According to his agent, Mike Conley Sr., former three-point champion and current restricted free agent Daequan Cook has received several calls from teams interested in his services, but he believes he will be staying in Oklahoma City next season: Cook was drafted by the Heat in 2007 and spent the first three years of his career with Miami and their D-League affiliate, the Iowa Energy.
Via the good folks at Blazer’s Edge, here’s a tidbit from ESPN.com’s Chad Ford (insider required) on how the Blazers may be looking to trade up in the draft to find a point guard: This does make some sense: The Blazers have been known to be aggressive on draft day in the past, and they still haven’t picked up their team option on the ancient Andre Miller, which indicates that they may be looking for a point guard of the future.
Danilo Gallinari, the 22-year old Italian small forward with almost limitless talent, was one of the best single players the Nuggets got in the Carmelo Anthony trade, which made their team much, much better in the short term.
Well, proof does now exist that LeBron James has at least a bit of awareness about his public image in the aftermath of his meltdown in the 2011 NBA Finals.
The Oregonian’s Mike Tokito had this interesting tidbit about Andre Miller after attending press conference with interim Blazers GM Chad Buchanan: The 35-year old Miller has spent his 11-year career with the Cavaliers, Clippers, Nuggets, and 76ers.
After being arrested for public intoxication on Tuesday night, Dallas Mavericks shooting guard and 2011 NBA Champion DeShawn Stevenson opened up about his arrest on Wednesday: Stevenson is a good defender and lights-out three-point shooter who has a long-standing feud with Miami Heat forward LeBron James.
I don’t know how many other ways to interpret a recent tweet from the legendary Laker point guard, which said that the “Lakers should think about calling the Orlando Magic.”
Former BYU sensation and current draft prospect Jimmer Fredette recently had a draft workout with his hometown Utah Jazz, and all indications are that it went great.
From Alan Han of Newsday: This is a pretty thin draft, so the Knicks will have a pretty hard time finding an impact player with the 15th pick: right now, the players projected to go in that range are Klay Thompson, Alec Burks, and Markieff Morris.
Sports Illustrated’s Sam Amick has an excellent story up today on former top prospect Antoine Wright, who has allowed himself to go from a top prospect to a first-round pick to a journeyman who spent last season playing in China and is now looking for an NBA job at the age of 27.
Monta Ellis’ name has popped up in trade rumors over the last few weeks, and some have been wondering if the Warriors have been shopping Ellis, who has been putting up huge numbers over the last two seasons while leading the Warriors to little success.
In a series of moves that should surprise exactly nobody, the Los Angeles Clippers extended a qualifying offer to center DeAndre Jordan, making him a restricted free agent, and exercised their team options on Blake Griffin, Eric Bledsoe, and Al-Farouq Aminu.
Given Heat coach Erik Spoelstra’s youth and relative lack of experience, people questioned whether he was the right person to coach the star-studded Miami Heat ever since the day of the “Decision.”
Via the twitter account of Chris Thomasson: The 36-year old Ilgauskas was the starting center and a key part of the 66-win 2008-09 Cleveland Cavaliers, but his numbers fell off a cliff when his starting spot was given to Shaquille O’Neal the following season.
According to The Oregonian’s Joe Freeman, the Blazers declined to offer center Greg Oden an $8.8 million qualifying offer today, which was the first day the Blazers had the opportunity to do so.
Via Jorge Sierra of HoopsHype: Everything seems to make sense here -- Pietrus’ solid defense, athleticism, and three-point stroke make him a valuable cog, but his suspect ballhandling and baffling basketball IQ would have kept him from being chased too hard in free agency.
International players are often the “mystery men” of the NBA draft -- even though most international players that enter the draft have been playing high-level professional basketball in their own countries, the international game is more different from the NBA game than college basketball is, and there’s not as much data on how international players’ games translate to the NBA as there is on college players’ games.
