NBA News

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DALLAS -- For Dirk Nowitzki, maybe it came during one of those loud, joyous, croaking renditions of "We Are the Champions!" Or maybe in that time between the final horn and the trophy presentation, when he had dashed off the court in Miami and taken a few quiet minutes to reflect on the long, hard path he'd traveled.
For Jason Terry, maybe it came in that last wings-extended flight up and down the floor from foul line to foul line, when "Jet" had finally been given clearance to land on that private runway reserved only for the ultimate winners.
It's that moment when it finally, happily hits home, simply washing over you in a warm, satisfying glow of accomplishment.

For Rick Carlisle, the coach, it came somewhere along the road of one of those "if-it's-Tuesday-it-must-be-Belgium" tours of Europe, when the feel of the champagne victory spray and the roar of the celebrating crowds had just begun to fade.
"My family and I went to Europe for a week after the season," he said. "And I was approached countless times and told, 'Listen, I'm not that big an NBA fan. I never watch basketball that much. But I started watching you guys play. You guys play so hard and so much together, the way you move the ball. I watched the NBA Finals to the very end because it was wonderful to watch.'
"That's amazing."
The tale of a franchise's sudden, unexpected rise from far off everyone's radar to the top of the heap can also be transformative.
Nowitzki, the long-toiling, long-suffering face of the Dallas franchise for more than a decade, went from playoff fader to Finals finisher. Terry's rep went from that of a streaky actor who often shot from the lip to clutch performer with the season on the line. The 38-year-old Jason Kidd went from being venerable to victorious.
Carlisle leaped from out of the pack of coaches who perennially chase the grail to becoming one of only 11 men who have won a championship in the NBA as both a player and a coach. After nine previous seasons of coaching in Detroit, Indiana and Dallas, now he begins Year 10 on Sunday seeing the banner unfurled at American Airlines Center in the opener against Miami (2:30 p.m. ET, ABC).
"It hasn't changed me at all," Carlisle said. "But am I different? Sure. I would have been anyway, just from experience, just from being around this team, even if we hadn't won it. There's growth. Unless you're a complete fool, you're going to get better at what you do, because you've done things and failed and done other things and learned what works. It's not that complicated.
"I don't look at it as validation. What it does it validates that there's been growth with my career. I've become a much better communicator. That's something that I constantly work on."

The Carlisle that much of the world got to watch during the Mavericks' playoff drive last season was often portrayed as a laconic, gruff, always intense from the moment he stood on the sidelines listening to national anthem through all of the days and weeks of practices and games where a magical postseason run had to be constructed by the unglamorous task of tending to all of the details.
The thing about the extreme length and the cocoon-like existence that is required to become a championship team is that while fans all over the globe might be having the time of their lives, those on the inside are often too tied up in the battles to fully gulp in the excitement.
The Mavs played 21 playoff games at maximum capacity, conditions that might be the most challenging they'll ever face in their career lives.
"The thing that I have learned is sort of the altered state of being in an NBA playoff series and that you have to embrace the discomfort that comes with that," Carlisle said. "It's one reason I always talk about pressure. We talk about pressure a lot with our team. We talk about wanting to be in pressure situations, because that's what's gonna allow you to do things that you may not have thought you were able to do. So I freely and openly talk about it. I look for situations and opportunities to put myself in pressure situations, because that's what helps the human spirit evolve to higher levels.
"The reason we won it was because we all stayed completely engaged in what we wanted to do on a day to day basis to the point where when it was over, it was like, 'Wow! I can't believe this is over.'
"At times, yeah, it's agonizing. It's an awesome experience. And it is fun. Though frequently you don't view it as fun, because of what's at stake. There are rewards and consequences for winning and losing. So when you get yourself completely engrossed, engaged, focused on something, the word 'fun' doesn't come into your mind all that much. But when you look at it a step away, it's unbelievable fun. That's because it challenges every bit of who you are."
He is smiling a lot these days, in part because of what's behind and also what lies ahead for an organization and a team that at long last shed a label of doubt for determination.

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Just so we’re clear on who is and is not worthy of comparison among the greatest of the all-time (or soon-to-be) greats: Michael Jordan says Kobe Bryant is the only player, apparently past or present, that has earned the right to be compared with his Airness, as relayed by Roland Lazenby (who is working on a Jordan book) via Twitter over the weekend:

Kobe’s ultimate competition is MJ. That’s why MJ watches him. MJ made people think what he was doing wasn’t human. Ditto the Kobester.
I never said Kobe was better than MJ. MJ just told me Kobe’s the only one to have done the work, to deserve comparison.

And Kobe says that Chris Paul is the only player other than reigning MVP Derrick Rose that possess the same drive and desire to be the best of the very best that he does:

“He’s a dog. He’s going to fight to win, and not too many teams can deal with him. Chris Paul is really the only other guy in the league, other than Derrick Rose, who also has that competitive edge.”

Is anyone else sick of all of this? So now MJ and Kobe get to decide who measures up, who is on their level?

Well fellas, I can think of several guys who could and should be included in the discussion. Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal come to mind.

Funny, you never hear Russell, Magic or Bird yapping about who is on their level. In fact, I don’t remember any of them spending much time engaging in the G.O.A.T. conversation at all, when all three of them certainly could make a claim.

If we’re going strictly by jewelry, I don’t think there is any doubt that Russell is the runaway winner. And if we’re going for impact and transcendent talent and ability, both Magic and Bird qualify easily.

My bigger issue with the entire discussion is that MJ and Kobe even bother entertaining the topic, be it in the form of a question or a conversation they’re having publicly.

They know they’ll go down as two of the very best to ever play the game and arguably the two best in the eyes of many. There’s no need to talk about it. There is a level of humility that should come with being the very best at what you do. Did you ever hear Michael Jackson talk about Prince being the only other artist on his level?

I understand that the one thing that separated Jordan from his peers and Kobe from his is that they seemed to lack that humility. And that’s fine when you’re in the heat of the competition. But when those days are over, it’s OK to step back and take a more measured look at the history of the game and your place in it.

The respectable thing to do would be to pay homage to those who came before you and respect the guys going at it now and be secure in your place in the game, wherever that is, and let it be.

If MJ and Kobe want to go somewhere and argue for six months about who was better, they’re welcome to it. Their camps are entrenched and will likely stay that way for eternity.

I’ll pass on an invite to that spectacle (which I must admit would make for great reality TV).

Then the game will move on to the next great one.

It always has. It always will.

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Now, Magic GM Otis Smith absolutely HAS to trade Dwight Howard before March 15, doesn’t he?

Steve Aschburner: Yes, Smith has to trade Howard. And he has to trade him to Charlotte, Detroit or Washington, please, pretty please! Why the malice? Howard has brought it on himself in a variety of ways: Blaming teammates for their lack of commitment even as he angles to bail on the Magic himself. Mixing up his priorities so that off-court and lifestyle issues appear to rank higher for him than winning NBA championship. Squandering a legit chance to pursue that title this year by focusing so much on his future. Enough already. Howard eventually will get to a market that suits him, but it would be nice if Smith could banish him to some dreary outpost for the balance of a season that he, himself, has spoiled.

Fran Blinebury: Not if his goal is for his team to set all franchise scoring levels back to the pre-shot clock era, begin bottling Vintage Dwight Howard W(h)ine and create the most internal discord in the Magic Kingdom since the time Snow White short-sheeted the Seven Dwarfs. The only challenge left is finding a trade sucker, er, partner that will play the role of the 2011 Knicks.

Scott Howard-Cooper: More like before Feb. 15. Or Jan. 15. Build a time machine, go back a couple weeks and find a deal before it became painfully obvious he needs to make one. I admire the determination to find a solution that includes a future with Dwight Howard rather than cashing out and starting over. But Smith gave it a good chance. This is not going to work out.
Shaun Powell: He doesn’t have to trade Dwight if all the proposals stink. And evidently they do, otherwise Dwight would be gone already. Forget all the junk about Dwight disrupting team chemistry and all that; it’s not like a championship team is threatening to unravel. At this point, Otis needs to be the calmest person in the organization, sit tight and wait for the right opportunity, whenever that happens.

John Schuhmann: Yes. Two of the teams on Dwight’s list, Dallas and New Jersey, will have the cap space to sign him outright in the summer, and players no longer have the incentive (extra year, bigger raises) to do a sign-and-trade deal. So there’s a real possibility Orlando would lose him for nothing should they keep him through the season. The Magic could certainly recover from this recent slide and re-establish themselves as the third-best team in the East. But they’re not getting past the Bulls or Heat, and the ability to dump Hedo Turkoglu‘s contract and pick up some rebuilding pieces is worth more than a trip to the conference semifinals.

Sekou Smith: There is no doubt about it. Otis Smith has no choice. So much damage has been done to the fabric of this relationship that a messy divorce is the only way this thing ends before March 15. The better question might be where does Otis Smith trade Dwight Howard before March 15? The Magic will never get anything close to Howard in return, but they have to find a deal that allows them to do exactly what the Denver Nuggets are doing without Carmelo Anthony these days.

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Phil Jackson's next title will be on the cover of his new book.

Penguin Press says Tuesday that Jackson, the Hall of Famer who won 11 NBA championships as coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, is writing his memoir called "Eleven Rings."

The book is tentatively scheduled to be out next year.
The 66-year-old Jackson is a 1,155-game winner whose career .704 winning percentage is the best in NBA history.

He retired from coaching after last season after the Lakers were swept in the playoffs by the eventual champion Dallas Mavericks.
Jackson previously wrote "The Last Season," published in 2004.

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Kenyon Martin is expected to decide by this weekend which NBA team he’ll join. The Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, Miami Heat, San Antonio Spurs, Atlanta Hawks and New York Knicks have expressed interest in signing the veteran forward.

Martin signed with Xinjiang Gyang Hui of the Chinese Basketball Association, but has since returned to the United States. He’s not eligible to sign with an NBA team until Xinjiang’s season ends, which could be as soon as Feb. 16.

“He’s a veteran guy who knows how to win at a high level and in a playoff environment,” one NBA general manager said. “He also plays multiple positions. If you get him to a situation where he can be an Antonio McDyess-type of guy, that’s a heck of a guy to add to your roster.”

Martin, 34, has visited with as many as five teams over the past two weeks and has another meeting scheduled Wednesday, sources said. He averaged 8.6 points and 6.2 rebounds in 48 games with the Nuggets last season. Martin wants to join a winning team that gives him consistent minutes.

Martin has been working out in Los Angeles, where he owns a house, and his hometown of Dallas.

If the Lakers don’t sign Martin, they could have interest in adding Rasheed Wallace, who contacted the team several weeks ago, a league source said. Wallace retired after the 2009-10 season, but has told friends he’s interested in returning to the NBA.

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Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant has passed former teammate Shaquille O'Neal and moved into fifth place on the NBA's career scoring list.


Bryant needed 24 points to pass O'Neal entering Monday night's game against the Philadelphia 76ers. O'Neal retired with 28,596 points. Bryant nailed a long jumper late in the first half to give him 24 points.

O'Neal and Bryant often clashed, even while leading the Lakers to NBA championships in 2000, 2001 and 2002.

Bryant was loudly booed in pregame introductions. Bryant graduated from Lower Merion High School just outside of Philly and has been jeered by Sixers fans for the majority of his career.

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After a basketball life of comebacks upon comebacks, Los Angeles Clippers guard Chauncey Billups is determined to make the greatest of his career: a full recovery from a torn Achilles tendon.

“I will be back,” Billups told Yahoo! Sports by phone. “I’m not done. I’m not retiring. I will definitely be back. This has been the story of my career, coming back, fighting, scrapping and I will play again.”

Billups suffered the tear on Monday night in Orlando, crumpling to the floor without warning. No collision. No contact. Just like that. He hadn’t felt any tenderness in the Achilles prior to the injury, he said. An MRI taken in Cleveland on Tuesday confirmed the tear.

Billups, 35, is a five-time NBA All-Star, a 2004 NBA Finals MVP and is considered one of the great leaders and winners of his generation. In a career of ups and downs, Billups believes strongly that he’s equipped to navigate this hard road back to the league. His contract expires at the end of the season and he’ll be a free agent this summer.

“I knew when I went down and tried to get up – and I couldn’t feel anything – that this was bad,” Billups said. “I had never felt anything like that before. It was completely non-impact. Nobody hit me. Nobody kicked me. Nobody was around. …I’m probably still in a little bit of shock over this.”

Billups has spoken with doctors who have told him a rehabilitation period of six to nine months is possible. He’s resolved that his illustrious career won’t end with this injury. He plans to reach out to several athletes who have suffered the Achilles injury – including Isiah Thomas, Dominique Wilkins and David Beckham – to gather information and advice.

“I’ve talked to a couple different doctors, gotten some opinions and I’m going to get a couple of more,” Billups said. “This injury is not what it was 10 or 12 years ago. It’s not an easy injury, but it’s gotten a lot better and easier to come back from. I’m telling you: I will definitely be back.”

When asked if this shortened NBA season could’ve played a part in the injury, so many games in such a short span of time, Billups said: “I guess it’s easy to blame this kind of a season, but, man, It’s been a real grind. An unbelievable grind. Sometimes I think these things were meant to happen, but we’ll never know.”

Initially angry the Clippers claimed him off amnesty waivers from the New York Knicks, Billups settled into an important role alongside Chris Paul and had the franchise in serious contention in the Western Conference. “This team has really been coming together, everybody’s role is being defined and the newness of it all had worn off,” Billups said. “This team will be fine. It’s still going to be really good.”

Before Billups hung up the phone, he wanted to be clear of this: No one needs to write the obit on his pro career, no one had better count him out.

“I’m focusing in a major way on coming back, and, without a doubt, my career is not over. You will see me again,” he said. “I know that. You will see me playing again.”

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Ranking of the top ten best players

1LeBron James : Miami Heat

2Kevin Durant : Oklahoma City Thunder

3Kobe Bryant : Los Angeles Lakers

4Chris Paul : Los Angeles Clippers

5Derrick Rose : Chicago Bulls

6Dwight Howard : Orlando Magic

7Kevin Love : Minnesota Timberwolves

8Russell Westbrook : Oklahoma City Thunder

9Paul Pierce : Boston Celtics

10Andre Iguodala : Philadelphia 76ers

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In what could turn out to be a prelude to a gold-medal matchup in the 2012 London Olympics, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James will lead Team USA against rival Spain in an exhibition on July 24 in Barcelona, sources told Yahoo! Sports.

The game will be played at 3:30 p.m. ET in the Palau Sant Jordi mountainside arena, and promises to be a spectacular, intense scene.

The exhibition will coincide with the 20th anniversary celebration of Team USA’s 1992 Dream Team that transformed international basketball in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. USA Basketball is expected to invite members of that team to Barcelona for its weeklong stay in Spain.

This will be the final exhibition for the two Olympic favorites before they depart later that week for the London Games. Spain lost to the U.S. 118-107 in the 2008 gold-medal game in Beijing, but the game was tight until the late stages. Spain will return its key players plus far more mature and talented stars like Ricky Rubio and Marc Gasol to join veterans Pau Gasol, Jose Calderon and newcomer Serge Ibaka.

NBA players and agents involved in the pre-Olympic tour have received the itinerary, and a formal USA Basketball announcement is expected to come on All-Star weekend next week in Orlando, Fla.

Team USA will hold July training camps in Las Vegas and Washington, D.C. and also play exhibitions in both cities. Before leaving for London, Team USA will spend a week in Barcelona, where it will play two of the biggest threats to defending its gold medal: Argentina and Spain. Team USA will play Argentina on July 22 in Barcelona.

The basketball competition in London starts with preliminary games on July 29.

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The NBA's Three-Point Shootout, we should know by now, is not a showcase for the best three-point shooters in the NBA. It's a showcase for very good players who are good shooters, one lights-out three-point marksman you've never heard of, a pretty cool story that includes a big man that can shoot very well, a hometown guy, and a defending champion.
Don't believe me? Check out the lineup of participants: James Jones, last year's champion, of the Miami Heat. Joe Johnson, habitual All-Star of the Atlanta Hawks. Kevin Love, a tough rebounding big man that can also hit buckets of treys. Ryan Anderson, knockout hometown shooter for the Orlando Magic, plus Mario Chalmers and Anthony Morrow (Heat, and New Jersey Nets, respectively) who are really good at shooting.
No Brandon Rush, who leads the NBA in three-point percentage. No Mike Miller, no Klay Thompson, and no Ray Allen even. As Trey Kerby of The Basketball Jones pointed out, Chalmers is the only guy in the top 20 of three-point percentage to make the cut, though Morrow (at "just" 42 percent right now) will likely eventually reclaim his mantle and return to his mean as one of the great three-point shooters ever.
That said, it's a silly exhibition. It's meant to offer a litany of storylines to showcase on basic cable on a Saturday night in February. Hemming and hawing over this list -- even if it features two All-Stars in Love and Johnson who are shooting at the league average from behind the three-point line -- is a bit much at this point. As it stands, the NBA has put together a well-rounded list of participants planned to check all the respective boxes, all with a good chance to win.