Sep 30, 2003 12:38 PM EST
There's another NBA lockout. But this one will last only three days.
On Monday afternoon, NBA players with four or more years of experience were barred from practice facilities. They won't be allowed to return until Thursday afternoon.
It's all part of a new NBA rule calling for veterans to report three days later than young players. But it's irking some that veterans can't even practice voluntarily.
"I think it's ridiculous," Denver Nuggets assistant general manager David Fredman said. "I compare it to baseball in the spring when pitchers and catchers report. It would be like saying that Barry Bonds couldn't come in if he wanted to take batting practice."
So the Nuggets will begin training camp today without Marcus Camby, Ryan Bowen, Andre Miller, Earl Boykins, Voshon Lenard and Jon Barry. While they'll return to the Pepsi Center on Thursday for physicals and media day, they can't practice until Friday.
The idea of veterans reporting late was proposed during All-Star Weekend in February as a concession to the NBA Players Association for allowing the league to have a best-of-seven, rather than best- of-five, format for the first round of the playoffs. The players association approved it in a near-unanimous vote at a meeting in June in Las Vegas.
"It's a little frustrating not being able to come in for practice," said Bowen, the Nuggets player representative. "I'd be there if I could. But I can understand why they make the rule where nobody is allowed in. You want to make it the same across the board. You don't want to have pressure put on a player who might not want to come in."
Via Rocky Mountain News
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The NBA has entered into multiyear distribution deals with three cable providers that will more than double the domestic availability of NBA TV, the league's 24-hour television network.
The agreements with Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications and Cablevision were announced Monday and, beginning in October, will make NBA TV available to the approximately 22 million combined customers of the three cable providers.
The network broadcast 50 games last season, the first in which it televised games, and plans to broadcast 96 this season.
NBA TV will now be available to more than 40 million customers in the United States, and is in a total of 5 million homes in 30 other countries. The network, which launched in 1999 and began broadcasting games in January, had been available to approximately 20 million U.S. subscribers through satellite systems DirecTV and the Dish Network.
However, many customers of the three cable providers would have to upgrade their cable systems or pay for premium digital services in order to receive the network.
"Time Warner Cable, Cox and Cablevision are among the most powerful players in the cable industry and NBA TV's added cable distribution marks a significant milestone in the development of the network," NBA commissioner David Stern said in a statement.
Via Associated Press
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The NBA is considering playing regular-season games in China, where such stars as Yao Ming have boosted the popularity of the game.
The league will use preseason games planned for Beijing and Shanghai in October 2004 to test facilities and travel arrangements, Marc Fischer, the league's Hong Kong-based managing director for Asia, said Friday.
"We want to make it an annual event," he said.
Fischer, who was in Beijing for promotional events, told The Associated Press a definite plan is not yet in place.
"A major factor is how teams feel about coming all this way," he said.
Yao, the center for the Houston Rockets, and other Chinese stars like Wang Zhizhi and Mengke Bateer have brought a surge of interest in basketball.
Via Associated Press
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Sep 2003 Archive
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New York Times | Sep 26, 2003
The player, ordered to his feet by the longtime referee Dick Bavetta, stood up like a timid first-grader in an auditorium packed with his schoolmates.
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Los Angeles Times | Sep 26, 2003
Now that ABC has Al Michaels in place as its lead NBA play-by-play announcer, who will round out the team?
ABC desperately wanted Doug Collins, but he signed with TNT.
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Newsday | Sep 24, 2003
On Christmas, Al Michaels will be calling his first nationally televised NBA game, Lakers-Rockets on ABC.
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New York Post | Sep 23, 2003
Al Michaels was named by ABC as its new lead NBA play-by-play voice yesterday, replacing Brad Nessler.
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The Manila Times | Sep 19, 2003
FIRST it was Scott Burrell.
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New York Times | Sep 19, 2003
Charles Barkley was cautious.
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Vail Daily | Sep 16, 2003
Kobe Bryant's attorneys say his accuser's credibility is central to determining if their client should stand trial, and they insist her medical records should be made available to them.
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Washington Post | Sep 15, 2003
For Sarunas Jasikevicius and his basketball-playing buddies in Lithuania in 1992, the Dream Team participating in the Olympics wasn't necessarily the fabled collection of NBA all-stars led by Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
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New York Times | Sep 15, 2003
There is a 12-year-old boy in Serbia whose 6-foot-11 frame has European scouts beside themselves, itching to sign him to a professional contract.
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New York Times | Sep 14, 2003
There is a 12-year-old boy in Serbia whose 6-foot-11 frame has European scouts beside themselves, itching to sign him to a professional contract.
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Rocky Mountain News | Sep 11, 2003
Prosecutors plan to play videotaped statements of Kobe Bryant and his alleged victim, and show photographs of her injuries at his sexual assault preliminary hearing next month.
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New York Daily News | Sep 10, 2003
Mark Jackson has finally found a basketball team that will give him playing time.
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Washington Post | Sep 10, 2003
With the European basketball championships at the midway point, the growing influence of the NBA is evident.
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Vail Daily | Sep 9, 2003
Prosecutors plan a counterstrike against Kobe Bryant's attorneys, who are trying to force the basketball star's alleged sexual assault victim to testify at his preliminary hearing Oct.
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Orange County Register | Sep 9, 2003
A Colorado judge has denied the media's request for television and still-photography coverage of the preliminary hearing in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case scheduled for Oct.
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Dallas Morning News | Sep 8, 2003
To grasp the talent level at last week's NBA-sponsored Africa 100 Camp, you have to think in terms of a Tiger Woods commercial.
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Boston Globe | Sep 7, 2003
The longer he played, the more obvious it became that Robert Parish would join the other members of the Big Three in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
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Dallas Morning News | Sep 7, 2003
They have come here, all 100 of them, chasing a dream.
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Toronto Star | Sep 5, 2003
What's expected to be the best and most intensely fought basketball tournament in years unfolds beginning today in that noted hoops hotbed of Sweden.
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Associated Press | Sep 5, 2003
Dennis Rodman was released Thursday night from jail after being arrested earlier in the day after allegedly being drunk in public.
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Toronto Star | Sep 2, 2003
If it had been anybody but the ultra-cool and collected Tracy McGrady, the question would have evoked a belly laugh, or at least a chortle.
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Denver Post | Sep 2, 2003
The Pitkin County official leading a special investigation into alleged leaks to the media in the Kobe Bryant sexual-assault case has set a Sept.
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Rocky Mountain News | Sep 2, 2003
Somehow, Larry Brown did it.
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Philadelphia Daily News | Sep 2, 2003
On the final night of the Olympic qualifying tournament, Steve Nash shot 2-for-13.
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Newsday | Sep 1, 2003
It finally happened.
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Indianapolis Star | Sep 1, 2003
The U.
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Rocky Mountain News | Sep 1, 2003
Baseball is the most popular sport in Puerto Rico, but not on Sunday.
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Toronto Globe & Mail | Sep 1, 2003
The towering presence of Puerto Rican centre Jose Ortiz proved too much to handle last night as Puerto Rico scored an emotional 79-66 victory in the third-place game at the Americas qualifying tournament, shattering Canada's dreams of advancing to next summer's Olympic Games.
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Toronto Star | Sep 1, 2003
Big hearts and tough minds are laudable qualities in athletes — they can do wonders to help the less skilled overcome their limitations.
