Former Badger Brian Butch to join Hornets

Former Wisconsin Badger Brian Butch is reportedly signing with the New Orleans Hornets. The news is being reported after a tweet from his agent. Though its not specified, its assumed that this is a training camp invitation for Butch. Some background on Butch from the At the Hive* blog: Butch had an outstanding year in the NBA D-League in 2009-2010, putting up a defensive rebound rate of 41% and total rebound rate of 20%. In the NBA, centers average 20% and 15% respectively for those two statistics. He was named the 2009-2010 Impact Player of the Year, finished All-2nd team NBDL that year, and after that one season, ranks as the all time D-League career leader in defensive rebound rate. He was named 2010 NBA D-League All-Star Game MVP. Butch dislocated his kneecap in the NBA Summer League prior to the 2010-2011 season and it was reportedly awful and really, really gross. Supposedly the patella was half-way up his thigh. On a guy who's 6'11", that's a long way. He missed the whole season due to that injury. But he's back playing in the D-League this year and doing well again (http://www.nba.com/dleague/news/weekend_wrap_dec_24_2011_12_05.html): "Bakersfield Jam center Brian Butch looks to be fully healthy again. Through four games, the 6-11 Wisconsin product (and 2010 NBA D-League All-Star MVP) is second in the league in rebounding (12.5 boards per game) and 15th in scoring (19.8 ppg). He brings a unique skill set to the Jam, including a proclivity for bombing threes -- and, to his credit, making them, too: He's attempted almost seven threes a game, hitting 44 percent of them. " He's also playing for Team USA in the Pan Am games (http://www.usabasketball.com/mens/panamerican/11_mpag_Butch-feature.html) *HTML is failing me - here's the link to the At the Hive Blog: http://www.atthehive.com/2011/12/3/2608851/new-orleans-hornets-to-sign-center-brian-butch