Kobe Bryant and his representatives will meet with officials from the Turkish basketball club Besiktas on Saturday, according to sources.
Kobe Bryant
“At the moment there’s a 50 percent chance that Kobe may come to Turkey,” said Seref Yalcin, head of basketball operations for Besiktas, on Tuesday. Yalcin made the comments to reporters in Turkey, according to Reuters. “Everything will be clearer after the meeting on the 30th [of July].”
Besiktas signed Deron Williams in mid-July.
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Lawrence Frank
The Detroit Pistons are giving Lawrence Frank another chance to lead an NBA team.
According to sources, Frank has accepted a four-year deal — the fourth year is a team option — with the Pistons to be their new coach, and news conference to annouce the deal is scheduled for next week.
Frank, an assistant coach with Boston last season and a former head coach in New Jersey, will be Detroit’s sixth coach in 11 seasons when the NBA lockout ends. The Pistons fired John Kuester in June after they missed the playoffs in both of his two seasons.
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The Portland Trail Blazers will honor former Portland center and basketball legend Arvydas Sabonis on Thursday, Aug. 18, following his 2011 induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Arvydas Sabonis
Sabonis, who played for the Trail Blazers for seven seasons (1995-2001, 2002-03), is known globally as one of the greatest centers to ever play the game. He will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., Aug. 11-13, before returning to the Rose City.
The team will honor Sabonis and reunite him with fans in a public celebration at Pioneer Courthouse Square at approximately 1 p.m., where Sabonis will be added to the Trail Blazers Hall of Fame banner displayed in the Rose Garden.
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Acie Law
Acie Law has signed a one-year, $500,000 deal with the Serbian team Partizan. The deal does not have an out clause that would allow Law to return to the NBA should the current lockout end.
Law has bounced around the NBA in his four seasons. He was a first-round draft pick of the Atlanta Hawks in 2007 and also has played for Chicago, Golden State, Charlotte and Memphis.
Law began last season with the Warriors and was traded to the Grizzlies. He appeared in 51 games overall, averaging 8.5 minutes per game.
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Caron Butler
The Dallas Mavericks’ intentions are to sign unrestricted free agent Caron Butler to a long-term contract, agent Raymond Brothers said Wednesday.
During the playoffs and again after the Mavericks won the NBA championship, Brothers said Mavs president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson told him the club wants to re-sign the nine-year veteran.
“After the championship was over,” Brothers said, “Donnie texted me and told me he wanted Caron to be part of the team long term.”
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Take a look at the highlights from the 1986 Slam Dunk Competition. The winner was Spud Webb of the Atlanta Hawks.
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That meeting will take place next week, barring some unforeseen scheduling issue, according to two sources familiar with the matter. It could take place as early as Monday, depending on how the schedules of a few key figures shake out, according to one of the sources.
Derek Fisher
Staff members from each side, including some top officials, have met twice since the lockout took effect on July 1 to finalize the 2010-11 basketball-related income figure, discuss possible structures for a new salary cap and schedule future meetings. But those sessions have not involved several key players, including NBA commissioner David Stern, union executive director Billy Hunter and top outside counsel for both sides.
Experts consider the two sides to be far apart in a dispute that centers on how the league should split its revenue pie with players.
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Jalen Rose
ESPN analyst and former NBA player Jalen Rose was sentenced to 20 days in jail Wednesday for a drunken-driving crash along a snowy suburban Detroit road.
Rose, a college star at the University of Michigan, actually was sentenced to 92 days in custody, but District Court Judge Kimberly Small suspended all but 20. He also was given a year of probation.
Rose pleaded guilty in May. At that time, he said he veered off a West Bloomfield Township road in March after drinking six martinis. His blood-alcohol content was 0.12 percent, above Michigan’s legal driving limit of 0.08. No one was injured.
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Larry Brown
After interviewing Rick Adelman and Don Nelson over the weekend, Minnesota intend to interview Larry Brown and possibly one or two others in this first phase to replace fired coach Kurt Rambis.
When the Timberwolves will interview Brown, who has coached teams to both NBA and NCAA titles, is uncertain because of a recent death in his family.
If they do, they will have interviewed two coaches among the top six all time in NBA career victories. Nelson is No. 1 with 1,335. Brown is No. 6 with 1,098.
The Wolves so far have interviewed Bernie Bickerstaff, Terry Porter, Mike Woodson, Adelman and Nelson.
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