Tracy McGrady left the Houston Rockets and returned home Saturday after being told by coach Rick Adelman that despite McGrady’s wishes, his playing time would not increase.

In a strange twist to a story that has had its share of weird plot turns, the Rockets said McGrady received the team’s permission to fly back to Houston, in part so that be could be home for his the birthday of his young son, Laymen.

But there clearly was an impasse between McGrady and Adelman about what the next step should be in McGrady’s comeback from microfracture knee surgery, and the Rockets said the situation would be readdressed Monday after the team returns home from a back-to-back set against New Jersey and Cleveland.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out: Where do we go, and still keeping the rest of the guys moving forward?” Adelman said. “It’s kind of a balancing act in trying to figure it all out, and I do not have the magic answer. I wish I did.”

McGrady played short stints of 7 or 8 minutes in each of Houston’s previous six games, then asked that his workload he increased. Adelman refused, and the situation reached a new juncture after the team’s morning shootaround Tuesday.

“I’m a player, man,” McGrady told the Houston Chronicle. “I don’t make these decisions. I just abide by whatever they bring to me. That’s the plan. I’m not going to argue and fight with them — just run with it. I felt it was time [to increase the routine of playing seven to eight first-half minutes].

Tracy McGrady is no longer with the Rockets. Physically, that is. But if you want to start speculating on whether this separation will lead to a divorce, you’ll have to wait a couple more days. Blog

“I’m not going to cause any confusion or confrontations. As a player, that’s what I felt. They obviously feel different. That’s what I have to roll with.”

McGrady has the highest salary ($23.2 million) of any player in the NBA and is in the final year of his contract, and several other teams assumed the Rockets were showcasing McGrady for a trade. But Houston general manager Daryl Morey has insisted that is not the case, saying the decision to bring back McGrady and limit his minutes was Adelman’s, and there was no urgency whatsoever to trade McGrady.

Where the situation goes from here is a mystery.

“It’s just an unknown,” Adelman said. “And I don’t have the answer for it. I just thought he was unhappy with that situation, and I was uncomfortable trying to go forward and jump-start it again.

“I don’t blame any player for saying I want more, and that’s basically what he wants, and right now I’m not sure how to do that.”

This is the 30-year-old McGrady’s sixth season with the Rockets, who have been one of the NBA’s surprise success stories this year as they go through a season of transition without Yao Ming (foot surgery) and with McGrady two seasons removed from being a productive player. The 12-year veteran appeared in only 35 games last season before undergoing surgery on his left knee Feb. 24.

Of McGrady’s six appearances this season, only one could reasonably be called a success — a 10-point outing at home against the Clippers last Sunday.

“You know, he was a great player,” Adelman said, “and you could go and run the offense through him and all the other guys benefited from it. But now if you’re going to do that, because of the injury and the rehabilitation coming back, he suddenly can’t do that and we can’t go to that. And now that that’s happened, it’s tough. So we’re trying to see if we can’t keep a flow where he can still get his touches yet we don’t have to put the whole onus on him right now, and that’s the dilemma. We need to play a certain way, and he needs to get a feel for what we’re doing. And we knew it was never going to be easy.”

The Dallas Mavericks’ appeal of their overtime loss Friday to the Houston Rockets argues that center Erick Dampier was inappropriately assessed a second technical foul.

The referees — Ken Mauer, Brian Forte and John Goble — called the technical on Dampier during an eight-minute review of a flagrant foul assessed to Houston’s Aaron Brooks. The play occurred with 1:01 remaining in overtime and the Rockets leading by six points.

“What the rule says is, when you review it, the reason it’s reviewable is because you want to see if anybody else is involved and make sure that the appropriate penalties are assessed,” said Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who filed the appeal paperwork with the league office Sunday. “So you look at the review, and just like a Flagrant 2 can be downgraded to a personal foul or can be downgraded to no foul, when you look at that video, you should assess the appropriate penalty, which in this case is none.

“Because there’s no question that not only was that not an elbow above the neck, not only was that not an elbow with an intention to harm, there wasn’t even an elbow. There wasn’t even an elbow. There wasn’t even an elbow thrown. By any reasonable standard, that change should have been made, and I’m sure the refs didn’t know you could make that change, so that’s a misapplication of the rules.”

Cuban originally said that he planned to include at least two other calls in the appeal, but the Mavericks opted to focus on one call.

The NBA has five days to rule on the appeal. Cuban is requesting that the game be resumed in Dallas with 1:01 remaining and Dampier at the free throw line to shoot two free throws. In that case, the Mavs would have possession of the ball after the free throws.

The Los Angeles Lakers are the NBA’s most valuable team, and 12 franchises lost money in the 2008-09 season, according to Forbes magazine.

In its annual listing of the value of NBA franchises, Forbes finds Lakers to be worth $607 million, up 4 percent for the league champions. Second are the New York Knicks at $586 million, but that is a 4 percent drop. The Knicks led the rankings for the four previous seasons.

The Chicago Bulls ($511 million), Detroit Pistons ($479 million) and Cleveland Cavaliers ($476 million) round out the top five.

At the bottom of the 30-team rankings are the Milwaukee Bucks at $254 million. The league average worth is $367 million, down 4 percent, according to Forbes.

The teams losing money in the last 12 months are the Dallas Mavericks, Portland Trail Blazers, Orlando Magic, Atlanta Hawks, Sacramento Kings, Indiana Pacers, Charlotte Bobcats, New Jersey Nets, Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Hornets, Memphis Grizzlies and Bucks.

Teams’ average operating income was $7.8 million, with the Lakers at the top with $51.1 million, just ahead of the Bulls at $51 million. Portland’s value has increased the most, by 10 percent, while the Kings and Grizzlies each have dropped the most, by 13 percent.

Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press

Tim Donaghy’s book “Personal Foul” is a page-turner.
At the heart of the book is a gripping and sad first-hand account of a gambling addiction tearing apart a family, a career and a reputation. To the detriment of his wife, children, job, the legacy of his father and all sense, Tim Donaghy tells of growing increasingly obsessed with the highs of winning. Table games at casinos, poker games with friends, golf games, horse races, football, basketball — he says he bet on all of it to such an extreme that the mob, the FBI, the NBA and federal prosecutors got involved. Donaghy now joins Shoeless Joe Jackson, Ben Johnson, Pete Rose and the like in the pantheon of sports infamy.

“Personal Foul” is hardly all gambling addiction, though. Anecdotes include Charles Barkley dumping a container full of Gatorade on Donaghy in the referee’s locker room; Donaghy sneaking away from the media surrounding his house in a daring nighttime golf cart raid, and the story of the prisoner who almost literally “broke his kneecaps,” perhaps on behalf of the mob.

The book’s primary mission, however, is to promote the theory that the NBA’s independent investigation by attorney Lawrence Pedowitz, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office have been unable to disprove Donaghy’s claim that he didn’t fix games, because he didn’t have to.

According to Donaghy, so many referees and league officials have axes to grind with various players, coaches or owners that insider knowledge can lead to an unheard of rate of sports gambling success.

Donaghy writes that he started betting on the NBA with his friend in November 2003. They kept their bets small — typically $2,000 per game, but won big cash: “I’m stuffing it everywhere,” he says in an interview. “Suitcoat pocket, card games, golf games, luxury items for the wife and kids.” Donaghy estimates he made roughly $100,000 betting on the NBA.

Seventy to eighty percent of his picks — a rate unheard of in professional gambling — paid off. His secret? Knowing things like which referees hated which players, coaches, or owners. (Later, according to Donaghy, federal documents, and several other accounts, Donaghy instead provided his picks to James Battista, whose involvement with the Gambino crime family led to the wiretap that ensnared Donaghy.) The U.S. Attorneys wrote in a letter to the presiding judge that Donaghy won between $10,000 and $30,000 a year betting on the NBA.

Before the mob was involved, when Donaghy was betting, he says, $2,000 or thereabouts on NBA games, the wins came easy, and so did the money. “It’s euphoria. I’m making picks. I’m the go-to guy. And I’m continually winning at an unbelievable rate.”

Donaghy says his picks were once correct an amazing 15 out of 16 times. That streak, he says, “scared the living daylights out of us, and almost made us think we should stop, because we were scared that we were going to be detected.”

Donaghy writes:

So that’s how I did it. I listened to the directives from the NBA office, I considered the vendettas and grudges referees had against certain players or coaches, and I focused in on the special relationships that routinely influenced the action on the court. Throw in some quirks and predictable tendencies of veteran referees and the recipe was complete. All I had to do was call it in and let the law of averages take over. During the regular season, I was right on the money seven out of 10 times. There was even a streak when I simply couldn’t miss, picking 15 winners out of 16 games. No one on the planet could be that lucky. Of course, luck had little to do with it.
Basically, Donaghy is saying that whether or not a certain team beats the spread in a certain game depends on a lot more than the performance of the players on the court. He is an NBA insider, insisting that NBA games do not unfold on a level playing field. That stokes the fires of fans who say NBA refereeing is not on the up and up.

Although the NBA itself has consistently painted Donaghy as lacking all credibility, people with intimate knowledge of the game found his book to be loaded with claims that sounded believable.

“This,” says one current NBA executive, after reading the book, “is not going to be good. This goes way beyond one guy with a grudge. Some of the things in this book, I can remember them! And then I look back at a lot of other things I have seen, and I have to wonder. I’m scared this book will change forever how I see the game.”

The scuttlebutt on press row since the book came out has also included plenty of open-mindedness to Donaghy’s version of events. NBA writers, editors, bloggers and the like have been repeating, for instance, that Steve Javie had it in for Allen Iverson, or that Dick Bavetta likes to keep games close.

The assertion that NBA referees are not honest brokers has profound resonance. Has David Stern ever had a more difficult task than restoring the league’s credibility after the Donaghy news first broke? These new allegations are in many ways worse. Donaghy’s book names names, with specific, far-reaching claims that go a long way to painting the sport as illegitimate.

In short, this book tells the story of every NBA fan’s worst nightmare.

But are the claims in Donaghy’s book true?
“Personal Foul” has dozens of interesting claims. A good portion of these claims are nearly impossible to verify. But there are some exceptions.

For instance, Donaghy declares Charles Barkley, as a player, stalked into the referees’ locker room looking for Donaghy after an on-court dispute between the two in a Clippers vs. Rockets game.

Barkley, says Donaghy, then dumped a massive bucket of Gatorade and ice over the referee.

In a text message to ESPN’s Mark Schwarz, Barkley insists he has no recollection of any such thing, yet Donaghy was as indignant as ever.

“The two refs in the locker room know it happened. I know it happened. For Charles Barkley to lie like that is troublesome to me. Maybe we both need to sit down and take a lie detector test, and maybe the loser needs to give $500,000 to charity. And I’d like to see what his response would be to that.”

In another part of the book, Donaghy claims that as a young referee he called a travel on Michael Jordan. In the ensuing conversation, Donaghy writes, then-Bulls coach Phil Jackson pointed at Jordan and said “they don’t want that called on him.”

Shown that passage by ESPN’s J.A. Adande, Jackson responded: “I never said that.”

Donaghy, however, insists that he did, and added: “It’s probably on video somewhere.” Asked why Phil Jackson — whom Donaghy quotes in his book as a league personality willing to talk frankly about issues with refereeing — would deny saying such a thing, Donaghy suggests that the conversation took place a long time ago, and Jackson may have forgotten.

Another anecdote is about three referees each calling palming on Allen Iverson in the first quarter of a particular game. In fact, if you look at the play-by-play of that game, Iverson had just two such calls. Donaghy says that he thought he remembered three calls, but was unable to confirm all three because the NBA wouldn’t let him keep the tape of the game.

But some of the book’s central claims — those about how Donaghy was so successful gambling on the NBA — are, with a lot of work, researchable. For instance:

Dick Bavetta and big spreads
“From my earliest involvement with [referee Dick] Bavetta, I learned that he likes to keep games close.”

Donaghy asserts there was easy money to be made counting on Bavetta to use his whistle to help a team that is trailing.

For a gambler, this strategy would be dicey in games expected to be close. The time to bust this one out is by betting on underdogs when there’s a big point-spread. Donaghy says he felt confident that big underdogs would beat the spread if Bavetta was one of the three referees.

It’s not hard to find examples when Donaghy was wrong. Bavetta has refereed plenty of blowouts. In January 2004, for instance, the Kings were seven-point favorites over the Suns, but won by 20. The next month, the Rockets were nine-point favorites over the Hawks, and won by 21. In January 2005, the Suns were favored by eight and won by 18. That same year, the Bulls won a Bavetta game by 40 when they were favored by nine, and the Pistons laid a 25-point beating on the Bobcats when they were favored to win by seven. A few months later, the Pistons, favored by seven, beat the Pacers by 25.

Of course, a few losses does not a bad betting strategy make. When you look at all Bavetta games from the period in question, is Donaghy right? Did Dick Bavetta keep games close during the period when Donaghy was betting? Kevin Arnovitz digs in deep with economist Joe Price, whose massive NBA database has no support for Donaghy’s claim.

Steve Javie vs. Allen Iverson
Donaghy claims referee Steve Javie does not like NBA star Allen Iverson, and that betting against Iverson’s teams in Javie-refereed games was good strategy.

“If Javie was on the court when Iverson was playing,” writes Donaghy, “I would usually bet on the other team to win or at least cover the spread. No matter how many times Iverson hit the floor, he rarely saw the foul line.”

One can dig into each and every game — Javie refereed Iverson just 14 times while Donaghy was betting. And you know what? Iverson’s teams did just about average, compared to the betting line. On November 26, 2003, when the Pistons were in Philadelphia, the Sixers were favored by one point, but won by four. So, Donaghy’s rule would have lost you money that night. Javie was on the court when Iverson’s Sixers played in Seattle on December 28, 2004. The Sonics were eight point favorites, but won by just seven. If he had followed his own advice, Donaghy would have lost money that night. Javie refereed when Iverson’s Sixers killed the Nets, 116-96, on April 12, 2006.

All together, in the period in question, Iverson’s teams beat the spread six times, and failed to beat it seven times when Javie was refereeing. Once, there was a “push” (in 2005, when the Spurs were nine point favorites, and beat the Sixers 100-91).

Win or lose, gamblers typically pay a 10 percent vig. Basically, to win $100, you have to bet $110. If someone had bet $110 on Iverson’s opponents to beat the spread in each of the 14 Javie games, they would have won $700, lost $660, (and had no money change hands on the “push” game). Do the math there, and you’ll see that this betting strategy would have left you with a measly $40 profit, on $1540 gambled.

You’d have to bet a ton of money to get rich that way. Of course, it’s possible that Donaghy only bet some of these games, and happened on a winning streak. But the rule he describes in his book is no way to beat your bookie. And it’s not true that following this rule would make you a long-term winner.

Most importantly for those who like to believe that the NBA is a pretty fair game, there’s no evidence to support the notion that Allen Iverson had it particularly bad in Javie games. The specifics of which referee made which call are not available — only the NBA has that — but the idea that Iverson would shoot fewer free throws in games Javie referees is simply not true. Iverson averaged 8.5 free throws per 36 minutes played in those 14 Javie games, compared to 7.9 per 36 minutes played over his entire career. You can assess this for yourself by going through boxscores for the 14 games Javie reffed while Donaghy says he was betting (11/26/2003 Pistons at Sixers , 2/3/2004 Raptors at Sixers , 12/28/2004 Sixers at SuperSonics , 1/12/2005 Sixers at Bulls , 2/4/2005 Hawks at Sixers, 3/2/2005 Nets at Sixers, 4/1/2005 Mavericks at Sixers, 12/3/2005 Sixers at Spurs, 12/14/2005 Hawks at Sixers, 1/16/2006 Sixers at Wizards, 3/31/2006 Sixers at Knicks, 4/12/2006 Sixers at Nets, 3/30/2007 Nuggets at Suns, 4/16/2007 Timberwolves at Nuggets.)

Wayne Winston is a professor at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, the author of the book “Mathletics” which explains intricate methods of using math to assess sports, including referee bias. In the nine years he worked for the Dallas Mavericks, Winston built a sophisticated database of NBA game information. Winston used his own methods to check into Donaghy’s claim about Javie and Iverson. He looked into how Iverson’s Sixers teams performed compared to expectations when Javie refereed, and similarly found nothing to confirm Donaghy’s assertion. “I computed forecasts based on Sagarin ratings for each game Javie officiated against the 76ers from 2002-2006,” he reports, “and found zero evidence that Javie unfavorably impacted 76ers performance in those games.”

Joe Crawford and Allen Iverson
“Referee Joe Crawford had a grandson who idolized Iverson,” writes Donaghy. “I once saw Crawford bring the boy out of the stands and onto the floor during warm-ups to meet the superstar. Iverson and Crawford’s grandson were standing there, shaking hands, smiling, talking about all kinds of things. If Joe Crawford was on the court, I was pretty sure Iverson’s team would win or at least cover the spread.”

In the relevant period Iverson’s teams — the Sixers from 2003 into 2006, then the Nuggets — were refereed by Crawford 14 times. They only beat the spread five times, and failed nine times.
The games in question are 11/5/2003 Hornets at Sixers, 2/5/2004 Lakers at Sixers, 1/22/2005 Sixers at Magic, 2/11/2005 Sixers at Raptors, 3/1/2005 Sixers at Bucks, 11/11/2005 Lakers at Sixers, 11/26/2005 Sixers at Knicks, 12/12/2005 Timberwolves at Sixers, 2/8/2006 Sixers at Bobcats, 3/9/2006 Nuggets at Sixers, 4/8/2006 Sixers at Bulls, 11/17/2006 Sixers at Suns, 2/20/2007 Nuggets at Spurs, and 4/9/2007 Lakers at Nuggets.

Betting against Iverson’s team in Crawford games would have been lucrative. But Donaghy recommended betting for Iverson’s team to beat the spread in these games. Let’s pretend Donaghy bet $110 on Iverson’s team to beat the spread in every Crawford game. Donaghy would have paid $990 for the nine losers, and won $500 on the winners, meaning he would have lost $490.

Of course, you’d be far better off just picking winners at random.

For what it’s worth, there’s little evidence Iverson was getting any favors in these games, as his free throw rate in Crawford games was 7.9 per 36 minutes — the same as his career average.

Joe Forte and Mike Fratello
Donaghy writes that Fratello and Forte are close friends, and that Forte dines free at Fratello’s restaurant in Atlanta, where he once even brought Donaghy as a guest.

Donaghy never says that he actually made money betting on this relationship, but Donaghy does say he once bet on a Fratello-coached Memphis team (he later switched the bet, based on a tip about injuries to the Wizards).

But what about a referee and a coach being friends? Isn’t that the kind of thing that turns your stomach as a fan? Did Fratello’s Grizzlies tend to do well when Forte was on the floor, as Donaghy implies?

Hardly.

Forte refereed 13 games while Fratello was coaching the Grizzlies (all fall during the period when Donaghy was betting). They beat the spread in just six of those 13 games, falling short seven times. According to BYU economist Joe Price’s database, when you factor in the final scoring margin in those games — a more refined measure of a team’s performance — Fratello’s Grizzlies did not happen to do well in those 13 games.

Donaghy’s retort
Confronted with all of that data at a Tampa hotel on Monday morning, Donaghy had no explanation, other than to say that his betting techniques were more subtle than simply betting on these rules, and that he did not bet on every game that met the description.

“These are some of the criteria that I used,” Donaghy says. “I’m not saying I bet every game. … You can spin the stats any way you want … The FBI investigated thoroughly. … To sit here and say there was a science to how I did this, with the stats you’re throwing at me. … Based on the information you’re using, with your equation, it’s not even in the same ballpark. There were other factors that came into play. Inside information about injuries. Home game or away game. Home crowd. Many more factors to take into consideration.”

“I’m claiming that I picked 15 out of 16, and I’m also claiming that all the facts in this book are true, and it’s what I used to pick games.”

Again and again during the interview, Donaghy relied on the FBI to buttress his credibility.

“The FBI and the NBA did a thorough investigation,” he says, “and they both concluded that I did not fix games in the NBA.”

The truth is far less emphatic. U.S. Attorney Benton J. Campbell wrote, in a letter to the presiding judge, that “there is no evidence that Donaghy ever intentionally made a particular ruling during a game in order to increase the likelihood that his gambling pick would be correct.” The letter adds that Donaghy has acknowledged that his gambling may have subconsciously influenced his work.

The NBA’s investigation concluded, essentially, that Donaghy might not have rigged games. “It seems plausible to us that Donaghy may not have manipulated games,” but admits that they have no thorough way to check. “Given the information currently in our possession, we and the League’s experts are unable to contradict the government’s conclusion that ‘[t]here is no evidence that Donaghy ever intentionally made a particular ruling during a game in order to increase the likelihood that his gambling pick would be correct.’ … Donaghy officiated close to 300 games in this period. Without knowing on which games or teams he wagered and without access to Donaghy’s explanation for his calls, we believe that it would be impossible to find that the government’s conclusion that he did not manipulate games is erroneous.

Meanwhile, Donaghy points to the foreword of his book, penned by former FBI agent Phil Scala. The foreword goes to some trouble to lend credence to Donaghy, but specifically does not say he did not fix games, saying the FBI’s interest was the Gambino crime family, and they left employment issues and the like to others.

Did Tim Donaghy fix games? His book is emphatic that he did not, but while it has provided many claims to that effect, it has not yet delivered evidence.

Portland center Greg Oden will likely miss the rest of the season after fracturing his left knee cap Saturday night in the Trail Blazers’ victory over the Houston Rockets.

“He’s a strong kid,” said general manager Kevin Pritchard, visibly shaken by the latest injury to befall the 7-foot center. “He’s going to bounce back from this.”

Oden dropped to the floor clutching his left knee and grimacing after colliding with a driving Aaron Brooks midway through the first quarter.

Oden was almost immediately surrounded by trainers and physicians. The crowd at the Rose Garden stood and chanted “Oden! Oden!”

The game was stopped for some 7 minutes. Finally, Oden was gently moved to a stretcher and wheeled from the court. He underwent an MRI shortly thereafter.

The Blazers said Oden will need surgery. A timetable for his return was not immediately set.

“I’m obviously disappointed having worked so hard to get to where I was. This is a setback but I’ll be back. It’s in God’s hands now,” Oden said in a statement released by the team. “I want to thank the fans, my teammates and everyone in the Blazers family for all of their good thoughts.”

Oden, the No. 1 pick in the 2007 NBA draft out of Ohio State, has been plagued by injures his entire NBA career.

The 7-footer missed rookie season after undergoing microfracture surgery on his right knee. Last season, Oden sat out six games after injuring his right foot in the season opener against the Lakers, then missed 14 games after the All-Star break with a bone chip in his left knee. He finished the season averaging 8.9 points and 7 rebounds.

Oden lost weight during the offseason and was averaging 11.7 points and 8.8 rebounds this season as a starter.

“I thought he was the most consistent player this short season,” coach Nate McMillan said. “For him to go through this — it’s just unfortunate for him because he worked so hard.”

Blazers guard Brandon Roy said Oden spoke to the team at halftime, after he had learned of the diagnosis.

“He told us to keep fighting,” Roy said. “He feels like he’s letting us down.”

Portland went on to edge the Rockets 90-89, ending a three-game losing streak. But Oden’s injury felt like a “punch in the gut,” Pritchard said.

The Blazers have been beset by injuries. Starting forward Nicolas Batum needed shoulder surgery just before the opener. Fellow forward Travis Outlaw fractured his foot in mid-November and required surgery.

Forward Rudy Fernandez was out of Saturday night’s game with sciatic pain and set to undergo an MRI. It was uncertain if he would be with the team on an upcoming four-game trip starting with the Knicks on Monday night.

Even McMillan was set to undergo surgery Monday after rupturing his right Achilles’ tendon during practice.

The coach was participating in practice because the team is so short-handed. He will miss the team’s upcoming road trip, replaced by assistant coach Dean Demopoulos.

Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press

In September, when Bryon Russell heard Michael Jordan’s say these words, first he nodded. “It happened just like he said it. Karl [Malone], [John] Stockton were there. We was at the gym working out,” says Russell. “I was a big fan, obviously. And I walked over there and spoke those words to him. He laughed. Stockton laughed. Karl laughed. That’s what got the ball rolling and got him back into basketball.”

Russell was not offended. “I just thought it was him talking about the people that motivated him,” he explains. “I wouldn’t have done it that way, but that’s Michael Jordan. When he said my name in his Hall of Fame speech, my thought was oh yeah. We’ve got to bring back ‘98. It’s just going to be a one-on-one. I know I can whup his ass now. He doesn’t have no referees, or Scottie [Pippen], or [Toni] Kukoc or Dennis Rodman … it’ll just be me and him.”

Brandt Andersen, on the other hand, who owns the D-League’s Utah Flash was offended by Jordan’s remarks. “When I saw that speech … I thought: Man. This just is not right for the people of Utah. I’ve got to get something out there that lets Jordan put his money where his mouth is. I don’t know Michael Jordan, but that speech, to me, was unbelievable. To do what he did, in my opinion — even though I’m glad for B-Russ that he mentioned him in his speech — I just thought it wasn’t gracious. I just thought it was so disrespectful.”

That’s why this coming Monday, at half-time of the Utah Flash’s home opener against the Dakota Wizards, Andersen will be ready with a check for $100,000 to present to a charity selected by whoever wins a Russell-Jordan one-on-one matchup.

Russell swears he’ll be there, expecting to win. What’s less clear, is whether or not Jordan will show.

Andersen has handled the negotiations and isn’t counting it out: “We’ve had some conversations, and I think there’s a good possibility that he’s going to be here. He’ll say no he’s not. If you ask him straight on he’ll say no he won’t. If you ask his people they’ll say no he won’t. You know what, I’ve probably said too much. But I think there’s a good chance he might be here. Let’s leave it at that.”

If goading will motivate Jordan, and history suggests it might, Russell is more than ready to do his part, saying, for instance:

* “I’ll get to do things that I didn’t get to do in Utah. I play one-on-one. I’m a good one-on-one player. That’s what I was known for. But I can also play in a system and that’s what I did in Utah. Post-up. Turnaround jumpshot. You already know I’m going to hit the 3 in his face, that’s nothing new.”
* “I’m a defender. I can defend him anyway. We ain’t going to have some little referee from the NBA. No. We’re going to have somebody that’s going to be fair on the whistle. Guarding him will be easy! I’ve done it before. People always say Michael Jordan gave you 40 in the Finals. No. Michael Jordan probably didn’t give me more than eight of that 40. People gotta really understand. Go watch the film. See how many times Mike scored on Bryon Russell. I could put all that to rest. Mike killed me? No, Mike didn’t. Mike got D’d up.”
* “I wouldn’t want to play him until he’s in great shape. I don’t want the Michael Jordan that’s got a cigar in his mouth and has put on weight. I want the Michael Jordan that’s about 225. And we’ll go hard in the paint. We’ll put paint where it ain’t.”
* “I hope he’s preparing for what’s going to happen, because I’m definitely going to call his ass out. I will be there. I’m definitely going to call him out at the halftime of the game. We’ll see where he’s at.”
* “This is something I would pay $20 to watch. We’ll play something like 4 five-minute quarters. Running clock. A little halftime with a halftime show. Could have a 24 or 15-second shot clock. See what kind of work he can do in 15 seconds. ‘Cause I don’t plan on messing around. I’m going straight at him.”

When they played previously, Russell says, Jordan got special treatment from the referees. For instance, video suggests that Jordan cleared space for his famous 1998 title-winning shot pictured above by shoving Russell in the backside. “Referees?” asks Russell? “It was Jordan rules. Nobody was going to call that. If we had different referees … they all would have let that go. Unless they wasn’t a Michael Jordan fan. And if you wasn’t a Michael Jordan fan in that era, you didn’t love basketball.”

Despite Russell and Andersen’s readiness and optimism, there are signs the game may not take place on Monday.

Asked about his conditioning for a contest scheduled in a few days’ time, Russell replied: “When he’s ready for me, I’ll be in great shape.”

Later he added: “The game doesn’t have to take place right away. But this could get the ball rolling. I’ve got a lot of charities that I’d love to make donations to.”

Andersen admits Monday could prove to be a step toward arranging a later showdown: “If for some reason [Jordan] comes but doesn’t come to play … it could be the beginning of something. Either way it’s going to be very entertaining.”

What’s more, some of the contest’s details remain yet to be determined. For instance, who will referee? Russell said he “would rather pick somebody from the NBA. Somebody that played.”

“You want to make Charles Oakley the referee?” asked Andersen.

“Oh hell no! That’s his boy,” Russell replied. “None of that. I was thinking more like Larry Bird. Somebody that really doesn’t give a s— about Mike. Someone who’ll just call a fair game. Larry or Magic [Johnson] or one of those guys who alienated him! Could even get Dr. J.”

Somewhere around there the whole thing starts to get just a whiff of, say, professional wrestling. Or — as it actually is — halftime entertainment. Is this taking one of basketball’s sacred memories and turning it into something of a circus sideshow?

Russell has no such concerns. “I wasn’t the one who thought this out,” he says. “He called me out. I’m just going along with what he started. … You’ve got the best player that ever played the game. And you’ve got the person that he hit his last famous shot over. I don’t think it’ll be a circus. I think it’ll be something that people want to see. I think me and him are going to put on a great show. People will get a great feeling out of this. I know all of Los Angeles wants to see this. All of Utah wants to see this. And I’m pretty sure all of Chicago and everybody else wants to see this. This could be bigger than the O.J. trial.”

I am sitting where no man has ever sat before, typing this sentence while sitting against the back wall of the locker room of an 0-18 NBA team, and I am getting a dirty look from a security guy who doesn’t seem to like the idea of someone hacking away on a laptop inside this den of misery.

On the bright side, that means there’s still someone on the Nets, even if his nickname is Pinkerton, capable of producing a fiery look in his eye.

Josh Boone has been sitting catatonic at his locker for quite some time now, and Chris Douglas-Roberts is sitting to my left pointing out that there is a time and a place — as evidenced by the Minnesota-Denver game of the previous night — for things to take a turn for the better, no matter how bleak the prospects might appear.

Sean Williams is to my right, being left undisturbed — and that can’t be the greatest feeling. You are a bit player on the team off to the worst start in NBA history, and there is nothing anyone can ask of you or say to you of any relevance whatsoever.

Trenton Hassell just arrived back at his locker, next to Williams’, and is saying how Lawrence Frank was undeserving of the blame that came his way when he was fired after the Nets lost their first 16, and Courtney Lee has now arrived on the other side of Williams’ locker and is being courteous to the YES TV crew.

I figure I’ll wait the crew out, ask what positives can be taken from this loss, and see what Lee has to say — or how he reacts. Absurd question, but hey, 0-18 is absurd in its own right, so I figure I’m on solid ground.

Stand by …

OK. I’m back. And Lee has some goodwill stored up for the end of the season when I get to vote for the NBA’s All-Interview Team.

Because Lee not only answered the question, he made a valid point — that Dallas coach Rick Carlisle had to summon Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd off the bench with 6:48 remaining in the fourth quarter after the Nets opened the period with a 13-2 run to cut a 27-point deficit to 16.

The Nets managed to fritter that opportunity away by missing a pair of 3-pointers and committing a turnover on their next three possessions, but hey, you take your small moral victories wherever you can find them.

“We had one unit in there in the second half that was competing and playing defense and getting a couple of stops, letting our defense lead to our offense. So if we can take that out of there and watch it, and hopefully it’ll motivate everybody to play the whole game like that,” Lee said. “Starting off, what are we waiting for? They had a 50-point second quarter. That’s unheard of. They shot 81 percent in the first half. That’s unheard of. That’s just a lack of defensive effort.”

Outside the locker room, there were no tears being shed by Devin Harris, but rather hugs and smiles.

That was because Harris was saying his first hello in a long time to Del Harris, his former assistant coach in Dallas who will now be interim coach Kiki Vandeweghe’s lead assistant beginning Friday night against Charlotte when New Jersey will try to avoid dropping to 0-19.

“We’re going to get this thing turned around,” Devin Harris was told by a cheerful Del Harris, who spent the night watching the game from the stands with Vandeweghe as interim coach Tom Barrise — the other interim, the one who replaced Frank last weekend — manned the sidelines one last time.

Barrise said afterward that he was particularly appalled by the lack of defensive effort in the second quarter when Dallas shot 17-for-19 (89.5 percent) from the field and 10-for-10 from the line to score 49 points and take a 77-50 lead at intermission.

The Mavs’ lead got as high as 31, and the second half was highlighted by two fans donning brown paper bags with Santa caps affixed atop them and sneaking down into the second row of seats, where they were mobbed by photographers during a timeout.

“It doesn’t pain me, it’s unfortunate,” said Dallas’ Jason Kidd, who led the Nets to two NBA Finals appearances earlier this decade before the rebuilding (or demolition, some would say) of the roster began with the trade that sent him to Dallas. “I can always say there was whispers of this coming, you could see it coming. It’s unfortunate, they’re going through some changes on that side and they have to stay with it and stay positive, and things will turn eventually.”

Vandeweghe has said he will try to play a more wide-open style on offense and encourage his team to gamble and trap more on defense, trying to quicken the game and take advantage of the speed of some of the team’s younger players.

Barrise noted that Wednesday morning’s shootaround marked the first time all season that all 15 players took part.

The new beginning begins Thursday morning when the new interim tag team, Vandeweghe and Harris, attempt to orchestrate a turnabout.

“It’s a bit unfair to make an evaluation yet with so many guys either coming back or down, and going against a good team that just won their (14th) game and got hot in the second quarter. We’ve got some good guys, and I think they’re playing hard, and there’s some things I think we can work on to do better,” Harris said. “But it’s not a hopeless situation.”

Not hopeless? Ok, we’ll give him that one. Injuries have decimated this team, and if there hadn’t been two devastating losses at the buzzer to Minnesota and Miami, we’d have a quote from Frank somewhere in this column.

But if it isn’t hopeless, it certainly is humiliating. Not to mention historical.

And if it keeps getting worse, there is still hope on the horizon: Only 20 more days until the Minnesota Timberwolves come to town.

Chris Sheridan covers the NBA for ESPN Insider.

Ron Artest, the often-controversial Los Angeles Lakers forward, told a magazine interviewer he used to drink alcohol at halftime of NBA games.

“I used to drink Hennessy … at halftime,” Artest said in an interview with The Sporting News, which is publishing the story in its Dec. 7 issue. “I [kept it] in my locker. I’d just walk to the liquor store and get it.”

Artest said he drank whhen he played for the Chicago Bulls, where he played for his first three seasons (1999-2002). He has since played for Indiana, Sacramento, Houston and the Lakers.

He was a member of the Pacers when he was involved in a fight in Detroit that spilled over into the stands. He was suspended for the rest of the 2004-05 season, which turned out to be 73 games. Artest told the Sporting News that the brawl “wasn’t my fault. … I don’t see anything I could have done different.”

Artest told the Sporting News that he has tamed his admittedly wild lifestyle, but still likes to “party and I have fun.”

“When I was a 19-year-old father, whew. I was a single pimp! I was wild,” he told the magazine. “A lot of marijuana and alcohol — even before [that age]. … I [still] party and I have fun, but not like I used to. I used to drink every night and party every night.”

He also criticized NBA referee Joey Crawford, who was on the floor for two games of the 2009 NBA Western Conference semifinals. In Game 2, Artest was ejected after an altercation with Kobe Bryant. In Game 7, Crawford also officiated, and the Lakers won 89-70 to close out the series.

“Joey Crawford basically said, ‘Who cares about the Houston Rockets? Kobe Bryant is on the floor,’ ” Artest said, according to the Sporting News.

Allen Iverson informed the Philadelphia 76ers Wednesday morning that he will accept their one-year, non-guaranteed offer.

The team did not disclose the contract details. If Iverson received the pro-rated veterans minimum, the deal would be worth $1,029,794. He could get the full veterans’ minimum of $1,306,455 if the Sixers signed him with the mid-level or $1.99 million contract exception.

“In light of the recent injury to Lou Williams, which will sideline him for close to eight weeks, we felt that Allen was the best available free agent guard to help us at this time,” team president Ed Stefanski said.

Team officials met face-to-face with Iverson and his representatives for nearly two hours Monday.

Iverson announced his retirement last week after an ill-fated stint with the Memphis Grizzlies. The 10-time All-Star was NBA MVP in 2001 when he led the Sixers to the NBA Finals.

The New Jersey Nets, who will try to avoid matching the worst start in NBA history when they play the world champion Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday night, have fired coach Lawrence Frank.

Sources said that the Nets — mired at 0-16 after Friday’s loss in Sacramento — wanted to delay the widely anticipated coaching change until after the team returned from its four-game West Coast trip. Yet it appears that Nets management determined that it had to make the move before facing the Lakers after reports became more widespread that Frank’s dismissal was imminent.

The Bergen (N.J.) Record and Yahoo! Sports reported Sunday that Frank’s firing was expected as early as Monday no matter the outcome Sunday against the Lakers. After New Jersey’s first loss of the week Tuesday in Denver, ESPN.com quoted a source close to the situation as saying that Frank could not survive a winless trip.

Nets assistant coach Tom Barrise will coach Sunday’s game in L.A., but the team’s announcement said Frank’s permanent replacement has not yet been chosen. Assistant coach John Loyer could be an option to replace Frank; Loyer joined the Nets in September to replace Frank’s former top assistant Brian Hill, who went to Detroit.

A source close to Frank told ESPN.com’s Chris Sheridan earlier Sunday that Frank has known for a week his departure was imminent, with the only question being where and when it would happen.

Frank, who set an NBA coaching record by winning his first 13 games as Byron Scott’s replacement in the 2003-04 season, is in the final year of a contract that pays him $4 million this season.

He is the second NBA coach to be fired this season after Scott’s dismissal by New Orleans earlier this month.

Speculation has been mounting all week in New Jersey that general manager Kiki Vandeweghe would be asked to replace Frank, largely as a cost-saving measure given the relative inexperience and anonymity of the coaches on Frank’s staff.

Frank’s record as Nets coach is 225-241. Injuries have plagued the team throughout its 0-16 start, which includes four losses by three points or fewer, but New Jersey’s effort and energy have noticeably deteriorated since a home loss to New York on Nov. 21, amid increasingly strong signals that Frank would soon be dismissed.

The Nets entered Sunday’s play averaging an NBA-low 85.6 points and shooting a league-worst 40.3 percent from the field. Ten of their losses have come by double digits, including the first three games of this four-game Western road trip.

With a loss to the Lakers, New Jersey would join the 1988-89 Miami Heat and the Los Angeles Clippers during the lockout-shortened 1999 season as the only teams to start 0-17.

Another source close to the situation told ESPN.com on Tuesday: “The team hasn’t lost interest in each other, which is a good sign, but I don’t know how much more interest they have in [Frank's message].”

New Jersey’s streak reached 16 with Friday night’s 109-96 defeat to Sacramento, matching the franchise’s longest losing streak.

The Nets have dropped 16 straight road games dating to March 18, when they routed the Knicks by 26 points. New Jersey has also lost 27 of 35 all-time road games against Los Angeles. Its loss at the Staples Center last season followed a 102-100 win there on Nov. 25, 2007.

Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. Information from STATS LLC was used in this report.