Pushed By 'Fear', Scottie Reynolds Takes His Game To Turkey

Five games.

That's how many games Scottie Reynolds officially played in Italy during his three-month stretch for Prima Veroli back in 2010 after failing to make the Phoenix Suns roster, and now after being cut by the Utah Jazz out of training camp in late December, the 6-foot-2 guard is giving another go at playing basketball in Europe.

Reynolds signed with Antalya Metropolitan Municipality in Turkey the team announced today.

He spend a week in camp with the Jazz and prior to the start of the D-League season, declined offers from teams around the developmental league in hopes he'd land a guaranteed job on an NBA roster.

It didn't happen.

Instead, Reynolds becomes the fourth American import player with Antalya joining fellow Villanova alum and guard Corey Fisher, Kendrick Brown out of Okaloosa-Walton Community College -- and who spent time in the D-League with the Springfield Armor -- and Washington State forward DeAngelo Castro.

But will Reynolds make it through the rest of the season or even beyond the three-month mark this time around?

He wasn't happy in Italy, admittedly became homesick and signed with the Springfield Armor for the 2010-11 season soon after returning home. And that's where he found his new home. Reynolds averaged 13.1 points, 3.8 rebounds and 5.9 assists in 34.3 minutes for the Armor, appearing in 46 games with 45 starts. Along with those five games in Italy, Reynolds spent time this past summer playing in the Philippines and Puerto Rico, but moving forward perhaps he'll approach this chance to play in Turkey as more an opportunity to make another NBA run rather than a post-Utah Jazz consolation prize.

Ask the man himself.

Fear continues to push him in this game and toward the NBA. That road goes through Turkey for Reynolds.

"The one thing I hate about this profession is you never know, day-to-day, what's going to happen. You always gotta be ready," Reynolds said in a recent interview with Northern Virginia Magazine.

"The biggest thing that's kept me going is fear. The fear of failure. The fear of letting people down. The fear of not getting to where I want to get....

"If I don't make the NBA, I feel like I failed. It's not right, and I know I didn't fail, but that's what keeps me running."

Wendell Maxey is a featured writer with Ridiculous Upside and covers basketball overseas and the NBA and D-League at large. After spending the last eight years covering the NBA in New York, New Jersey and Portland, Wendell now lives in Nuremberg, Germany. You can read more of his writing at Beyond The Beat and follow him onTwitter @w_maxey.