From the Oregonian’s Jason Quick :
Joel Przybilla said he chose to return to the Trail Blazers instead of signing a free agent contract with more successful teams because he believes the Blazers have changed their culture.
“I truly feel something good is going to happen,” Przybilla said Wednesday from his home in Milwaukee. “And I want to be a part of that.”
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Pryzbilla’s other options had either a) already signed another free agent center (Chicago’s acquisition of Big Ben) or were offering substantially less money than the Blazers (Detroit and San Antonio).
The Nikoloz Tskitishvil era is over in Portland, by the way. If this means some of you won’t make it into work until late tomorrow morning, I will fully understand.
Indiana have traded Austin Croshere to Dallas for Marquis Daniels. Says Henry Abbott, “Keith Van Horn is a free agent, and apparently the Mavericks can’t stand the thought of going without an underperforming, overpaid white guy coming off the bench.”
The Toronto Sun’s Steve Buffery reports that Mike James is close to a deal with the Rockets. There’s no room for guards who can effectively distribute the ball or play consistent defense on the Knicks roster, of course, just plenty of space for everyone who can’t.
If you’re eagerly awaiting your first opportunity to curse out Renaldo Balkman in a Knicks uniform, you’ll have your chance tomorrow afternoon at 3pm (EST), when New York takes on Cleveland’s Las Vegas Summer League squad on MSG.
Cavaliers Blog’s Brian Windhorst on Cleveland’s excruciating wait for King James to accept or reject their max contract extension.
I’ve gotten several of e-mails asking me if LeBron’s delay in commenting on the Cavs’ max contract offer is hurting them in free agency. I believe this is primarily because they’ve told Drew Gooden to wait until LeBron is settled before they press on with him, at least that’s what Drew’s agents have been telling me.
The truth is no one outside the Cavs front office can truly say whether this expanding decision process is changing their plans. Even though they had interest in Nazr Mohammed and Joel Pryzbilla, I not sure why either would wanted to have come to Cleveland with Zydrunas Ilgauskas in place. I thought they’d have interest in Speedy Claxton, but his agent told me Cavs interest was lukewarm. My guess is because he’s not a great outside shooter.
In short, I’m not sure if the Cavs have aggressively pursued any free agent thus far. I think they saw this class as being somewhat weak and they might want to sit back and see what develops. Certainly it would help all parties if LeBron committed, but I don’t think it is harming the team right now.