NBA Veterans hot commodity for trade
Anybody in the final year of a contract is valuable for NBA teams.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Alonzo Mourning is one of the hottest commodities sought on the NBA trade market even though he's probably out for the season with a kidney ailment.
That's the word from Miami Heat coach Pat Riley, who says he has no plans to trade Mourning.
"Everybody calls about Zo, for a number of reasons," Riley said.
Mourning is in the final year of his contract, earning $20.6 million this season.
Other teams have been calling to try to acquire Mourning while ridding themselves of long-term contracts. Getting players that don't have lengthy contracts is especially valuable for NBA teams, Riley said.
"You can't believe some of the offers that we get, but we can't take on $180 million for the next three years," he said.
Riley also pointed to Portland's Scottie Pippen and Denver's Juwan Howard as highly sought players -- simple because they're in the final year of long-term contracts and will come off the salary cap at the end of the season.
Pippen is making $15.8 million, while Howard is earning $20.6 million.
With the Nuggets looking to rebuild through free agency next summer, there is almost no chance they'd trade Howard. There's a better chance the Blazers would move Pippen if they could get quality in return -- much like the Mavericks did in February when they sent Howard to Denver for Raef LaFrentz, Nick Van Exel, Avery Johnson and Tariq Abdul-Wahad.
Still, those trades are a rarity, reflecting a fundamental change in deals.
Not long ago, "Teams were not above trading contracts for contracts. So even if you had a big money, long-term contract, if you talked to enough teams somebody would trade one of their contracts for that," Riley said. "That isn't the way it is anymore.
Change in philosophy
"There is a change in philosophy in taking on long-term money for players that might not be making the kind of impact that money deserves. It's harder to barter, so you have to do it the old-fashioned way -- which is to wait or get lucky."
Riley neglected to mention one other player who fits the same profile as Mourning, Pippen and Howard.
That would be Hakeem Olajuwon, who is still being carried on Toronto's injured list even though he announced his retirement.
Olajuwon's salary cap slot is $5.7 million, and the Raptors could trade their rights to him in a deal that would bring back a player or players making as much as $6.4 million.
"I have had conversations with other teams about that concept, and that is a way that we can help us and someone else," Toronto general manager Glen Grunwald said Friday. "It's a concept that is very much in vogue right now."
Other high-salaried players in the final year of their contracts include Utah's Karl Malone ($19.2 million), Seattle's Gary Payton ($11.6 million), San Antonio's Steve Smith ($9.9 million), Philadelphia's Derrick Coleman ($9.4 million), Memphis' Wesley Person ($7 million) and Cleveland's Tyrone Hill ($6.6 million).
Retro chic
The best-selling retro jersey at the NBA Store and on nba.com is the red, white and blue 1977-78 Washington Bullets jersey of Wes Unseld.
That little tidbit came as news to Unseld, who was sitting in his office Friday afternoon looking at a team photo of that championship team as he pondered his newest claim to fame.
The jersey features red and white stripes across the top half of the front, with Unseld's No. 41 in the middle and the lower half in blue. The word "bullets" is spelled out in lower case, with the two l's in the shape of hands shooting a basketball.
The five best-selling retro jerseys at the league's store are Unseld's, Julius Erving's No. 32 for the 1975-75 New York Nets, Alex English's No. 2 for the 1987-88 Denver Nuggets, Rick Barry's No. 24 for the 1966-67 San Francisco Warriors, and Drazen Petrovic's No. 3 for the 1992-93 New Jersey Nets.
Ownership matters
Several NBA owners will be in New York early next week to review the candidates for ownership of the Charlotte expansion franchise and the proposed sale of the Boston Celtics.
Prospective Charlotte owners Robert Johnson and Steven Belkin will make presentations Monday to the expansion committee, which consists of owners Jerry Colangelo of Phoenix, George Shinn of New Orleans, Lewis Katz of New Jersey, Joe Maloof of Sacramento, Larry Tanenbaum of Toronto, Stan Kroenke of Denver, Peter Holt of San Antonio and Bob Vander Weide of Orlando.
It was unclear when the expansion committee will choose between Johnson and Belkin, although it could come as soon as Tuesday.
Also on the agenda for the two days of meetings is a review by the league's finance and planning committee of developments related to the pending $350 million sale of the Celtics.