Mavericks name Paul Westphal VP of basketball operations

The Dallas Mavericks announced today that they have named Paul Westphal executive vice president of basketball operations. He will work directly with President of Basketball Operations/General Manager Donnie Nelson and assist in all areas of management as well as scouting.

Westphal, a 12-year NBA veteran, brings 25 years of coaching experience to his new role. Westphal owns a .627 winning percentage as an NBA coach and led the Phoenix Suns to the 1993 NBA Finals. In 1995, he became the second-fastest coach in NBA history to reach 150 wins. The Suns surpassed the 55-win mark in each of his three seasons in Phoenix. Last season, Westphal served as an assistant coach for the Mavericks.

As a player, Westphal was the 10th overall selection by the Boston Celtics in the 1972 NBA Draft. His career included stints in Boston, Phoenix, New York and Seattle. He was a member of the 1974 NBA Champion Boston Celtics and played in the 1976 Finals as a member of the Suns.

“I can’t tell you how excited we are to add Westy to our management team,” Nelson said. “The Mavericks have gained a valuable asset. As a player and coach, Paul has pretty much seen and done it all. He has a wealth of experience and expertise. Now he has the opportunity to apply that knowledge on the management side of the ball and the Mavericks are a much better team for it.”

Jared Jeffries breaks leg

The Bergen Record (Steve Adamek) reports via blog: Jared Jeffries was supposed to have a significant role in Mike D’Antoni’s rotation this season, even playing a little center as the Knicks’ version of Boris Diaw, whom D’Antoni played everywhere in Phoenix. Instead, the player considered a disappointment his first two seasons in New York after Isiah Thomas signed him to a five-year, $30 million mid-level salary cap-exception deal will start his third straight season injured after breaking his leg landing awkwardly late in Thursday’s practice. The team estimates he’ll miss six to eight weeks.

The New York Post (Marc Berman) reports: Jeffries had so impressed the new coaching staff and D’Antoni all but admitted he would be part of their expected nine-man rotation, classifying him as a center. D’Antoni felt he was misused as a small forward. “He’s 6-11, 250 pounds, that spells center to me,” D’Antoni said before the bad news. “He’s big, running the floor, great defensive player. He worked on his shot all summer, came ready to play. The guy does lots of things.”

Brian Cook out of shape

Florida Today (John Denton) reports: Despite losing weight and getting back healthy over the summer, Orlando Magic forward Brian Cook has still managed to work his way into head coach Stan Van Gundy’s doghouse. Three days into training camp and it’s already apparent that Cook’s conditioning isn’t where the Magic would like for it to be. It certainly isn’t a serious situation this early in camp, as Van Gundy pointed out, but it could hurt Cook’s chances of getting significant minutes off the bench as the backup power forward.

Suns offense to change a bit

The Arizona Republic (Paul Coro) reports: The Suns’ offense will be different. Based on what sets coach Terry Porter has implemented in two days, it appears that it will be more motion-oriented and deliberate at times. Porter embraces a transition game to reward stops, but there will be no constant “run-and-gun.” It’s more “cut-and-what?” now as they learn plays. “From what I’ve seen so far it’s very different, but he’s not going to throw everything at us at once,” forward Grant Hill said. “It’ll be interesting to see if we totally get away from some of the old stuff.” Porter has used each session to walk the Suns through plays. Part of the reason Porter was hired was his ability to blend new and old, having spent time as a player and coach under Rick Adelman’s similar style. Under Mike D’Antoni, the Suns averaged 110.1 points last season and led the NBA in field-goal shooting the past three seasons. Alvin Gentry returned to the Suns bench, in part to help maintain some of the offense… Don’t expect Amaré Stoudemire experimenting out there anymore. He wants to post up more.

Donte Green does not know defense

The Sacramento Bee (Melody Gutierrez) reports on Kings rookie Donte Green: “I’ve got my work cut out for me,” Reggie Theus said after Tuesday’s training camp session. “(Greene plays) great offense and has no basic understanding of how to play defense.” Theus said he considers the forward a “project player,” because he has “never really been taught anything about defense at all.” Greene admits his weakness, saying it has been a tough transition from his season at Syracuse, where the Orange played zone defense. “Before that, he was in high school, where they don’t learn anything about defense,” Theus said. “But it’s OK, because he’s got a lot of room to grow.”

Michael Curry bleeds Pistons colors

The Detroit Free Press (Drew Sharp) reports: The Pistons always have been Michael Curry’s second family. It’s basically why he replaced Flip Saunders as head coach. It bothered owner Bill Davidson that Saunders didn’t move his family to Detroit when he succeeded Larry Brown three years ago. Davidson made a point of reminding everybody that Curry doesn’t just work in the area. He lives here. He’s part of the community. He travels with Michigan State’s football team as often as possible to follow his son Deon, a senior wide receiver. That heightened sense of family might not translate into more playoff victories, but it definitely has helped Curry persevere.

Jazz center Kyrylo Fesenko out of shape

The Salt Lake Tribune (Ross Siler) reports: For the second consecutive day, Jazz center Kyrylo Fesenko could be found working out on the court with Jeff Hornacek before the team bus arrived for evening practice at training camp. However encouraging the sight might have been, coach Jerry Sloan made clear Wednesday that Fesenko’s conditioning still leaves much to be desired for a player entering his second season. Sloan said Fesenko has yet to “realize the importance of being in great shape, because when you aren’t in great shape, you have a tendency to always be behind, whether it’s offensively or defensively or reacting, and those things really hurt you.”

InsideHoops.com editor says: Fesenko’s first name has two Y’s, in seemingly random places. That’s bound to cause conditioning problems.

Warriors sign Dan Dickau

The Golden State Warriors have signed free agent guard Dan Dickau to a contract, Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Chris Mullin announced today. Per team policy, terms of the deal were not announced.

Dickau, 30, has appeared in 300 regular-season games during his six-year NBA career, owning career averages of 5.8 points, 2.5 assists, 1.4 rebounds and 15.4 minutes per game with Atlanta, Portland, Dallas, New Orleans, Boston and the Los Angeles Clippers. The 6-0 guard spent last season with the Clippers, appearing in 67 games (eight starts) and averaging 5.3 points and 2.6 assists in 15.5 minutes, while shooting 41.9% from the field, 33.3% from three-point range and 82.9% from the free throw line.

A native of Portland, OR, Dickau had his finest NBA season in 2004-05, averaging 12.5 points, 4.9 assists, 2.5 rebounds and 1.07 steals in 71 games combined with Dallas and New Orleans. Following his trade from the Mavericks to the Hornets on December 3, 2004, the Gonzaga University product received the most extended playing time of his career and appeared in 67 games (46 starts) for New Orleans, averaging 13.2 points, 5.2 assists and 2.7 rebounds in 31.0 minutes per game.

Dickau will wear uniform #10. With the signing, Golden State currently has 19 players under contract.

Ben Gordon signs one-year Bulls qualifying offer

The Chicago Bulls today announced that guard Ben Gordon agreed to accept the one-year qualifying offer ($6.4 million) that had been tendered to him by the team. Gordon will thus be under contract with the Bulls for the 2008-09 season, at which time he will become an unrestricted free agent.

The 6-3, 200-pound Gordon has appeared in 316 games, including 128 starting assignments, in four seasons with the Bulls. During that time, he has averaged 18.0 ppg, 2.9 rpg and 2.9 apg, while shooting .432 from the field and .416 from three-point range. Last season in 72 games, he led the team in scoring for the third consecutive season, posting 18.6 ppg and shot a career-high .908 percent (third in NBA) from the free throw line. Gordon was selected by the Bulls in the first round (third overall) in the 2004 NBA Draft.

InsideHoops.com editor says: Gordon should have taken the more-than-generous Bulls offer that was widely reported to be a multi-year deal for around $10 million per season. Assuming he plays as well as he usually does, the Bulls may wind up making the same offer next summer. Each year only a few teams are under the salary cap, and it’s doubtful any are going to offer Ben a better deal than what Chicago is.

Kings add Abdur-Rahim to coaching staff

The Sacramento Kings today added Shareef Abdur-Rahim to their coaching staff as an assistant coach, it was announced by Kings’ President of Basketball Operations Geoff Petrie. Abdur-Rahim, a 12-year NBA veteran, recently retired his playing career due a reoccurring knee injury.

Abdur-Rahim enjoyed 12 seasons in the NBA with four different teams (Vancouver 1996-97 to 2000-01, Atlanta 2001-02 to 2003-04, Portland 2003-04 to 2004-05 and Sacramento 2005-06 to 2007-08), amassing career averages of 18.1 points (.452 FGs, .297 3FGs, .810 FTs), 7.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game through 830 outings. His most productive season, statistically, occurred during the 1998-99 campaign in Vancouver when he averaged 23.0 points (.432 FGs, .306 3FGs, .841 FTs), 7.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game through 50 contests (NBA Lockout season). The following season (1999-00), Abdur-Rahim averaged double figures in both points (20.3) and rebounds (10.1) per game, in which he played in all 82 contests for the Grizzlies.

Abdur-Rahim was a member of the gold-medal winning United States Olympic team in 2000 while still with the Vancouver Grizzlies. He was selected to the Eastern Conference NBA All-Star Team where he scored nine points in 21 minutes as a member of the Atlanta Hawks in 2002.

On December 28, 2002, Abdur-Rahim became the sixth-youngest player in NBA history to reach the 10,000-point plateau when he scored 18 points at Washington at age 26, trailing only Kobe Bryant, Bob McAdoo, Shaquille O’Neal, Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with that distinction. He scored a career-high 50 points (including a career-high 21 field goals made) versus Detroit on November 23, 2001, becoming the first Hawks player to hit that mark since Dominique Wilkins poured in 52 points in 1991.

Selected by the Vancouver Grizzlies (now Memphis) as an undergraduate out of California with the third pick of the 1996 NBA Draft, Abdur-Rahim has a long-standing history of community service involvement. He was named by The Sporting News as the NBA’s Number 1 Good Guy for 2004 after funding the Reef House in Atlanta through his Atlanta-based Future Foundation with the purpose of assisting at-risk and underprivileged youth.