Nba Players

Opinion: The Orioles' batting order (against right-handed pitching) in 1999: Delino DeShields, Brady Anderson, Will Clark, Albert Belle, Harold Baines, B.J. Surhoff, Cal Ripken, Charles Johnson, Mike Bordick. Anderson and Surhoff could switch places.Fact: Those players hit a combined .279 last season, as opposed to the Orioles' .273 team average.Opinion: The Orioles won't lose any sleep over their offense next season, but they will over a bullpen that figures to be a patchwork job at best.

IT HAS BEEN four days now, but it still doesn't make sense: "fans" in suburban Detroit so short-tempered in their mob-scene assault on NBA players. This wasn't about the Pistons-Pacers rivalry. This was anger, disgust, disrespect directed at the players. The action of so many fans was as criminal, if not more so, than that of the players. When the Auburn Hills police roll the ESPN videotape to examine evidence, "fans" will be under scrutiny. The fool in the Pistons jersey and the coward in the pink ball cap might find police warrants served on them.

FOR SUCH A high-tech, truth-speaking revolutionary, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban sure seems to have his head up his Wi-Fi. Of course, this is the same truth-speaking revolutionary who said Kobe Bryant's rape trial would help spike interest in the NBA. Some of us prefer our NBA interest spiked by Carmelo Anthony's poise, LeBron James' 1,000th point and Jerry Sloan's 900th win, but there's no accounting for taste. The Kobe comments kicked off this NBA season. Now, just in time for All-Star Weekend - no, it's not just a game if a fleet of stretch Escalade limos are involved - Cuban has a new cause celebre: the wisdom of sending NBA players to the Olympics when owners like him have these guys signed to guaranteed, multimillion-dollar contracts.

Fact: UNLV, Georgetown, North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Oklahoma and DePaul did not have any players selected in the last NBA draft.Opinion: Thumbs up to the idea of the Orioles' signing Matt Young. He can carry a game into the eighth inning, which, for the Orioles, means all the way to Mark Williamson and Gregg Olson.Fact: The NFL's top rusher, Marion Butts of the Chargers, carried the ball exactly 29 times as a senior at Florida State in 1988.Opinion: Thumbs down to the idea of the Orioles' signing Franklin Stubbs.

Several retired NBA players will gather in New York today to make a public, restrained, conciliatory appeal to those, such as Michael Jordan, who are bent on decertifying the players association: don't do it.One retired player who wishes he could be there, but can't, has a decidedly more direct approach. "I would tell Michael Jordan that he is selfish, greedy, that his agent is selfish and greedy, and that he and his ilk aren't kidding anybody," former Boston Celtic Tommy Heinsohn said yesterday.

Image dispute may keep Jordan out of OlympicsA dispute over the right to images of NBA players in Olympic merchandising may jeopardize the participation of Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing and John Stockton in the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain.David Falk, agent for the three NBA stars, has balked at allowing his clients' likenesses to be used, an outgrowth of a dispute involving Nike, which has exclusive apparel contracts with many NBA players."USA Basketball has had a serious problem with Falk and his clients," said Russ Granik, deputy commissioner of the NBA and vice president of USA Basketball.

WASHINGTON - I find myself in the unpleasant position of defending Larry Bird. Guy shreds my heart in the '84 Finals, his evil Boston Celtics defeating my valiant Los Angeles Lakers, and now, just 20 years later, here I stand between him and the torches and pitchforks of the mob. Still, Larry Legend is getting a bum rap, and I can't stand by and watch that, even if he is a former Celtic. It seems that during a televised roundtable on ESPN on June 10, Mr. Bird was asked whether the NBA could use more white stars.

INDIANAPOLIS -- UCLA coach Ben Howland gestured with his left hand to the five starters who sat alongside him at Sunday's news conference and spoke with pride - not concern - about their possible NBA talent. "A good problem is having players that are leaving early for the NBA," Howland said the day before his team fell, 73-57, to Florida in the national championship game. "The more NBA players - we've got a number of them sitting right up here to my left - they're going to be future NBA players, without question, without a doubt.

Now, everybody is tired of the losing. There's no more point in gloating when the U.S. basketball team and its despised NBA players come home without the gold in yet another major international competition. No, this isn't funny anymore. This group did things the right way, and it got them nowhere, relatively speaking. No matter how much the world has caught up, no matter how much more other national teams play together than our hastily assembled all-star teams, the U.S. is supposed to be as good as gold in basketball every time.

NEW YORK -- In the days after Magic Johnson's Nov. 7 announcement that he carries the AIDS virus, his peers in pro basketball began to wonder whether they were at risk, whether they should get tested and how one contracts the disease."