Michael O’Brien of the Chicago Sun-Times: “Bulls guard Derrick Rose’s college career at Memphis officially was erased from the record books Thursday. The NCAA Committee on Infractions concluded that a player on the 2007-08 team was ineligible to compete because of an invalidated SAT score. According to the NCAA, the athlete played for the Tigers only in the 2007-08 season and the 2008 NCAA tournament. Only one player — Rose — fits that description. The committee also found that Memphis provided a player’s brother with $1,713.85 in impermissible benefits. That person is believed to be Rose’s older brother Reggie. As a result of the infractions, Memphis will forfeit all 38 victories and its Final Four appearance. The school is on probation until Aug. 19, 2012, and must return all the money it received from appearing in the NCAA tournament. ‘I know I didn’t do anything wrong,’ Rose said two weeks ago at his basketball camp in Deerfield.”
Tom Ziller of FanHouse: “Certain university programs (USC, Memphis, now Kentucky, thanks to John Calipari) just ooze scandal. Other programs are very obviously dirty — it’s more difficult to point out ones which are not — and the NBA is forcing their prospects into this system. Through the age rule, the NBA condones the way the NCAA has run things (which I would describe as ‘poorly,’ given that it took the NCAA two years to figure out an SAT test Rose ‘took’ four hours away in the home base of one of the most notorious handlers in the basketball realm, a man who had already been connected to Rose’s family and the University of Memphis). The NBA isn’t forcing prospects to fake their SATs or take money from runners. But David Stern knows as well as anyone how deep the pitfalls of modern high-stakes college basketball have become. And if the age rule is at least in part an antidote for the league’s image problems … well, it’s not working.”
Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel: “They used to call him ‘White Chocolate,’ but now he seems more like white marshmallows in warm cocoa. He once had a tattoo put on his arm that, when translated, was the Japanese word for ‘insane.’ But now, he has his children’s names proudly inked on his forearm. He used to be all about flash and flair — the Lamborghini of NBA point guards. But on Thursday, I had to check the parking lot just to make sure Jason Williams didn’t drive to the press conference in a Ford Windstar minivan. Asked what he’s learned since he last played in the NBA, Williams smiled and said with father-like circumspection, ‘The main lesson I’ve learned is that three kids are definitely harder to manage than two.’That great NBA analyst Mick Jagger once sang, ‘What a drag it is growing old.’ In many ways, Mick and the Boys were right, but there’s also some clear-cut evidence that sometimes it’s better to be old than bold.”
Tim Povtak of FanHouse: “Van Gundy intended to talk Thursday about the recent addition of veteran point guard Jason Williams, but he couldn’t help veering into the perceived slights his team has received this summer as it got overshadowed by the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers. ‘For a team that went to the Finals, we really haven’t gotten the respect teams normally do,’ Van Gundy said at the Magic’s headquarters. ‘Based upon what we did last year, I think our players do feel a little under appreciated and under respected.’ Although the Magic beat both the Celtics and the Cavaliers last spring on the way to reaching the Finals, their draft-night trade for Vince Carter was shadowed when Boston added Rasheed Wallace and Cleveland traded for Shaquille O’Neal. ‘It was a lot of little things, and in the long run they’re not very important, but you feel it,” Van Gundy said. ‘Like the television schedule. Normally on Christmas Day, you get a rematch of the teams that played in the Finals. But instead, we get a Christmas Day matchup of the teams that they (TV executives) wanted to see in the Finals.’”
Sam Amick of the Sacramento Bee: “For three days during Kevin Martin’s visit to Indonesia this week, the Kings shooting guard kept hearing the same question from that country’s media chronicling the rare visit from an NBA player. ‘They’d ask what advice I had for the kids, and I always said, ‘If you work hard, you get rewards,’ ‘ Martin said. ‘That’s what they need to hear, because if you see the surroundings there, it’s like any other third-world (country). It’s just tough. We just don’t know how good we have it.’ On the final day of Martin’s visit, he made sure his advice rang true. ‘When I was giving my farewell speech, the kids were there, too, and I said, I always told you if you work hard, you get rewarded, so the NBA paid me $15,000 to go over here … and they (the kids) worked harder than me for those three days so I didn’t see how I deserved that. I just wanted to set an example for them and donated the money back to the DBL.’”
Steve Luhm of The Salt Lake Tribune: “After discussing why he likes O’Connor’s job performance, Miller talked at length about reading ‘trade stories’ that appear in the web edition of the paper and the comments that other readers/Jazz fans post underneath them. His usual reaction? With all due respect, they should leave the wheeling and dealing to O’Connor because that’s his business. ‘In my opinion, the [comments] I’ve read — about 85 or 90 percent of them — are about things that people know nothing about,’ Miller said. ‘There are a handful of things that makes sense — some suggestions that are even doable. But most of them are completely ridiculous. The thing that I’ve learned reading those things is that anybody can have an opinion but, when it comes to actually executing it, they don’t know how difficult that is. And that’s what Kevin does — day in and day out.’ Miller noted that just because trades aren’t finalized doesn’t mean O’Connor hasn’t been working.”
Tom Ziller of FanHouse: “The news that Mark Cuban forced German superstar Dirk Nowitzki to skip this summer’s Eurobasket tournament was tempered by the fact that Cuban and Nowitzki brokered that deal last summer on the basis that Dirk has given his summers to the national team forever. But the case of Puerto Rican Maverick J.J. Barea isn’t quite as tidy. Barea had shoulder surgery in May, and feels as though he is back to 100%. He’s eager to represent FIBA Americas host P.R., hoping to help his team win a place in the 2010 World Championships. But Cuban has denied Barea permission to participate. Barea told a Puerto Rican newspaper that the Mavs decree was ‘the worst news I’ve been given.’ Given the circumstances, and in perpetual memory of the devastating Jorge Garbajosa catastrophe, the Mavericks are well within their right to hold Barea out, both in rule and common sense. That doesn’t make it any less painful for Barea, who would have been able to play in front of his hometown fans, friends and family on a grand stage.”
Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “David Kahn says today he has “nothing to report” but he has turned his focus from hiring his coach to getting Ricky Rubio in a Wolves uniform by October. The matter has been complicated — beyond even the $8 million buyout figure — by the fact that Rubio has agents in both the U.S. and Europe and his father is involved in negotiations. Still, that he hasn’t signed with another European team thus far indicates it’s most likely he ends up in the NBA, and the Wolves, this season. The buyout is everything in this deal, and DKV Joventut’s demands likely look too rich for European teams. Plus, through all of this it has made the most sense for Rubio to end up in the NBA this season. That’s why he applied for the NBA draft this summer, didn’t he? He can make far more money in endorsements as an internationally marketed NBA player than he can playing in Barcelona or Madrid.”
Steve Kyler of HOOPSWORLD: “Experts in the field of performance enhancing drugs say beyond the regenerative properties most steroids and PEDs provide, the trade off for basketball is more of a deterrent. In a general way, PEDs tend to improve power and strength but limit flexibility. Endurance and longevity tend to be traded for ‘bursts’ of speed and explosiveness. The fact the NBA game is a game of constant motion and that there is very little down time to recover, PEDs tend to make basketball players slower over the course of a game. The added bulk PEDs provide is not a desired trait in the NBA making the gains from PED use almost a negative. The NBA is also comprised of younger players with guaranteed contracts, unlike football’s ‘pay for play’ model or baseball where the players are typically playing in their 30’s. League sources say the NBA is very aggressive in this testing and tends to look for this more than any other testing they do, likely because they have seen the impact steroids has had on baseball.”
Hannah Karp of the Wall Street Journal: “The NBA’s hottest new couple announced its engagement earlier this summer, but there have been no candle-lit dinners, secret rendezvous or long walks on the beach. Shaquille O’Neal and LeBron James, who will be teammates on the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers this coming season, say they haven’t seen each other socially since the All-Star Game in February. Mr. O’Neal says their recent interchanges have consisted mostly of terse BlackBerry Messenger greetings like ‘Hey’ and ‘What up?’ ‘Everyone thinks you have to like each other to win a championship, but that’s not true,’ says Mr. O’Neal. ‘You have to have respect but you don’t have to go on vacation together.’ Ever since the 37-year-old Mr. O’Neal was traded to the Cavaliers, a team that Mr. James, 24, has ruled throughout his six seasons in the NBA, speculation has been swirling about whether the marriage will work. … Most experts who study teamwork, from former athletes to researchers at the Wharton School say the most important indicator of a partnership’s potential is whether the two parties share the same ultimate goal.”
