Saturday Notes: Hammond interview, Luc's summer, vintage Joe

Happy days for Mike Redd. (David Dow/NBAE/Getty Images)

• Here's the last installment from our interview with John Hammond. Check out part I and part II here.
• The Vegas Summer League runs from July 11-20, but unfortunately that coincides with the Olympic qualifying tournament happening halfway around the world in Athens from July 14-20. That wouldn't have been an issue for the Bucks two weeks ago--Andrew Bogut's Australian team and Michael Redd's Team USA already clinched spots last summer--but Luc Richard Mbah a Moute's Cameroonian team is still hoping to snag one of the three remaining spots at the Beijing games. They'll have plenty of competition at the 12-team tournament in Greece, which will also feature Brazil, Germany, Croatia, Puerto Rico, Greece, Slovenia and Canada among others. Meanwhile, Luc is talking to the Bucks to see if they'll let him skip Vegas for Athens.
  

  "If I don’t go to Athens, I will be disappointed," he said, "but at same time I will be excited about having the chance to be working out with a new team."

  Second round picks are typically signed later in the summer, so the Bucks basically hold all the cards here.
• Much has been made about Joe Alexander's meteoric rise from obscurity, which makes this story from October 2005 a pretty interesting read.

  Remarkably, Alexander knew next to nothing about college basketball because he had been living out of the country and never saw games on TV. He admits he’d have a tough time right now sorting through a list of the top 25 schools and placing them in the right conferences.
  
  "I don’t really watch sports on TV or play sports video games or anything: I just like going outside and playing," he said.

• Check out photos from Team USA's recent trip to NYC.