Getting the band back together

The constant reshuffling ends this week for the Winnipeg Sea Bears.

The CEBL’s transaction deadline is this Saturday, meaning teams are only days away from having to lock in their roster for the final stretch of the season.

The Sea Bears have decided to make at least one more splash before it’s too late as the club signed six-foot-eleven centre Jordy Tshimanga — a Montreal product who recently averaged 15.6 points and a whopping 17 rebounds per game in Taiwan with the Kaohsiung Steelers — on Monday.

“At first, really, I thought about coming home and resting. That was my plan the whole two months before coming home,” said Tshimanga after Tuesday’s practice at Canada Life Centre.

“And literally, a couple days after I got back home, (Sea Bears head coach and general manager) Mike Taylor got in contact with me and my peoples and was just really adamant about getting me here and how important I will be to the team as another piece to add. And I looked at everything, looked at the roster, and it made sense to me, so, I ended up coming here.”

The 28-year-old is no stranger to the CEBL as he spent the past two summers with the Calgary Surge. Last year, he averaged 8.9 points and 6.5 rebounds in 17.8 minutes while appearing in 17 games. He’s now one of four players from the 2023 edition of the Surge who are currently in Winnipeg with centre Simi Shittu, forward Tre Scott, and forward Maurice Calloo being the others. Calgary lost to the Scarborough Shooting Stars in the championship game that year.

The Sea Bears have gotten next to nothing out of their bench this season as they’ve been outscored by the opposition’s second unit in seven of their last eight games. The additions of Calloo — who was signed last week — and now Tshimanga should help with that area moving forward.

“Jordy is a great guy… He’s been a really impactful defender,” said Taylor.

“He shows with his size and experience that he can really impact the game. For our front court to have Simi and Jordy, I think it’s as good as it gets in the league.”

Another name that will help is American forward Jaylin Williams who was welcomed back on the weekend. Williams, who left for over two weeks to play in the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas with the Dallas Mavericks, met the group in Montreal on Sunday and helped the Sea Bears to a 94-81 road win over the Alliance to improve to 7-10.

Williams scored 15 points and grabbed six boards in 18 minutes.

“I started the summer here in May, and I just felt like it was best for me to finish strong with the team, and I feel like I owe it to the team more than anything,” said Williams.

Trialing with Dallas gave Williams a chance to work alongside the top pick of the 2025 NBA draft: Duke superstar Cooper Flagg.

“Flying commercial with him was crazy. That was probably one of the craziest things because so many people would be yelling ‘Cooper’ and stuff like that. I mean, he’s young dude, just got out of college, so I don’t think reality has really hit him yet,” said Williams, who averaged 3.0 points and 4.3 rebounds in three appearances with the Mavs.

“He’s very talented, he’s gonna be a really good pro one day.”

While Williams came back, starting point guard Terry Roberts has not. Roberts was in Vegas with the Brooklyn Nets where he appeared in just one contest and had five points, two assists and four turnovers. For weeks, the Sea Bears were confident Roberts would rejoin the squad, but he ended up flying home. If he isn’t moved off the suspended list to the active roster by the weekend, his Winnipeg tenure is over.

“We’ll see where things go with that. This is one of the surprises that kind of come along with the circumstances. Right now, we’re in discussions about when he’ll return, but there has to be a possibility that he doesn’t return,” said Taylor.

“From our standpoint, the example we have is that Jaylin flew from Dallas to Montreal to play and, for whatever reason, we’re still having those conversations through phone calls to try and get Terry here.”

CEBL teams are allowed to have four imports active on game day, and currently Winnipeg already has four in Williams, Scott, shooting guard Jalen Harris, and point guard Will Richardson. The good news for the Sea Bears is that if Roberts doesn’t hop on a plane to head up north, they appear to be in good hands with Richardson — who’s averaged 17 points per game and shooting 52 per cent from long range through three games — running the show.

“I thought Terry made a great impression on all of us. We really enjoyed having him here,” said Taylor.

“But ever since he’s gone down to Summer League, his focus may have shifted a little bit.”

The Sea Bears host the Edmonton Stingers (11-7) Friday night at 7:30 p.m.

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca