Tag: the NBA

NBPA ready to file motion to dismiss NBA’s lawsuit

The NBA Players Association are ready with their reponse to the NBA’s federal lawsuit filed  earlier this week.

CBS Sports.com reports that the players and will likely do so in the next week to 10 days.

The NBPA’s response is hardly unexpected  as they try to prove in court that the NBA’s lockout is illegal.

NBPA attorney Jeffrey Kessler told CBS Sports.com that the NBA’s lawsuit ”has no merit” and will use it as evidence of the league’s bad-faith bargaining in a separate charge pending before the National Labor Relations Board.

The most prominent agents are placing incredible pressure on NBPA executive director Billy Hunter to decertify the union and file an antitrust lawsuit against the league.

It adds another obstacle in settling the NLRB case, which is still likely 30-60 days from being settled.

Maybe Hunter factored the additional legal manuevering when he because of the lockout earlier this week.

Because it appears we have moved much farther away from a settlement over the past several days.

Capturing lightning in a bottle: Remembering Pecherov and Paspalj

Only hard-core NBA fans remember much about the career of Oleksiy Pecherov.

During his three-season career in the NBA, all of his five career starts came in the first eight days of November 2009.

Sure, they came on a miserable Minnesota team and most people weren’t watching that closely. His team would win only 15 games that season.

But in a game on Nov. 4, 2009, against Kevin Garnett and the Boston Celtics, Pecherov erupted for 24 points and eight rebounds in 34 minutes. It marked the only time that Pecherov would ever score more than 15 points in his career.

Danny Chau of Hardwood Paroxysm.com lists Pecherov’s big game for journeyman NBA players.

Pecherov’s might be the most stunning. It sparked a memorable line from Brendan Jackson on Celtics Hub.com afterwards:

“I just can’t fathom how a guy like this, that was guarded by Kevin Garnett, was able to have a game like this,” Jackson wrote after the game.

A similar game never came again. And Pecherov soon was out of the league.

Chau’s list is pretty complete, although he doesn’t mention one of the most memorable footnote players in Spurs history and his one shining moment.

That would be Zarko Paspalj, the chain-smoking 6-foot-9 power forward from Montenegro who played with the Spurs in the 1989-90 season. Paspalj’s big game came on Jan. 20, 1990, when tossed in 13 points — the only double-figure scoring game of his career — in 14 minutes in a 126-99 loss at Denver.

Paspalj grabbed four offensive rebounds and blocked two shots in the game against the Nuggets. He never had more than one blocked shot in any of the other 22 games of his NBA career. He produced 11 offensive rebounds in the remaining 168 minutes of his brief career with the Spurs.

Obviously, the cigarettes must have prepared him for Denver’s altitude for that big game.

RJ’s beach volleyball team eliminated in open weekend tournament

Richard Jefferson is staying busy during the lockout.

The Spurs small forward was a part of a group of locked-out NBA players who participated in the International Surf Festival Charles Saikley Six-Man Volleyball Tournament in Manhattan Beach, Calif.

Jefferson was joined by Kevin Love, Jordan Farmar, Luke Walton and David Lee on Team Trim Lords.

Despite the athleticism from the NBA players, Team Trim Lords was eliminated after two losses in Sunday competition in a tournament that was dominated by more conventional beach volleyball players.

The tournament was played under “old school” rules, with the larger court, side-out scoring and net serves counting as points for the opposing team. Easy Reader News.com reports that the tournament was won by Simmzy’s/Beckers,.

Love has talked about playing in several beach volleyball tournaments during the lockout.

I wonder if Jefferson has any interest in joining him to fill a desire for some athletic competition while he can’t play during the lockout?