DALLAS (AP) -Hours after helping his home country kick off the Winter Olympics, Steve Nash was back on the basketball court Saturday.
Nash helped light the Olympic cauldron at Friday’s opening ceremonies in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also carried the Olympic torch through Vancouver earlier in the week.
“The energy and the atmosphere surrounding the Olympic games, especially on my home soil, is phenomenal,” said the Phoenix Suns star, who grew up in British Columbia. “There are people from all over the world there and there are people from all over the world watching. Just to be at home, hosting the world and to be part of it in the way I was is indescribable.”
It was a quick turnaround for Nash, who made the 2,200-mile trip to Dallas in time for Saturday’s noon practice for the Western Conference All-Stars.
Nash will be making his seventh All-Star appearance in Sunday’s game at the Dallas Cowboys stadium, near the city where he played from 1998-04. He signed a free-agent deal with the Suns in the summer of 2004.
han any other random city,” the two-time NBA MVP said. “This is an important place for me. I have great affection for the fans, the city and the organization.”
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COLANGELO TO NEW JERSEY?: If Jerry Colangelo did end up with the New Jersey Nets, his U.S. Olympians are sure he’d be successful.
As for the idea of Mike Krzyzewski joining him?
“I don’t see Coach K leaving Duke,” Lakers star Kobe Bryant said Saturday. “Never.”
Yahoo! Sports reported Friday that Mikhail Prokhorov, awaiting approval of his purchase of the Nets, would be interested in hiring Colangelo as president, with the hopes he could entice Krzyzewski to join him as coach and general manager.
Colangelo said Friday he hasn’t spoken with anyone about the job, but added, “you always take a phone call.”
“I’m not looking for a job,” the USA Basketball chairman and chairman of the Naismith Hall of Fame Board said. “I’m happy where I am, doing what I’m doing. I couldn’t be more content, but why speculate on what I’m going to do or would I be interested until a call takes place in the first place?”
Krzyzewski said Saturday that New Jersey had not contacted him, then cracked a couple of one-liners at Prokhorov’s expense.
“The guy’s Russian, right?” Krzyzewski said in Durham, N.C. “You think he’d hire a Polish guy?”
nk ‘nyet’ would be easy for me to say.”
Colangelo took over USA basketball after its third-place finish in the 2004 Olympics, building a national team program and leading the Americans to gold in the 2008 Games.
“He’s done a great job with USA Basketball and its definitely a different situation, but he knows talent,” Cleveland’s LeBron James said. “You can see that by the list of guys he had at USA Basketball.”
James and fellow Olympians Dwyane Wade of Miami and Chris Bosh of Toronto could be free agents this summer, and the appeal of a Colangelo-Krzyzewski partnership would be its potential of recruiting one of those All-Stars to the Nets.
“You never know, but Coach K, he’s been at Duke for a very long time, so … I don’t see it,” Bosh said. “I think that’s the team that’s most speculated about right now. They don’t really know what they’re doing.”
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KOBE PICKS DIRK: With the reigning MVP of the All-Star game sidelined for this year’s event, who will win the honor this year?
“Dirk,” Kobe Bryant said Saturday. “He should, he should come out and play the way he plays in Dallas.”
Bryant shared MVP honors last year with Shaquille O’Neal, but will miss the game with a sore left ankle. Western Conference coach George Karl tabbed Mavericks forward Nowitzki to replace Bryant in the starting lineup.
trying to set up the hometown player.
“I certainly would,” Bryant said. “He should go out there and just play his game. He’s well deserving.”
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LONGING FOR THE GOOD OL’ DAYS: Former New York Knicks center Patrick Ewing was part of some memorable and rugged playoff series against Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls and Reggie Miller’s Indiana Pacers in the 1990s.
Ewing, who is an Orlando assistant, said the league now frowns on the rough play that marked those rivalries.
“I don’t think the NBA wants physical play,” Ewing said. “The game today is more geared to the offensive players. They want to have high-scoring games. There are no physical games anymore.”
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QUICK HITS: The West beat the East 98-81 in the Developmental League All-Star game on Saturday. Bakersfield center Brian Butch had 18 points and 13 rebounds to win MVP honors. … Orlando center Dwight Howard hit a 52-foot, 6-inch shot while sitting on the court during practice. A representative from the Guinness Book of World Records certified the feat as a world record. … Jason Kidd was playing golf when he got word from Mavericks owner Mark Cuban that he was a replacement on the All-Star team. “Sometimes when you get on a call on a golf course it messes up your game,” Kidd said. “But this was a good phone call.”
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AP Basketball Writer Brian Mahoney contributed to this report.
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