Basketball Trade Rumors - NBA Rumors from legitimate sources

The Power Of Maybe: LeBron Selling Knicks Tickets

Darren Rovell

In just a couple of weeks, the New York Knicks have taken deposits on 1,800 new season tickets. For those keeping score at home, that's the fastest the team has sold this many new season tickets in its storied history.

Considering the team is heading for another losing season and hasn't won a playoff series in a decade, it can be assumed that all this excitement has to do with the anticipation of the free agents the team is going to sign for next season.

"We didn't hit this number until about August 15 of last year, which was a record year," said MSG Sports president Scott O'Neil. "We are on fire."

The question is, how will the people who have put down $250 or $500 react based on what free agents the Knicks get? How many are LeBron or bust? How many will pay the rest — which by the way, the prices haven't been determined yet — if the Knicks land Chris Bosh or Joe Johnson?

"There's certainly anticipation of adding two superstars to New York," O'Neil said. "I think there's also a sense of, most of us remember the 90s when you couldn't get a ticket to a Knicks game."

Despite its struggles, the team will sell out 28 games this year.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/35780977

Sixers coach Jordan on way out, sources say

Kate Fagan

Comcast-Spectacor is ready to fire 76ers coach Eddie Jordan, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation.

Several other sources also indicated that the organization will "seriously evaluate" Sixers general manager Ed Stefanski, who hired Jordan less than a year ago.

One of these sources indicated that the company had considered terminating Jordan earlier, but likely was "deterred" by the early-season firing of former Flyers coach John Stevens.

Comcast-Spectacor owns both franchises.

These sources indicated that Jordan could be fired before this season ends - if it becomes obvious he has lost the team - but more likely after the final game of this dismal season.

One of these sources also characterized Comcast-Spectacor chairman Ed Snider as "up in arms" about Jordan's coaching effort, with another source with intimate knowledge of the management's thinking calling Jordan's coaching "baffling."

An NBA source said Jordan's philosophy, which is overloaded on the offensive side with his high-IQ "Princeton" offense, was a mistake at its inception.

"The apathy for this team is back to where it was" in the '90s, the NBA source said. "This team, with that much cap space, at least should be one of the top five teams in the East."

The Sixers are maxed out on salaries through next season, at which point multiple contracts expire. The NBA source said the situation can be fixed. The hiring of a defensive-minded coach whose style would mesh with the team's athletic roster could return the Sixers to the playoffs.

According to sources close to the team, the players "no longer believe in Jordan's coaching system or philosophies" and are trying to finish this season strong for pride and contractual obligation.

The Sixers took a 23-39 record into last night's game, all but mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. Last season, the Sixers finished 41-41, losing to the Orlando Magic in the first round of the playoffs.

In May 2009, Stefanski signed Jordan, who had worked with him for the New Jersey Nets, to a four-year contract worth about $12 million to $13 million. But the fourth year is a team option, as confirmed by a source with knowledge of the deal, meaning the Sixers could fire Jordan after this season and would have to pay him only through the 2011-12 season.

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/sixers/87198237.html

West: No interest in Clippers job

Ken Berger

The first name that came to mind after the Clippers' rude and unceremonious news release came out Tuesday night announcing Mike Dunleavy's firing was none other than Jerry West. The Logo had been long rumored to be a candidate to take over the Clippers' woebegone basketball operations if -- and, as it turned out, when -- they finally "severed ties" with Dunleavy.

From West himself Tuesday night: Not gonna happen.

"No contact, no interest, not looking to work anymore," West said by telephone after the Dunleavy news broke. "Time for someone younger to have an opportunity to do something. I have not been contacted, nor would I have any interest."

But West, who was at the center of speculation to take over the Knicks' basketball operations when Isiah Thomas was deposed two years ago, left the door open ever so slightly to returning to a front office in some capacity.

"Unless there was something that was along the lines of a consultant job -- a working consultant," West said. "I don’t want a title or need a title. It was fun to be involved. It's a tough business. But I'm not looking for a job nor am I putting my name out there for any job. I've always felt we all have a lifespan with what we’re doing. Mine has been served."

West, 71, left the Memphis Grizzlies after his contract expired in 2007 and hasn't been involved in running a team since. The architect of two Lakers dynasties is forever linked with job openings, though. Another credible Jerry -- Colangelo -- would be high on any serious team's list of candidates. During All-Star weekend in Dallas, Colangelo tried to tamp down speculation that he was in the running to take over the Nets -- but also said if a team called, he'd listen.

Meantime, with another important draft and the biggest free-agent class in NBA history looming, the Clippers had better hope the promotion of assistant GM Neil Olshey works out. After reading the Clippers' brutally worded news release on Dunleavy's dismissal -- and knowing the organization's track record for losing and cheapness -- what credible candidate would want to work there?

"The team has simply not made sufficient progress during Dunleavy’s seven-year tenure," the news rocket said. "The Clippers want to win now."

And for the past quarter century, too, right?

The irony is that buried somewhere in all that dysfunction is a fairly promising roster and cap flexibility. Clippers fans can look forward to Blake Griffin's return in 2011-12, and Dunleavy left Donald Sterling enough cap space to get a marquee free agent if anybody wants to go.

http://ken-berger.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/11838893/20389780?source=rss_blogs_NBA

Where will John Wall fit in?

Frank Hughes

Barring some unforeseen cir*****stance, it appears Kentucky freshman point guard John Wall will become the NBA's next No. 1 draft pick.

But Wall will be entering the NBA a season after many of the 12 point guards taken in the first round of the 2009 draft have already made an impact. Tyreke Evans, Brandon Jennings and Stephen Curry are the top players in the class, and Ty Lawson, Jonny Flynn and Darren Collison, among others, are also getting high marks.

Combine that with a look at the projected lottery teams, and, with a few exceptions, a personnel shuffling will be needed no matter where Wall goes.

"You are getting a very valuable asset," one NBA executive said of Wall. "So regardless of what happens, you are going to come out ahead. Either you keep Wall and trade your existing point guard, or you keep what you have and you fill in your roster with what you can get by trading Wall."

Sure, a team could do that. But since the draft lottery began in 1985, only twice has a team traded away the top pick. (Cleveland chose Brad Daugherty No. 1 in 1986 after acquiring the pick from Philadelphia for Roy Hinson and cash. In 1993, the Magic selected Chris Webber first, then immediately traded him to the Warriors for Anfernee Hardaway and three future first-rounders.)

Holding the top pick in the draft brings an emotional attachment, for both the organization and its fans. For teams whose previous season was bad enough to land them in the lottery, the draft is their hope for the future. Their selections do not always turn out to be the saviors they had hoped for, but the draft is nonetheless a transformative moment, when the thought of acquiring one talented player is enough to rejuvenate a team's outlook and eventual climb back to respectability. (Think LeBron James.) Besides, the last thing a fan wants to hear is that a team is acquiring an asset that can be used to obtain other assets.

In Wall's situation, however, there likely will have to be some sort of maneuvering by the team that drafts him in order to make things work.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/frank_hughes/03/08/john.wall/

Sixers' Speights still positive despite second injury of season

BOB COONEY

Marreese Speights' season hasn't been much different than that of many other players and coaches in the organization - that is to say it has been frustrating, borderline maddening. But the second-year forward/center out of Florida has been able to keep that devilish grin present throughout the season. He is the team leader in fist-pounds and high-fives and any other sort of congratulatory demonstration he can think of.

As the team prepared at Conseco Fieldhouse yesterday for tonight's game against the Indiana Pacers, though, Speights sat his 6-10, 245-pound frame on the sideline of the practice court, his right knee wrapped in a huge ball of ice. He will be out tonight and will not practice tomorrow.

Speights came down awkwardly midway through the second quarter in Sunday's 114-101 win at Toronto, grasping at his right knee as play continued. He left the court immediately with the help of teammates. His first thoughts certainly weren't good ones. Speights had missed 14 games earlier this season when he sprained the medial collateral ligament in his left knee during a game in Chicago. This injury seemed much worse to him.

"It felt way worse than my other injury," Speights said. "But when I got up and started walking, it started to ease up a little bit, so I was walking regular. When I first did it, it hurt real bad. Everything goes through your head when you hurt your knee like that. I thought I tore my ACL, my MCL. I'm glad it's not really that serious. It's minor, so I'll come back from it."

Speights started the season as one of the first big men off the bench, and was doing a good job at it. Through the first 10 games of the season, Speights was averaging 11.4 points and six rebounds in close to 24 minutes. He also was shooting a blistering 54.8 percent from the floor.

He missed the next 14 games after suffering the left knee injury, but showed signs of being 100 percent. In his first eight games back from the injury, Speights still put up 12 points and 4.5 rebounds in an average of 20.6 minutes.

Then his playing time, and because of that his numbers, started to dip. Speights has averaged a little more than 12 minutes of playing time since Jan. 1 and scored in double figures in just four of the 30 games since then.

"It's just been an up-and-down year, but it's been an overall good year," Speights said. "The only thing I can complain about is me getting hurt. Other than that it's been a good year.

"This is the first time I've ever been out of any games. In high school I hurt my ankle, but it was nothing serious."

Throughout this dismal season, Speights has toughed it out.

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/sixers/20100309_Sixers__Speights_still_positive_despite_second_injury_of_season.html

O'Brien must go -- for the good of the bad Pacers

Bob Kravitz

Maybe Jim O'Brien is trying to get himself fired. Maybe he's gone in the tank, just as his team has done for the past few months, and is willing to take the cash for next season and move on back to Florida.

I've written it before, with a mild bit of hesitation.

I'm writing it now, with no hesitation, with major emphasis, with boldfaced capital letters.

O'BRIEN HAS GOT TO GO

We can all agree, this season was stillborn before it got past the first two weeks. Even in that home opener, they played with no energy, no passion, no clue. And it hasn't gotten any better all season.

Maybe that says more about this current group of players than it does about O'Brien, but you can't fire the players. Ultimately, they're not performing for this guy. They've checked out, zoned out, quit hearing his voice. If it was just a matter of losing, fine, but they're losing badly, losing by double digits, getting outworked on a regular basis.

This team came into the season with the most minimal of expectations. Win three or four more games than last year, end up with 40 total and maybe sneak into the playoffs in the top-heavy Eastern Conference. Instead, they've regressed.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20100307/SPORTS15/3070387/1034/SPORTS15/O-Brien-must-go-for-the-good-of-the-bad-Pacers

Knicks' Lee likes appeal of Nets

FRED KERBER

Nets center Brook Lopez really likes the idea of someday playing alongside current Knick David Lee.

And unlike some impending free agents who view the Nets as less desirable than waterboarding, Lee likes the Nets' potential more than their 7-55 record.

"The Nets are an interesting team," said Lee, sounding more like Phoenix's Amar'e Stoudemire and Memphis' Rudy Gay who claimed they would not be scared off by the Nets' hideous record. "They're a clear example of a team whose talent level doesn't reflect the record.

"If statistics work out, they get the No. 1 pick," Lee said, "They have a great center in Lopez, an All-Star point guard, Devin Harris, great athleticism with wings Chris Douglas-Roberts and Terrence Williams. They could have a big turnaround year next year if they get a good free agent and the No. 1 draft pick. It's going to be interesting which direction they go."

That direction could lead to Lee as one of the second-tier types the Nets could target with their $23.3 million cap space. Another is Gay who, like Lee, should do very well after the top shelf empties of the LeBron James, Dwyane Wade types.

The Nets see Gay tonight when they start a four-game road trip in Memphis, a trip where they will be without Yi Jianlian. He stayed behind with a sprained left ankle suffered in Saturday's 113-93 rout of the Knicks.

As a restricted free agent, Lee signed a $7 million one-year deal last summer with the Knicks. The Nets currently start Yi at power forward. While he gets rebound numbers (7.0), he's not the walking double-double Lee is and lacks his toughness.

"It would be great," Lopez said of possibly teaming with Lee, "a guy who loves to crash the offensive glass for so many extra possessions. Then with Yi, if you had the three of us playing together, it would be a great situation."

Now the trick is to get a guy like Lee, who has nothing decided. The Knicks have the most cap space, nearly $32 million, but two max guys would eliminate Lee from their plans. So the Brooklyn-bound Nets might appeal to Lee, who could shed his center position and play the four next to a legit 7-footer.

http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/nets/lee_likes_appeal_of_nets_CUZzQRPXyp8CzjOPCs4KGJ

Spurs' Ginobili will be in demand

Mike Monroe

When the Hornets made a fourth-quarter run at the Spurs in Friday's game at the AT&T Center, slicing a double-digit lead to five points, Manu Ginobili decided it was time to put away a team whose collective resolve has been membrane-thin for weeks.

When he came free off a screen on the Spurs' next possession, Ginobili fired in a long 3-point shot that made the Hornets' shoulders sag.

It was the sort of play that wins games, and it's what Ginobili, more than any Spurs player, has done in eight seasons in silver and black.

When any game is on the line, it is Ginobili who most often is asked to produce victory. On a team with a two-time NBA MVP and certain first-ballot Hall of Fame big man, it seems lunacy to say it, but Ginobili is the Spurs' MVP.

Can anyone in South Texas see him in another uniform?

Two summers ago, the Spurs couldn't. There were talks aimed at extending the contract he signed in the summer of 2004, when he was a restricted free agent and Denver made a hard sell the Spurs trumped.

Then Ginobili returned to Argentina to practice for the national team's defense of its 2004 Olympic gold medal. The Spurs held their collective breath all summer, and when Ginobili went down with an ankle injury in a semifinal game in Beijing, the extension talks were put on ice, right alongside his ankle.

The Spurs wanted to see how Ginobili recovered, and when his season ended last April because of a stress fracture in his right ankle, the waiting game went overtime.

The Spurs began this season needing to see what a 32-year-old had left. What they've witnessed over the last three weeks should be evidence enough. Ginobili is himself again, finishing at the rim and running down the league's best athletes to block dunks and change games.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/columnists/mike_monroe/Spurs_Ginobili_will_be_in_demand.html

Bell feels used by Bobcats

Rick Bonnell

Some very interesting comments by former Charlotte Bobcat Raja Bell about how he feels manipulated by his former team, in regard to the left wrist injury he suffered in the preseason.

"I felt like I was used a little bit,'' Bell told the Contra Costa Times. "They played on the fact that I want to play and want to please, and they played on that and, uh, it cost me my season.''

Bell wanted to have arthroscopic surgery, to explore the extent of damage to his left wrist, following a preseason injury. He says he was talked out of that. Bell was trying to tough it out, to help the Bobcats reach the playoffs.

Eventually, following the trade to the Warriors (a deal that acquired Stephen Jackson), Bell did have surgery on what was, in fact, a torn ligament.

"At the end of the day, every decision is the player's,'' Bell continued. "They can't make you play. But let's just say there were none-too-subtle hints.that I needed to be playing and that I really needed to help the team by playing.''

I understand Bell's frustration. He thought he was risking his body because he was so crucial to the Bobcats' playoff chances, and then they ship him to a bad team to acquire Jackson.

I also know Bell was frustrated by the timing of that trade; He wishes, if he was going to be viewed as an expiring contract, that the Bobcats had dealt him over the summer, before he moved his wife and young family back to Charlotte.

http://blogs.charlotte.com/inside_the_nba/2010/03/bell-feels-used-by-bobcats.html

Jordan: Iguodala 'isn't a guy that carries you'

TOM MOORE

Andre Iguodala is an excellent defender, a solid passer and a very good all-around player.

But he's not the type to dominate games in the half-court offense, according to Sixers coach Eddie Jordan.

"We've always said that about Andre," said Jordan after Thursday's practice. "It's not necessarily his MO. He just isn't a high-level, volume guy that carries you. I think he would agree to that.

"He plays a well-above-average game in every category. He's one of the best defenders on the ball I've ever seen in my entire career. He's got a decent 3(-point shot) and a nice pull-up (jumper), but he's not going to be Kobe (Bryant) or LeBron (James) as far as carrying the load."

Iguodala, who was one of 27 players picked by USA Basketball to try out for the 2010 world championship team, leads the Sixers in scoring (17.2), assists (5.8), minutes (39.9), steals (1.82) and is second in rebounds (6.7).

On the down side, he's hitting 31.1 percent of his 3-pointers (74-for-238). Among players attempting at least 200 this season, only two have lower percentages - Rasheed Wallace (28.6) and Baron Davis (28.0).

Informed of Jordan's assessment, Iguodala said, "I think I can do it. I just really haven't had a chance to yet. ... We've been losing a lot this year. It is what it is. I just haven't got in that comfort zone."

No defense

The Sixers aren't defending, so they're losing.

They're not getting the job done on the perimeter or with their interior defense, which is a fatal combination.

During the Sixers' four-game losing streak in which they've been beaten by an average of 15 points, they've:
Advertisement

n given up an average of 110.8 points;

n been outscored 108-51 from 3-point land, with opponents shooting 45.6 percent (36-for-78) beyond the arc to increase foes to 40.2 percent on the season, which is the second-highest 3-point percentage in NBA history;

n allowed opponents to hit 50.9 percent (172-for-338) of their field goal attempts, dropping them to 1-17 this season when opponents make at least half of their shots;

n let foes average an astounding 53 points in the paint.

Is it any wonder the 22-38 Sixers have trailed by at least 22 points in three of the last four (and five of the past six), including Wednesday's 111-92 loss to the Hawks?

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/126/2010/march/05/jordan-iguodala-isnt-a-guy-that-carries-you-3.html