- Fanhouse: The Indiana Pacers have declared that Rod Benson blogging during training camp is Too Much Rod Benson. “Benson has posted a note on his site that reads, “Gone Campin’,” writing that the site and his Twitter account “will be down until the end of camp.” He’s also taken a break from Yahoo!.
“It wouldn’t be a problem if he was a mid-level exception player,” his agent, Bill Neff, said about the attitude NBA general managers have had about Benson’s blog. “It’s a double standard.” - Yahoo! Sports’ Marc Spears: Andre Miller is yet to solidify his position as starting point guard for his new team the Portland Trail Blazers, but this does smell of media beat-up more than anything for me. It’s still early days. “If I was told right out when I had my meetings that I would be a backup, then I wouldn’t have come here,” Miller told Yahoo! Sports this week.”
- NBA.com: Proof that hoops under the stars could become lasting event. The event this year featured the Phoenix Suns and the Golden State Warriors, who hoped that the cold would not inhibit the game as it did last year. “Rare as the chilled temperatures of the 2008 game were, as players from both teams puffed hot breath into their hands to stay warm, the Suns were concerned enough about a frosty repeat that they received permission from the league for a rare uniform adjustment and had long-sleeve shirts made for both teams to be worn under the jerseys. The extra layer was never needed — a beautiful afternoon in the low-90s gave way to an ideal evening and a 6:40 opening tip with barely so much as a windbreaker or sweater spotted in the stands.”
- Sacramento Bee: A big loss for the Sacramento Kings as they will be without Francisco Garcia for 4 months after he injured his arm whilst lifting weights. “The jarring sound of the exercise ball popping was scary enough for Kevin Martin.
But before the Kings shooting guard could turn his head to make sense of the scene inside the team’s practice facility weight room Friday, he heard an even worse sound coming from teammate Francisco Garcia that he wished he didn’t recognize.
“I heard the pop, and then I heard this ‘crack’ right behind the ball popping,” Martin said. “It gave me chills for the next three hours. I felt so bad.”
- Truehoop: Blake Griffin is already making an impression in Los Angeles. “Griffin’s most exciting sequence of the game occurred when he deflected a Portland entry pass, tumbled over the scorers table to tip it back into play, leaped back over the table to steal the pass, ignited the break, only to lose the ball on a behind-the-back dribble.”
- OregonLive: Chris Dudley is looking at following the path of numerous other NBA players before him, entering politics. “Dudley, 44, certainly has one of the major attributes for a political career: strong name recognition. The 6-11 center played in the National Basketball Association from 1987 until 2003 and had two stints with the Blazers, from 1993-97 and from 2001-03.
In addition, Dudley, a Yale College graduate, was frequently praised for his charitable and community work. He won the NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award in 1996 and USA Today’s “Most Caring Athlete” award in 1997. He was cited for such charitable contributions as giving $300,000 to the “I Have a Dream” Foundation that helps students pay for college.”
