FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.
Luis Scola is a 29-year-old power forward. He has long(er) hair, and is not built like a racehorse. He doesn't jump out of the gym, his tangibles aren't off the charts, his wingspan isn't epic, and he's not a franchise player. But man, the guy can play ball.
Since Scola came into the league two seasons ago, he's quietly been a foundation of the Rockets' success. A rare miscalculation by the San Antonio Spurs, who drafted him in 2002 when he was only 22 but traded him to the Rockets, Scola has become just the kind of player you expect to find in San Antonio. Hardworking, efficient, dedicated and professional. Scola manages to play with fire and intensity, without ever losing his cool.
The biggest free agent on the market this year just got inked. Kind of. Though he wasn't going anywhere, Daryl Morey's been working without a contract since the end of last season. And today, the Houston Chronicle reports, the Rockets have finalized a deal that will keep him with the team through 2013.
So given the new timeline for Morey and his prior success, what are the odds Morey nabs an Executive of the Year award by the time his next contract is up?
Opening night still seems so far away (too far away), but there are already questions as to whether Yi Jianlian will be available for New Jersey. Reports surfaced this week placing Yi in China playing for his native Guangdong in the National Games at the end of October. The Nets kick off the season October 28 ... which also happens to be the final day of the China Games.
But Nets boss Rod Thorn told the Newark Star-Ledger's Dave D'Alessandro that Yi will not be missing any Nets games. Which implies that Yi will not be participating in the China Games. Which is not going to make the Chinese Basketball Association very happy.
Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Saturday, there are 52 days remaining.
American athletes find themselves high on annual top-earning celebrity lists -- Tiger Woods is a perennial top-five finisher on Forbes's Celebrity 100 list, and Michael Jordan had seen that ink for decades. Kobe Bryant and LeBron James made the magazine's top 100 celebrity earners list last year as well.
But the top-earning NBA player last year, according to Forbes, wasn't an American-born player. It was Rockets star Yao Ming, who is said to have earned $52 million in 2008.
Iran, which placed its first player in the NBA last season, is the champion of Asian basketball after a lopsided 70-52 win over China in Tianjin Sunday. Iran had also won the title in 2007, though China fielded a 'B' team in order to prepare for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Before 2007, Iran had never so much as medaled in its previous 11 FIBA Asia appearances, while China had claimed gold in 14 of the previous 17 tournaments.
The AFP reports Chinese coach Guo Shiqiang has come under fire by Chinese fans and press for the embarrassing home loss. If I may offer Guo a defense, he might just repeat "YAO MING" over and over again. Yao, of course, is not playing with the Chinese team for the first time in nearly a decade, due to injury. He tends to matter quite a bit. (See: Grizzlies back-up singer Hamed Haddadi going for 19/17 in the championship game.)
People must really like that LeBron James fellow, because his Cleveland Cavaliers will appear on national TV more than any other team during the 2009-10 season. The Cavs will be featured on ABC, ESPN or TNT some 25 times this season.
The Lakers, Celtics and Magic will all make 24 appearances on national TV. The Nuggets (21), Spurs (20) and Suns (18) follow. Five teams -- the Kings, Bobcats, Bucks, Nets and (amazingly) Rockets -- have no national TV games scheduled.
A full accounting of the national TV schedule after the jump.
In our inaugural edition of the NBA Twitter mailbag, we've got some interesting topics to get us started. How will Shaq's ego fit in Cleveland? Is Kevin Durant getting the attention he deserves? And what's left on the Celtics' summer to-do list?
The bad gets worse. Rockets team doctor Tom Clanton confirmed to the Houston Chronicle's Jonathan Feigen that Yao Ming's broken foot is so serious it could end the center's career. Earlier Monday, Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that outside general managers had gotten the sense in dealings with Houston's Daryl Morey that Yao's injury is much worse than anyone had thought, to the point the Rockets could be without their talisman for the entire 2009-10 season.
But the coda from Clanton -- marking this fracture as the most serious injury in Yao's accursed reign -- bodes more doom than one more lost season. As you well know, the Rockets without Yao is like a jazz quartet without the bass or piano. He's not just the face of the franchise. He's the spine, the legs and the arms, too.
A to Z.
FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.
The biggest free agent on the market this year just got inked. Kind of. Though he wasn't going anywhere, Daryl Morey's been working without a contract since the end of last season. And today, the Houston Chronicle reports, the Rockets have finalized a deal that will keep him with the team through 2013. 
Opening night still seems so far away (too far away), but there are already questions as to whether Yi Jianlian will be available for New Jersey. Reports surfaced this week placing Yi in China playing for his native Guangdong in the National Games at the end of October. The Nets kick off the season October 28 ... which also happens to be the final day of the China Games.
Iran, which placed its first player in the NBA last season, is the champion of Asian basketball after a lopsided 70-52 win over China in Tianjin Sunday. Iran had also won the title in 2007, though China fielded a 'B' team in order to prepare for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Before 2007, Iran had never so much as medaled in its previous 11 FIBA Asia appearances, while China had claimed gold in 14 of the previous 17 tournaments.
People must really like that LeBron James fellow, because his Cleveland Cavaliers will appear on national TV more than any other team during the 2009-10 season. The Cavs will be featured on ABC, ESPN or TNT some 25 times this season.
In our inaugural edition of the NBA Twitter mailbag, we've got some interesting topics to get us started. How will Shaq's ego fit in Cleveland? Is Kevin Durant getting the attention he deserves? And what's left on the Celtics' summer to-do list?
The bad gets worse. Rockets team doctor Tom Clanton confirmed to the Houston Chronicle's Jonathan Feigen that Yao Ming's broken foot is so serious it could end the center's career. Earlier Monday, Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that outside general managers had gotten the sense in dealings with Houston's Daryl Morey that Yao's injury is much worse than anyone had thought, to the point the Rockets could be without their talisman for the entire 2009-10 season.
