Derrick Zimmerman

Derrick Zimmerman
Player information
Full name	Derrick Dewayne Zimmerman
birthday	2nd December 1981
place of birth	Monroe (LA), USA
size	189 cm
position	Point Guard / Shooting Guard
college	Mississippi State
NBA draft	2003 , 40th Pick, Golden State Warriors
Club information
society	Energa Czarni Słupsk
league	Tauron Basket League
Clubs as active
1999–2003 MSU Bulldogs ( NCAA ) 2003–2006 Columbus Riverdragons / Austin Toros 2006 New Jersey Nets 2006 Brose Baskets 2007 Air Avellino 2007–2008 HKK Široki Brijeg 2008–2010 BK Budiwelnyk Kiev 2010–2011 BK Hoverla Ivano-Frankiwsk 2011–2012 BK Kiev 2012–2013 BK Dnipro-Azot 2013 MHP Riesen Ludwigsburg Since 2014 Energa Czarni Słupsk 00000 00000 00000 00000 0

Derrick Dewayne Zimmerman (born December 2, 1981 in Monroe , Louisiana ) is an American basketball player . Zimmerman failed to make the leap from the NBA Development League to the highest endowed professional league NBA , which is why he continued his career in Europe from 2006. After working in Germany , Italy and Bosnia and Herzegovina , he played from 2008 for almost five years in the Basketball Superliga Ukraine for various clubs. After a short return to the top German basketball division , where he was under contract for the MHP Riesen from Ludwigsburg in 2013 , he has been playing in the Polish Tauron Basket League with Energa Czarni since 2014 .

Career

From Wossman High School in his birthplace, Zimmerman moved in 1999 to study at Mississippi State University in the neighboring US state, where he played for the college team Bulldogs in the Southeastern Conference of NCAA Division I. In 2002 Zimmerman won the championship tournament of this conference along with Winsome Frazier, among others, in the Bulldogs team and moved into the national finals of the NCAA , in which, however, they were defeated in the second round against the Longhorns of the University of Texas at Austin . In another final round the following year, they were eliminated in the first round in Zimmerman's senior year 2003 against another lower-rated team, the namesake of Butler University . Even so, Zimmerman, who is one of the two best players in the history of the Bulldogs in assists and steals , was selected 40th in the 2003 NBA Draft by the Golden State Warriors.

Before the start of the 2003 season in the NBA , the Golden State Warriors released Zimmerman from his contractual obligations and he then played for the Riverdragons from Columbus (Georgia) in the NBA Development League (D-League). After he had not made it into a season squad again in the summer of 2004 via the NBA Summer League and various training camps, he reached the final of the D-League 2005 with the Riverdragons. Together with Ramel Curry , who would later also be active in the Ukraine , however, the Riverdragons clearly lost the final in front of their home crowd against the Asheville Altitude . The Riverdragons then moved to Austin (Texas) as Toros . Although the Toros with Marcus Fizer put the Most Valuable Player of the D-League 2006, they could not move into the final again. Zimmerman even the end of March 2006 for the second year in a row as "Defensive Player of the Year" ( German  Defender of the Year award) of the D-League and was allowed in April 2006, two inserts for the New Jersey Nets to complete, their interest in the summer of 2005 he had drawn on himself.

After a long-term commitment in the NBA did not work out, Zimmerman moved to Europe in 2006 and played as a subsequent commitment from the beginning of November for Brose Baskets from Bamberg in the top German division basketball Bundesliga . Here, however, he was unable to meet all expectations, so that the contract was terminated prematurely after six weeks in December 2006. The rest of the season Zimmerman played in the Italian Lega Basket Serie A in Avellino together with his former teammate Ramel Curry. There it was only enough for the last non-relegation place, which one could just secure because of the better direct comparison against Bipop Carire RE . The 2007/08 season Zimmerman played in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the master from Široki Brijeg . After winning the national cup title, however, it was not enough to defend the title in the championship.

In 2008 Zimmerman moved to the Ukraine and initially played the following two seasons with the traditional BK Budiwelnik from Kiev . After the runner-up in 2010 Zimmerman moved to BK Hoverla from Ivano-Frankivsk , with whom he reached third place in the 2011 championship, while his ex-club Budiwelnik won the championship for the first time in 14 years. In the 2011/12 season Zimmerman played for Budiwelnik's local rivals BK Kiew, before joining the BK Dnipro-Azot from Dniprodzerzhynsk for the 2012/13 season. Like BK Kiew before, this club played at the bottom of the table and at the end of February 2013 they split up, whereupon Zimmerman was immediately obliged by the relegation-threatened German first division club Neckar Riesen (today: MHP Riesen) from Ludwigsburg for the remainder of the 2012/13 season. With the club, the sporting league was just missed, which the Ludwigsburg then secured by purchasing a wild card . Zimmerman only got a new contract with Energa Czarni from Słupsk in the Polska Liga Koszykówki at the beginning of 2014 .

Web links

• easyCredit BBL - Derrick Zimmerman - player profile on the easyCredit Basketball-Bundesliga website
• Derrick Zimmerman - player profile on basketball-reference.com
• NBA Development League: Derrick Zimmerman - Profile in the NBA D-League (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mississippi State 2012–13 Men's Basketball Media Guide. (PDF (5.1 MB)) (No longer available online.) Mississippi State University , October 30, 2012, p. 82 , archived from the original on December 10, 2013 ; accessed on February 28, 2013 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ^ Altitude Repeat as NBDL Champions. (No longer available online.) NBA April 23, 2005, archived from the original on November 5, 2012 ; accessed on February 28, 2013 (English, match report). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Former MSU Standout Zimmerman Named NBA D-League Defensive Player of the Year. Southeastern Conference , March 28, 2006, accessed February 28, 2013 . 
4. ↑ Legabasket: Derrick Zimmerman. Lega Basket Serie A , accessed on February 28, 2013 (Italian, player profile on statistics pages).