'Nasty News - Traversing Time & Space' Vol:12

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http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar ... ter-sports

• Gordon still a Bull: Guard Ben Gordon accepted the Bulls' one-year, $6.4 million tender offer just before the deadline Wednesday night.

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http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 20458/1127

Fans who plan on heading to Oakland University Thursday evening for the Pistons' open scrimmage will be treated to an intrasquad scrimmage.

Coach Michael Curry has divided the team into three five-man units. The units are subject to change, but as of Thursday morning, they were broken up this way:
Blue team: Chauncey Billups, Alex Acker, Tayshaun Prince, Cheikh Samb and Jason Maxiell.
White team: Rodney Stuckey, Richard Hamilton, Walter Sharpe, Rasheed Wallace and Amir Johnson.
Orange team: Arron Afflalo, Will Bynum, Walter Herrmann, Kwame Brown and Antonio McDyess.
"What we want to do is go out there and show our appreciation to the fans," Curry said. "We are going to go out and get our work in, but we are also going to put on a show. We are going to play hard and really compete and play with the passion we all have for this game."

The doors open at 5:30 p.m. The Pistons are expected to hit the floor about 6:30 p.m.

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http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/s ... nkings0208

1: San Antonio Spurs
2: Dallas Mavericks
3: Detroit Pistons
4: Phoenix Suns
5: Los Angeles Lakers
6: Indianas Pacers
7: Houston Rockets
8: Sacramento Kings
9: Utah Jazz
10: New Jersey Nets

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http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2 ... artner=RSS

Does Juwan Howard, coming off a season in which he averaged 1.1 points, have much left? “I don’t think we’d bring him in if we didn’t think he had something left,’’ said Nuggets coach George Karl.

The Nuggets will sign Howard, 35, a 14-year veteran and former Denver forward, to a one-year, nonguaranteed contract worth the minimum of $1.26 million. He’s expected take part in practice Friday. “It’s a good addition to our camp roster,’’ said Nuggets vice president of basketball operations Mark Warkentien. “We have five players (out of six invitees) in camp with NBA experience competing to try to win jobs.’’

Howard, 35, has a career average of 15.3 points and played in the 1996 All-Star Game. But he averaged just 1.1 points in 50 games last season with Dallas.

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http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf ... _eras.html

Dickerson leaves: Veteran guard Michael Dickerson has been excused from training camp to attend to a personal situation.

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http://weblogs.newsday.com/sports/baske ... ually.html

Anthony Roberson hasn't stood out much in camp but also hasn't played poorly enough to think he's not in the plans. However, Mardy Collins showed up at camp in tremendous shape and he continually shows off an ability to get to the rim with power and has finished more than a few with strong dunks in traffic. Both players have one year of guaranteed money on their contracts -- Roberson has $797,581 and Collins is at $997,800 -- that would be easy to waive or possibly trade for a second-rounder.

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/ba ... 9552.story

The Wednesday that Ben Gordon said he would practice with the Bulls started with him wearing sweats and casually scrolling through his hand-held device in the Berto Center lobby.

It ended with the virtually unprecedented move of a team releasing a statement at 11:04 p.m., confirming that the fifth-year guard had agreed to sign a one-year qualifying offer of $6.4 million.

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http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.d ... 002/SPORTS

Magic general manager Otis Smith said Wednesday that the franchise is in no hurry to lock up Turkoglu. Instead, the Magic plan to take a wait-and-see approach with their multi-talented small forward, in part, to see if he can duplicate last season's performance.

"Why would we start doing that? We haven't even played a game yet," Smith said. "He had his best years with (the Magic). It's not an issue now, and we're not going to make it an issue. You can do an extension, but why would I negotiate against myself?"

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http://www.orlandosentinel.com/topic/se ... 9000.topic

This week has marked an anniversary of sorts for Magic F Tony Battie as he returned to training camp roughly a year after suffering a torn rotator cuff in his shoulder that sidelined him for the entire 2007-08 season. Though a lot has changed in his...

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http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/20 ... -for-griz/

Warrick will earn more than $2.1 million this season. Oct. 31 is the deadline for consummating a contract extension this season. The parties will then have between the end of the NBA Finals and June 30 to work on a deal.

Undoubtedly, the Griz will also be faced with requests for contract extensions from Rudy Gay and Kyle Lowry next summer. If no extension is reached with Warrick by this time next year, he could be faced with accepting a $3 million qualifying offer for his fifth season. Accepting a qualifying offer would make Warrick an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2010.

Griz general manager Chris Wallace said there is "nothing definitive" about Warrick's contract status. "We're just letting things take place here in training camp," Wallace said. "We value Hak. We're excited about seeing him this year. This should be a new and improved year for him. We'll see how things go."

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http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a ... 2/SPORTS04

Indiana Pacers backup point guard Travis Diener might not be ready for the start of the regular season.

Diener, entering his fourth year in the NBA, is out indefinitely with soreness in his left foot. He had surgery in May to remove bone spurs but said this injury is unrelated.

"It's just some tendons in the bottom of my foot that aren't moving like they should and let me play relatively pain-free," he said Wednesday after the Pacers' first practice of the day."It's a constant problem with (explosiveness). Just the daily grind of walking; it's sore and painful."

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 139N5A.DTL

Point of concern: Point guard Dan Dickau practiced with the Warriors on Wednesday night after signing a non-guaranteed contract, but it's another ex-Clipper from whom the Warriors are still hoping to hear.

Golden State has four point guards - C.J. Watson, Marcus Williams, DeMarcus Nelson and Dickau - in camp and Nelson says the team plans to keep three as long as Monta Ellis is out.

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http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/30054314.html

Brown has been pleased with the toughness of rookie second-round pick Darnell Jackson. He hasn't been afraid to scrap with the veterans. ''I went to tell him something in practice and he had one eye closed because it was swollen and his hand was wrapped but he's still saying 'yes, coach' and got right back in there and mixed it up,'' Brown said. ''It reminds me of Dick Butkus or something.''

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http://www.euroleague.net/news/i/35921/180/item

Avellino has reached an agreement with playmaker Travis Best, who inked a one-year deal with his new team. Best (180, 36) arrives from Virtus Bologna, where he averaged 12.6 points, 3.3 assists and 1.9 steals in 19 Italian League games last season. Best started the 2007-08 season with Prokom Trefl Sopot, averaging 9.3 points in 3 Euroleague games. He has also played for Unics Kazan in Kazan, as well as for the New Jersey Nets, the Dallas Mavericks, the Miami Heat, the Chicago Bulls and the Indiana Pacers in the NBA. Best scored 5,812 points in 771 NBA career games. He helped Indiana to make it to the NBA Finals in 2000 and also reached the Italian League and Italian Cup finals with Virtus in 2007. Best replaced Dan Dickau, who reached a mutual agreement with Avellino to terminate his contract.

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http://www.euroleague.net/news/i/35921/180/item

Avellino has reached an agreement with playmaker Travis Best, who inked a one-year deal with his new team. Best (180, 36) arrives from Virtus Bologna, where he averaged 12.6 points, 3.3 assists and 1.9 steals in 19 Italian League games last season. Best started the 2007-08 season with Prokom Trefl Sopot, averaging 9.3 points in 3 Euroleague games. He has also played for Unics Kazan in Kazan, as well as for the New Jersey Nets, the Dallas Mavericks, the Miami Heat, the Chicago Bulls and the Indiana Pacers in the NBA. Best scored 5,812 points in 771 NBA career games. He helped Indiana to make it to the NBA Finals in 2000 and also reached the Italian League and Italian Cup finals with Virtus in 2007. Best replaced Dan Dickau, who reached a mutual agreement with Avellino to terminate his contract.

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http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-cli ... 3897.story

Clippers rookie guard Eric Gordon's ankle injury, suffered on the first day of training camp on Tuesday, could keep him out of practice anywhere from five days to a week.

Which leads to the question: Is Gordon injury-prone? He also suffered a hamstring injury limiting his summer-league action to two games. Or is he simply the victim of a couple of flukes?

Coach Mike Dunleavy picked the latter. "He's had a bit of bad luck," Dunleavy said today after the morning workout. "You can [have] a great ankle but if you step on someone's foot and turn it . . . "That's what happened during the Clippers' night scrimmage on Tuesday. Gordon, the Clippers' first-round draft pick in June, sprained his right ankle after stepping on a player's foot when he was going for a defensive rebound. He was scheduled to be evaluated by a doctor later today.

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http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindblazer ... _trai.html

The Trail Blazers say Greg Oden is fine. Greg Oden says Greg Oden is fine. So why did the 7-foot center on Wednesday watch yet another practice from the sidelines with what has been described as a mild right ankle sprain? "We just want to be cautious with him," Blazers coach Nate McMillan said. "He's doing fine. There's no swelling on his ankle. What we want to do is just remain cautious with that and we'll see how he feels tonight."

Oden did not have any day-after-injury swelling with his tweaked right ankle and McMillan said it's possible Oden will practice this evening when the team reconvenes for another workout. Oden says if it were up to him, he would have practiced this morning, but the decision is ultimately up to team trainers.

And cautious is the mantra reverberating around the team's practice facility in Tualatin. "My ankle is better, but we don't want to do anything crazy and mess it up again," Oden said. "It feels good. I'm walking on it but I still have to do some work on it. It's up to the trainers and we'll see what they want me to do."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/sport ... ref=slogin

Vince Carter said his surgically repaired right ankle was tender during the first couple of training camp practices, but had shown no ill effects afterward. “Day 3, I felt a lot better and I’ve been getting better ever since,” he said. Carter underwent an arthroscopic procedure shortly after last season to remove a bone spur and clean the tissue.

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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/6035062.html

Aaron Brooks went down hard after a collision with Joey Dorsey, but was unhurt. “He’s a tough kid,” Rick Adelman said. Brent Barry on Tracy McGrady and Rafer Alston saying Barry can help out at the point: “Their just trying to steal more rest during training camp.”…

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/sport ... ref=slogin

Wednesday was not favorable toward the Nets’ frontcourt. Forwards Eduardo Najera (sprained left wrist), Stromile Swift (poked in the eye), Jarvis Hayes (left hamstring) and center Brook Lopez (kicked in the leg) are all day to day. ... Yi Jianlian (ankle sprain) continued his rehabilitation by taking parts in five-on-zero drills during the Nets’ evening practice on Tuesday.