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The AP reports:
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Charlotte Bobcats forward Boris Diaw has exercised his player option for next season that will pay him $9 million.
Agent Doug Neustadt said Tuesday they informed the Bobcats of the decision earlier this week.
Diaw said after the season that with the potential labor uncertainty this summer, it was a “no-brainer” to pick up the option and avoid becoming a free agent until 2012.
Euroleague.net reports:
The Turkish Airlines Euroleague runner-up Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv keeps adding to its roster for he 2011-12 season with the signing of promising guard Jon Scheyer on a two-year-contract. Sheyer (1.96 meters, 23 years old) made a name for himself as a college star at Duke University, which he led to the 2010 NCAA title. He was named a consensus second-team All-American after his senior season, when he averaged 18.2 points, 4.9 assists and 3.6 rebounds. He finished his career as Duke’s top-ranked player ever in games played, with 144. He also made Duke’s career top-ten list in scoring, three-pointers made, free throws made, steals and minutes played.
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Rich Cho became the third General Manager in Charlotte Bobcats history on June 14, 2011, and will enter his first season with the Bobcats in 2011-12. As General Manager, Cho will collaborate with Bobcats President of Basketball Operations Rod Higgins in areas including player acquisitions, salary cap management and compliance with league rules and the collective bargaining agreement.
A native of Burma who immigrated to the United States with his family in 1968 when he was three years old, Cho became the first Asian-American general manager in American major league sports when he served as General Manager of the Portland Trail Blazers in 2010-11.
Prior to his stint in Portland, Cho spent the previous 10 seasons as Assistant General Manager of the Seattle SuperSonics/Oklahoma City Thunder. Cho entered the NBA as an intern with the SuperSonics in 1995 while earning a law degree from Pepperdine University School of Law.
After serving as a part-time consultant for the SuperSonics in 1997, Cho was hired as the team’s Director of Basketball Affairs in 1998 before being promoted to Assistant General Manager in 2000.
A member of the Washington State Bar, Cho also served as Vice President of Legal for the SuperSonics from 2005-07 in addition to his duties as Assistant GM. In that role, he was responsible for all legal work involved with sponsorship agreements, licensing issues, employment contracts and immigration issues.
Following the team’s move to Oklahoma City, Cho also oversaw the Thunder’s D-League affiliate, the Tulsa 66ers, and their run to the championship game in 2009-10.
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The AP reports:
“It’s an odd position, when the game is the best it’s ever been, when the ratings are the highest they’ve ever been, when the excitement is the greatest it’s ever (been),” Players Association attorney Jeffrey Kessler said last week. “It’s sort of odd to see the owners say we’re going to destroy this game unless you change this whole system. Players just want to play.”
Nobody can predict when they’ll get that chance again. When the Dallas Mavericks finished off the Miami Heat on Sunday night in Game 6, it sent the NBA into a most uncertain offseason.
Owners and players are nowhere close on a new collective bargaining agreement to replace the one that expires June 30. Without a new deal, players say they have been told by the owners they will be locked out.
The NBA was reduced to a 50-game season by a work stoppage in 1998-99, and the loss of games is a threat now. Citing leaguewide losses of about $300 million this season, the league hasn’t budged on its desire for significant changes to the financial structure, ranging from reductions in the length of contracts and the amount of guarantees, to an overhaul of the salary cap system that would prevent teams from being able to exceed it, as they can now under certain exceptions.
And Stern said the record TV ratings and all the other positive attention the league has received doesn’t make him any more motivated to get this settled, since he’d want to do it anyway.
“I don’t need any external prod to want to be able to make a deal,” he said…
The sides are scheduled to meet twice this week and say they hope for frequent discussions before the end of the month. Should those fail, the NBA could follow the NFL’s labor situation right into the court system, which both sides say they want to avoid. So although a work stoppage in July wouldn’t seem to have much effect since games aren’t going on, Stern insists “we very much feel the weight of the deadline.”
ESPN and the AP report:
Police say former Duke basketball player Thomas Emma plunged from the 12th floor of the New York Athletic Club in Manhattan to his death in an apparent suicide.
Police say Emma’s body was found at 11:30 a.m. ET Tuesday on a second-floor landing of the building on Central Park South.
The athletic club had no comment.
Emma, 49, was drafted in the 10th round of the 1983 NBA draft by the Chicago Bulls, but never played for them.
In 110 career games for the Blue Devils, including 71 starts, Emma scored 784 points (7.1 ppg) and had 245 assists.
The AP reports:
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Charles Oakley, one of the NBA’s all-time tough guys, may not return to the Charlotte Bobcats’ bench next season because of a painful back condition he says was caused during an assault last year in Las Vegas.
Oakley, who was in his first season as an assistant coach, had to be carried from the bench before a game in San Antonio on March 19. He missed Charlotte’s final 13 games with a sciatic nerve problem.
The 47-year-old Oakley, still moving gingerly, attended Charlotte’s workout of draft prospects Saturday. As he contemplates surgery, Oakley said he told general manager Rod Higgins to consider replacing him on coach Paul Silas’ staff…
Oakley has sued the Aria hotel-casino, claiming he was beaten by security guards in May 2010. Oakley is convinced the incident led to his current condition…
The complaint contends five officers wrestled the 6-foot-9 Oakley to the ground and punched and handcuffed him after a verbal dispute over whether Oakley could return to a VIP pool area. It said Oakley was taken to the hospital with injuries to his neck, back, head and wrist. Oakley said Saturday two slipped disks suffered in the incident led to the sciatic nerve condition.
The AP reports:
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Charles Oakley, one of the NBA’s all-time tough guys and now a Charlotte Bobcats assistant, has sued a Las Vegas resort over what he calls a May 2010 “gang-style beat down” by security guards who injured him.
Oakley filed the lawsuit Thursday in Clark County District Court against the Aria hotel-casino at MGM Resorts International’s CityCenter complex, the Las Vegas Sun reported. Five security officers also were named in the lawsuit.
Oakley was an invited guest at Aria’s VIP pool area May 28 when he left the area, the complaint says, but security officers and staff prevented him from re-entering.
After a “verbal altercation” with officers, Oakley attempted to return to his room when he was “assaulted” by them in a secluded area of the resort, the lawsuit alleges.
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The AP reports:
Despite uncertainty about the Hornets’ ownership, how long they’ll be in New Orleans, or even if there’ll be an NBA season in 2011-12, support for the club appears to be building among fans and businesses in Louisiana.
The club has sold about 8,000 full-season tickets for 2011-12, up from about 6,300 when the 2010-11 season began.
“Being ahead of where we were last year is really a good sign considering that we’re at the beginning of May,” said Matt Biggers, the Hornets’ senior vice president of marketing. “We still have a lot of work to do because we want to get to 10,000 (season tickets), so we’re going to keep working hard all offseason to get to that number.” …
The Hornets have set their season ticket goal at 10,000 because that is about what they had in 2008-09, the last time the club turned a profit. Attendance averaged just under 17,000 that season, compared to just more than 14,700 this season, which ranked 26th in the NBA out of 30 clubs.
The AP reports:
Police say Charlotte Bobcats forward Dante Cunningham faces a drug-possession charge after police found a small amount of marijuana in his pickup during a traffic stop in suburban Philadelphia.
Radnor Township Police Superintendent William Colarulo says officers responding to a reckless driving complaint on Friday stopped the former Villanova star.
Colarulo says officers smelled marijuana and recovered a suspicious substance after Cunningham consented to a search. That search also turned up a pellet gun in violation of a local ordinance.
Update: The Charlotte Bobcats released the following statement regarding forward Dante Cunningham. “We are aware of the unfortunate incident involving Dante Cunningham in Pennsylvania. We are in the process of gathering more information and will have no further comment until the legal process has run its course.”
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Quentin Richardson of the Orlando Magic has been suspended two games without pay for shoving Gerald Henderson of the Charlotte Bobcats in the face, it was announced today by Stu Jackson, NBA Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations.
The incident occurred with 8:30 remaining in the fourth quarter of the Magic’s 111-102 victory over the Bobcats at Time Warner Cable Arena on April 6. Richardson will serve his suspension on Sunday, April 10 when the Magic host the Chicago Bulls at Amway Center, and on Monday, April 11 when the Magic play the Philadelphia 76ers at Wells Fargo Center.
InsideHoops.com editor says: I think Q-Rich thought Gerald Henderson’s face was late in getting somewhere and he was merely trying to help out. OK, kidding. But seriously, a two-game suspension makes it seem like the NBA is treating Q-Rich’s face-shove of Henderson as something close to a punch, which is understandable. An aggressive face-shove is definitely worse than your average push and less than a punch, but still, the league wanted to make a clear statement not to act that way.
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