Month: August 2011

Wizards forward Trevor Booker excited to play in Israel

Michael Lee of the Washington Post (blog) reports:

Trevor Booker

No one knows for sure when the next NBA season will begin, but Wizards forward Trevor Booker has already ensured that he will be playing professional basketball this fall. Booker signed a one-year deal on Thursday with Israeli Basketball League team Bnei HaSharon that has an opt-out clause that will allow him to return to the Wizards whenever the lockout ends.

Booker is the first member of the Wizards to sign with a team overseas since the lockout began on July 1. Booker’s agent, Andy Miller, said that Booker had been “getting an earful for about 40 days” about the possibility of playing overseas until the right deal came along with the team that plays in the top division of Israeli basketball. Wizards General Manager Ernie Grunfeld’s son, Dan, played for Bnei HaSharon last season.

Booker has traveled overseas to Turkey and Serbia and said he was “definitely open.” After speaking with his parents, Booker decided to take advantage of the opportunity. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“I’m real excited,” Booker said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “I get to play against some competition again. I think it will be a neat experience, so I’m definitely excited.”

Stan Van Gundy says Magic arena is like a ghost town during NBA lockout

Stan Van Gundy, former headcoach Miami Heat

Zach McCann of the Orlando Sentinel (blog) reports:

The lockout has essentially turned the Amway Center into a big, shiny office.

Some of the Magic communications and marketing people still work there during the day, and GM Otis Smith and coach Stan Van Gundy also spend time there, along with their staffs. But without the players, it just feels… different.

“Every time I go into the office it sort of gets depressing because there’s nothing going on,” Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said. “We’re used to have some number of guys in — depends on the day — but there’s always activity. … Now it’s like a ghost town in there. That part’s depressing. Certainly when you get to October, when training camp would be going, that’s when it will be really different.”

Van Gundy said his staff is still working like it normally would during the summer. The assistant coaches and video crew hold some meetings, talk about things they want to do differently, put together the playbook and plan out points of emphasis for when the season begins.

Patty Mills denies signing with team in Turkey

AAP via Fox Sports Australia reports:

Patrick Mills

A number of media outlets had reported that the Boomers star – after finishing his second season with the Portland Trail Blazers in the NBA – had inked a one-year deal with the Anadolu Efes team in Istanbul.

Mills, 22, said his agent was in talks with a number of European clubs, including Anadolu Efes, but denied a deal had been signed.

“I want to make it clear I have not signed with any team in Turkey,” Mills said on Friday.

“I have received offers from teams, but I have not come to any agreements with any team there.”

Dirk Nowitzki will not consider overseas offers until after European championships

Dirk Nowitzki

Marc Stein of ESPN reports:

There have been offers from China, feelers from teams around Europe and, of course, aggressive interest from Bayern Munich and other top clubs in his native Germany.

But Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki isn’t ready to think about playing abroad in the event of an extended lockout.

Two weeks into his training for the upcoming EuroBasket tournament in Lithuania with the German national team, after a month of championship celebrations that he says went by way too fast, Nowitzki told ESPNDallas.com in a phone interview Thursday that he plans to wait until after the European championships before he thinks seriously about playing in a foreign league.

Spending the week in Berlin to combine a commercial shoot with private training sessions with longtime mentor Holger Geschwindner, Nowitzki said: “I’m going to play the Euros and then see where the lockout is after that. Until then, I’m not going to look at playing anywhere else.”

The EuroBasket tournament runs from Aug. 31 to Sept. 18.

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Jorge Garbajosa re-signs in Spain

Euroleague.net reports:

Unicaja reached a new agreement with power forward Jorge Garbajosa to keep him in the team next season. Garbajosa (2.05 meters, 33 years old) re-joined Unicaja midway through last season, averaging 7.2 points and 4.2 rebounds in 11 Spanish League games. He had started the 2010-11 season with Real Madrid and averaged 5.4 points in 11 Turkish Airlines Euroleague games before moving back to Malaga. Garbajosa led the club to its glory days in his previous two years in Unicaja. He simply took the club to the highest level, leading Unicaja to its only domestic titles so far, the 2005 Spanish King’s Cup and the 2006 Spanish League crown, earning finals MVP in both events. Garbajosa had a stellar Euroleague career, helping Benetton Treviso reach the title game in 2003, when he was an All-Euroleague first team selection.

Billy Hunter thinks entire 2011-12 NBA season will be lost

Tim Griffin of the San Antonio Express-News (blog) reports:

A huge gap in negotiations has convinced NBA Players Association executive director Billy Hunter that entire 2011-12 season will be wiped out because of the lockout.

Hunter told the Baltimore Sun that players and owners are $800 million apart, even after a round negotiations after the lockout began July 1.

A new group of owners strapped with high debt-service costs has helped changed the dynamics for NBA commissioner David Stern’s negotiating strategy.

“The circumstances have changed among his constituency,” said Hunter, the NBAPA’s executive director since 1996. “In the last six or seven years, there is a new group of owners to come in who paid a premium for their franchises, and what they’re doing is kind of holding his feet to the fire.”

That change limits Hunter’s confidence about a quick end to the lockout.

Was Dwyane Wade offered $2 million per month to play in China?

Dwyane Wade takes it home!

It’s quite probable we have a lost in translation moment here — and there are a lot of those when it comes to overseas sports media outlets in very far-away places — but if not, Miami Heat superstar Dwyane Wade may have been offered a lot of money to take his talents to China.

Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports:

Dwyane Wade’s tour of China was designed to promote the products he endorses. He apparently has done a decent job of promoting himself, as well.

The Chengdu Daily is reporting that Chinese Basketball Association team Zhejiang Guangsha has offered the Miami Heat guard $2 million per month to play in Hangzhou, where Wade visited last week.

While the Chinese basketball site niubball.com reported that the offer was denied by a Zhejiang Lions team official, Wade continues to remain noncommittal about his plans amid the NBA lockout.

“We are not there yet,” Wade told the China Daily. “We are going to start working out. The time to consider that has not come.”

Again, I tend to be very hesitant to believe such reports. One outlet in China says one thing, while on-record officials, and other outlets deny it. So, take this with a grain of salt.

But perhaps it’s a sign of things to come in the near future.

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Darius Miles arrested for bringing a loaded gun into airport

Darius Miles

Patrick M. O’Connell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports:

Former NBA player and East St. Louis native Darius Miles was arrested Wednesday afternoon at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport for allegedly trying to bring a loaded firearm through security, authorities said.

Miles, 29, was arrested about 3:30 p.m. after Transportation Security Administration personnel discovered the weapon during an X-ray screening at the airport, according to information from a TSA spokeswoman and a jail official. Miles was arrested by St. Louis Airport police, then booked into the St. Louis County jail in Clayton later Wednesday evening.

It was unclear whether the loaded gun was found inside luggage or whether Miles had been carrying the weapon. The weapon was discovered at the Concourse A checkpoint. Authorities did not say what type of gun was seized.

Miles was booked about 8:30 p.m. on suspicion of unlawful use of a weapon, authorities said. He was to be booked and released pending application of a warrant on a formal criminal charge. He was not required to post bond.

Blake Griffin stays busy during NBA lockout

Blake Griffin

The AP reports:

Even with NBA players locked out by the league, Los Angeles Clippers All-Star Blake Griffin isn’t taking any days off.

Griffin hosted the opening day of his first annual basketball camp for kids in Oklahoma City on Tuesday, then squeezed in a private one-hour workout afterward with the hope of improving on his Rookie of the Year season.

Griffin has also been busy with appearances for a growing number of sponsors after his leap over the hood of a car to win the NBA’s slam dunk title, and last weekend he was part of his brother’s wedding in Tulsa.

“I haven’t stopped working out really since May,” Griffin said. “It’s been every day, sneaking it in whenever I can.” Griffin says it’s frustrating for him to think that the NBA games may be interrupted after his first season playing in the league. Griffin missed all of the 2009-10 season with a broken kneecap after he had been the No. 1 draft pick out of Oklahoma.

“Now my first three seasons, I could play 82 games,” Griffin said. “So, we’ll see what happens.” …

For now, at least, Griffin said he isn’t joining other NBA stars in seeking opportunities to play overseas if there is an extended lockout. Nets point guard Deron Williams was the first big name to make such a move, signing with a Turkish team.

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