After skipping preseason media day the NBA decided to fine both Gilbert Arenas and the Wizards $15,000 apeice. Gilbert skipping out left a few questions in my head:

1.)Why would you fine someone with an $111 million contract only $15,000?

2.)Why did he show up long enough to only take pics?

3.)What will he say when he addresses the media on Saturday?

4.)When will his bum knee fully heal?

5.)Is the pool ready yet?????

But seriously Gilbert needs to get it together...hes one of my favorite players but his damn knee is starting to get on my nerves it just needs to heal and stayed healed!

As interest has grown in the NBA over signing 7-foot-2 Iranian Olympian Hamed Ehadadi, the league office has sent a letter to its 30 teams instructing that they are forbidden to even discuss a contract with Ehadadi, Yahoo! Sports has learned.

In the letter, which was sent Friday, NBA legal counsel wrote: "It has come to our attention that representatives of Hamed Ehadadi, an Iranian basketball player, may be contacting NBA teams to discuss the possibility of signing Mr. Ehadadi to an NBA player contract.

"We have been advised that a federal statue prohibits a person or organization in the United States from engaging in business dealings with Iranian nationals."



The NBA is applying to the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control for a license that, "if granted," the league said, would allow teams to negotiate with the 23-year-old Ehadadi. Until then, no franchise is allowed to do so.

Commissioner David Stern invited the Iranian national team to compete in July's NBA summer league in Utah, allowing the team a pre-Olympics tune-up. When NBA teams started to show an interest in signing Ehadadi, Stern had league counsel begin the process of clearing a path through this complicated circumstance with the U.S. State Department.

After his most impressive game of these Olympics a€" 21 points and 16 rebounds in a 97-82 loss to Argentina on Saturday a€" Ehadadi, a center, said through an assistant coach, Mehran Hatami, "It is my dream to play in the NBA."

When asked if he had been in contact with NBA teams, Ehadadi said, "two or three," including the Memphis Grizzlies.

"It's our pleasure for one player from Iran to one day play in the NBA," Hatami said. "I am sure he will play there this season because he has played great (at the Olympics). He is a talented player. He is OK for beginning in the NBA. After practicing a few years, you will see that he will be one of the great players."

League executives don't exactly share Iran's grand vision for Ehadadi. He's considered a project a€" "Pretty limited," one league executive said Saturday a€" but there has been intrigue with his developing offensive game and an ability to block shots. In Iran's four losses in Pool B thus far, Ehadadi has averaged 16.5 points, 10 rebounds and 2.5 blocks.

"He's huge," one NBA scouting director said. "You have to give him that."

After going unselected in the 2004 NBA draft, Ehadadi became a free agent eligible to sign with any team. He has played with several clubs in the Iranian professional league, including Peyakan and Sanam. Ehadadi gathered some favorable reviews among several NBA scouts for his play with Iran in the summer league.

"The Iranian basketball federation supports him to play in the best situation for his basketball career," Hatami said. "We would like for him to go to a place where he will play, not sit on the bench. That's very important for our basketball a€" and also for him."

If that's the case, Iranian officials are likely to be disappointed if Ehadadi ever does get to the NBA. For now, politics make him wait to get that opportunity.

The Lakers just made a very unexpected off season move by signing Josh Powell...I guess their tring to replace Ronny!

Powell, a three-year NBA veteran, spent last season with the Los Angeles Clippers where he averaged 5.5 points and 5.2 rebounds in 64 games. After going undrafted in 2003, the 6-9 forward spent two seasons overseas where he played in both the Italian and Russian basketball leagues. Prior to the 2005-06 season, Powell was signed as a free agent by the Dallas Mavericks where he averaged 3.0 points and 2.2 rebounds in 37 games. The North Carolina State alum was traded to the Indiana Pacers in July of 2006 and played in seven games before being acquired by the Golden State Warriors in a midseason trade. Powell finished the 2006-07 season with averages of 3.1 points and 2.4 rebounds in 37 games.

Powell has career averages of 4.2 points and 3.6 rebounds in 138 games with Dallas, Indiana, Golden State and the Clippers.

LOSERS of the NBA .

LOSERS of the NBA offseason.

Atlanta Hawks

You've got to hand it to the Hawks, currently the most dysfunctional team in the NBA. After at length creation the and loudmouthed the Celtics to a seventh game in the foremost round, the Hawks looked like the team on the rise. Then the offseason came and the Hawks' tenure group, Atlanta Spirit, got to work.

Their original move was a good one, letting GM Billy Knight walk. The Hawks were in the playoffs despite Knight's coherent botching of the draft, not because of him. Unfortunately, after Knight resigned, the whole shebang got dangerously mangled in Atlanta. A sum of the top GM candidates they pursued said "no, thank you" and the Hawks up settling on Rick Sund, a nice guy who's failed willfully as a GM in his last two stops in Seattle and Detroit.

Sund's head move was to sell for back head coach Mike Woodson a?" a guy who quite a few don't very like and whose tutoring luxuriousness doesn't fit the ability on the team.

Then the Hawks completely mishandled Josh Childress. First, they offered him a contract for less than the midlevel exclusion. Then they told him to go find a healthier deal, rational no team would make a muscular bargain. Childress found a in good health deal in Greece and the Hawks he'd take the wherewithal. The Hawks so-called his blunt and Childress took the funds and ran. Normally, I wouldn't make such a fuss over a sixth man, but Childress was the glue that held the team composed a?" he was very undervalued.

Now the Hawks are between a rock and hard place with Josh Smith. Their overture is worse than what Emeka Okafor and Luol Deng got. Smith is offended and doesn't indeed want to play in Atlanta. If they up the deal, they risk a player who is unhappy in Atlanta. If the Hawks don't escalation the approach, they risk Smith compelling the one-year qualifying advance in Atlanta and next summer as an unrestricted free proxy.

Los Angeles Clippers

The Clippers once held the desirable title of most contract in the group and they made a lot of strides toward it this summer.

Everything started off so well. They dazed many by quickly coming to provisos with Warriors free driving force Baron Davis a?" big a big need at the article. Pairing Davis with Elton Brand was believed to put the Clippers on a lesson back to the in the West. Unfortunately, the team then inexplicably lost Brand to the Sixers a week subsequent. Brand's relatives say the Clippers mishandled the negotiations. The Clippers site the limb at Brand's negotiator, David Falk.

Suddenly, the Clippers' dream team was a frightening. At this goal in his occupation, Davis production $65 million stretches credulity, even if he's encouraged. An indifferent Davis playing on a vault inhabitant? Ugh.

The Clippers also lost Corey Maggette and tried to make light of all the bill by in Marcus Camby and Ricky Davis. But I don't believe they're a semifinal team in the West with that crew.

Dallas Mavericks

Two ago, the Mavericks were an elite team in the NBA and had the alliance's best track record. Coming into this time of year, the Mavs no longer look like a competitor. In fact, there's a casual they force not even be a match team in the wild, wild West.

The Mavs still have Dirk Nowitzki, but the rest of the team is literally underwhelming. The addition of Jason Kidd at the dealings deadline last term looks like an horrific move in recollection. It's indeterminate whether Kidd in truth has the essence left to be an elite item guard.

Josh Howard's brushes with disagreement over his comments on marijuana and a charge of drag racing this summer port't helped. And that huge $30 million-plus contract that they gave DeSagana Diop will come back to rendezvous them the same way that $60 million-plus contract they gave to Erick Dampier did.

The Mavs were actively difficult to get hands on Ron Artest, but, like the Rockets, it was more an act of desperation than a savvy basketball move. Maybe head instructor Rick Carlisle can turn effects around, but as it right now, a team in need of a chief overhaul to get back into title disputation did too little and risks dwindling into .

Denver Nuggets

It's not hard to get your arms around the game plan in Denver. The team hardly made the playoffs last time of year, the opening on Allen Iverson's line of business is briskly finishing and suddenly the team gears? The Nuggets are in cost-piercing mode.

Shipping off Marcus Camby will truly upset the team's defensive capacity. I think the move was an admission that the combo of Iverson and Carmelo Anthony just wasn't free to fling the team to a championship. There's a good accidental they will miss the playoffs this coming period agreed the competitiveness of the West.

The perky side is that the Nuggets have a huge commerce exemption and also will be looking at thinkable cap room next summer. They still have Carmelo to build around, but dreams of bringing a championship to Denver are now on hold.

Golden State Warriors (so crazy and untrue!!!)

I feel sorry for Warriors GM Chris Mullin. A little more than a year ago, he was the guy who helped the Warriors end an ugly 12-year tiebreaker drought. His hard work paid off in the 2007 when his Warriors off one of the biggest principal-round upsets in NBA saga.

Last spell, the Warriors were good, just not good enough to make the in the over-the-top competitive West. Then disaster struck this offseason as Baron Davis bolted for the Clippers and the Warriors . After wearisome and failing to lure Elton Brand and Gilbert Arenas to Golden State, the Warriors at an end way too much on Corey Maggette, a guy who duplicates many of their strengths and none of their weaknesses.

Now the Warriors look perched to fall out of the playoffs for the next few seasons as they reopen the renovation course. That has to be a huge blow to the gut of Warriors fans that single-mindedly supported the Warriors in 2007.

But there is a silvery coating in Golden State.

First, the Warriors were right in not overpaying to keep Davis. I'll be knocked for six if he's still playing 50 games a term in the last few years of that deal. Second, the Warriors impenetrable up two young free agents a?" Monta Ellis and Andris Biedrins a?" to rich, but not outlandish deals. If two continue to do up along with young players like Brandan Wright, Marco Belinelli and rookie Anthony Randolph, the Warriors will be good in nearby three years.

Still, I'm not sure Warriors fans like the idea of after missing the in 16 of 17 years.

Memphis Grizzlies

Although they mishandled the Pau Gasol trade last end, the sharp-witted side was that the team was standard into the summer with cap room. Once the Sixers, Warriors and Clippers quickly used cap space, the Grizzlies were the only team in the coalition left with room and in a prime opinion to make a giveaway or, at the very tiniest, put some demands on teams to overpay their classified free agents.

Instead, the team stayed on the sidelines, presumably to focus on the 2009 summer a?" an offseason that potentially will have better free agents but also more teams with earnings cap space to compete against. Also, the Grizzlies away a key veteran, Mike Miller, and the draft rights to Kevin Love, to move up two in the draft to get O.J. Mayo.

Now the Grizzlies are one of the youngest in the club, have a huge glut of guards and are paper thin on the front line. In other words, you assumed last season was bad? You dock't seen anything yet.

However, as in Golden State, there is a brilliant side: The Grizzlies do have lots of young aptitude. Rudy Gay and Mayo have the imaginable to be All-Stars soon. Mike Conley has a sunny future, too. And the Grizz also got a late leading-round snip in the draft in Darrell Arthur.

If GM Chris Wallace can some of that flair into some NBA vets as his ex- boss Danny Ainge did (summon up when we were all bemoaning how young and inexperienced the Celtics were?) or if they can use important cap space next summer to lure a talented free manager or two, we may be speaking another way approaching the Grizzlies next August.

But this time? It isn't untaken to be comely.

The warriors have done it again and signed another player... Anthony Morrow from Georgia Tech who has been playing with the team during the summer league. He's been one of the leading scorers during the teams games in Utah averaging 18.6 points. I just hope that he plays this good in the actual season and it not just a one time show. Because I dont want him to become "the other Anthony" on the team! Now that hes signed im just waiting to see whats up with Biedrins and Austin Croshere...