The NBA regular season tips off tomorrow night with three games on the schedule. It also begins a two week preview of the NBA League Pass package on Time Warner Cable. The preview, showing thru November 2, is our chance to see some of our favorite former college players whose teams never get national TV coverage. Teams like Indiana and Cleveland have tons of area players, and this is our chance to watch them. The Pass is on channels 571-581 (SD) and 1581 (HD).

The NBA rosters are an interesting read every year. There are so many surprises in the rolls, including the coaching staffs, I put together a master spreadsheet of all NBA players for readers to enjoy. In order to best utilize the data, log in to your Google account, and then select File | Make a Copy…, and save the spreadsheet into your own account. Users can then sort the list by Team, Salary, Age, etc. to best comprehend the current rosters.

There are several players from the area in the league. Quin Snyder, Bob Bender, Gene Banks, Chip Engelland, Phil Weber, Nate McMillan, Vinnie Del Negro, Joe Wolf, Bob McAdoo, Pat Sullivan, John Kuester, George Karl, Larry Brown, Dave Hanners, and Phil Ford are all among the coaching ranks. Raleigh natives Chris Wilcox and John Wall are preparing for big seasons as players in the league. Additionally there are also several former local college players in the league, and Duke currently holds the lead. Those players are:

Duke (13)

• Shane Battier (Houston)
• Carlos Boozer (Chicago)
• Elton Brand (Philadelphia)
• Luol Deng (Chicago)
• Chris Duhon (Orlando)
• Mike Dunleavy (Indiana)
• Gerald Henderson (Charlotte)
• Grant Hill (Phoenix)
• Dahntay Jones (Indiana)
• Corey Maggette (Milwaukee)
• Josh McRoberts (Indiana)
• J.J. Redick (Orlando)
• Shelden Williams (Denver)

UNC (11)

• Vince Carter (Orlando)
• Wayne Ellington (Minnesota)
• Raymond Felton (New York)
• Tyler Hansbrough (Indiana)
• Brendan Haywood (Dallas)
• Antawn Jamison (Cleveland)
• Ty Lawson (Denver)
• Jerry Stackhouse (Miami)
• Jawad Williams (Cleveland)
• Marvin Williams (Atlanta)
• Brandan Wright (Golden State)

NCSU (2)

• J.J. Hickson (Cleveland)
• Josh Powell (Atlanta)

Wake Forest (8)

• Al-Farouq Aminu (LA Clippers)
• Tim Duncan (San Antonio)
• Josh Howard (Washington)
• James Johnson (Chicago)
• Chris Paul (New Orleans)
• Ishmael Smith (Houston)
• Darius Songaila (Philadelphia)
• Jeff Teague (Atlanta)

We’ll see if others such as Rashad McCants, Sean May, John Scheyer, and Danny Green can find there ways onto the list…