players is the veteran of the group, the No. 1 pick in the 1992 NBA draft and the member of four NBA championship teams, Shaquille O’Neal, who will begin his first season with the Cleveland Cavaliers.