Thunderous Intentions dives into the archives to glance at previous OKC Thunder players in our column ‘Where are they now?’ In this week’s column, we take a look at point guard Eric Maynor.
Eric Maynor’s career is an interesting one. He is VCU’s all-time leader in scoring and assists. He’s also a two-time All-America honorable mention.
Thanks to his stellar college career, he was drafted by the Utah Jazz with the 20th overall pick of the 2009 NBA draft, making him the first VCU player to be selected in the first round.
Maynor spent the first two months of the 2009-10 season backing up Deron Williams. That was all about to change when he and Matt Harpring were traded in late December to the OKC Thunder in exchange for the rights to Peter Fehse.
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In his first season with the OKC Thunder, Maynor proved himself to be a solid second unit point guard, averaging 4.5 points per game and 3.4 assists per game. He shot 43.4 percent from the field and 36.2 percent from three-point range.
Maynor averaged 4.2 points per game and 2.9 assists per game while shooting 40.2 percent from the floor and 38.5 percent from beyond the arc in the 2010-11 season.
Entering his 3rd year in the NBA, Eric Maynor was a permanent fixture in the Thunder’s rotation. But then disaster struck. On January 7th, 2012, it was announced that Eric Maynor tore his ACL. He missed the rest of the season. And that’s where his career goes downhill.
He lost his job to Reggie Jackson and was traded to the Blazers in exchange for the rights to Giorgos Printezis the very next season.
He’d only play 58 more NBA games after that.
Overseas career
Almost a year after being waived by the 76ers, he signed with Varese, an Italian first tier team on January 14th, 2015.
6 months later, he took his talents to Russia, where he signed a one-year contract with BC Nizhny Novgorod. After his contract with the team ended, he returned to Italy and signed a one-year contract with Varese (again). He then signed with Orlandina, another first-tier team in Italy. He parted ways with the team after the season ended.
He is currently a free agent.
Maynor has expressed his desire to play for a few more years before entering the coaching realm.
Final comments
Eric Maynor, once a college star, was on his way to forge a solid career as a backup PG. But thanks to an ACL injury, his time in the NBA was cut short. Outside of that, his professional career was truly unmemorable. There were no notable off-court scandals involving him and his play didn’t set the world on fire.
But hey, at least he left us with this.
Stay tuned next week for the next player in ‘Where are they now?’ series.