NBA Blog: The NBA basketball news blog section of Inside Hoops
The Game chalked up two points … and two broken bones … during a basketball game in L.A. this weekend … when a slam dunk went terribly wrong.
TMZ has learned … Game broke a bone in his thumb and his wrist during a playoff game in the famous Drew League in Los Angeles.
According to our sources, Game fell after a slam dunk … and while he was on the ground, somebody accidentally stomped on his right hand … crushing the bones.
— Reported by TMZ
Maalik Wayns left Villanova a year early to pursue his dream of playing in the NBA. It appears that dream will come true, in his hometown no less.
A source confirmed Saturday that Wayns has agreed to a free-agent deal with the 76ers.
The deal reportedly is similar to the one Lavoy Allen received after the Sixers took him in the second round of the 2011 NBA Draft, No. 50 overall, the source said. Allen reportedly received a $60,000 signing bonus and then received the rookie minimum of $473,604 after making the team.
— Reported by Terry Toohey of the Times Herald
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Kevin Durant, the scoring champ in question, has not played in an Olympics before. Like any newcomer, he wants to be liked. So time and again during the U.S. team’s brief time together this year, Durant has passed up the sort of open shots that he drills with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
“I told KD (Durant) to just be himself,” LeBron James said Sunday after Durant led the U.S. with 22 points and added nine rebounds in a game that was only close for one quarter. “On a team like this you can kind of shy away because there are so many great players here. But KD’s on this team for a reason. He’s one of the best players the world has and he’s a three-time scoring champ. So we don’t want the KD that defers. We want the KD that he is in Oklahoma City.”
James seemed determined to make that KD show up on Sunday. He threw the ball to Durant every time he could, passing up one open shot after another to get the ball to Durant. It was a bit ironic, considering that Durant and James went head-to-head in the NBA Finals this season when the Miami Heat defeated the Thunder.
— Reported by Scott Fowler of the Charlotte Observer
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Andre Iguodala is competing in his first Olympics here. But he might have been able to play in 2004 and 2008, if he’d wanted to.
Thing is, he wouldn’t have been playing with Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. He would have been playing against them.
Iguodala’s father is Nigerian. So he was invited to try out for – and in this case, “try out for” means “make” – the Nigerian Olympic squad. That team, which includes Penn grad Koko Archibong, will compete in these Games with nine American-born players on its roster.
This is the first time Nigeria qualified for the Olympics, but with Iguodala aboard, who knows if the team would have made it sooner?
— Reported by Phil Sheridan of the Philadelphia Inquirer
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Moments after Team USA’s men’s basketball team fried the French yesterday, 98-71, in its Olympic opener yesterday before 12,000 at Olympic Park’s basketball arena, Nicolas Batum wasn’t convinced.
The Frenchman and rising NBA star said the American juggernaut can be beaten — not by only one Olympic club, but several.
“You have to play a 40-minute game [to do it],’’ said Batum, who plays for the Trail Blazers. “Rebound, take care of the ball and play good defense. Some team can do it. I think some team can beat them, really. Spain, Argentina, Brazil. A lot of teams can beat them.’’
Oh those French. USA looked invincible after the first quarter as it forced France into 18 turnovers and outrebounded it, 56-40, to get off to an Olympic start as sweet as fresh French pastry.
But a 27-point win against a good French club wasn’t good enough for Batum, who may want to watch when the Americans face Tunisia tomorrow in what will be the Olympics’ biggest mismatch.
— Reported by Marc Berman of the New York Post
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Yao Ming doesn’t give many interviews anymore, but he stopped long enough yesterday as he entered the Olympic Park’s basketball arena to give a thumbs up to Jeremy Lin leaving the Knicks and joining his former club, the Rockets.
The 7-foot-6 Yao is doing Olympic commentary for Chinese TV and worked Spain’s 97-81 victory over China. When asked what he thought of Lin joining the Rockets, Yao told The Post, “It will be good for both of them, Jeremy and Houston.’’
Yao declined further comment, saying he is here for the Olympics.
— Reported by Marc Berman of the New York Post
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Slashing to the rim, blocking shots and getting out in transition in Russia’s first game of the Olympics, Andrei Kirilenko looked every bit the all-around force he was as a young man with the Utah Jazz.
“I feel great,” Kirilenko said after scoring 35 points on 14-for-17 shooting against Britain on Sunday. “Look at me. I’m running like a young deer.”
The only people happier with his performance than the Russians had to be the Minnesota Timberwolves. After skipping last season to play in his native Moscow, Kirilenko signed a two-year, $20 million contract with the Wolves on Friday.
Kirilenko will be bringing Russian teammate Alexey Shved with him to the Timberwolves next season. Shved had 16 points and 13 assists against overmatched Britain.
“If I’m the Minnesota Timberwolves, I have a big, fat smile on my face,” Russian coach David Blatt said.
— Reported by the Associated Press
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One of the competition’s most productive wing players last season switched Turkish Airlines Euroleague clubs on Monday when CSKA Moscow announced the arrival of small forward Sonny Weems, who inked a three-year deal with his new team. Weems (1.98 meters, 26 years old) arrives from Zalgiris Kaunas, where he averaged 15.5 points and 5 rebounds in 15 Euroleague games last season, his first in the competition. He was the third-best scorer in the 2011-12 Euroleague, trailing only Alphonso Ford Top Scoring Trophy winner Bo McCalebb and Final Four MVP Vassilis Spanoulis. Weems came to Kaunas from Toronto of the NBA, where he averaged 9.2 points and 2.6 rebounds in 59 games in 2010-11.
— Reported by Euroleague.net
Glen Taylor, who has owned the Timberwolves for 18 seasons and the Lynx for 13, has found the successor he has been looking for. In the near future, Taylor will close a deal to sell 25 percent of the franchises, and eventually the new owner will own the majority.
Unfortunately, the buyer is from outside the Twin Cities, but Taylor insists he will continue to own a share of the two teams and will make sure that they don’t move out of the state.
“Yes, I have [found a buyer], and we’re working on trying to put a deal together, and it would be a deal that would leave me involved for a number of years yet, but it would be a good transition,” Taylor said Sunday.
“I will be an owner for a number of years but gradually bring in a partner, if this would work out. I’d bring in a partner and … we’d work together. In the initial years, he would have less than 50 percent and then in the later years he would have more than 50 percent and would have the ownership.”
— Reported by Sid Hartman of the Minneapolis Star Tribune
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Luol Deng always knew this Olympic experience would be about more than final scores.
So minutes after Great Britain opened preliminary round play at a raucous Basketball Arena Sunday night with a 95-75 loss to Russia, the All-Star Bulls’ forward offered as much postgame eloquence as he had in-game sweat while playing all but 63 seconds.
“It was a special moment,” Deng said after his 26-point effort. “For us growing up, basketball didn’t get much attention. We’re playing against the world where basketball is everything in their country. We have dreams. We want to develop the game. Hopefully, we have youngsters watching and following our footsteps.”
This is Great Britain’s first Olympic basketball appearance since 1964. It’s Deng’s first Games. He is playing in with a torn ligament in his left wrist as some way to repay the country that offered his family political asylum from war-torn Sudan.
“This is why I chose to do this,” Deng said.
— Reported by K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune
Deng led Great Britain with 26 points, but was unusually inefficient, shooting 8-of-27 from the field, including 2-of-11 from beyond the arc. Deng, one of only two NBA players on the national team (Joel Freeland), was forced to shoot early and often to try and keep pace with the Russians. He also played a team-high 39 minutes in the loss.
Last year Deng’s shooting percentage dropped nearly five percentage points, from 46.0 to 41.2 percent. It’s unknown whether Deng will require wrist surgery or opt to have it after the Olympics, which would cause him to miss 3-4 months.
— Reported by CSN Chicago