The Knicks sound interested in signing Allen Iverson and one team official said it was 50-50 that the team would pursue the aging and seemingly mentally ill guard. And as news keeps trickling out of the Garden (well, actually, Indianapolis, where the Knicks are playing on Wednesday night), it does sound like there’s a decent chance the New York Knicks will attempt to sign him. In retrospect, the Knicks are so bad Iverson might be able to help the team.

Elsewhere around the NBA:

Philadelphia According to Sixers beat writer Kate Fagan, Elton Brand will stay in the starting lineup for now. Coach Eddie Jordan says the potential benching of Brand is a “sensitive issue” and that after discussing it with his staff, they’ve decided to leave him in the starting five

Los Angeles: Lakers PF Pau Gasol is expected to go through a full practice on Wednesday and should make his season debut on Thursday from a hamstring injury. Gasol, who has yet to play a game this season, will probably be worked back into the rotation slowly.

Milwaukee: Milwaukee Bucks F Ersan Ilyasova will start over Hakim Warrick in Wednesday’s game against the Nets. With Ilyasova tallying 19 points, 12 boards, four 3-pointers and two steals in his last game, this move appears to be permanent.

Phoenix: Suns C Robin Lopez is expected to start practicing with the Suns this weekend after missing the preseason with a broken foot. Jarron Collins has been filling in at center while Lopez was out.

Utah: According to Utah Jazz beat reporter Ross Siler, Kyle Korver (knee) could return to action in about two weeks. This would escalate Korver’s timetable by a couple weeks, as he was originally targeting a return date of mid-December.

Portland: Blazers F Travis Outlaw is expected to miss 3-5 months after undergoing foot surgery on Wednesday. Initial reports had him returning sometime in January, but this updated timetable changes things dramatically. Rudy Fernandez is expected to get extra minutes in Outlaw’s absence.

Memphis: Grizzlies G Jamaal Tinsley is expected to make his debut for the Grizzlies on Wednesday.
He’ll back up starting point guard Mike Conley, but if he’s in shape and healthy, the two could be in store for a timeshare.

Oakland: Warriors G Monta Ellis has not yet asked for a trade, and we are placing a heavy emphasis on yet.
His agent, Jeff Fried, is in Oakland to promote a boxing match and it appears quite possible that he could meet with the Oakland Warriors in hopes of getting Monta traded. The Warriors don’t necessarily want to move him, but probably would if they could get a star player in return.

2008-09 NBA Team Preview – Boston Celtics

2008 Record: 66-16
Division Finish: 1st – Atlanta
2008 Playoffs: Won the NBA Championship, 4-2, over the Los Angeles Lakers

Head Coach: Doc Rivers
Season: Going into his fifth
Record at Boston: 168-160

Offseason Acquisitions:
Forward Darius Miles
Center Patrick O’Bryant

Offseason Losses:
Center Scott Pollard, option was not picked up.
Small forward James Posey signed a free agent deal with the New Orleans Hornets.

Rookies:
JR Giddens, G, 6-5, New Mexico
Semih Erden, C, 6-11, Turkey
Bill Walker, G-F, 6-6, Kansas State

The Skinny:
Everything is right again in the world of old school NBA fans. The Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers played for the NBA Championship with the Celtics coming out on top for their 17th title. But the odds of those two teams meeting in the finals in two of the next three years like in the 80’s is pretty slim.

The Celtics had a great formula in place for last year. They’ve got a great core group of superstars that plays really well together in Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. Those three stir the drink and then they’ve got a great group of supporting players who know their role. This is pretty much the formula that will help you win a title.

While the formula works great, the ingredients are getting ready to expire. Those three, along with journeyman Sam Cassell have all played at least 10 years in the NBA. Now that all three have a title under their belts and they’re growing long in the tooth how hungry are they going to be to make a run like last year? It wasn’t easy as they didn’t win a road game until the Finals.

Another problem with the Celtics roster is that they seem to be at both ends of the spectrum. Fourteen out of the 17 players on their current roster have either played seven years or more or have only been in the league for two years or less. Those players that fall into that middle aren’t very good either.

Because of some of the deals they’ve made and the draft positions they’ve had, the young talent they haven’t isn’t very good either or needs a lot of work to keep this train going. The Celtics better strike while the iron is hot this year because after this season they could be back to being in the middle to the bottom of the pack in the Eastern Conference.

One problem the Celtics are going to have to figure out is how to fill the void left by the departure of James Posey. During the offseason he signed a four-year deal with the New Orleans Hornets. Posey did a great job picking up the opposing team’s best offensive player and was a good three-point shooter himself. Posey was the one responsible for D-ing up LeBron James and Kobe Bryant during the playoffs. He also had the intangible of being a winner after being a part of the Miami Heat’s NBA title run.

So how does Boston plan on filling that hole? During the offseason they signed free agent forward Darius Miles. In addition they drafted JR Giddens from New Mexico in the first round and wing Bill Walker from Kansas State in the second. These seem like more of the Danny Ainge trade that got rid of Tony Delk and Antoine Walker for Jiri Welsch, Chris Mills and Raef LeFrentz and not the ones last year that brought in Allen and Garnett and earned him NBA Executive of the Year.

Miles is just trouble, plan and simple. It’s probably an attribute of a rough childhood in East St. Louis, but he’s been trouble everywhere he’s gone. He’s going to miss the first 10 games of the season because of a drug suspension. Great first impression. Then there’s his lack of defense and problems staying health. Throw in a pension for alienating his teammates and you’ve got a great pick up. Maybe the vets can real him in, but I doubt it.

Giddens isn’t exactly a choir boy either. He had problems at Kansas and had to transfer to New Mexico. If he gets influenced by Miles you might as well write him off as well. I don’t know much about Bill Walker, but Kansas State isn’t exactly a hotbed for talent. He was recruiting there by Bob Huggins, but how many of his players have really panned out to be good NBA players?

One player who may pick up Posey’s slack is guard Tony Allen. The Celtics resigned the fourth-year player out of Oklahoma State during the offseason. He might be able to fill that role, but he’s got to stay healthy. No one is really sure of his potential because he’s been injured so much. If he can stay of the IR for the entire season he could be a great role player.

Prediction:
Too many things just don’t seem right for the Celtics to repeat. After so many years of not having a championships ring, how hungry are the aging Garnett, Allen and Pierce going to be? Maybe they know this is there last chance and they’ll throw everything and the kitchen sink at winning again.

It’s always tougher to repeat than to win the first one and the Celtics just don’t have enough of the pieces to maintain a run like this. San Antonio built such a strong core group of players that all fit into their system so if one was missing the other could pick up the slack. If Pierce or Garnett go down for a long period of time the Celtics are in trouble. They need to have a full squad healthy for the entire year to keep the home court advantage in the playoffs. If they didn’t have home court advantage for every Eastern Conference playoff series and the Finals the title might be in LA or Detroit.

Posey is going to be a bigger loss than most people realize. Maybe not over the course of an 82-game schedule, but come playoff time when defense is so crucial – that was the basis of Boston’s championship run last year – it will show. I don’t think Miles will turn his act around and Giddons won’t amount to much. There are too many question marks around Tony Allen’s health to count on him for the whole year.

Boston will go 55-27 during the regular season and win the Atlantic Division because it’s pretty weak. They will, however, get bounced in the second round of the playoffs.

When James Naismith invented the game of basketball at the Springfield, Mass. YMCA in 1891, he was simply looking for a distraction for his rowdy young charges, who were often stuck indoors due to the harshly cold Massachusetts winters. Little did he know that his creation would one day evolve into a globalized, multi-billion-dollar sensation known as the National Basketball Association.

What follows is a brief history of the NBA, from its inception just after World War II to its gold medal winning Redeem Team, which recently won the gold in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

It was 1946. WWII was over and America was still basking in the glow of victory. Americans once again had entertainment dollars to spend, and in June, a group of sports arena owners got together with an idea on how to get people to spend some of that money on sports. A professional basketball league, with ten teams, comprising an East division and a West division. By June 6, the Basketball Association of America, or the BAA, was born.

The first game in BAA history was played on November 1, 1946, in Toronto, between the Toronto Huskies and the visiting New York Knickerbockers. The Knickerbockers won that game, 68-66.
The BAA owners had a distinct advantage over the competing National Basketball League, or NBL. They owned large arenas in the nation’s major cities and could command large crowds, thereby making more money. Though the NBL was probably the BAA’s equal when it came to quality of play, in the end the BAA had the superior dollars. In August 1949, the BAA and the NBL merged together, forming the National Basketball Association, or the NBA.

With the merger, the league now had seventeen teams, in cities large and small, across the United States. The league trimmed this number down to a record-low eight teams in 1954. The Kings, Celtics, Warriors, Lakers, Hawks, 76ers, Pistons, and the Knickerbockers are all still part of today’s NBA.

The quality of basketball back then was, understandably, not quite like what we see today. One of the reasons for this discrepancy was that, in the 1940s, African-American players were not allowed to compete in the NBA. That changed in 1950, when the NBA broke the color barrier by introducing several black players, including Earl Lloyd, Chuck Cooper, and Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton. Clifton was the first black player to sign an NBA contract, while Lloyd was the first to play in an NBA game.

Another change that positively affected the league was the advent of the 24-second shot clock in 1954. Before then, teams could use stall tactics against superior opponents to keep the score down. It was a tactically sound strategy, but it made for boring basketball. With the shot clock, a team had 24 seconds to attempt a shot. If no shot was taken (or if the ball hadn’t touched the rim) before time expired, the team lost possession.

The 1960s saw an expansion of the league from nine teams to fourteen. The decade also saw the inception of the NBA’s most formidable competitor, the American Basketball Association, or ABA.

The two leagues competed fiercely for spectators as well as top players. The NBA had the advantage of being in most major cities, while the ABA allowed undergraduates to join. That’s how Julius Erving, known as Dr. J., ended up in the upstart ABA. Rick Barry, the NBA’s leading scorer, also left for the ABA.

The NBA continued to expand and finally won the bidding war with the ABA. The two leagues agreed to a limited merger in 1976. This increased the number of NBA teams to 22.

In 1979, in an effort to further increase scoring and excitement, the NBA added the three-point shot, which was actually an ABA innovation.

The 1980s was arguably the most important decade in league history. This decade saw the epic rivalry between Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics and Earvin “Magic” Johnson’s Los Angeles Lakers. Johnson and the Lakers won five titles; Bird won three with the Celtics.

The 1980s also introduced the world to Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest player in the history of the NBA. He was drafted by the Chicago Bulls in 1984. Together with Scottie Pippen, Jordan’s Bulls won six NBA championships in the 1990s.

Jordan, Bird and Johnson helped form the 1992 Olympic basketball team, popularly known as the Dream Team. It was the first U.S. Olympic team to use NBA All-Stars. The team cruised to an easy gold medal. Since then, the NBA has been closely associated with USA Basketball.

The Chicago Bulls dynasty was broken up in 1998. Since then, the Western Conference has won the majority of the league championships. The San Antonio Spurs, led by Tim Duncan, have won four titles in that time span, while the Los Angeles Lakers, led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, won three. O’Neal was traded to the Miami Heat after the 2004 season, and after promising to deliver a championship to Florida, he and Dwyane Wade did exactly that in 2006, when they beat the Dallas Mavericks, four games to two, in the NBA Finals.

The most recent NBA champions are the Boston Celtics, who beat the resurgent Los Angeles Lakers four games to two. It was the Celtics’ first championship since 1986 and the Lakers’ first Finals’ appearance since Bryant and O’Neal fell to the Detroit Pistons in 2004.

After a subpar showing in the 2004 Olympics that resulted in a bronze medal, the NBA’s best players fielded a different team for the 2008 Games. Known popularity as the “Redeem Team,” the U.S. men’s basketball team was designed to bring the Olympic gold back to the country where the game was invented. Duke University coach Mike Krzyzewski led a team made up of the following players: Carmelo Anthony, Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh, Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Jason Kidd, Chris Paul, Tayshaun Prince, Michael Redd, Dwyane Wade, and Deron Williams.

The “Redeem Team” accomplished its mission in the Beijing Games, beating Spain in the gold medal game, 118-107.

During the tenure of the current NBA commissioner, David Stern, the league has begun to expand its reach beyond the United States. Several players from foreign countries have become prominent players in the NBA (including Yao Ming, Manu Ginobili and 2007 league MYP Dirk Nowitzki), and the league’s games are currently televised in more than 200 countries.

The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the National Basketball Association’s highest-profile teams. Like the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League, the Lakers are synonymous with glamour. The purple-and-gold uniforms, the hordes of celebrity spectators regularly found in the stands, the “Showtime” teams of the 1980s – all add to the glamorous mystique of the team. When you’re blinded by the glitz of L.A.’s primary hoops team, it’s difficult to remember that the Lakers’ roots go back to the Midwest.

The team we now know as the Lakers began in 1944 when a National Basketball League team in Detroit was purchased and relocated to Minneapolis, Minnesota. The state is known as the land of 10,000 lakes, hence the name Minneapolis Lakers.

The Lakers have a long-standing tradition of great big men, including the man generally regarded as the league’s first great big man, George Mikan.

At 6 feet, 10 inches tall, George Mikan moved with the agility of a much smaller man, and with the paucity of very tall players in the league, Mikan dominated for years. Led by Mikan, the new Minneapolis Lakers won the NBL championship in the 1947-1948 season.

The Lakers moved to the Basketball Association of America (the precursor to the NBA), along with three other NBL teams, in 1948. They won the BAA championship in 1949, led, once again, by Mikan, who played in the Finals series with a broken wrist. When the BAA merged with the NBL to form the NBA, the Lakers won the first NBA Finals.

Predictably, the Minneapolis domination of the league ended when George Mikan retired in 1954. Six years later, the Lakers moved to Los Angeles, becoming the first west coast team in the NBA. The L.A. Lakers were good but not dominant, until they acquired their next great big man, Wilt Chamberlain, in 1968.

Chamberlain, considered by many to be the most dominant big man in history, brought L.A. its first title, in a five-game defeat of the New York Knicks in the 1971-71 season. The next season, the Knicks returned the favor, beating the Lakers in five.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, formerly known as Lew Alcindor, was the Lakers’ third great big man, acquired from Milwaukee in 1975. He had several promising seasons in L.A., but they didn’t become the Showtime Lakers until the Lakers drafted Earvin Johnson in the 1979 draft.

Johnson had an immediate impact on the Lakers. Together with Abdul-Jabbar, he led L.A. to the 1980 NBA title with a six-game win over the Philadelphia 76ers. During that series, Abdul-Jabbar was injured, and Magic played center in Game Six. Johnson scored 42 points and grabbed 15 rebounds.

The Lakers of the 1980s – dubbed “Showtime” for their flashy style of play – won five NBA titles while engaged in a fierce rivalry with the Boston Celtics. For their part, the Celtics, led by Larry Bird, won three titles during that time span.

The Lakers’ fortunes took a downward turn in 1989 when Abdul-Jabbar retired after 20 years in the league. Magic Johnson led the Lakers to a Finals appearance in 1991, only to be beaten by Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Johnson was diagnosed with HIV later that year, and retired in November.

In 1996, the Lakers traded for their next great big man, Shaquille O’Neal, and traded Vlade Divac to the Charlotte Hornets for the rights to rookie Kobe Bryant.

O’Neal and Bryant immediately made the Lakers a Western Conference contender, but they weren’t able to get over the championship hump until the 1999-2000 season, when the team hired Phil Jackson. The team immediately responded to Jackson’s offbeat coaching style and his championship pedigree (he had won six titles with the Chicago Bulls), winning the NBA title the next three seasons.

A loss to the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 Finals, coupled with personality conflicts between Bryant, O’Neal, and Jackson, caused a breakup of the mini-dynasty. Shaq was traded to the Miami Heat and Jackson did not return to the team for the next season.

Jackson soon returned replacing Rudy Tomjanovich, but the Lakers did not return to title contention until the 2007-08 season, when they acquired Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies. Bryant and Gasol led the Lakers to the 2008 NBA Finals, where they lost to the Boston Celtics in six games.

The Lakers enter the 2008-09 season filled with optimism. Their two top players, Bryant and Gasol, squared off against each other in the 2008 Olympics gold-medal game, but they return as teammates, hoping to accomplish what they very nearly achieved last season.

The Minnesota Timberwolves are one of the NBA’s newest teams, having entered the league in 1989. Their head coach is former NBA player Randy Wittman. The team vice president of basketball operations is former Hall of Fame forward Kevin McHale. They play their home games in the Target Center in Minneapolis.

Early Years

The first few years were rough ones for the T-Wolves. They won only 22 games in their inaugural campaign, and improved to 29 wins the following year. Firing their coach, Bill Musselman, didn’t help matters. Under new coach Jimmy Rodgers, the Wolves only won 15 games, the worst record in the NBA.

The T-Wolves selected high school phenom Kevin Garnett in 1995 and picked up New York playground legend and Georgia Tech point guard Stephon Marbury in 1996. Thw two players guided the T-Wolves to their first-ever playoff appearance in the 1996-97 season. They were swept in three games by the Houston Rockets in the first round.

In 1997, Kevin Garnett was signed to the most lucrative contract in league history, a 6-year, $126 million blockbuster that is generally blamed for the NBA’s ensuing lockout. The huge contract also fomented some bad blood inside the Minnesota organization, as Marbury fumed about not being the team’s highest-paid player. Marbury refused to sign a contract extension, and the T-Wolves were forced to trade him to the New Jersey Nets during the lockout-shortened 1999 season. The trade split up what many fans hoped would be a championship nucleus.

Playoff Appearances

Despite the inner and outer turmoil of the 1999 season, the T-Wolves managed to make the playoffs for a third straight time, with a 25-25 record. They lost in the first round to the San Antonio Spurs.

Kevin Garnett, the team’s star, had begun to gain a reputation for being a great regular-season player but disappearing in the playoffs. The team was regarded as one that could get to the playoffs but could not advance. They lost in the first round to the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1999-2000 playoffs. (Guard Malik Sealy was killed in a car crash in the ensuing offseason) In 2000-01, they lost to the San Antonio Spurs in the first round. They were swept in the first round by the Dallas Mavericks the following year. A seven-game loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2002-03 made it seven straight first-round eliminations for the Timberwolves.

Desperate to shake things up, the Minnesota front office traded for guards Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell in 2003. The two veterans helped spur the T-Wolves to a 58-24 record and finally got the team out of the first round of the playoffs. They beat the Denver Nuggets in the first round, and the Sacramento Kings in the second round. However, they fell to the Lakers in the conference finals.

The 2003-04 season was the apex of the team’s fortunes, however. The team has not returned to the playoffs since.

2007-08 Season

The 2007-08 season will mainly be remembered as the year the T-Wolves traded away their franchise player. In a move that would have NBA title implications (though not for Minnesota), Kevin Garnett was traded to the Boston Celtics for five, players and two first-round draft picks. Thus ended the Kevin Garnett era in Minnesota.

The T-Wolves posted a 22-60 record in 2007-08.

2008-09 Outlook

With a very young roster comprised of Randy Foye, Al Jefferson and Mike Miller, the T-Wolves find themselves looking up at much of the Western Conference. Few people expect them to compete for a playoff spot in the upcoming season, but with a lot of youth on the roster, the future could be bright for the Minnesota Timberwolves.