After a brief stint in Seattle, Mouhamed Sene is headed back to Idaho.
The Seattle SuperSonics reassigned the 7-foot center to the team’s Development League affiliate, the Idaho Stampede, on Thursday.
Sene will rejoin the Stampede for the team’s last five regular-season games and compete with Idaho in the D-League playoffs.
Seattle coach P.J. Carlesimo said he wanted to send Sene to Idaho to allow for enough time for the green big man to get comfortable with his teammates again before the Stampede’s playoff run.
Sene appeared in just 13 games for Seattle and played a total of 60 minutes this season. However, Carlesimo said the team learned a lot about Sene by evaluating him during his ample playing time for the Stampede. Further, in the last seven games of the season Carlesimo said the team needs to focus on evaluating big men Francisco Elson and Donyell Marshall before the season’s over.
“It was more me than anybody else,” Carlesimo said. “I just think that Mo (Sene) has improved individually, in my opinion significantly since the beginning of the year. And the thing that has given him the biggest cause, more so than what he did in practice here, and what he did pre and post-practice with the individual guys, was getting meaningful playing time and having some success.
“I just thought that yanking him in and out and playing him however I was going to play him here, or the possibility of it not being real good and him being able to play through his mistakes, I just didn’t see it helping him.”
In 27 games with the Stampede, Sene is averaging 12.4 points and nine rebounds.
Elson is in the last year of his contract, making $3 million this season. And Marshall is signed through the 2008-09 season, making $5.6 million this season and $5.95 million next season.
Durpree in, Gill out: The Sonics did not re-sign point guard Eddie Gill after his 10-day contract expired on Thursday.
Instead, Seattle signed 6-foot-7 swingman Ronald Dupree to a 10-day contract. Dupree last played for the Detroit Pistons earlier this season.
Most recently, Dupree had played for the Tulsa 66ers of the NBA Development league, averaging 17.2 points and 5.9 rebounds.
In his fourth NBA season, Dupree has played for Detroit, Minnesota and Chicago. Dupree has a good relationship with Sonics assistant general manager Scott Perry, established during Perry’s time working in basketball operations for the Pistons. Dupree also played for Sonics assistant Ralph Lewis when Lewis was the head coach of the Huntsville Flight in the NBDL.
Dupree is an energy player who can defend and also score. Seattle may use Dupree some in games with Damien Wilkins still out on personal leave. But mostly the Dupree signing is another opportunity for the team to get a look at another player they might be interested in having on their summer league squad, or inviting back to fall camp.
“One thing I’m looking for is a long-term situation,” Dupree said. “I don’t look at 10 days as make or break.”
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