Team USA Selects Collison For Select Team

I've gone from being baffled to understanding this process to being utterly baffled (again) in the span of a week and half. It started out with me thinking Nick Collison was on the Select Team that will scrimmage Team USA in the run-up to the FIBA tournament in Las Vegas.

Then, I thought he was going to be a member of the Team USA because, well, it was reported at ESPN and everywhere else via an AP story.

Now, Steve Carp of the Vegas Review-Journal says that Collison will be on the Select Team after all. Here's what he wrote:

"USA Basketball still is finalizing the roster of NBA players that will scrimmage the national team. Several players already have committed to what is being called the NBA Select team, including Nick Collison, Monta Ellis, David Lee, Andre Iguodala, Al Jefferson and Jason Kapono."

It appears that LaMarcus Aldridge and Monta Ellis are off the Select Team because of injuries, which may be why Collison is headed for that club, rather than Team USA, which is the team that the Select Team plays, because they're not the Team USA, because ...

Oh, I give up.

Somebody explain to me how this means we're going to finally beat Puerto Rico?

Knight to Clips

Cross Los Angeles off your potential destinations for Luke Ridnour/Earl Watson, as the Clips inked point guard Brevin Knight on Monday. While the possibility of Watson being sent back to LA (he attended UCLA) were always hypothetical at best, I had held out hope of the Sonics landing something, anything for one of their superfluous PGs in a trade with the Clippers.

For now, at least, the list of possible locations just got one name shorter, and the likelihood of Watson and Ridnour cohabitating for another season got that much more likely. Perhaps Sam Presti is hoping for a one-season tryout to determine if either of the two is ready to be a starting point guard, and if neither fills the bill, he'll have the option of waiting for next spring's draft, when he'll have the opportunity to pick OJ Mayo with the #1 pick.

Aubrey A Fan of Sonic Blogs?

Thanks for the extra traffic, Aubrey, but we'd rather have our team back.

Call me crazy, but maybe Aubrey McClendon's statements regarding the inevitability of the Sonics' relocation was a good thing. After all, what the hell has there been to talk about for the past couple of weeks? With training camp still eons away, A-Mac's statement/retraction has given us all something to whine about for a couple of weeks. Thanks, Aubrey.

As expected, a deluge of comments about Aubrey's comments today in the papers. You've got Steve Kelley (who thanks McClendon for "exposing chairman Clay Bennett as the duplicitous salesman he is" and goes on to call Bennett & Co. "fat-cat burglars"!), Eric Williams details the backpedaling from Bennett and McClendon (Williams also appeared on the Team 1040 in Vancouver last night; I know, because me and the other Sonic fan in B.C. both were listening), Art Thiel weighs in with a well-reasoned piece on the entire situation, Ted Miller counsels patience for Sonic fans, and also terms McClendon's comments "a calculated move," Margarita Prentice bemoans the fate of the team in Clay Bennett's official voice, and Gary Washburn has a quote from the NBA about the situation in his write-up.

See, I told you McClendon was working for us. Last week, I'm watching the paint dry at this site, and now we've got a dozen stories to examine and a million opinions to scream. Gotta love, controversy, right?

All of that aside, ponder this for a moment:

How would you feel if the Sonics had gotten the 6th pick in the draft, and rather than building around Kevin Durant, they were building around Yi "Chairmaster" Jianlian?

Suddenly, I just felt a whole lot better.