Category: International Basketball Blog

International basketball blog

Raptors extend qualifying offers to Calderon and Delfino

The Toronto Raptors announced Friday they have extended qualifying offers to restricted free-agent guards Jose Calderon and Carlos Delfino. Per team policy, financial details were not disclosed.

In accordance with the league’s collective bargaining agreement, in order for a team to retain its right of first refusal with respect to a restricted free agent it must tender the player a qualifying offer prior to June 30. A restricted free agent may sign an offer sheet with any team, but is subject to a right of first refusal in favour of the team for which the player last played.

Calderon contributed career highs of 11.2 points and a team-best 8.3 assists in all 82 regular season games in 2007-08. He led the NBA with a 5.38 (678/126) assist-to-turnover ratio. Calderon has averaged 8.7 points, 6.1 assists and 25 minutes in 223 regular season NBA games with the Raptors.

Delfino appeared in all 82 games, averaging 9.0 points and 4.4 rebounds. He set career highs in points, rebounds, three-point field goals made and attempted, free throws made and attempted, and minutes (1,928). Delfino has averaged 5.8 points, 3.0 rebounds and 17.1 minutes in 262 career NBA regular season games with Toronto and Detroit.

Amare Stoudemire declines Olympic roster spot

The Arizona Republic (Paul Coro) reports: Suns star Amaré Stoudemire declined the opportunity to be an Olympian this summer for USA Basketball. Jerry Colangelo, managing director for the USA Basketball senior men’s national team, said today that Stoudemire is not on the 12-man Olympic roster that will be announced Monday in Chicago. “Amaré has pulled himself out of consideration for the roster and that’s predicated on, despite the fact that he’s had an injury-free year coming back (from knee surgeries in 2005 and 2006), he’s a little hesitant on pushing the envelope too hard,” Colangelo said.

Juan Carlos Navarro going back to Spain

The Memphis Commercial-Appeal (Ronald Tillery) reports: The Grizzlies have experienced a different kind of La Bomba than they have become accustomed to. Spanish guard Juan Carlos Navarro’s chances of returning for a second season in Memphis were blown to pieces Wednesday afternoon when he decided to re-sign with FC Barcelona. Navarro, who earned $538,000 with the Grizzlies last season, was swayed by a deal that will pay him between $20million and $24 million over the next four years.

InsideHoops.com says: Well, he came over and hoped to compete on a good NBA team with his buddy Pau Gasol. But Gasol got traded, the Grizzlies have just a few decent players and are light-years away from competing, and FC Barcelona saw an opening to get Navarro and took it. As for the NBA, Navarro turned out as expected, a very limited defensive player who can fire and make quick outside shots.

Yao Ming not ready to play yet

The Houston Chronicle (Jonathan Feigen) reports: Rockets center Yao Ming moved a step closer to returning to the court with a good report from Monday’s checkup, but is a long way from being cleared to play, Yao’s agent John Huizinga said. Though there were reports out of China that Yao has been cleared and will play in the Stankovic Cup, Huizinga said that doctors have not cleared Yao for full practices and game action, and that it is premature to say whether he will play in that pre-Olympic event in Hangzhou, China, July 17-20.

Jose Calderon fires his agent

The Toronto Sun reports: The Raptors reiterated last week that though offers are constantly being made for point guard Jose Calderon, the odds of him moving are nil since the club can match any offer. Now comes word that Calderon recently fired his American agent, while maintaining his European representation. Connecting the dots, it appears Calderon, a restricted free agent, likely realized he would be returning to the Raptors, so paying considerable cash to a North American agent to promote him around the league made little sense.

Entire NBL Australia league in trouble

The Herald Sun (Tim Morrissey) reports: The damaging fallout from the death of the Sydney Kings and likely demise of the Brisbane Bullets could drag the National Basketball League into insolvency. If the NBL is not able to renew its naming rights sponsorship deal with Hummer and negotiate a new TV broadcast deal with Fox Sports, the league will not have the funds to run its competition next season. Hummer reportedly paid the NBL between $800,000 and $1 million for the naming rights last season.

Sydney Kings of NBL Australia stripped of licence

The Herald Sun reports: “The termination of the team’s licence is the most extreme action the league can take when a club is placed in default but, in the current circumstances, it was quite simply the only course available to us,” NBL chief executive Chuck Harmison said in a statement. Harmison said club owner Tim Johnston had failed to pay outstanding money owed to players by yesterday’s 5pm deadline. The licence will now be returned to the NBL office. The seven contracted Kings players, some with families and mortgages, new coach Bill Tomlinson and his assistants will have to find new teams.

InsideHoops.com says: The Sydney Kings are the most famous team in Australia’s NBL, the main league there. But they’ve apparently been mismanaged so badly they can’t afford to pay their players and, for now, are out of the league. We’ll have more on this later today or tomorrow, on our blog or on the InsideHoops front page.

Byron Scott hopes CP3 makes Team USA

The New Orleans Times-Picayune (John Reid) reports: One day after it was announced that there won’t be tryouts for the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team, Hornets Coach Byron Scott said he can’t see a team without his star guard, Chris Paul, on it. “I think if they are going to make a team, then he (Paul) should definitely be on it,” Scott said Wednesday. “If they are going to try out guys, that’s a different story. I don’t see how you’ll leave out a guy that was runner-up to the MVP. “I just don’t see how you do it. But I don’t know what the criteria is, but Chris is the ultimate point guard as far as making people around him better. He is very unselfish, and he is a true point guard.” … Jason Kidd appears to be a lock to make the team.

No Mehmet Okur for Turkey in September

The Deseret Morning News (Tim Buckley) reports: Jazz starting center Mehmet Okur won’t play for his native Turkey when its national team plays France, Belgium and Ukraine in September qualifying games for the 2009 FIBA European championships. According to a Web report from the English-language Today’s Zaman Turkish newspaper, Okur was dropped from the team’s provisional roster due to injury. Okur played with an Achilles tendon injury late in the Jazz’s 2008 playoff run, and O’Connor on Wednesday suggested the 2007 NBA All-Star was more injured late in Utah’s second-round series with the Los Angeles Lakers than many people realize.

Tiago Splitter not coming to Spurs next season

The San Antonio Express-News (Jeff McDonald) reports: Spurs general manager R.C. Buford acknowledged that Tiago Splitter has indeed informed the team that he won’t be coming to San Antonio next season (2008-09). Splitter, a first-round draft pick a year ago, has instead decided to sign an extension with Tau Ceramica that would keep him in the Spanish League through 2012. This would seem to make acquiring a power forward a priority for the Spurs this offseason. It would also seem to make Kurt Thomas, who is due to become a free agent July 1, an even more valuable commodity.