Category: NBA News Blog

NBA news blog

Lakers TV problems drag into preseason

Time Warner, the Lakers’ new $3 billion TV partner, is locked in negotiations with other area providers – including DirecTV, Charter, Dish, Cox, Verizon and AT&T U-verse – to pick up its two new Laker-centric channels, SportsNet and Deportes.

The asking price is reported to be $3.95 per subscriber per month. The providers, however, are holding out for a better deal in hopes of keeping rates low for customers.

This is still just the preseason – the Lakers play Utah on Tuesday night at Honda Center – but fans who can’t find their team on their TV are, in some cases, a bit uneasy and, in other cases, flat ornery.

During the Lakers exhibition Saturday at Staples Center, fans booed every time a Time Warner commercial was shown inside the arena.

— Reported by Jeff Miller of the Orange County Register

Cleveland Cavaliers waive Kelenna Azubuike

The Cleveland Cavaliers have waived guard Kelenna Azubuike, Cavaliers General Manager Chris Grant announced today from Cleveland Clinic Courts.

Azubuike appeared in one preseason game, scoring six points and adding three rebounds in 14 minutes.

The Cavaliers roster now stands at 17.

It’s NBA preseason, and lots of players around the league who were signed to “training camp” contracts will be let go between now and the start of the regular season.

Timberwolves waive training camp invitees Phil Jones and Seth Tarver

The Minnesota Timberwolves today announced the team has waived training camp invitees Phil Jones and Seth Tarver. Neither player saw action in the team’s three preseason games.

Jones, a 6-10 forward/center, played overseas for the past two years after playing collegiately at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He has made stops in Uruguay, Brussels and spent the past season in Romania.

Tarver, a 6-5 guard, spent the last two seasons with the Idaho Stampede of the NBA D-League. Tarver averaged 11.3 points and 4.7 rebounds in 45 contests last season. Tarver went undrafted in 2010 after a four-year collegiate career at Oregon State.

The Wolves roster currently stands at 18 players.

Idea of NBA expansion to Europe seems unlikely for now

There was a time when Stern had dreams of a team or even a division in Europe, a first in American sports. He was determined to devise a way for a group of teams in London, Rome, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, and Berlin to compete with the 30 stateside NBA teams and even have a real world championship series.

Regardless of how uncomfortable the idea made fans who believe 30 teams was enough — and regardless of how inconceivable it might be to have a team in a time zone six hours ahead of the Eastern US — Stern was going to add the London Abbeys to the NBA.

But that idea seems to have fizzled along with the international economy and the lack of NBA-worthy venues overseas. What Stern realized is that many of the arenas that house Euroleague teams are not up to NBA standards.

For example, the Ulker Sports Arena in Istanbul, a sparkling new venue that houses Fenerbahce Ulker and features an adjacent practice facility, fits only 13,000, which would make it the smallest arena in the NBA.

“I don’t think having a single team in Europe is practical,” Stern said last week in Milan before watching the Celtics take on Emporio Armani Milano. “I never have… “What I’ve said is if we’re going to have an NBA presence here in terms of the league, it should be five teams. It’s safe to say that there aren’t enough buildings, there aren’t adequate TV arrangements, we don’t have owners, and I’m not sure we could charge the prices that would be necessary. I don’t think our fans are that avid yet.”

— Reported by Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe

Metta World Peace kisses a female fan

ron artest

Ron Artest once went into the stands with gruesome results. That was a long time ago, though.

Metta World Peace went into the stands Saturday night at Staples Center with hilarious results.

World Peace, who won the NBA’s 2010-11 J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award and changed his name a year ago, was displaying his regained agility with a nifty block as Utah guard Gordon Hayward drove toward the basket. Then World Peace displayed his usual wacky sense of humor.

After his momentum carried him under the basket and out of bounds, World Peace fetched the ball — and then took the hand of a nearby female fan and kissed it.

— Reported by Kevin Ding of the OC Register

Chris Paul returns in exhibition victory in Shanghai

Chris Paul

All-Star point guard Chris Paul played for the first time since off-season thumb surgery, and the Clippers used a dominant inside attack to dispatch reigning NBA champion Miami Heat 99-89 in an exhibition match today (late Saturday PDT) in front of a sell-out crowd of 18,000 in Shanghai.

With Paul guiding the offense, Clippers big men DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin thrilled the crowd with dunks and alley-oop baskets as the Clippers took advantage of a height advantage and jumped to a first quarter double-digit lead and maintained it for much of the game.

Jordan was 7 for 7 in the first half, as the Clippers ran out to a 57-43 lead on a 26-13 rebounding advantage. The Clippers’ center all nine of his rebounds before intermission and added two blocked shots.

Jordan, who was a perfect 8 for 8 from the floor, scored 13 of his game-high 18 points in the first quarter, while power forward Griffin scored 13 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as the Clippers avenged a 94-80 loss to Miami in Beijing on Thursday. Paul finished with four points, six assists and five rebounds in 22 minutes. Caron Butler, Jamal Crawford and Matt Barnes also scored in double figures.

— Reported by Los Angeles Daily News services

Jeremy Lin playing, but still recovering from knee surgery

Jeremy Lin playing, but still recovering from knee surgery

Tough times for everybody’s favorite point guard. Everybody but James Dolan, that is.

More than six months after undergoing surgery to repair a torn meniscus, not exactly a catastrophic injury by any stretch, Jeremy Lin continues to cite problems with his left knee for his early struggles with the Rockets.

“My speed and my explosiveness and my agility (are not) there yet,” Lin said the other day.

So it was hardly ideal circumstances when the ex-Knick made his Houston debut against the Thunder’s Russell Westbrook. even if Lin had two completely healthy knees, that’s a mismatch, going up against one of the NBA’s top athletes.

Predictably, in his first action since injuring his knee last March against Detroit at the Garden, it got ugly in a hurry. Lin made only one shot and couldn’t stay with the fleet Westbrook, who went for 19 points in 16 first-half minutes.

— Reported by Mitch Lawrence of the New York Daily News

UCLA to unveil John Wooden statue outside Pauley Pavilion

UCLA will unveil a statue of the late basketball coach John Wooden outside newly renovated Pauley Pavilion on Oct. 26.

Members of Wooden’s family are expected to attend. The bronze statue was paid for by a donation from athletic boosters and was created by Blair Buswell, who has sculpted many busts of Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees.

The $136 million renovation of UCLA’s basketball arena began in March 2011. The building will re-open at the end of the month.

— Reported by the Associated Press

Emir Preldzic wins Euroleague Week 1 MVP

In a game that produced the two best individual performances to start the Turkish Airlines Euroleague season, Emir Preldzic walked away as bwin Week 1 MVP because his career-best showing had one deciding statistic in his favor: a victory for Fenerbahce Ulker Istanbul! Preldzic’s near-flawless performance on Thursday pushed his team to a surefire 92-80 win over visiting Khimki Moscow Region before almost 10,000 delirious fans at Fenerbahce Ulker Sports Arena. The 25-year-old point forward climbed off the bench late in the first quarter and by halftime had 11 points without a miss to push Fenerbahce Ulker ahead for good. When he was finished, Preldzic had compiled a performance index rating of 31, the best of his six-year Euroleague career.

— Reported by Euroleague.net