Sports / Basketball |
Bulls re-sign Nocioni and add free agent Joe Smith(Reuters)Updated: 2007-07-19 08:52 NEW YORK - The Chicago Bulls re-signed Argentine forward Andres Nocioni to a multi-year extension and added free agent Joe Smith to the roster, the NBA club said on Wednesday. Terms of the deals were not disclosed. The 27-year-old Nocioni, who averaged 14.1 points and 5.7 rebounds and shot .467 from the field, is preparing for his fourth season with the Bulls. "His passion and energy for the game of basketball are second to none, and he has been a key member of our team because of that," Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations John Paxson said in a statement on nba.com. In three seasons with Chicago, Nocioni, a member of Argentina's 2004 Olympic gold medal-winning team, has averaged 11.5 points and 5.5 rebounds in 25.6 minutes per game. Smith, who was the number one overall pick out of Maryland in the 1995 NBA draft, split last season between Denver and Philadelphia after being part of the four-player trade that sent Allen Iverson to Denver. For the season, the 6-foot-10 (2.08 m) Smith played in 65 games and averaged 8.5 points and 6.2 rebounds. He has played in Golden State, Philadelphia (twice), Minnesota (twice), Detroit, Milwaukee and Denver during his NBA career. "He is a proven veteran, whose style of play matches ours," Paxson said. |
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