You probably don’t remember the 2008-2009 Albany Patroons basketball season. Suffice it to say that the creation of the Penn Central Railroad wasn’t the biggest trainwreck in recent times.
But the Patroons could still make an impact in the 2014-15 NBA season. Yes they could. Follow me.
In the 2008-2009 CBA entry draft, the Patroons picked Michael Jenkins, a 6’3″ combo guard out of Winthrop University. He averaged 6.7 points for the Patroons in the 2008-09 season, then went overseas for a few years. He played in Bosnia and Germany, Belgium and Italy.
This year, he’s on the NBA D-League’s Oklahoma City Blue team, and there’s still a chance – albeit a small one – that he could get a call-up to the NBA this year, either as a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder or as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers.
And if he does that… he’ll join the ranks of other former Albany Patroons who made it to the NBA. That list includes Derrick Rowland and Mario Elie, Vincent Askew and Jeff Sanders, Lowes Moore and Scott Brooks, Rick Carlisle and Tod Murphy, James Thomas and Jamario Moon… And that’s not even counting the Patroons players/coaches who coached NBA squads (Phil Jackson, George Karl, Bill Musselman, Sidney Lowe, Michael Curry, Rick Carlisle, Scott Brooks, Terry Stotts…).
And it would happen nearly five years after the CBA’s final trainwreck of a basketball season in 2008-09. If you don’t remember that year, let me recap for you.
The CBA was down to five franchises to start the 2008-09 season – Albany, Pittsburgh, East Kentucky, Lawton-Fort Sill and Minot. And the Pittsburgh team folded prior to the season starting. Five teams might be a season; four teams is essentially a tournament. In order to salvage the season, the CBA agreed to play an interleague series with the ragtag American Basketball Association, a league that was about as organized as the local YMCA pickup league. Eventually the CBA limped through the season, until a hastily-crafted finals series between Albany and Lawton-Fort Sill (which the Lawton team won, 2-1) ended 64 years of minor league basketball.
So technically, if Michael Jenkins makes it to the NBA, he will be the last Albany Patroon to have achieved that mark. And he’s not the only Patroon alumni in the D-League with a chance to break through – Jamario Moon is scoring some serious points with the Los Angeles D-Fenders, and I can attest that his professional basketball career still has some life left in it.
And maybe, just maybe, the Patroons’ legacy will still be able to produce a player of NBA caliber.
Even if it was half a decade since Michael Jenkins wore gold and kelly green and hooped it up at the Armory.
Chuck The Writer 
I remember Scott Brooks on the Patroons. Didn’t former Nets player Michael Richardson coach the Patroons too?
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He did, but Micheal Ray Richardson went from the NBA to the Patroons, not the other way around. He is one of three men (Derrick Rowland and Vincent Askew) to both coach and play for the team in his career.
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The Thunder are REALLY depleted, playing poorly. Maybe he WILL get a callup.
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Those 2005-2008 Albany Patroons still hold some of my finest memories as a teenager. Hopefully Moon gets the call up from LA this season! Great piece, Chuck!
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