Soccer Sports News & Betting

NBA Calendar.

Nov. 1Rosters set for opening night, 6 p.m. EST.

Nov. 2Start of the 2004-05 season.

Jan. 510-day contracts may be signed.

Jan. 10All player contracts guaranteed for rest of the season.

Feb. 18-20All-Star weekend, Denver.

Feb. 24Trading deadline, 3 p.m. EST.

April 20Regular season ends.

April 23Playoffs begin.

June 7-10NBA predraft camp, Chicago.

June 7Earliest possible NBA Finals start date.

June 21Early entry draft withdrawal deadline.

June 23Latest possible NBA Finals end date.

June 28NBA draft, New York.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban says forward Josh Howard realizes. His comments about the national anthem were wrong and the player has apologized.

In his online blog, Cuban also responded to e-mails he has received commenting on the player’s remarks by saying Howard “will work with us” and “beyond that, it’s a private issue.”

Cuban posted a number of the inflammatory replies on his blog Thursday night, with the apparent e-mail addresses of the senders.

But by Friday night, Cuban’s remarks slugged “Thanks for the advice on Josh” had been removed from the blog and replaced with a posting saying “I made my point.”

Howard’s comments, in a video posted on the Web site YouTube, show him on a football field at a charity flag football game. As the national anthem plays in the background, Howard approaches a camera and says: “‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is going on right now. I don’t even celebrate that (expletive). I’m black.”

Some e-mails that Cuban posted made blatant racist remarks about Howard. Others suggested Howard should move to another country, be fined or fired.

Cuban’s updated response said his original posting was “the right thing to do,” but he says it left him with an upset stomach all day Friday.

“I thought it was important to point out the hatred and ignorance of so many who quickly judge people they have never met, based purely on soundbites and headlines,” Cuban wrote late Friday. “I wanted to point out the irony of them experiencing the onslaught of attention from suddenly and unexpectedly being placed in the media spotlight from a throwaway comment.”

Cuban said he knew those e-mailers would be receiving “the same level of hate, ignorance and judgment as Josh had and that’s what bothered me all day.”

Cuban ended by saying: “Hopefully something good came from it being posted.”

Jamaal Tinsley, heat interested.

The Heat are interested in Tinsley, if the Pacers are willing to take on Marcus Banks, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.
The Pacers are focused on Udonis Haslem, which is a less attractive deal for the Heat and unlikely to happen.

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Rodney Stuckey: Called Sixth Starter by Coach.

Pistons coach Michael Curry calls Stuckey his sixth starter, the Detroit News reports.
Stuckey is expected to get more minutes in the rotation this year, backing up both guard spots. He was brought along slowly last season after breaking his hand, but had a nice playoff series against Boston. General manager Joe Dumars is intent on developing some of his younger guys as he prepares to replace the aging Pistons starters.

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Andrew Bogut: Expected to be Ready for Start of Camp.

Bogut (ankle) is expected to ready for the opening of Milwaukees training camp Sept. 30, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
Bogut suffered a sprained left ankle while competing for Australia in the Summer Olympics. An MRI showed no serious damage, and Bogut has been rehabilitating in his hometown of Melbourne. Reports are that hes healthy and should start training camp 100%, Bucks general manager John Hammond said Wednesday. Thats what we are hoping and anticipating.

The Golden State Warriors waived center Kosta Perovic, the team announced Friday.

Perovic, 23, was a second-round draft pick - 38th overall - in the 2006 draft. The 7-2 native of Serbia appeared in seven games with the Warriors last season, averaging 1.4 points and 1.9 rebounds.

According to a report in the Contra Costa Times on Tuesday, Perovic has signed a three-year contract with Spanish squad Pamesa Valencia. Golden State has agreed to release Perovic from his contract but has the ability to re-sign him in two years.

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Lakers sign C.J. Giles.

The Los Angeles Lakers signed forward C.J. Giles on Friday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The 6-11, 240-pound Giles, who played two seasons with the Kansas Jayhawks before transferring to Oregon State, appeared in 10 games for the Beavers last season before being dismissed from the team in late January. He averaged 6.3 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game at Oregon State.

He had a history of behavioral issues at both schools, which led to his dismissal from Kansas and once caused him to be benched at Oregon State for a pattern of showing up late to practice.

Miller, who is entering the final year of his contract. Wants to stay in Philadelphia beyond this season, the Philadelphia Daily News reports.

Miller has not had any discussions with the Sixers about extending his contract, but hes stayed in touch with team officials all summer, letting them know hes interested. Miller is in the process of finding a new agent, so any talks will not begin until that happens.

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Sam Cassell: Expected to Return to Celtics.

Celtics general manager Danny Ainge said Cassell is expected to sign with the team for the 2008-09 season, the Boston Globe reports.

Cassell will be in the point guard mix, backing up Rajon Rondo. We always bring four point guards to training camp. We love where Gabe is and we also have Eddie House. Rajon is our starter and they are fighting for the backup spot, said Ainge. A report in the Baltimore Sun says Cassell will become a coach with the Celtics after this season.

Portland Trail Blazers center Raef LaFrentz will have shoulder surgery later this month.

The surgery to repair a tear in the labrum of his right shoulder will be performed Sept. 26 at Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Clinic in Los Angeles.

A timetable for his return to the team will be determined after the surgery.

LaFrentz injured his shoulder during a game against Seattle on Feb. 22.

“I was hopeful that an offseason regiment of physical therapy and treatment would heal the injury, but unfortunately it’s become clear now that I need to move forward with surgery,” he said.

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Guard Delonte West signs deal with Cavaliers.

Guard Delonte West signed a multiyear deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday, ending concerns the restricted free agent would hold out at training camp.

General Manager Danny Ferry didn’t disclose terms of the deal Friday.

The Cavaliers acquired West from the Seattle SuperSonics on Feb. 21 as part of a three-team, 11-player trade. West played in 61 games for Seattle and Cleveland and averaged 8.3 points.

He filled a need for a starting point guard. In 26 games, all starts, West averaged 10.3 points, 3.7 rebounds and 4.5 assists with the Cavs.

The 25-year-old West will compete for time with Mo Williams, the former Milwaukee guard who was Cleveland’s major offseason acquisition, and Daniel Gibson, another Cleveland restricted free agent who signed back with the team.

The Orlando Magic are welcoming a new point guard and saying goodbye to their longest-tenured player.

Forward Pat Garrity, who had been with the Magic longer than any current player on the roster, announced his retirement on Thursday after nine seasons in an Orlando uniform.

Meanwhile, well-traveled veteran Mike Wilks signed as a free agent to be the Magic’s third point guard, the Sentinel learned. The club is expected to announce the deal within days.

The 5-foot-10-inch Wilks will add depth behind starter Jameer Nelson and Anthony Johnson. Wilks, 29, signed a one-year deal for $1.04 million.

Garrity’s decision was not unexpected, as his playing time had dwindled the last few years.

He became a free agent after last season, and the Magic had no plans to re-sign him.

Garrity, 32, said he actually made his mind up to retire a few months ago, even though the Phoenix Suns and San Antonio Spurs had showed some interest.

“I view it as a happy time. It wasn’t really a hard decision,” he said from his home Thursday. “Lon [Garrity's agent, Lon Babby] told me to take a month to see if my feelings would change, but that only made me more sure of what I was doing.”

Acquired from the Suns in 1999, Garrity finished his career averaging 7.3 points and 2.6 rebounds with the Suns and the Magic.

He posted career highs with 11.1 points and 4.2 rebounds during the 2001-02 season, but injuries would eventually take their toll on Garrity, including a torn ACL in 2003.

Admittedly not a great athlete, Garrity said he lasted longer in the NBA than he expected, largely on the strength of his textbook jump-shot.

“I got more out of it than I ever dreamed as far as financial rewards and the places the NBA has taken me,” he said. “For as long as I played, I was never confident I’d have a 10-year career. I got more out of it than I could ever hope for.”

Garrity said he will apply at a business school next year and try to earn an MBA. One of the Magic’s most active community ambassadors, he said he would like to continue participating in the league’s “Basketball Without Borders” program, spreading goodwill and teaching the game in foreign countries.

Wat Misaka stood out for much more than being the shortest guy on the court. When he played basketball for the University of Utah and briefly with the New York Knicks.

The son of Japanese immigrants, Misaka played in an era when almost everybody else playing the game was white and America was at the height of the anti-Japanese sentiment of World War II.

Misakas career is the subject of a new documentary titled Transcending: The Wat Misaka Story, which puts his playing career in context with the times and the tensions that anyone with Japanese ancestry faced in the 1940s.

Although hes always happy to talk about basketball and remember his playing days, the idea of being a racial pioneer in professional sports is a little much.

This was kind of a surprisethat theyd be interested in doing something on an old has-been, Misaka said with a modest laugh.

The film premiered to a packed auditorium in Salt Lake City on Wednesday night.

Misaka, 84, hardly has the look of a former basketball star. The black hair that was sharply slicked back in photos from his playing days turned white long ago. He moves slowly and deliberately with no hint of the quickness that made the 5-foot-7 guard a notorious defensive pest with a knack for getting the ball up the court.

No matter how much he smiles and shrugs off the notion, Misaka made history 61 years ago, when he broke an ethnic barrier in the Basketball Association of America. A precursor to the NBA, the league was all-white when the Knicks took Misaka in the first round of the 1947 draft and was still three years away from the debut of the first black players.

As far as Misaka was concerned, he just looked a little different. Having grown up in Utah, he was quite used to that and said he never thought of it as a racial milestone.

It was not a big thing. They didnt make much of it, he said.

It was the same year Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, which Misaka himself says was a larger event in history than the two weeks he spent with the Knicks.

Misaka played in three games for New York, scoring a total of seven points, before getting cut early in the 1947-48 season.

Misaka is asked occasionally to recount his playing career, which he said was highlighted much more by Utahs NCAA championship in 1944 and NIT title three years later than his short time with the Knicks.

But he was surprised when he was contacted two years ago by Christine Toy Johnson and her husband, Bruce, who said they wanted to do the documentary.

Its just not in his nature to really talk about it, but to a lot of people its a barrier he broke and we really recognized the importance of that, Christine Toy Johnson said. Hes just a humble guy, so he does shy away from attention a lot, and yet I think he is also happy that people are recognizing his accomplishment.

Former college teammates in the film recounted how Misaka never got rattled by racial taunts and marveled at how he ignored the endless variations of Jap that he heard whenever the team hit the road.

Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast were forced into internment camps, including one in Utahs western desert. Misaka said he felt fortunate to be from Utah and not sent to a camp, but also sympathized with the families who were kept there.

Misaka served two years in the Army, getting his draft notice when he returned from the 1944 NCAA championship, and was sent to Japan after the war ended. He looked Japanese, but was an American. He sensed that fellow U.S. soldiers were wary of him because of his ethnicity and the Japanese wouldnt trust anyone in an American uniform.

He returned to college, helping Utah upset Kentucky in the 1947 NIT championship when it was a bigger deal than the NCAA tournament. The game was played in Madison Square Garden, which would be Misakas home during his short-lived career with the Knicks.

Misakas fame quickly faded after he returned to Utah and started a career in engineering, but an old picture from his college days caught the Johnsons attention. When the couple started researching his basketball career, they were surprised at how little had been noted about what Misaka did and the significance of when he did it.

Two years later, their documentary is complete and will be shown next week in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles. Bruce Johnson said they hope to get it on the film festival circuit and possibly get a cable network to pick it up.

That would be our ultimate dreamto get to a larger audience that could learn about this story, he said.

Former Kansas teammates Darrell Arthur and Mario Chalmers were fined $20,000 apiece. After being banished last week from the NBA rookie symposium, the league said Wednesday.

Security at the resort near New York where the event took place found Arthur and Chalmers in a room with two women, and the scent of marijuana was detected. No drugs or drug paraphernalia were found, but having guests in the room violated NBA policy, and the two rookies were sent home.

Arthur and Chalmers apologized but denied using marijuana. Next year they’ll have to again attend the symposium, which addresses the challenges of making the transition to pro ball.

Arthur and Chalmers helped Kansas win the NCAA championship and were selected in the June draft. Arthur is with the Memphis Grizzlies and Chalmers with the Miami Heat.

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Zach Randolph: Deal to Memphis Dead?

Knicks officials said the deal involving Randolph to the Grizzlies has been dormant for weeks, and might never be revived, the New York Times reports.

The rumored deal would send Randolph to Memphis for Darko Milicic and Marko Jaric, though other reports say the Grizzlies are looking for a first-round pick, too. There was a discussion about different formats, and it never got anywhere, said Donnie Walsh, the Knicks president. Theres been a report every day, it seems, for the past week about the trade. Both Randolph and Milicic each have said they expect to be playing for the other team by the time the season begins.

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Kobe Bryant: Skips Surgery on Finger.

Bryant (finger) has now decided to forgo surgery to repair ligament damage in his right pinky finger, according to his website.

Bryant had originally planned to have surgery, but the 12-week recovery time would have caused him to miss part of the regular season. Bryant was unaffected by the injury last year, and we dont expect it to limit him this year either.

During his first two head coaching jobs, Rick Carlisle took over franchises and immediately made them better.

In 2001, he joined a Detroit team that had won 32 games the previous year and engineered a 50-32 record as a rookie coach. In Indiana in 2004, Carlisle inherited a Pacers team that won 48 games in Isiah Thomas’ last season as coach. They went 61-21 when Carlisle took over.

In the Mavericks, Carlisle takes over a team that won 67 games two years ago and 51 last season, when Avery Johnson was fired.

There is no guarantee that the Mavericks will have the same sort of upgrade under Carlisle that the teams in his previous coaching stops enjoyed. But he clearly knows how to maximize talent while taking over on the fly.

With the Sept. 29 opening of training camp fast approaching, Carlisle engaged in a question and answer session to preview the 2007-08 Mavericks.

Have you had a chance to talk to Dirk Nowitzki since he led Germany to the Olympics?

I did, and he said it was a great experience getting there. They would have liked to have played a little better. They played hard, they just weren’t quite good enough. But for him and that team, it was really a great accomplishment getting there.

How is your team, physically, heading into camp?

Right now, everything is good. There were a few things over the summer that had to be resolved. Brandon (Bass) had a thing with his right shoulder that didn’t require surgery. He’s made the kind of progress that they believed he would make. So he’s here now working out. Everybody else has been good. JJ (Barea) has a little minor back thing, but that should be OK in a couple days.

What did you think of the Houston Rockets trading for Ron Artest, who was on some of your most successful teams at Indiana?

It’s a significant move because he’s an impact player. It’s easy to see why expectations are going to be sky high there with that trio of stars (Artest, Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming) and a real good supporting cast. It just makes this division a little tougher.

As if you needed that, right?

If you turn up the water from 220 degrees to 235 degrees, it’s still boiling. It’s just boiling a little hotter.

It’s the kind of thing where you’ve got to avoid looking at the schedule. I’m just really concentrating on our team now and the things we need to do to prepare these guys to go to war. We don’t plan on taking a backseat to anybody. We’re coming into this thing trying to win it just like everybody else.

What would you consider a quality season for the Mavericks?

I have never put a number on any of that stuff. Maybe you’re setting the bar too low. You never know. So for us, it’s going to be about competing at a championship level and at the highest possible level and competing our best. If we do that, then the number of wins will take care of itself.

I’m not coming in here trying to set the bar low or anything like that. I don’t think you come into a city like Dallas or a franchise like this or to an owner like Mark Cuban trying to curtail expectations. I just think that’s sending the wrong message to everybody.

What kind of style will fans see when the season tips off Oct. 30?

Our strength is obviously going to be our trio of top players with Dirk, Jason Kidd and Josh (Howard). And I’d also put Jason Terry and (Jerry) Stackhouse into that mix because those are veteran guys who have been through the wars. I expect those guys to play big for us.

Our center position is terrific. We’ve got a strength in numbers situation along with some terrific players. We’re going to have to perform well in close games. That’s an area where, two years ago, the Mavericks won seemingly every close game, and last year there was a falloff. There’s a fine line between 67 wins and 51 wins. But that’s the way it is. We’re going to be in a lot of tight games, and we’re going to have to be able to finish.

You mentioned the center position. Is that starting spot open? And is the shooting guard spot open, too?

Possibly. I think we have to look at it and say Jason Kidd, Dirk and Josh are going to be starters. There are possibilities at the other spots. I don’t think it’s fair to say right now that we’ve penciled anybody in.

I love the fact that Stackhouse has embraced being a part of this franchise as one of the best sixth men in the game. And I know he’s willing to continue to do that. But there’s also a chance that maybe he should start. I don’t think any kind of prognostication on my part at this point is fair. That’s why you have training camp, to figure those things out.

And the centers?

(Erick) Dampier is a damn good starting center in this league. He really is. And (DeSagana) Diop is a guy who would start on a lot of teams, as well. That’s a great battle, and that position is going to be one of the strengths of our team.

If you’re going to be a championship-caliber team, defense and rebounding are critical. They are things that are often overlooked to a certain degree. No one has won the NBA championship playing small ball yet. There are teams that have won it that have the ability to go small. But you still have to have size to compete at the highest level. That’s why Dampier and Diop, that’s why we value those guys so much.

The only reference point fans have for Jason Kidd is how he struggled in Avery Johnson’s offense. At 35, has his age caught up to him?

Jason Kidd? I’m ecstatic to be in the same locker room with J-Kidd. Jason has hammered my teams so much through the years. I’ll say this: If people want to doubt his abilities, let them go ahead. But I would caution them against it. You should never underestimate greatness.

Do you expect this roster to be the one that opens the season?

Yeah, unless there was some kind of a trade, which I doubt there will be. We’ve got 14 contracts, so we got a 15th spot that we may look at. Maybe some other veteran will fall through the cracks. Or maybe we keep a young player. But this is it for now.