Sports Roundup

Sharapova reaches second round at US Open
Agassi advances to open 20th US Open campaign
San Antonio Spurs sign Van Exel
Defending US Open champion Kuznetsova falls in first round

NBA Schedule

Holiday mega-matches on new schedule

By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
Archive

People don't really circle dates on calendars anymore. Do they? Better, then, to consider these dates to punch into your handheld. We're still working on ESPN.com software that takes them straight from this page to your electronic event-listing device of choice, but that doesn't prevent us from unfurling our annual list of standout games on the just-released 2005-06 NBA schedule. Nov. 1, Opening Night The San Antonio Spurs get championship rings for the third time in seven years before hosting the Denver Nuggets, who will be without suspended coach George Karl for the season's first three games. Dirk Nowitzki's Dallas Mavericks visit old pal Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns in the nightcap of TNT's season-starting doubleheader, and the only other game to launch the season sends Milwaukee and No. 1 overall pick Andrew Bogut to Philadelphia for Bogut's NBA debut, which also serves as Maurice Cheeks' debut as Allen Iverson's new coach. Nov. 2, Opening Night for everyone else The Miami Heat have an interesting little opener in Memphis after the megadeal that sent Eddie Jones to the Grizzlies while bringing Jason Williams and James Posey to South Beach. ESPN's first doubleheader serves up Philadelphia at Detroit in Flip Saunders' first game as Larry Brown's successor, followed by the Los Angeles Lakers at Denver to officially end Phil Jackson's one-year hiatus. Brown, meanwhile, takes the Knicks to Boston to tip off his dream job. Nov. 3, Indiana Pacers at Miami Heat The Pacers, just by getting Ron Artest back and by signing Euro king Sarunas Jasikevicius, are having the best offseason in the East on this scorecard. Here's an early chance, at home, for the retooled Heat to try to change our minds. Phil's first home game follows when the Lakers try to keep up with the Suns and reigning MVP Steve Nash. Nov. 4, Washington Wizards at New York Knicks The reality of Larry's dream job -- and the love shower he'll get from desperate Knicks fans who see him as their savior -- should start to sink in deeply when he coaches his first real home game at Madison Square Garden. Nov. 5, Boston Celtics at Charlotte Bobcats Former Tar Heels Raymond Felton and Sean May play their first home game as Bobcats, in what also serves as Charlotte's first real game in its new building. Nov. 10, Houston Rockets at Miami Heat We get an early glimpse of Yao Ming vs. Shaquille O'Neal, after which we must wait until Jan. 29 for Round 2 in Houston. Nov. 24, Happy Thanksgiving A double-helping of NBA for your holiday: Cleveland at Indiana, followed by Seattle traveling to Los Angeles to face the Lakers. Dec. 2, New York Knicks at Detroit Pistons How will Pistons fans greet the exiled Coach Brown? How will Larry react if he crosses paths with the owner (Bill Davidson) who questioned his character? How much will Darko Milicic play against the old boss who rarely played him? All questions we can start to answer in the first of two Knicks games at Detroit, with another on April 16. Dec. 4, Atlanta Hawks at Phoenix Suns This might be Joe Johnson's first game in Phoenix since he urged the Suns to let him go. Or it might be his first game against the Hawks in the wake of an imploded sign-and-trade deal with Atlanta that forces him to rejoin the Suns. There's no way to know yet how the Johnson saga will play out, but it's safe to say both Phoenix-Atlanta games this season will mean a lot more than usual. Dec. 7, Miami Heat at San Antonio Spurs Any duel pitting Shaq against Tim Duncan is an event, and their two battles -- both on ESPN -- play out this season in a six-week span. This is No. 1, followed by a Jan. 20 rematch in South Florida. Dec. 15, Denver Nuggets at Cleveland Cavaliers Should we still make a big deal about Carmelo Anthony vs. LeBron James games? (An aside: What about Darko vs. LeBron games?) Dec. 20, Utah Jazz at Cleveland Cavaliers OK. There's no question this is a big deal: Carlos Boozer finally makes his long-awaited return to Cleveland -- at what is now known as Quicken Loans Arena -- after bolting from the Cavs to the Jazz in an unforgettable defection in the summer of 2004. You'll recall Boozer missed last season's, uh, homecoming with a foot injury. Dec. 25, Merry Christmas It'll be a merry day indeed, starting with San Antonio at Detroit in an NBA Finals rematch on ABC and followed by the least surprising hookup on the schedule: Kobe Bryant vs. Shaquille O'Neal for the second straight Christmas. This reunion, though, is in Miami instead of L.A., and it's actually Kobe and Phil double-teaming Shaq this time ... unless former Lakers coach Pat Riley has replaced Stan Van Gundy by this point. Dec. 26, Los Angeles Lakers at Washington Wizards It might not reach Boozeresque levels of contempt, but we suspect Kwame Brown won't be getting a touching holiday greeting from Wiz fans when the Lakers make their only D.C. appearance of the season. Dec. 29, Miami Heat at Detroit Pistons It's the first of three showdowns between the East power that overhauled its roster and the old reliables from Michigan who have a new coach. The other two (Feb. 12 and April 6) are in Miami. Jan. 1, Minnesota Timberwolves at Miami Heat The best game (of three) on the first day of 2006 pits Kevin Garnett against Shaq and Co. Jan. 10, Sacramento Kings at Memphis Grizzlies Bonzi Wells comes to face-to-face with old pal Mike Fratello for the first time since his trade banishment to the Kings, with fellow Grizz newcomer Bobby Jackson's return to Sacramento on deck for Feb. 7. Jan. 12, Detroit Pistons at San Antonio Spurs This is the second and final regular-season meeting for the teams who staged the first seven-game NBA Finals since 1994. Jan. 16, Miami Heat at Los Angeles Lakers On Martin Luther King Day, surely, there has to be at least a hint of warmth between Shaq and Kobe. Right? Jan. 24, Detroit Pistons at Minnesota Timberwolves Flip coaches against KG for the first time ... if you discount the two Detroit-Minnesota games on the October exhibition schedule. Jan. 30, Portland Trail Blazers at Seattle SuperSonics These neighbors have never liked each other and there's a new spark for the Pacific Northwest rivalry beyond regional pride. Nate McMillan has left behind a lifetime with the Sonics for the Blazers' bench, and this is his maiden trip to KeyArena as a Blazer. Feb. 10, Cleveland Cavaliers at Washington Wizards Larry Hughes returns to the nation's capital to see first-hand whether the Wizards have recovered from his departure -- with Caron Butler and Antonio Daniels -- as well as they think they have. Feb. 17-19, All-Star Weekend in Houston No less significant than the actual weekend, of course, is the one-year countdown toward All-Star Weekend in VEGAS (yes, it demands all caps) that starts as soon as Tracy McGrady sends everyone home. Feb. 23, Indiana Pacers at Detroit Pistons Perhaps the only visitor to The Palace at Auburn Hills who is more anticipated than Brown is Artest. This is the first of two scheduled Artest appearances, and obviously the first since the melee last Nov. 19 that landed Indy's inimitable swingman a suspension spanning 86 games counting the playoffs. All four Pacers-Pistons games will take place between February and April, in what appears to be a move by the league office to seek as much distance as possible from the brawl. March 1, Miami Heat at Boston Celtics Bostonians have to wait until the second half of the season for their first up-close glimpse of Antoine Walker as a Shaq sidekick. March 17, St. Patrick's Day If Boston at Orlando doesn't tempt you to skip the Irish pub and search for a sports bar, maybe this will: Phoenix at San Antonio in the season's fourth and final encounter for the teams that met in the Western Conference finals. April 5, New York Knicks at Cleveland Cavaliers It's not quite Larry going back to Detroit, but you wonder nevertheless how Brown will be received by the good folks of Lake Erie after his dalliance with the Cavs. Another game of note on this night is Golden State at New Orleans, which represents Baron Davis' first appearance in New Orleans against the Hornets since they dealt him to the Warriors last February. Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. To e-mail him, click here. Also, click here to send a question for possible use on ESPNEWS.

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Lakers' Plans

Lakers' three-year plan might be too farsighted for Phil

By Mark Kreidler
Special to ESPN.com
Archive

On so many levels, the Los Angeles Lakers' approach to the next few seasons appears straightforward and even sensible: Cut payroll, limit most players to short-term contracts and try to free up scads of money for 2007 or 2008, when a fresh crop of high-profile free agents comes to market. It's a plan. It has at least an intermediate goal set within it. It may yield a longer-term payoff. Phil may need to meditate more with this Lakers team. Just wondering: What in the seventh concentric circle of Hades is Phil Jackson doing in the middle of it? Is this really what Jackson rode in from the Montana plains to wrangle? It's almost an incomprehensible thought. Did the coach with nine NBA titles on his shelf really yank himself out of a post-retirement reverie to work with Smush Parker, Laron Profit and Chris Mihm? It's no offense to those guys -- or to Brian Cook, or Von Wafer, or Sasha Vujacic , or any of the other names that fill out the Lakers' mish-mashed roster. But this is the Phil Jackson of the Michael Jordan- Scottie Pippen variety. This is the Jackson of Kobe Bryant-Shaquille O'Neal vintage. Did this man really come back to coaching in order to work a futures market? I'm among those who have always disagreed with the notion that Jackson was a lucky guy in the right place when it came to his coaching "legend." Jackson's talent is real, and his ability to manipulate and assuage egos are among the greatest gifts accorded any NBA coach in memory. He needed all of it to make things go with Jordan for as long as they did, and he clearly needed more of it than even he ultimately had to spin along the Kobe-Shaq axis for all those years. Still, Jackson's history is plain: He won titles with Jordan, Pippen, Bryant and O'Neal, plus a specially selected cast of supporting characters (Dennis Rodman, Ron Harper, Rick Fox, Robert Horry), almost all of whom were paid whatever the market dictated when the need arose to sign them. So what's he doing with Luke Walton, Slava Medvedenko and Jumaine Jones? The short answer is, no one has the slightest idea. Jackson is essentially returning to try to win with a team that includes Bryant, Lamar Odom, Kwame Brown and the team's most recent addition, 32-year-old point guard Aaron McKie , just waived by Philly in a luxury-tax amnesty move. McKie averaged 2.2 points and 1.5 assists last season, but he at least fits the Jackson mold when it comes to a distributor in the triangle offense: He's 6-foot-5 and 210 pounds. Phil likes 'em bigger rather than smaller when it comes to running his schemes. What will Yao Ming do in 2007? And that's about it. You just heard the game plan for 2005-06. The Lakers might be able to make personnel moves before the season begins, but if it involves taking on salary or contracts, forget it. Jim Buss, the heir to team owner Jerry Buss, already is on record as saying the club is aiming for the free-agent summer of 2007, when players like Amare Stoudemire, Dirk Nowitzki and Yao Ming ostensibly will be pondering their options. Of course, by the summer of 2007, Phil Jackson will be two years into the three-year contract he signed to return to L.A. Will the Lakers really spend those two years with Devean George and Andrew Bynum? In some respects, Jackson is already contradicting the notion that he'd only come back to get another championship ring, because he sure isn't pursuing one currently in L.A. This situation is more akin to his early days in the game, when Jackson learned the ropes of coaching by working with CBA rosters almost exclusively populated by comers and guys looking for another chance to shine. You can't ignore the talent of Kobe Bryant, of course, and the Lakers' current roster is hardly bereft; it's just stacked in some places and bare in others. L.A. pulled its own luxury-tax move by shedding Brian Grant and a potential $30 million in extra payments over the next few years, but doing so has left Jackson with few options at power forward or center. It's hardly fatal -- the Bulls' championship teams never had a dominating center. But Chicago was never as thin as what Jackson and his staff are looking at now. In a meeting with Lakers beat writers this week, Jim Buss said that once the financial decks are clear and the Lakers get to chase a big name in 2007, Phil Jackson might well want to stay on and coach beyond the expiration of his current contract. It makes sense in the macro, NBA realm of things: That might be the precise moment at which the next few seasons of grinding, shaping and coaching pay off. In the meantime, the Lakers of 2005 continue to consider options as they fill out their training camp roster for the team Jackson will coach in the here and now. The current names being bandied about: Earl Watson and Jannero Pargo. It's a long way from the Montana plains. Mark Kreidler is a columnist for The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee and a regular contributor to ESPN.com. Reach him at mkreidler@sacbee.com