To the outrage of many Dallas fans, the Mavericks have firmly made the decision to let go of several key pieces of last year’s championship squad. Since Mark Cuban has always been notoriously willing to spend whatever is necessary to field a top notch squad, it seems perplexing that the Mavs wouldn’t be willing to break the bank to keep Tyson Chandler, the defensive anchor of their championship team, let alone be willing to ditch J.J. Barea, Caron Butler and
Zagoria Column: Duke’s Austin Rivers giving Papa Doc advice on Celtics trades
NEW YORK — The best thing about the NBA lockout for Austin Rivers was that it brought him even closer to his father. Without the Boston Celtics to coach, Doc Rivers attended his son’s first eight games at Duke, including making that, ahem, tough trip to Maui. “My first eight games he was at every single game front and center supporting me, which is really neat,” Austin said after scoring a team-best 18 points despite fouling out in No. 5 Duke’s 86-80 win over
Three-team Chris Paul trade is dead; D12 to LAL?
Time to start all over again, from scratch. Chris Paul to the Clippers? Chris Paul to Golden State? Dwight Howard to the Lakers? Dwight Howard to the Bulls? Yep, those rumors are all out there this morning after the three-team deal between the Lakers, Hornets and Rockets fell apart late Saturday night, with the Lakers making a different deal by sending Lamar Odom to the Mavericks for a first-round draft pick. The Mavericks were able to absorb Odom’s salary through the trade exception
Dwight Howard has requested a trade to the Nets
That is the news out of Orlando this evening, and now it is a question of whether New Jersey has enough pieces to get the deal done. It has been well known that New Jersey is willing to deal center Brook Lopez and two first-round draft picks to Orlando, taking back the contract of Hedo Turkoglu in the deal to give Orlando salary cap flexibility. But is that enough to get the league’s most dominant center? Also, can the Nets clear more
Chris Paul trade resubmitted to league office
Well, I put the over/under at 5 p.m. EST, and we are still awaiting word on whether the league office will approve an amended version of the three-team trade that would send Chris Paul from the New Orleans Hornets to the Los Angeles Lakers. So the over wins. ESPN was the first to report the re-submission of the deal, and there is no definitive word yet on what additional pieces have been added by the Lakers to give the Hornets more than
Knicks can’t trade money again until July 1
NEW YORK — Jim Dolan’s big fat wallet will be of no use to the Knicks until next July. The Knicks sent $3 million to the Washington Wizards as part of today’s three-team trade to acquire Tyson Chandler, meaning they don’t have any more money to spend in trades this season — and they might not have any draft picks in June. A new rule in the recently ratified collective bargaining agreement limits the amount of money a team can trade in
Guest Column: Moke Hamilton on Knicks
By Moke Hamilton NEW YORK — Why judge a trade before it’s even officially announced? Oh, that’s right. Silly me. The mandate of the “New York minute” requires that your mind be made up and declarations of “win” or “lose” be made almost instantaneously. Ahem. Pardon my refusal. Tyson Chandler is expected to be announced as the newest member of the New York Knicks, perhaps as early as today. Late Friday night, Marc Berman of the New York Post reported that the Knicks agreed
Howard’s agent talking to Lakers, Nets, Mavericks
“Right now, we’re here in Orlando. We just had practice, and that’s what matters. Nothing else matters beyond today and this moment.” — Dwight Howard, Dec. 9. That is what we call living day to day, or moment to moment, and that’s what we’ll all be doing today – whether we live in Jersey, central Florida, the BK, El Lay, the Metroplex or the Bayou. Somebody is going to trade for Howard and/or Chris Paul, be it today, tomorrow or the next