The Fundamentals

Jeff Caplan of The Star-Telegram:  “The decision will reap the former Dallas Mavericks’ coach $6.3 million of the $6.5 million he sued Cuban for in late 2006.  Nelson claimed he was due $6.5 million in deferred payments dating to the Ross Perot Jr. ownership group. Cuban contended that Nelson forfeited the money when he took the Golden State head coaching job in August 2006 because it violated a “non-compete” clause in Nelson’s Mavs contract. Nelson was serving as a consultant at the time.  “Nellie prevailed in every claim 100 percent,” said Nelson’s attorney, John O’Connor. “This was not so much a legal defeat for Cuban as it was an old-fashioned ass-whuppin’.”  Ashworth also ruled that Nelson did not use confidential information to help the Warriors beat Dallas in the first round of the 2007 playoffs, as Cuban had asserted in a countersuit.”

Bill Ingram of HOOPSWORLD:  “It’s important to understand exactly what it means when the NBA raises the salary cap number. It’s based not on the financial performance of each individual team, but rather on league-wide revenue. So for instance, when the NBA signs a huge TV deal it increases the overall revenue for the league, but that doesn’t mean each team has more money to spend.  That’s why we’re seeing some hesitancy on the part of teams like Atlanta to spend a ton of money re-signing free agents. Sure, they can afford it under the cap, but that doesn’t mean the team’s market can actually support the kind of spending that the cap will allow. The Hawks have to balance their desire to keep their team together and offer max deals to their top players against the likelihood that they’ll generate enough revenue to support that spending.”

The Peninsula is Mightier:  “Dwyane Wade played flawless, beautiful, historic basketball, and I saw it happen. The passion, the energy, the love, the defiance, the anger – all of it, in a raw display of performance art that nearly brought me to tears. I don’t care that it was an exhibition game. I don’t care that it was a mediocre team without its best player. I don’t care about anything but what I saw. And what I saw was a man born to play basketball playing basketball like few who have walked this earth have ever done. And by watching it, I was renewed.”

Ira Winderman of The Miami Sun-Sentinel:  “Yes, Dwyane Wade smoked Turkey with his performance in today’s Olympic exhibition.  Yes, the elevation was there, as was the aggression.  But let’s also temper this notion about how Wade is back, all the way back, from his ailments.  Doing it in exhibitions against Canada or Turkey only says so much.  So, for that matter, does doing it in limited, sixth-man minutes in the Olympics.  When can we say Wade truly is all the way back? When he’s playing 40 minutes against NBA competition and still has the elevation and aggression to make a difference in the decisive closing seconds.”

Jeff of CelticsBlog:  “Pierce is our Captain, but none of this happens without KG. In fact, without KG, Pierce wouldn’t even still be our Captain and he wouldn’t be the Finals MVP.  Garnett made this team a contender.  He gave this team heart and fire and raw emotion.  He gave this team a defensive identity.  He gave this team hope.  And ultimately, with the help of his Ubuntu teammates, he gave this town a 17th banner.”

Eric Musselman’s Basketball Notebook:  Four traits of a perfect point guard

Anthony Cotton of The Denver Post:  “The last time the United States played Turkey in a pre-Olympic men’s basketball game was just a week short of four years ago. That’s when Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James began excavation work on a tunnel that eventually bored so deep into coach Larry Brown’s doghouse that the Army Corps of Engineers threw up its hands and said there was nothing it could do to retrieve them. Indeed, Anthony and James are inhabiting the same frames as four years ago, but as the U.S. team continues its preparations for the Beijing Games, it’s obvious that they aren’t the same people they were back then.  “This time, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony weren’t sitting on the bench,” Turkish coach Bogdan Tanjevic said, comparing then and now. “This time, they were on the court, and they are the best players in the game.”"

Nate Jones of Money Players:  “Mr. Elmore is correct to believe that education must teach that their is more to life than hoop dreams. However, having the NBA raise its age requirement is not the way to get there. If you’re worried about young blacks making the mistake of forgoing education at an early age in favor of focusing on an unlikely career of professional sports, entertainment, or whatever, I think your focus shouldn’t be on preventing surefire first round picks from becoming multi-millionaires (and uplifting their families beyond anything they could ever do for them with just a college degree), but on fundraising, lobbying houses of government, and reaching out to the inner-city to help open up more opportunities for low-income black males, so that the idea of achieving in the classroom and completing a college education seems more attainable than becoming great a professional athlete, a rapper, or in the worst case, a criminal.”