Lots of “moves”….5-foot nothing point guard John Lucas III signed with the Houston Rockets…the son of former Rocket John Lucas Jr., played with the team under two separate 10-day contracts last season as a rookie…Lucas went undrafted out of Oklahoma State, where he was selected the Big 12 player of the year in 2004…the Orlando Magic re-signed Trevor Ariza, a restricted free agent the club acquired in a midseason deal with the New York Knicks. Ariza played in 57 games with both the Magic and the Knicks last season, averaging 4.6 points and four rebounds per game. Ariza, 21, was originally selected 43rd overall by the Knicks in the 2002 NBA Draft…Phoenix Suns signed free agent Sean Marks to a one-year deal…the Charlotte Bobcats re-signed swingman Bernard Robinson…swingman Jamal Sampson signed with the Denver Nuggets…the Indiana Pacers signed free agent Maceo Baston, who spent the last three seasons playing in Israel…the New York Knicks signed Washington forward Jared Jeffries to an offer sheet believed to be for about $30 million over five years, according to published reports Saturday…the Wiz will have seven days to match the offer…the Nets picked up center Mikki Moore from Seattle for a 2009 second-round draft pick… the Bucks have agreed to send centre Jamaal Magloire to the Trail Blazers for point guard Steve Blake and backup centers Brian Skinner and Ha Seung Jin…

OK after all of this movement, the last one piques my interest…why would the Blazers want Magloire? They just signed Pryzbilla to a long-term deal and then drafted LaMarcus Aldridge…now they add another centre? You know they’re DYING to get rid of Darius Miles…could they be contemplating sweetening any potential trade offering of Miles by including Aldridge in the deal? Think about it, why else would you go get another centre?

By the way, Steve Blake is obviously insurance in case Mo Williams shits the bed as the new starter in Miwaulkee…

Big Internet rumour out there saying that a former member of the T-Wolves Medical staff is claiming that Wally Sczerbiak’s left knee has no cartilage left and is now bone on bone…Sczerbiak is only 29 years old…

Anthony Johnson spoke to the Indianapolis Star about his trade to the Mavs. Responding to the Pacers’ concern that he wouldn’t be willing to accept a backup role to Jamaal Tinsley, Johnson said, “If Jamaal came in in great shape and played the way he’s capable of playing, I wouldn’t have had no problem with that. At the same time, though, if there’s a competition and I’m playing the best, I feel like I should play the most. I just know the best guy should play and that’s how I feel about that.” Johnson added, “It’s no secret they (the Pacers) have issues. You can talk about injures, but you also have to talk about professionalism and being ready to play when the ball goes up. We didn’t have the ship pointed in the right direction as far as being rested, being ready to play and playing with pure heart.”…basically he’s saying the Pacers suck…

Los Angeles Lakers forward Luke Walton recently taped his acting debut on the CBS soap opera "The Young and the Restless," in which he plays a game of one-on-one basketball with actor Kristoff St. John. The episode will air Aug. 30…no doubt following in the footsteps of his his father Bill Walton who played himself in such forgettable movies as "He Got Game" and "Forget Paris."

Here’s the schedule for basketball related events for the rest of the summer:

Aug. 19-Sept. 3 - FIBA men's world championship (Sapporo and Saitama, Japan) – US team beings it’s redemption…
Sept. 8 - Hall of Fame enshrinement (Springfield, Mass.). – Dominique and Joe D, but no AD…
Oct. 2 - Players report to their teams no earlier than 11 a.m. (local time) -
Oct. 3 - Training camps open.
Oct. 5 - Start of the preseason schedule.
Oct. 30 - Rosters set for opening day, 6 p.m. EST.
Oct. 31 - Start of the 2006-07 regular season.

1) John Hollinger of ESPN.com with some AI trade ideas:

Five possible Allen Iverson trade scenarios

The dog days of the summer are here, which means only one thing in the NBA world: trade rumor season. With the list of top free agents whittled down to just a select few names, and teams otherwise sifting through the scraps, our attention is now turned to the great many players who are already under contract. Some undoubtedly will change addresses between now and when the season starts, and most observers feel that this particular summer will see brisk action on the trading front as the result of a lame free-agent market. Unquestionably, the biggest name available on the trade market is Philadelphia's star, Allen Iverson. While the Sixers recently said they have no intention of dealing Iverson right now, they were shopping him for most of the summer. Even today, many folks around the league will tell you, sotto voce, they believe he's still available.
Available or not, Iverson is one player who gives us a great example of how to use a great fan-friendly tool on this site -- ESPN.com's Trade Machine, which evaluates any proposed trade and tells you whether it works under the salary cap. Using this tool, as well as heavy dollops of common sense, we can evaluate five potential destinations for Iverson, what players might have to be included in order to make a deal workable, and what the odds are of something actually getting done with one of these teams:

GOLDEN STATE - Troy Murphy, Ike Diogu, Mickael Pietrus and Zarko Cabarkapa for Iverson

If anybody outside of Philadelphia is likely to undergo a late-summer face-lift, it's the Warriors. And after apparently failing in their pursuit of Al Harrington (Indiana is expected to nab him in a sign-and-trade deal thanks to its mammoth trade exception), Golden State's brass can turn its attention to Iverson. With several inexpensive young talents on board, a deal with the Warriors could certainly give Philly the post-Iverson boost it needs. The trade above represents a broad outline, but here are several variants depending on which players quicken the pulse of Sixers GM Billy King the most. For instance, Pietrus could be replaced with Andris Biedrins at Philly's choosing, or if the teams waited until October, the Warriors could replace Pietrus with the combo of Monta Ellis and either Keith McLeod or Andre Owens (both of whom were traded from Utah in July, so they can't be moved again in a package deal for three months). Additionally, Diogu or Murphy almost certainly would be conveyed to a third team since they both play the same position as Chris Webber. Another monkey wrench involves waiting until October, then adding both McLeod and Devin Brown to the deal as cap ballast, allowing the Sixers to dump Kyle Korver's contract in the Bay. Alternatively, the Warriors might insist on adding some combo of McLeod, Brown and Owens to the deal just to keep them under the luxury-tax threshold. In any event, this deal doesn't look as great for the Sixers as it does for the Warriors, unless Philly places a very high value on Diogu and/or Ellis. Murphy overlaps with Webber, and pairing the two is unthinkable from a defensive perspective, so getting him should be a very low priority. Even more, Murphy's contract runs two years longer than Iverson's, so the Sixers won't get much in the way of cap relief.

Odds: 7-1

NEW YORK - Steve Francis, Maurice Taylor, Malik Rose, Channing Frye and Nate Robinson for Iverson, Kyle Korver and Sam Dalembert

New York would be the logical place to turn if the Sixers were focused mainly on cap relief. Jalen Rose's expiring $16 million deal alone would be enough to trade straight up for Iverson, or the Knicks could spread the cap relief over two years by combining Malik Rose (whose deal expires in 2008) and Maurice Taylor (whose numbers are up after this season). But the most likely scenario (not that any of these are likely, mind you) would need to be a blockbuster, because New York already has two expensive point guards (Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis). Adding Iverson to that group wouldn't make much sense unless the Knicks could unload one of their two current point guards. In this scenario, both teams would need to pull in other players to make the deal equitable, as a straight-up Francis and Channing Frye for Iverson deal is unlikely to cut the mustard in Philly. As a result, a bigger deal giving the Sixers more cap relief by dumping the contracts of Korver and Dalembert seems more realistic. Jalen Rose could just as easily replace the Taylor-Rose combo in the deal above, and any of the Knicks' youngsters could swap for Nate Robinson, as well. Finally, if this type of deal ever came to fruition, a third team (and perhaps a fourth) would almost certainly need to get involved. The Knicks already are paying close to $100 million at the center spot and wouldn't seem to have a need for Dalembert, while the Sixers probably would want to deal Malik Rose for a backcourt player.

Odds: 25-1

ATLANTA - Josh Smith, Tyronn Lue and Josh Childress for Iverson

The Hawks are an inviting destination for Iverson because they're sitting on nearly $10 million in cap space to make a deal work, and at any rate they will have a trade exception worth several million dollars if and when they sign-and-trade Harrington to Indiana. Dealing with the Hawks would accomplish two of Philly's goals -- getting cap relief and talented youth -- so the bigger question is whether the Hawks are in position to make a play. Atlanta's fractured ownership situation certainly complicates matters, and GM Billy Knight has been one of the league's most reluctant deal-makers since he's come to Atlanta. To pull off a deal for the Answer, Atlanta would need to include Josh Smith or Marvin Williams at a minimum. My guess is that Philly would prefer Smith since he'll be able to contribute immediately and will provide some of the crowd-pleasing moments that would make up for Iverson's loss. Josh Childress makes a nice sweetener who can fortify a lackluster second unit, while Tyronn Lue is the easiest part of the puzzle -- Atlanta wouldn't need an extra point guard, the Sixers would, and Speedy Claxton can't be traded until December 15. The other benefit of this deal is it would give the Sixers a huge trade exception that they could use until next summer, potentially giving them a leg up in free agency despite being over the cap. The fly in the ointment here would be on the Hawks' side of the ledger. Iverson would certainly provide a short-term attendance boost -- he's one of the few visiting players who reliably packs 'em in at the moribund Philips Arena. But one has to wonder if it's wise to add a 31-year-old guard whose greatest skill (quickness) is the one that declines most rapidly with age. This is particularly true when the cost is Smith, a 20-year-old jumping jack with 3-point range, and when the team went 26-56 a year ago and appears to be years from contending for anything important.

Odds: 8-1

BOSTON - Wally Szczerbiak, Al Jefferson, Delonte West and Dwayne Jones for Iverson

Boston has been considered the leading Iverson suitor for some time, and looking at its roster it's easy to see why. The Celtics have hordes of young players to mix and match as part of a deal depending on Philadelphia's tastes -- Gerald Green, Kendrick Perkins, Tony Allen or Ryan Gomes could replace Jefferson or West if that was whom the Sixers preferred. Plus, Boston has the benefit of two large contracts (Wally Szczerbiak's and, if they wait until late September, Theo Ratliff's) that can be used as the main building block of a deal. Additionally, the C's wouldn't mind lightening the roster a bit. The Celtics have 14 guaranteed contracts for next season plus two undrafted players (Allan Ray and Kevin Pittsnogle) that they might prefer to keep, so making a 4-for-1 deal like this one would alleviate the overcrowding. Another variant would add Philly's Kyle Korver and Boston's Brian Scalabrine to the mix, because the scenario above doesn't provide Philly with much cap relief. Allowing Philadelphia to dump Korver's contract on Boston in return for the even-more-useless but slightly-less well-compensated Scalabrine would give the Sixers more cap relief than the above scenario affords. Boston could even take things a step further and add Ratliff on the Boston side and Dalembert on Philly's, but it's unlikely that the Sixers would accept such a glaring difference in talent just to drop the final years of Dalembert's contract.

Odds: 5-1

DENVER - Kenyon Martin and Andre Miller for Iverson

The Nuggets have a few different scenarios that might work for Philly. The most plausible involves Kenyon Martin and Andre Miller, who combine to match Iverson's salary almost perfectly. Miller would slide right into the point guard job in Philly, while Martin and Chris Webber could alternate games at power forward depending on whose knees felt better that night. (Or, more realistically, the Sixers could convey Martin to a third team with a need at power forward). Since Martin doesn't fit well, the Sixers might make a deal work without him -- even though he's the guy the Nuggets really want to trade. Miller and Ruben Patterson's expiring contract would be enough to get a deal done, with somebody like Linas Kleiza likely throw in to give the Sixers a decent young player and keep the Nuggets under the luxury-tax line. Denver also has two No. 1 picks next year, at least one of which it could use as a sweetener to try to get Philly to accept Martin. In the Nuggets' best-case scenario, the Sixers take Martin and Patterson, with Kleiza and a future No. 1 lumped into the mix as added incentive. Denver also might be open to a shooter like Korver getting added to the mix, with either Eduardo Najera or a signed-and-traded Reggie Evans going back to Philly. However, just because the Nuggets could get a deal done doesn't mean they're on the phone pushing for it. One gets the sense from Denver's recent flurry of maneuvers that they've moved on to other things, and that might be for the best anyway. For all Iverson does, he's not much of an outside shooter, meaning he does nothing to address the team's most glaring need.

Odds: 15-1

2) David Aldridge of the Philadelphia Inquirer wonders what’s going on with the Sixers management:

Snider's patience appears bottomless

Is that it? Are we done? Did Billy King finish "changing the culture of how we play and the way we approach things" without telling us? Is your head spinning after counting all the new, young defensemen Bob Clarke said were coming? More to the point, what's Ed Snider's scorecard saying? Snider's patience with Clarke and King is nothing new. Clarke has had carte blanche to trade anyone and everyone off the Flyers' roster for 12 years. King has been around since 1997, and fully in charge since 2003. Let's say this up front: There's nothing inherently wrong with being patient. Most of the time, it's a positive characteristic. In sports, knee-jerk reactions fueled by sports-talk intolerance are a cliché, and unworthy of the person that actually signs the checks. The Maras, who have owned all or part of the NFL's Giants for eight decades, are patient men - the Giants have had just two general managers, the late George Young and Ernie Accorsi, since 1979. So are Bill DeWitt and the owners of baseball's St. Louis Cardinals, who have let GM Walt Jocketty alone for 12 years. Same in Atlanta, where John Schuerholz has built and rebuilt the Braves a half-dozen times since his arrival in 1991 - and hasn't been cashiered despite the Braves' relative lack of playoff success. The patron saint of patience, Steelers chairman Dan Rooney (two head coaches in 36 years), gave coach Bill Cowher chance after chance after chance to win a Super Bowl - until he finally did. But there are few cities where Cowher would have been able to lose three conference title games at home and still have his gig. So, patience is fine - if the teams are successful. That doesn't describe the tenants of Wachovia Center the last few seasons - unless you aspire to frequent first-round bouncings. After cratering at the end of last season, King vowed the team would be different in 2006-07. No, he didn't come out and say that Allen Iverson and Chris Webber would be gone, but we all know how hard he has tried to move both players in the last month. If Boston had agreed to give up its draft pick so that the Sixers could draft Randy Foye, Iverson would be looking at Back Bay property right now. Clarke said he knew the Flyers needed to get quicker and younger on the blue line after the Buffalo Sabres blew past his defensemen in the first round. And he has acknowledged that he can't go through another season with both Antero Niittymaki and Robert Esche in net; someone's got to go. But, so far, the summer's work has netted... chum. The Sixers have acquired nobody. No veterans who could bring in the toughness and defensive talent that would get them out of this eighth-seed hell they're in. King is now reduced to hoping rookie draft picks Rodney Carney and Bobby Jones, along with guard Willie Green, returning from a knee injury, can provide the defensive hustle and legwork. "I said I was changing the culture. I didn't say I was changing players," King said yesterday. To that end, King says his players will work better with members of the media next season. He says that there will be improvements in "customer service, how we approach the fans, how we approach everything... . It may not be things that people notice. I'm talking about the professionalism of representing the 76ers on and off the court, how we interact with our fans in the arena. I think we have to take a close look at everything we do in the organization, and it starts with me." On the court, King says that Maurice Cheeks will have a new defensive system in place next season - which sort of implies that Cheeks didn't have one last season. Clarke says that injuries explain the Flyers' second-half swoon last season. And he has pointed out that he did his busy work last summer, when he brought Peter Forsberg from Colorado and Derian Hatcher from Detroit and Mike Rathje from San Jose - players whose salaries obviously limit what Clarke can do this off-season. And his priority continues to be re-signing free agent Simon Gagne. Even assuming that ultimately gets done, and that Forsberg's ankle indeed allows him to play in October rather than January, the few off-season additions such as veteran defenseman Nolan Baumgartner... well, are they upgrades? Improving from within, infusion of youth, better coaching... it sounds like the stuff of a team heading north from spring training. Which, coincidentally, is around the time the Sixers and Flyers have been finishing up of late.
There's no need for Snider to pull a Jim Dolan and put his GMs on a one-year timetable. But a little heat in the kitchen wouldn't hurt.

3) Ian Thomsen of SI.com with an article on the Raps assistant GM:

Learning some new tricks - Famed Italian GM Gherardini goes to school in Toronto


The top basketball mind in Europe was studying for his next assignment like an American teenager preparing for the SAT. "It's the collective bargaining agreement," said Maurizio Gherardini, holding up his thick copy of the NBA's financial rulebook when I visited him at his office in Treviso, Italy, in early June. "Whenever I'm on the road, I've got this. I work with it just like in school." Gherardini -- who at 50 years old was considered by most to be the Jerry West of European GMs -- opened up the pages to reveal that he had been applying a yellow highlighter to the key passages, which in itself also reveals that the Raptors' new assistant general manager will take nothing for granted in his new position. While some of the NBA's most respected executives laud him -- his fans include San Antonio's R.C. Buford, Denver's Jeff Weltman and Dallas' Donnie Nelson, who discussed hiring Gherardini before he was signed this summer by Raptors president Bryan Colangelo -- Gherardini doesn't assume that his managerial skills will instantly succeed in the New World. "I understand that I may not be good enough, because of the simple fact that nobody has ever tried it before," said Gherardini of his transatlantic conversion to the NBA. "I look at it as a learning experience." Shortly after winning his fourth Italian league championship, Gherardini shared an emotional farewell with his colleagues at Benetton Treviso, the Italian club near Venice that he had been operating as GM for 14 years, and took the long flight overseas to embark on his new career. In joining Colangelo in the front office, Gherardini became the first European to earn a leadership position with an NBA franchise. Gherardini has already influenced the Raptors' decisions to recruit forward Jorge Garbajosa, who will bring toughness to their frontline; Anthony Parker, the expatriate American swingman who has spent most of his career starring in Europe; and potentially 6-foot-11 Uros Slokar, a second-round pick of the Raptors last year who has played for Gherardini at Benetton Treviso since 2003-04. These names are unknown in the U.S., but they are versatile role players who will instantly improve the Raptors' chemistry. If newly acquired point guard T.J. Ford can maintain his health throughout the year, Toronto is going to be one of the most entertaining teams in the league and a dark-horse playoff contender in the East. Influential as he has become in Toronto, Gherardini also demonstrates a sense of humility, as evidenced during the time the Raptors' management team was questioning whether to spend the No. 1 pick in the draft on Andrea Bargnani, a 7-foot shooter from Benetton Treviso whom Gherardini himself discovered four years ago playing for a small club in Rome. After the Raptors won the draft lottery it was widely assumed that Gherardini would try to convince Colangelo to use the pick on 20-year-old Bargnani, but Gherardini took the opposite approach: He waited for Colangelo, player personnel director Jim Kelly, consultant Wayne Embry and coach Sam Mitchell to reach their own opinions. "In Bargnani's situation, I'm not saying a word," said Gherardini in early June. "I'm letting them study the guy and decide what they want to do. If they want me to, I can tell them how I saw Bargnani grow through the years. But I'm the only one of all their people [who] cannot make comparisons: I don't know [LaMarcus] Aldridge or [Tyrus] Thomas or Rudy Gay." In the end Gherardini was able to corroborate Colangelo's gut feeling that Bargnani was the best choice. Bargnani is athletically gifted, he handles pressure and he was far and away the best-trained player in the draft, thanks to a player-development system -- which is more thorough and sophisticated than those at many NBA clubs -- assembled by Gherardini within an annual budget estimated at less than $11 million, which also covers the salaries of players, coach David Blatt and Gherardini's front office. The Bargnani episode also created suspicion that Gherardini was hired simply because of his relationship with the No. 1 player. The truth is that Gherardini's move to Toronto was in the works long before the Raptors' unexpected acquisition of the top pick in the lottery. Gherardini's rise to the top of his profession is a variation of the American Dream, told with an Italian accent. In his hometown of Forli, midway between Milan and Rome, Gherardini was a young boy when he started attending games of the local professional club, whose star American was the former Canisius player Tony Gennari. "I remember being one of those crazy fans standing outside the gates," Gherardini said. "On Sundays the game was at 5:30, and we were at the arena at like one o'clock because it was always overbooked." Gherardini won a scholarship to spend the equivalent of his senior year of high school in the U.S., graduating from McClure High School in suburban St. Louis. Gherardini's love for basketball was betrayed by a body type that brings to mind a young Tommy Lasorda, but he spent his year abroad learning fluent English and becoming sophisticated -- by Italian standards -- in the ways of American basketball. Upon returning to Forli, the local team asked Gherardini to help recruit a player from the U.S. "They didn't know how to find an American player," said Gherardini, who placed the calls overseas that ultimately brought Steve Mitchell, a former star at Kansas State, to Forli. Gherardini was then asked to serve as Mitchell's interpreter, which led to his promotion to assistant coach at the age of 19. Gherardini became the 26-year-old GM of Forli in 1981. By then he had embarked on a parallel career as a banker to provide money for his young family. "I hated banking," said Gherardini, who would become head of the international department for Banca Commerciale Italia, the nation's largest bank. "But if you work in a bank you respect the importance of numbers, which gives you a different way of looking at the nature of a business. I always tell my people, 'Don't think it's something wrong to raise your hand and say you can't do something.' There are situations where you are going to have to say no, because if you don't say it then you're going to have to pay for it sooner or later." In '92 Gherardini took over at Benetton, where his star player was Toni Kukoc. On the eve of the European championship game in Athens, Kukoc had a lengthy meeting with Chicago Bulls GM Jerry Krause to discuss his move to the NBA the following season. Gherardini felt betrayed by this meeting, as Kukoc played a poor game the following day and Benetton was upset in the championship game by the French club Limoges. But instead of hopelessly trying to shut out the marauding NBA teams -- which remains the tactic of many European clubs today -- Gherardini opened his doors to the Americans by sharing information with NBA scouts and developing international player camps, including the Reebok Euro camp in Treviso that is a must-attend for NBA teams each June. Gherardini also has developed the world's most sophisticated international scouting system, with associations in more than 35 countries in Europe and Africa. The Raptors will benefit from that network. The question that perplexes Gherardini's friends is why he would want to leave Europe. With his wife, Luana, and their two children, he was living in the beautiful home in Treviso that used to be rented to Kukoc. The walls are adorned with an eclectic anthology of modern art that Gherardini has collected over the years; in a corner of the living room is a black leather chair that used to belong to Mike D'Antoni. It was known throughout the continent that at least five major European clubs were trying to hire Gherardini before he signed with Toronto. Gherardini moved overseas for the same reason that he instituted an open-door policy that enabled the NBA clubs to scout his players in Treviso. "The basis of our philosophy is that players need to be able to dream," he said. "It's important that they need to be able to fulfill their dream. If you're a basketball fan, you know that the ultimate dream is the NBA. For me the goal is to learn from the NBA -- to learn how things are being done, and you can only learn this from the inside." Even as a 19-year-old assistant in Forli, Gherardini dreamed of someday working in the NBA; in another, more reasonable sense, he never imagined it could happen. But now the growth and influence of European basketball -- an influence he helped drive -- has helped make his own American Dream come true.

4) Chris Sheriden of ESPN.com with a cautionary tale from Spencer Haywood for Team USA:

Haywood recounts 1968 Olympic

LAS VEGAS -- A long time ago on a train from Moscow to Minsk, Team USA learned a slightly painful lesson about how the playing field isn't always level in international basketball. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and their cohorts should take note. "They told us we'd be riding a train together with the Soviet team, but when we got on the train it was a sleeper car with these teeny-tiny bunks. The Russians weren't there, and they showed up in Minsk raring to go after flying over our heads to get there," said Spencer Haywood, who recounted a few of his tales from the 1968 Olympics to ESPN.com at a restaurant across the street from Team USA's current training facility on the UNLV campus. James, Wade, coach Mike Krzyzewski and the rest of Team USA will reassemble Monday for the second stretch of training camp before heading overseas for six weeks and experiencing some weird stuff firsthand. If Haywood's recollections provide a guide, they'll have plenty to talk about once they get back. "We were playing the Soviets in one exhibition, and we were up like 25 when they called timeout. All of a sudden, they were clearing out the gymnasium. Like 10,000 or 12,000 people. When they were all gone, we looked up at the scoreboard and they had changed it. The Russians were ahead by two. The next day in the local papers, the headlines said: "Soviets Upset Americans." It would be farfetched for this year's version of Team USA to come back with a story anything like that one, but there will be something strange to discuss by the time the World Championship in Japan ends Sept. 3 and the Americans head back home. Two years ago, the Athens Olympic men's basketball team stopped in Turkey during its pre-Olympic tour, and several members of the traveling party had the wits scared out of them by a hotel bombing a few miles away from their own hotel. Six years ago, the Sydney Olympic team was left speechless after playing an exhibition in Saitama, Japan (the site of this year's World Championship medal round) in which the cavernous arena was so silent during the game, a baby in the upper deck cried out "Mama," and the players down on the court heard it. The American team will practice for three days in Las Vegas before playing its first exhibition against Puerto Rico, then boarding a charter flight to Asia. The first stop is the port city of Guangzhou, China, once the southern terminus of the ancient Silk Road. The U.S. team will play exhibitions there against China and Brazil before making the short hop to Hong Kong for three days of practice, then moving on to Seoul, South Korea, for exhibitions against Lithuania and Korea. Finally, on Aug. 17, the Americans fly to Sapporo, Japan, for their opening round of the World Championship, where they'll be grouped with Italy, Senegal, Lithuania, Puerto Rico and Slovenia. The round of 16, the quarterfinals, semifinals and gold medal game will be played at the SuperDome in Saitama, not far from where Ray Allen jinxed the Amrericans six years ago on the bus ride into Tokyo from the airport when he asked aloud where all the traffic was. Sure enough, the bus ground to a halt moments later in a typical bumper-to-bumper Tokyo roadjam. This American team, which was pared down to 15 as Adam Morrison, Luke Ridnour and the injured Shawn Marion were cut at the end of the first stage of training camp last week, will have to fight through the travel fatigue and try to be at its peak at the end of the World Championship, and by then it'll have been more than a month since they set foot on American soil. If the U.S. team wins its final four games, captures the gold and qualifies for the Beijing Olympics, the snapshots the team members will bring home in their heads will evoke memories they'll cherish. Many of the most memorable non-basketball moments often occur on tours leading up to international competitions, and Haywood remembers scrambling to get a copy of his birth certificate that his mother kept tucked in a Bible back home in rural Mississippi in order to get a passport so he could travel to the Soviet Union and Finland for a pre-Olympic tour 38 years ago. "The Russians were all coming up to me telling me to defect. They'd tell me black people weren't treated right in the States," Haywood recalled. "But they were feeding us horse meat and calling it filet mignon, and they were driving around in these tiny little cars. I asked them: 'Can I get a pizza delivery?'" Haywood was only 19 at the time, having made the squad as a little-known college freshman out of Trinidad (Colo.) Junior College who had grown up picking cotton in Mississippi for $2 a day. His 1968 team was expected by many to falter after losing Pete Maravich, Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld, Calvin Murphy and Rick Mount for one reason or another. He recalled meeting sprinter Jesse Owens, who won a gold medal at the 1936 Olympics."He told us this is the biggest thing you're going to do, because defending your country's honor is the biggest thing you can do. When some of the people were calling for black athletes to boycott, he looked us all in the eye and said 'You think you're having problems now? How would you like to play against Hitler?'" The 2006 version of Team USA is an apolitical team heading off into a world where anti-American sentiment has grown in the past couple of years, though there's been a lack of the publicly stated security fears that scared a few of the best American players off the Athens roster two years ago. One of the biggest concerns for the players is what they'll be eating, though they'll be proud to discover that USA Basketball officials are quite adept at meeting their needs. Six years ago after they knocked off Spain in a pre-Olympic exhibition game at the strangely silent Saitama SuperArena, some two dozen buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken awaited them in the post-game locker room. Haywood promises they'll relish the experience so long as they keep their eye on what's important -- coming home winners after the past two U.S. teams failed to, finishing sixth at the 2002 Worlds and third at the 2004 Olympics. "Do you know how embarrassing it must be to walk around thinking you're the best players in the world, but you weren't? Those players (from 2002 and 2004) are just now realizing the shame they brought upon American basketball. "Those guys didn't realize it was going to be that big of a deal, but this is a major deal for Americans," Haywood said. Let's hope the new guys understand as much. Otherwise, the tales they tell when they get back home will be tainted. Haywood, who laughed his way through each of his tales from '68, can smile about them now because he brought home a gold medal which he still keeps in a small light blue satchel and pulls out for special occasions -- one of which will be a pep talk this week with the current members of Team USA.
"Everyone wants to knock off Americans. That's what these guys don't understand," Haywood said.