| July, 2011 |
| Will the NBA lockout ruin the 2012 Summer Olympics? It is a fair question, one that will be at least partially answered by the end of the summer. ESPN.com |
Several foreign basketball federations are grappling with high insurance costs in the weeks  leading up to regional Olympic qualification tournaments, one piece of the "collateral damage" that NBA commissioner David Stern spoke of when he announced on June 30 that the league was imposing a lockout. ESPN.com |
| Those federations are trying to find ways to shoulder the enormous financial burden of insuring their star players' NBA contracts, an expense that could force several of the top international players to sit out FIBA tournaments this summer. ESPN.com |
| In a normal offseason, an agreement between FIBA and the NBA provides an infrastructure that holds down the cost of insuring players' contracts in case they are injured in an international competition. ESPN.com |
| "There is no good reason why FIBA was left to fend on its own," said agent David Bauman, who represents Bogut. "In this case the NBA is punishing all the countries they are using to build their worldwide influence and their global brand by making it so that these players are not able to partake in Olympic qualifying tournaments." ESPN.com |
| In the doomsday scenario, where labor strife causes the cancellation of the 2011-12 NBA season, and the work stoppage drags into June and then July, there’s little, if no chance, the great American players could play in the Olympics. Team USA is too tied to the NBA – too much of a David Stern production – for the players to break ranks and play. In the post 9-11 world, that’s a tricky subject PR-wise for the players, but several union, USA Basketball and agent sources believe this worst-case labor scenario would cost Team USA its NBA stars. Yahoo! Sports |
As the managing director of USA Basketball, Jerry Colangelo answers to Stern, and the  league – along with its ATM machine, Nike – has immense impact on the coaching staff and roster. How could the NBA allow its coaches – Team USA assistants Nate McMillan and Mike D’Antoni – to coach NBA players during a lockout? Still, that’s the worst-case scenario, but it’s one that USA Basketball will have to consider should the labor dispute push deep into the NBA season. In this instance, Team USA would have to field a team of American players who’ve built careers overseas, as well as D-League players, and perhaps a superior college superstar or two. Yahoo! Sports |
| August, 2011 |
| Truth is, no one -- not even Colangelo, the head of USA Basketball -- knows what the potential impact of the lockout will be on the Summer Games. If the lockout is still ongoing then, there would be any number of logistical and potentially legal nightmares for each. NBA.com |
| Colangelo said he doesn't have a specific plan for what to do about the USA roster if the lockout consumes all of the 2011-12 season and is still going when USAB has to submit a roster to FIFA next June. (There wasn't much he could say, anyway; Colangelo is still, technically, a minority partner with the Suns, though he sold the team to Robert Sarver in 2004 for $401 million, and thus can't talk specifically about the lockout or many ancillary issues.) But he has enough information to believe he can put a team together from members of the '08 Olympic gold medal team and the '10 world championship squad. NBA.com |
| "I would hope people would take care of their business," he said. "I know all of the issues from both sides, the pros and cons. I have to look at it from a different perspective as chairman of USA Basketball. We're moving ahead. We're fielding a team. The only question is who's going to be on it. We have to submit a roster to FIBA by next June ... we're going to have a great response to participation in 2012 from our players. We have the depth of players, looking at the Olympic roster and the World Championship roster, to field a team." NBA.com |
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Zune and iPod: Most people compare the Zune to the Touch, but after seeing how slim and surprisingly small and light it is, I consider it to be a rather unique hybrid that combines qualities of both the Touch and the Nano. It’s very colorful and lovely OLED screen is slightly smaller than the touch screen, but the player itself feels quite a bit smaller and lighter. It weighs about 2/3 as much, and is noticeably smaller in width and height, while being just a hair thicker.
With havin so much content do you ever run into
any problems of plagorism or copyright infringement?
My site has a lot of exclusive content I’ve either authored myself or outsourced but it seems a lot of it is popping it up all over the internet without my permission. Do you know any solutions to help stop content from being ripped off? I’d certainly
appreciate it.