NBA News Blog – Page 1171 – NBA Blog

NBA players withdraw California complaint against NBA, move legal fight to Minnesota

The complaint in the lawsuit filed by David Boies on behalf of NBA players has been voluntarily dismissed by Boies’ firm.

“We assume that Mr. Boies was not happy with either the reassignment of the case from Oakland to San Francisco or the fact that the new judge scheduled the first conference for March 2012,” said Rick Buchanan, NBA Executive Vice President and General Counsel. “This is consistent with Mr. Boies’ inappropriate shopping for a forum that he can only hope will be friendlier to his baseless legal claims.”

According to the Associated Press, “NBA players have filed an amended federal lawsuit against the league in Minnesota. Locked-out players filed class-action antitrust lawsuits against the league last Tuesday in California and Minnesota. But the California complaint was withdrawn Monday and the cases put together in Minnesota.”

Cedric Ceballos hospitalized after heart attacks

Former NBA All-Star Cedric Ceballos has been hospitalized after what his publicist called “a series of small heart attacks.”

Publicist Crystal Guy says Ceballos was scheduled to undergo surgery in Phoenix.

Ceballos averaged 21.3 points per game in 11 NBA seasons. In recent years, he served as the on-court master of ceremonies at Phoenix Suns home games.

— Reported by the Associated Press

Man arrested after trying to punch Rajon Rondo in a club

On the eve of a charity basketball game he hosted at Harvard University, Rondo was involved in an incident at a nightclub in downtown Lowell. Eric Valarezo, 31, of Haverhill, was charged with disorderly conduct, when he allegedly attempted to punch Rondo, who was exiting the club. No one was injured in the incident. Valarezo is expected to be arraigned today in Lowell District Court…

According to The Sun newspaper in Lowell, officer Michael Kandrotas noticed a scuffle around Rondo and his entrourage — including Atlanta’s Josh Smith, Memphis’ Rudy Gay and former Celtics backup guard Nate Robinson — as patrons exited Brian’s Ivy Hall. According to the paper, police and co-owner Kevin Hayhurst said members of Rondo’s group wrestled Valarezo to the ground after the alleged punch attempt.

— Reported by the Boston Herald

LeBron, Wade, Melo, CP3 set up 4-game Homecoming Tour

LeBron James, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony are going home — and bringing friends with them.

With no end to the NBA lockout in sight, the All-Star group is set to lead a four-game “Homecoming Tour,” starting with a matchup in James’ hometown of Akron, Ohio on Dec. 1, followed by a Dec. 4 game in New Orleans, a Dec. 7 game in Chicago and culminating with a Dec. 10 contest in East Rutherford, N.J.

James, Paul, Wade and Anthony are committed to play in all four games of the tour, which was announced early Monday. Proceeds from the tour — which will include events such as food drives, educational outreach programs and clinics in each city — will benefit the four headlining players’ charitable foundations, and tour sponsor Google Plus will stream each game live.

“It’ll be very neat,” Wade told The Associated Press. “First of all, this is something we talked about doing a long time ago as players. To have an opportunity to go to these different cities that we’re from, to bring basketball to them at a high level and also have a charitable component in each city and to be with the guys, it’ll be cool. It’s something we’re looking forward to.”

Tickets for the first three games go on sale Tuesday. Tickets for the East Rutherford game will be on sale Wednesday.

— Reported by the Associated Press

James, Wade and Bosh had initially been listed to participate in a world tour of NBA stars, which also was to include Paul and Anthony. That tour was to include stops in Puerto Rico, London, Macau and Australia before it was cancelled.

“It’s not anything that I’ve heard about since then,” Wade said, with the change of plans to a domestic tour. “I was excited about the opportunity to go, obviously to play basketball with some of my friends, some of the best players in the game, to travel to different places and given them kind of what we get over here, the excitement of the game. It’s unfortunate.”

Instead, the passports are off and the domestic games are on.

“You could see, I was there to the end,” Wade said. “I wasn’t going to pull out of it, I was going to keep going and I wanted to play.”

— Reported by Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Julius Erving memorabilia auction nets $3.5 million

SCP Auctions says more than 140 items from Julius Erving’s personal collection sold for a record $3.5 million. The auction ran from October until Sunday.

Among the highlights: His 1974 New Jersey Nets ABA championship ring sold for $460,471; 1983 76ers championship rings sold for $244,240; 1983 All-Star game MVP trophy ($115,242); final game worn jersey from May 3, 1987 ($88,826); and 1974-75 ABA MVP trophy ($173,10).

SCP said the Nets championship ring set a record price for a sports ring.

Erving told The Associated Press last month he’s never been a “hoarder or collector,” and planned to donate a portion of the auction proceeds to the Salvation Army.

— Reported by the Associated Press

J.R. Smith injures knee in Chinese basketball season-opener

Nuggets guard J.R. Smith suffered what appeared to be a serious knee injury while playing for his Chinese team Sunday.

Smith signed to play for Zhejiang, a Chinese Basketball Association team, during the NBA lockout. Sunday’s game was the CBA regular season-opening game for Smith.

— Reported by the Denver Post

InsideHoops.com November 22 update: It appears the injury was extremely minor and Smith will be fine.

Former dunk champ Dee Brown says he can still throw down

Brown, who is now an assistant for Pistons coach Lawrence Frank, just laughed when asked about his dunking prowess.

“Yes, I can,” he said Thursday night at the Palace during an event where needy families were fed. “I work out every day and I still dunk.”

But the 42-year-old won’t be winning dunk titles any time soon.

“I always like to tell people (I used) to have hops, but now I just have hopes,” he said with another laugh. “I can still get up a little bit.”

— Reported by Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press

Kevin Love turns down Besiktas offer

Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love informed Besiktas of Turkey on Sunday that he’s turning down its offer to sign with the Istanbul-based club and team up with New Jersey Nets guard Deron Williams.

“I didn’t feel it was the right decision for me at this time,” Love told ESPN.com.

Love, though, said playing abroad if the lockout drags on “is still very much an option” he’s considering.

NTV Spor of Turkey reported Friday that Love and Chicago Bulls forward Luol Deng were Besiktas’ top two targets in its search for an elite forward to play alongside Williams.

— Reported by Marc Stein of ESPN.com

Patty Mills ends Melbourne contract, heads to China

Portland Trail Blazers point guard Patty Mills has cut short his stay with the Melbourne Tigers and will play for a Chinese league club during the NBA lockout.

The National Basketball League said in a statement late Sunday that Mills had signed a contract to play with Chinese club Xinjiang Guanghui Flying Tigers. The NBL said it allowed Mills to leave because it did not want to hold him back from other international opportunities.

— Reported by the Associated Press

Dirk Nowitzki looks at playing overseas

Like many professional basketball players who currently aren’t playing professional basketball, Dallas Mavericks superstar Dirk Nowitzki is bored, and may eventually wind up playing overseas while the ongoing NBA lockout continues to destroy humanity.

Marc Stein of ESPN.com reports:

Although he continues to express optimism that the NBA season will be saved, Nowitzki has acknowledged that he has taken note of the blueprint established by Cleveland Cavaliers forward Omri Casspi, who announced earlier this week that he had signed a contract with Maccabi Tel Aviv in his native Israel that serves as a virtual letter of intent to join Maccabi in January if the lockout is still going, thus securing a spot for Casspi with a top European team early in a market starting to flood with established players.

Nowitzki has only just begun to field calls from interested clubs, but he said he’s aware of the Spanish media reports that have listed him as a target of perennial powerhouse Real Madrid and admitted that the idea of playing top-level basketball with a team in Spain — such as Real or their rivals Barcelona — intrigues him.

“It’s a great club with a great tradition,” Nowitzki said of Real Madrid. “I don’t know if that’s true, but (if the media reports are accurate) that’s something you’d have to look at hard.

“I still can’t believe that we’re not going to have a season (in the NBA). I can’t see us not playing. But if the lockout still stays strong, I’ve got a decision to make.”

The 33-year-old also revealed that he has reconsidered his previous stance about playing in his native Germany. For much of the summer, Nowitzki maintained that he preferred not to play in the German Bundesliga because he didn’t want to pick any one club over the rest. Yet he has since concluded that returning to the Bundesliga, for the first time since playing for his hometown DJK Wurzburg X-Rays during the 1998-99 lockout, might be the best way to promote the sport at home.

Naturally, the hope is that the lockout ends before the best team on the current NBA champions feels a need to take his talents overseas.