Would-be starters Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson are out of the NBA All-Star Game.

Jason Kidd of the hometown Dallas Mavericks has been chosen to replace Bryant. New York’s David Lee is replacing Iverson.

An ankle injury has prevented Bryant from playing in the Los Angeles Lakers’ past three games. Iverson has missed Philadelphia’s last five games because one of his young children is ill.

Both informed the league on Thursday that they needed to withdraw from Sunday’s game, sources said.

NBA commissioner David Stern, who makes all selections on All-Star injury replacements, then chose Kidd to make his 10th All-Star appearance. Kidd — who ranks fifth in the league in assists (9.3 per game) — had already left Dallas to begin an All-Star break vacation in the Phoenix area and is expected to fly back to Dallas on Friday.

Click here to read the full article – By Marc Stein of ESPN.com

Nate Robinson says he’ll be defending his slam dunk title at All-Star Weekend because he’s required to do so under NBA rules.

LeBron James won’t be trying to unseat the champion, and it’s not clear why he changed his mind.

Less than a month before the NBA holds its signature event, Robinson threw a potential monkey wrench into the All-Star festivities when he declared Monday he’ll be participating in the dunk contest because “the champion has to go back.”

“The NBA, they asked me: ‘Do you want to do it?’ And at first I wasn’t sure. This is my fourth time doing it, so I know people probably get sick of seeing me dunk, but like I said, the champion’s got to go back,” Robinson said after scoring 27 points to lead the New York Knicks to a 99-91 victory over the Detroit Pistons on Monday.

“And I guess, hopefully, I mean if I don’t win it, it’ll be good because I don’t want to go back no more. But if I do [win], and they want me to go back again, I guess so. Keep going until I lose,” Robinson said.


Click here to read the full article – By Chris Sheridan of ESPN.com

Benched New York Knicks guard Nate Robinson was fined $25,000 by the NBA on Monday after his agent made a trade request.


Robinson has not played in the Knicks’ last 12 games. A two-time winner of the All-Star slam dunk contest, he has played in only 12 games this season and is averaging 11 points.

Agent Aaron Goodwin recently told reporters he’d asked the Knicks to move Robinson to another team. Robinson was fined for statements detrimental to the NBA.

“Players are not permitted to make trade requests publicly and are responsible for public statements relating to them made by their representatives,” NBA spokesman Tim Frank said.

Goodwin said the benching was personal, not basketball related. A day after Goodwin’s comments on Dec. 19, Knicks president Donnie Walsh said he would probably begin talks with the agent about a trade.


Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

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Starters became reserves, veterans were dusted off and everything was new again. The Knicks, in search of another fresh start, tried one more new look Monday night: winners.

It took four games to find a combination that worked, or at least one that would not spot the opponent a 20-point lead before exerting some effort. The Knicks found it at last, deploying Larry Hughes as a starter, then watching him lead the way to their first victory of the season, 117-111 over the New Orleans Hornets at Madison Square Garden.

Hughes, who had been wrapped in mothballs a week ago, started at shooting guard and set the tone with his assertive play at both ends of the court. He finished with 20 points and 6 rebounds and figures to stick for a while, now that the Knicks (1-3) have discovered a winning formula.

Click here to read the full article – By HOWARD BECK of New York Times

One idea would be for the Knicks to add an additional sweetener to make a trade for center Eddy Curry more palatable to another team.

For instance, Cuttino Mobley could be substituted for Darko Milicic in the trade I hypothesized in my previous article. Although Mobley earns more than Milicic ($9.5 million vs. $7.54 million) and his retirement ensures he will not contribute to the team to which he is traded, he nevertheless has one distinct financial advantage: 80 percent of Mobley’s salary, $7.6 million, is paid by insurance. If the Rockets were to trade Tracy McGrady for Curry and Mobley, their net savings would increase to about $12.6 million.

Of course, the Knicks could add other potential sweeteners to a Curry deal: additional players, future draft picks or cash. It all depends on how desperate Donnie Walsh, the team president, is to clear additional cap space for the 2010 free-agent market. But a Mobley trade also appears unlikely; Walsh has recently indicated that he is no longer interested in using Mobley as a trade piece.

Click here to read the full article – By Larry Coon of The New York Times

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Google Darko Milicic and the words “draft bust” and you launch a never-ending Internet debate on where his selection by the Pistons with the No. 2 pick in the 2003 NBA draft ranks among the league’s all-time worst picks.

The 7-foot Serbian hasn’t exactly had the kind of career that anyone expected when Joe Dumars picked him over Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. This goes a long way toward explaining why there was little fanfare when the Knicks traded Quentin Richardson to obtain him from Memphis this summer.

Yet a couple weeks into training camp, and it’s looking like that trade could pan into a fairly savvy move. Milicic has played for a variety of coaches in Detroit, Orlando and Memphis. His best season was in 2006-07 when he averaged 8.0 points and 5.5 rebounds. This marks the first time, however, that Milicic has played in a system that fits him as well as Mike D’Antoni’s up-tempo one.


Click here to read the full article – By BARBARA BARKER of newsday.com

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Eddy Curry may have shed close to 40 pounds in the offseason, but he has not shed his image as a player too out of shape to help the Knicks.

Curry is not in acceptable playing condition. For now, that is the official conclusion of the Knicks coaching and management staff as Knicks president Donnie Walsh announced Tuesday that Curry would not be back on the practice floor until trainers got him into better playing shape.

“While he did a lot this summer, he’s not ready to go out there and play at NBA speed,” Walsh said. “We’re going to take longer and get him out there, because every time the comes out on the floor, he pulls a muscle.”

Curry injured himself on the first day of training camp seven days ago when he tore the plantaris muscle in his right calf. The team had made it seem that it was possible that he would return to practice with his teammates Tuesday. Now, even though the team isn’t all that concerned with this specific injury, there is no timetable for his return.

“Once you get in the game, you have to be game ready,” Walsh said. “I don’t think he’s going to be game ready for awhile.”


Click here to read the full article – By BARBARA BARKER of NewsDay.com

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Below are links to memorabilia available for popular New York Knicks players.

In the wake of losing Hedo Turkoglu, the Portland Trail Blazers have become engaged in serious discussions about making an offer to New York Knicks restricted free agent David Lee, ESPN.com learned Saturday.

The development came a day after Lee’s agent said a dozen NBA teams are trying to find ways to acquire the power forward through sign-and-trade deals.

But like other interested teams, the Blazers are concerned that they would be placed in limbo until July 15 — the date by which the Knicks would have to decide whether they’d match the offer — and could lose out if other free agents take themselves off the market in the interim by rushing to get what they can of the league’s dwindling amount of available dollars.

The upside of the Turkoglu turnaround for Portland was that it left them as one of the strongest remaining players in free agency, with $9 million worth of salary cap space they’re clearly ready to spend.

Click here to read the full article – By Chris Sheridan of ESPN.com

The New York Knicks are curious whether Ricky Rubio will wind up in Minnesota or Spain next season, curious enough that team president Donnie Walsh was planning to contact Minnesota by the end of the day Friday to begin seeking answers.

Like everyone else around the NBA, the Knicks were taken by surprise Thursday night when the Timberwolves used the fifth and sixth picks of the NBA draft to select a pair of point guards, Rubio and Syracuse’s Jonny Flynn.

The suspense deepened after Rubio’s father told a Spanish media outlet that Rubio would prefer to return to Spain for at least one season, maybe two, and the Timberwolves found themselves Friday in the uncomfortable position of planning their introductory post-draft news conference without the player they sacrificed Mike Miller and Randy Foye to select.

Click here to read the full article – By Chris Sheridan of ESPN.com

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“It’s a wonderful feeling, coming out here, having fun, getting the process over with,” Hill told ESPN. “I feel it’s a real good pick for me.”

Arizona product Jordan Hill was booed by Knicks fans in attendance at the NBA Draft Thursday night after the team selected him eighth overall — they were hoping the Knicks would snag Davidson’s Stephen Curry — but that didn’t faze the 6-10, 235-pound power forward.

Article by Star-Ledger Staff on June 25, 2009
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