Stephen Curry said he got assurances from general manager Larry Riley and coach Mark Jackson that he’s staying with the Warriors. The point guard has been rumored as part of a trade package that would bring Chris Paul from New Orleans.
Question: Have you talked to anyone with the Warriors about the rumors?
Stephen Curry: “I’ve talked to Larry (Riley), and I’ve talked to Coach (Mark) Jackson. They told me that I’m safe and secure here with the Warriors. They want me here. Obviously, this is a business and there are things can happen where a GM has to make a decision in the best interest of the team. When you have a guy like, Chris Paul, who is a franchise-changer, it’s something you have to think about with anybody on your roster. I understand that, and I’m not going to be upset if they entertain it. It’s nice to be in the conversation with a guy like that. It’s something that is going to happen when you’re in this business, and you have to run with it.”
First it was Chris Paul wanting to be traded to the New York Knicks. Now it’s the Lakers engaging in trade talks with the New Orleans Hornets for him. Soon, word will leak that it’s the Clippers or the Heat or the Mavericks putting out feelers.
And this is how it will be until Paul is moved.
And this is why, if the team and player can’t reach an accord on his future in New Orleans, it has to be done as soon as possible.
Paul doesn’t have to declare an intent to leave New Orleans for teams to inquire about trading for him. It’s natural for them to do so. He’s entering the final year of his contract, the franchise has no owner, the team isn’t expected to contend for the NBA title and the Hornets can’t afford to let him play all season and walk away at the end without receiving any compensation.
Thanks to the 149-day NBA lockout, Ariza now finds himself three hours closer to a degree from UCLA, thanks to the American History class he successfully completed in Westwood — with a B-plus, thank you very much.
“Just one; got to ease back into that,” Ariza said of course work, which he left behind at UCLA in 2004 when he turned pro after one year of college. He was playing as a 19-year-old off the bench for the Knicks, who made him a second-round pick. “It was History 140D, Professor Corey.
“It was great. B-plus is good. I’ve been out of school for eight years. To go back and get a B-plus, that’s big for me. It was like starting all over again. You’ve got to put time in, just like you work at your job, or in basketball or whatever. You’ve got to put your time in, study, take notes in class, talk to the teacher. Try to find out all the information you can.”
Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge said Thursday that he has no intentions of trading point guard Rajon Rondo and suggested he’s unsure where the rumors that insinuated that he was lusting over New Orleans star Chris Paul originated this week.
After noting that he wanted to keep his core together and later identifying that core as the team’s four All-Stars (Rondo, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett), Ainge was asked point blank if he was planning to trade Rondo.
“I’m not, no,” bottom-lined Ainge during a press conference with coach Doc Rivers to discuss the team’s post-lockout agenda.
“I”ll talk to Rondo,” Ainge added. “But I won’t tell you what I’ll say to him. Rondo will be fine, Rondo knows that we love him. He knows that we like him. He’s excited to come back and play basketball, in my opinion. He gets a lot of attention; He’s a great player. There’s a lot of people that call me and aks me about Rondo. So, how these rumors get out, it’s unfortunate, but we didn’t leak those rumors out. We’ll deal with it. He’ll be fine.”
All of the chatter about Boston’s interest in Chris Paul is a moot point because the All-Star point guard will not sign a long-term contract extension with the Celtics, according to a person close to the situation.
Paul, who will become a free agent after the coming season, essentially has veto power over any trade because no team will give up valuable assets for him without assurance that it can sign him for the next several years.
Boston would love to acquire Paul for a package built around point guard Rajon Rondo, and has been seeking a third trading partner to sweeten an offer to New Orleans. But Paul’s reluctance to commit to Boston long-term should quickly put an end to the scenario.
Despite swirling speculation he may soon leave, Chris Paul insisted on Tuesday that his heart is in New Orleans.
Paul can opt out of his contract with the team and become a free agent at the end of the season.
He was asked at a charity event in Brooklyn about speculation that he could soon join the New York Knicks.
“I try not to pay attention to all that different type of stuff,” Paul said. “My heart is in New Orleans.”
Paul, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony were in New York on Tuesday to help deliver 800 meals to families in conjunction with Anthony’s foundation, Feed the Children and The Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
Sources have told ESPN The Magazine’s Chris Broussard that Paul would eventually like to end up in New York permanently.
Sources told Broussard that Paul’s first choice is to team up with Anthony and Amare Stoudemire in New York to form a “Big Three” similar to the Miami Heat’s trio of James, Wade and forward Chris Bosh.
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
The proposed world tour of NBA elite amid the league’s lockout won’t include at least one of the Miami Heat’s Big Three.
LeBron James, whose name had been thrown into the mix for the two-week tour that opens Sunday in Puerto Rico and is scheduled to then include stops in London, Macau and Australia, will not be among the participants.
A source close to the Heat forward Wednesday told the Sun Sentinel that James had never committed to the tour and added that James is not participating, “due to previous commitments.”
…
In the wake of the Sun Sentinel being informed of James not joining the tour, ESPN reported that New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony and New Orleans Hornets guard Chris Paul also would not be participating. With Wade close to those two, his interest could also be waning.
— Reported by Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel
New Orleans Hornets star Chris Paul and his family will play “Family Feud” next week to benefit Paul’s CP3 Foundation. The episode is scheduled to air at 3 p.m. Tuesday (Nov. 1) on WGNO…
Family members participating in the game show will be Chris, brother C.J., dad Charles, mom Robin and aunt Rhonda.
The opposing team will be the O’Haras from Revere, Mass. They’ll play for $100,000 and a car.
Two-time scoring champion Kevin Durant can still fill up a stat sheet, Chris Paul can still orchestrate a team and LeBron James is still a highlight waiting to happen.
What they haven’t been able to do is find a deal with the NBA that they find acceptable enough to play real games again.
The All-Stars all took part in a charity exhibition game Sunday night in Oklahoma City, with hometown hero Durant recording a triple-double with 42 points, 26 rebounds and 11 assists to lead his team to a 176-171 victory in overtime.
Durant and a star-studded White team including James and Westbrook overcame a fourth-quarter deficit to beat a Blue team that featured Anthony and Paul.
James had three buckets—a pair of layups and a left-handed jam—in a 20-2 fourth-quarter run that put the White team ahead for the first time since the opening period. Durant finished it off with a 3-pointer from the right wing to make it 152-143.
Harden answered with back-to-back 3-pointers before Beasley’s fast-break dunk during a string of eight straight Blue points, and Harden hit another 3 from the top of the key for a 159-158 lead with 54.3 seconds left.
Durant answered with a 3 from the left wing with 30.4 seconds left, and Anthony’s layup with 13.1 seconds remaining sent it to overtime tied at 161.
Durant missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer, and the game went to overtime. James put the White team ahead to stay with back-to-back jumpers early in the extra period.
Paul was the playmaker early on, dishing out 13 assists in the first quarter — more than one per minute. He zoomed past Durant for a layup, set up a pair of dunks by Beasley and just kept orchestrating the Blue offense. His last assist of the quarter came on a bounce pass that skipped high into the air for a James Harden alley-oop dunk, and then he finished off the period with a 3-pointer from the top of the key as the buzzer sounded.
— Reported by Jeff Latzke of the Associated Press
In a game featuring Durant, LeBron, Melo, Westbrook and Paul, would you believe me if I told you that Michael Beasley was the game’s top scorer? Be-Easy, as Rawls called him throughout the night, dropped a game-high 56 points and did it on an absurdly-efficient 25-for-35 from the field. But here’s something to keep in mind: Beasley did almost all of that during the first three quarters, when the game was an up-and-down, no-defense affair. When the game got serious in the final 11 minutes (including overtime), Beasley, who was on the floor, didn’t score, much less shoot.
The preferred shot of choice in this game? The 3. Of the 278 field goal attempts, 82 came from behind the 3-point arc (the Blue team finished 14-for-41 from 3, while the White was 13-for-41). The best shooter was Carmelo, who went 5-for-9 from deep. The biggest chuckers, though? Durant (7-for-17 from 3) and Harden (6-for-17) who went a combined 13-34 from deep.
Chris Paul had 25 assists for the game. While that number alone might impress you, consider this: He had 13 — yes, 13 — in the first eight minutes of the game. And they weren’t just easy alley-oops or drop-offs to Melo for a dunk. CP3 busted out an array of maneuvers and no-look passes to pile up his assists.
