Police seek double-murder suspect after shots are fired at officers

Police were searching for a double-murder suspect after he shot at officers Sunday night near a supermarket in Encino.

Los Angeles Police Department detectives were following a man outside a Ralph's at Ventura Boulevard and Libbit Avenue about 9:30 p.m. when he turned and shot at them before fleeing on foot, according to LAPD Sgt. Vik Walia.

The officers did not return fire, he said.

Police closed off a square-mile area as they pressed their house-to-house search, with the help of dogs, Walia said.

He said the alleged shooter was believed to be Brent Zubeck, 43, who is wanted in connection with the deaths of a Chatsworth couple found in their Lassen Street home Aug. 12. Zubeck was a former resident of the home, police said.

A $75,000 reward has been offered in the case.

No further information was available late Sunday night.

Mavericks feel Caron Butler's absence

 You won't hear this excuse out of any of the Dallas Mavericks' mouths. But man, could they use Caron Butler in this series.

As optimistic as Butler continues to be, don't get your hopes up that he'll play for the first time since New Year's Day in these NBA Finals.
.Donnie Nelson, the Mavs' president of basketball operations, recently said it was "next to impossible" for Butler to return from a ruptured right patellar tendon to play this postseason.
Nothing has changed since then, including Butler not being cleared for contact.

It'd take a miracle for Butler to suit up in this series, much less resemble the reliable Robin to Dirk Nowitzki's Batman that he had become in the season's first two months.

Then again, it's somewhat of a miracle that the Mavs roared through the Western Conference bracket with Butler wearing tailored suits and watching from behind the bench.

Unfortunately for Dallas, the Miami Heat very well could be the team to finally expose the void left by Butler's absence in the Mavs' lineup.

The Mavs certainly needed some more firepower during their 92-84 Game 1 loss Tuesday night at AmericanAirlines Arena.

The Dallas offense bogged down against the Heat's swarming defense. The Mavs, who were forced to grind out half-court possessions, shot a playoffs-low 37.3 percent from the floor.

"Offensively, that was a disaster for us," sixth man Jason Terry said, succinctly summing up the performance.

Of course, the Mavs were missing a main ingredient from their pair of regular-season wins over the Heat. Butler averaged 18 points on 54.2 percent shooting in the two games against the team that drafted him.
Butler also did a terrific job defending LeBron James in those games. The self-proclaimed King James scored only 26 points in 53 minutes with Butler on the floor and had a shooting percentage (.276) that looks more like a batting average.
James didn't totally dominate Game 1, but he had an efficient 24-point performance, going 9-of-16 from the floor, dishing out five assists and committing only one turnover.

Marion, DeShawn Stevenson and maybe even Jason Kidd are smart, quick and rugged enough defenders to at least have a chance to limit James in this series. But that's the kind of job that needs to be done by as big a committee as possible.

Marion, the former four-time All-Star who eventually replaced Butler in the starting lineup, was actually one of the few bright spots for the Mavs with 16 points on 6-of-12 shooting and 10 rebounds. But Marion isn't the off-the-dribble scoring threat or jump shooter that Butler is, the kind of player that makes aggressive defenses pay for focusing so much on Nowitzki.

"They're able to flood the strong side and make the other team play on the weak side," said Nowitzki, who might as well have been explaining why Butler was so efficient against the Heat this season.
One of the Mavs' biggest problems is how to plug the hole at small forward when Marion rests or slides to power forward while Nowitzki takes a break. That was a total of 21 minutes Tuesday night.
Peja Stojakovic has been well worth the minimum salary the Mavs gave him when he signed with Dallas in midseason. His perimeter shooting played a particularly key role in the Mavs' West semifinals sweep over the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers.

But Stojakovic's below-average athletic ability makes him a liability against Miami, especially if he isn't making shots. He was 0-of-3 in 15 Game 1 minutes. Stojakovic wasn't referred to by name, but it's safe to assume that Peja vs. LeBron was on coach Rick Carlisle's mind when he referred to matchups that "are challenging, to say the least."

Beating the Heat would be challenging, to say the least, even with a healthy Butler in the lineup. Without him, it'll be a heck of lot harder, if not next to impossible.

KEEPING AN EYE ON DWIGHT HOWARD

http://aol.sportingnews.com/
No one knows what free agency in the NBA will look like next summer, but if Magic center Dwight Howard terminates his contract after next season he will instantly become the next big prize. Unlike the summer of 2010 when LeBron James and friends were set to hit the open market, the uncertainty over a new labor agreement clouds everything at the moment.

Howard could be joined in free agency by players like Chris Paul and Deron Williams, but Howard is the main attraction for obvious reasons. He’s the most dominant center in the league by far, he’s never been seriously injured and he’ll be just 27 years old at 2012 and still in his prime.

As it stands the Celtics could be big players in free agency after next season (again, depending on the new salary cap rules) with under $30 million in salaries currently on the books to three players — Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce and Avery Bradley. That number will rise obviously but the Celtics are positioned to be active players in 2012.
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Howard has the power to alter the dynamic if he chooses to sign an extension with the Magic that is reportedly on the table. He hosted a free barbecue in Orlando over the weekend and told the Orlando Sentinel that he wants to stay.

“I want to start my own path and I want people to follow my path and not just follow somebody else’s path,” he said. “I want to have my own path, and I want to start that here in Orlando.”

He also dropped Shaquille O’Neal’s name, which as SI.com’s Zach Lowe pointed out, is probably not an accident. Lowe writes:

“Howard must know that invoking Shaq’s name is a big, big thing in Orlando. It transforms what would otherwise be the latest in a series of benign pseudo-commitments to Orlando into a memorable, loaded quote in which Howard distances himself from the player who defined the franchise before him. Howard will never be able to avoid this quote if he leaves.”
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An Orlando television station reported that Howard was close to signing a two-year extension with the team, but there has been no further corroboration on anyone’s part.

This has already begun to turn into a drama much like the ones that enveloped James in his last season in Cleveland or like the one that surrounded Carmelo Anthony in Denver. Howard’s case is somewhere in the middle. While James played coy with everyone last season, Anthony forced the Nuggets’ hand by refusing to sign an extension. As long as the possibility of signing an extension exists, the Magic will wait on Howard.

No Use Denying the LeBrilliance Anymore

Not to start trouble, but LeBron James is a better impressionist painter than Renoir. His revolutionary architecture rivals Frank Lloyd Wright's. His first book, still unpublished, will be more well-crafted and daring than Philip Roth's, and his foray into food will be tastier than Joël Robuchon's. James already sings with the elegance of Ella Fitzgerald, plays a meaner guitar than Buddy Guy, dances like Baryshnikov, exudes more empathy than Oprah and makes a more stylish smartphone than Steve Jobs. He could probably coach Ohio State to a few consecutive wins over Michigan.

What, do you not agree? Is any of this in dispute?

Earth is orbiting closer to a LeBron re-appreciation, willingly or not. His gaudy Heat have made the NBA Finals, which begin Tuesday night against the Dallas Mavericks at Miami's white-T-shirt space disco, and they did so largely because of James's brilliance. It isn't enough to exonerate James for recent missteps—he's still the man who turned his free agency into a egomaniacal spectacle; who left Cleveland in an aggrieved funk; who flew his Learjet to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun. But after a series of spectacular performances in these playoffs, the conversation about James is mercifully beginning to migrate in a new direction—away from the off-season psychodrama and onto actual basketball, which is much more entertaining and far less junior-high-school cafeteria.
James has been magnificent this spring, and he has been magnificent in areas where, not long ago, his magnificence was in question. Remember a short while ago when everyone decided LeBron wasn't a closer? In these 2011 playoffs, James has been devastating in the final crunch, at both ends of the court. Versus Chicago, he smothered MVP guard Derrick Rose like a protective parent—denying him the lane, denying him his shot, denying him a school-night sleepover. When James took the ball on offense, he alternated, in an almost trance-like rhythm, between 3-point daggers and locomotive drives to the basket. He was unstoppable, and only a joyless crank could deny the obvious: This was as Michael Jordan as it got without the genuine 23 himself.

Then Scottie Pippen said it out loud. The morning after the Heat closed out Chicago in five games, the Basketball Hall of Famer gave a radio interview on ESPN in which he said that while his former Bulls cubicle mate was "probably the greatest scorer to ever play the game," it was possible that James "may be the greatest player to ever play the game."

Wha-wha-wha-whaaaat?

You could practically hear the movie-trailer record needle scatch and see the Bulls mascot cover its eyes with its hoofs. Forget that this was the hyperbole country of talk radio; forget that Pippen used the equivocal "may;" forget that a Bulls Kremlinologist would argue that Pippen was actually needling his canonized teammate ("greatest scorer" has the whiff of faint praise) more than he was lionizing a newcomer. Pippen had made a Lennon-esque "more popular than Jesus" faux pas, and now everyone would have to spend the next 24 hours tearing it apart. Round and round it went—LeBron doesn't have a single championship! LeBron had to engineer a move south! Tell him to phone Springfield, Mass., when he gets six rings!—until James himself stepped forward and said that while he was humbled by Pippen's remarks, he wasn't "going to sit here and say I'm better than Jordan or if I'm not better than Jordan. It's not about that."

Great. It was bad enough that James is performing in the clutch—now he's going to be gracious and self-aware, too?

The James vs. Jordan freak-out proved two things. One, it underlined how weirdly obsessed and overserious NBA fans are about the league's all-time pecking order—witness the recent howling when Dallas's coach dared suggest that Dirk Nowitzki belonged in the greatest-ever Top 10, as if there was the possibility the Martian All-Stars might arrive and our planet would get hammered in the low post because it opted for Nowitzki over Hakeem Olajuwon.

But it also shows how the universe is not yet ready to stop its LeBron tantrum and re-embrace a player it loved until last July. Pippen's Jordan comparison provided a fresh outrage, even if James wasn't the one doing the comparing. When it comes to LeBron, everything gets distorted. (Could you imagine the public meltdown if James had tattooed the NBA's Larry O'Brien trophy to his arm, as Mavericks guard Jason Terry did earlier this season?)

It's fun to tweak James and the Heat. They can be ridiculous. That cheesy laser-tastic celebration Miami threw upon signing James and Chris Bosh to join Dwyane Wade looked like a cruise-ship matinee gone amok. James's mighty Game 5 flop to a phantom Derrick Rose foul should get him a role in Almodovar's next movie and a contract with FC Barcelona. After Chicago's season ended, an irresistible piece of snickering commentary came from the young Bulls center Joakim Noah, who ruefully remarked: "Miami is a hell of a team. They are Hollywood as hell, but they're still very good."

Listening courtside, the TNT analysts Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley chuckled like someone had whispered a crack in the back of algebra class. "I love him, that's awesome," Barkley said of Noah.

Keep laugh, laugh, laughing. Joakim Noah is done for the year. Dallas has a better shot—the Mavericks are a veteran team desperate to win a title; Nowitzki is playing with the focus of Harrison Ford chasing a one-armed criminal—but they'll have to do it against the best basketball player in the world (post-Jordan, 2011 edition). LeBron James is on the verge of doing exactly what he wanted to do. The joke's on him, until it's on all of us.

2011 NBA Mock Draft: Which Players Can Make an Impact in Rookie Season?

http://msn.foxsports.com/
The 2011 NBA Draft will showcase players who have such a developed game that they could immediately contribute to some NBA teams. Top lottery picks are often taken by teams with such dire needs that they are usually willing to chance starting the untested rookie over their other options.

We have seen players such as Kevin Durant and John Wall have instant results for the franchises that took them early in the draft.

Kyrie Irving looks to be a sure thing, and will be battling with veteran Baron Davis for the starting PG spot on the Cleveland Cavaliers. If he does not start, look for him to log big minutes coming off the bench and gaining experience in the Cavs system.

Derrick Williams, if he lands somewhere besides Minnesota or they make a trade, has the potential to be an immediate impact player as well. The man can simply score, rebound, and make basketball plays that will help whoever takes him win.

Besides the consensus top two overall picks, other players should be able to help their teams come the start of the regular season.

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Jimmer Fredette has a transcendent offensive skill set, and if he lands with the right team and system, he should be able to get a quick start in the league.

Klay Thompson is probably the most gifted three-ball shooter in the draft, and if a team looking for a long-range gunner selects him, he should log minutes early and often.

Alec Burks also has the potential to see minutes at the beginning of his rookie campaign, who has size and production capability that matches any 2 guard in the league today.

These are just a few of the players who have the experience and skill sets necessary to potentially help their teams right away.

No. 1 Cleveland Cavaliers: Kyrie Irving

No. 2 Minnesota Timberwolves: Derrick Williams

No. 3 Utah Jazz: Brandon Knight

No. 4 Cleveland Cavaliers: Enes Kanter

No. 5 Toronto Raptors: Jonas Valanciunas

No. 6 Washington Wizards: Kawhi Leonard

No. 7 Sacramento Kings: Kemba Walker

No. 8 Detroit Pistons: Jan Vesely

No. 9 Charlotte Bobcats: Tristan Thompson
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No. 10 Milwaukee Bucks: Alec Burks

No. 11 Golden State Warriors: Bismack Biyombo

No. 12 Utah Jazz: Marcus Morris

No. 13 Phoenix Suns: Jimmer Fredette

No. 14 Houston Rockets: Chris Singleton

No. 15 Indiana Pacers: Klay Thompson

No. 16 Philadelphia 76ers: Markieff Morris

No. 17 New York Knicks: Josh Selby

No. 18 Washington Wizards: Marshon Brooks

No. 19 Charlotte Bobcats: Donatas Montiejunas

No. 20 Minnesota Timberwolves: Davis Bertans

No. 21 Portland Trail Blazers: Jordan Hamilton

No. 22 Denver Nuggets: Tobias Harris

No. 23 Houston Rockets: Darius Morris

No. 24 Oklahoma City Thunder: Kenneth Faried

No. 25 Boston Celtics: Nikola Mirotic

No. 26 Dallas Mavericks: Trey Thompkins

No. 27 New Jersey Nets: Justin Harper

No. 28 Chicago Bulls: Tyler Honeycutt

No. 29 San Antonio Spurs: Jeremy Tyler

The NBA and Homosexuality: Anti-Gay Slurs, Fines and "Think Before You Speak"

http://www.nba.com/
 The NBA is currently under fire after a brash of anti-gay slurs were captured on camera. Joakim Noah was fined $50,000 for using an anti-gay slur at a fan. Kobe Bryant was fined $100,000 dollars for using the same slur at an official.

Shortly after Bryant used the slur, he apologized, and the Lakers announced they were teaming up with GLAAD, (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), to bring attention to the harm anti-gay remarks can cause.

Earlier this Spring, Suns' CEO Rick Welts told the world he was a homosexual. The reception around the league has been very accepting. Welts has received an overwhelming amount of support from around those involved directly with the Suns and otherwise.

His story proves you can be a homosexual and hold a prominent position in the league. The story comes at nearly the same time ESPN broke a story where ex-Villanova's basketball player, Will Sheridan, declared he was gay.

When asked about Kobe's usage of a gay slur, Welts had this to say, "He was just into the game at that point. It's not acceptable, but I consider it another step in having it be part of the conversation. It got of people talking about the use of that slur, people that wouldn't have talked about it. In some ways, it was constructive."

Welts is a representative of someone directly involved in the NBA who can also speak for the homosexual community. If speaking about the matter is constructive, the media is moving mountains.
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It's hard to believe that either Noah or Bryant intended to start a media whirlwind. I find it unlikely that they are homophobic or have problems with the gay community.

The slur they said was not in jest. They said it to hurt the recipient. Is it possible then that they were caught up in the moment? Did they choose a word that is considered offensive without thinking of the baggage the word carries, or the hurt that comes with it?

It's quite possible. It seems as though people use these words every day completely out of the context of the situation at hand. How many times do you hear statements like, "that car is gay". Clearly the car isn't a homosexual, but the personification is commonplace.
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In walks the NBA, once more. Grant Hill and Jared Dudley join the "Think before you speak" ad campaign and come out with a commercial addressing this very topic.

The commercial encourages people to stop saying phrases like "that's so gay". They encourage people to stop using gay as a substitute for the word stupid.

The NBA is making headlines on both ends of the spectrum here. Maybe players will become more cautious about what they are saying and who they are offending. Maybe fans will follow suit. Perhaps this goes beyond homosexuality and beyond the NBA
.

Blazers, NBA, college football – and a Vegas proposal

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/default.htm
Caught up with Geoff Petrie, who emphasizes he has a contract (through 2013) as senior vice president/operations for the Sacramento Kings and is not a candidate for the vacant general manager job in Portland.

“I have an important job to do,” Petrie says. “On the basketball, there is plenty of reason for optimism going forward. We have two really good young players (Tyreke Evans and DeMarcus Cousins), a great draft pick (No. 7) and an enormous amount of real (salary-cap) room.”

On the business side, the Kings have one foot out the door to Anaheim or another locale after next season unless the city of Sacramento provides public support for a new arena.

Petrie’s daughters both live in the Portland area. I think he could be convinced the Trail Blazers would be an opportunity he can’t pass on, if owner Paul Allen is willing.

• Colleague Jason Vondersmith brings up a valid point about Blazer President Larry Miller’s comment – “This whole year has been a learning experience for us” – following the firing of GM Rich Cho.

The NBA is not a place for learning experiences. There’s no time, no room for error. You have to be right with every decision, or the franchise suffers. Whether or not Cho and Kevin Pritchard were mistakes, you can’t just chalk it up to “a learning experience.”

Besides, Paul Allen has been the Blazers’ owner for 23 years. He needs more time than that to learn what the league is all about?

• Through July 1, Allen is paying off Cho and his predecessor, Kevin Pritchard, for not working for him. Cho will get checks through June 2014 unless he takes another job.

But Allen is getting off easy compared with Notre Dame, which paid nearly $7.3 million in buyouts to former football coaches in 2009 – Charlie Weis ($6.64 million) and Tyrone Willingham ($650,000). For Weis, that was in addition to about $1.4 million in salary and other compensation for that season.

Weis is now making $875,000 annually as offensive coordinator at Florida. Talk about stealing money – Charlie’s the poster boy.

• Hubie Brown started it, I think, a few years back. Lately it has spread like a contagious disease among basketball sportscasters: “The (insert team nickname) must score the basketball.”

Mark Jackson uses the phrase often. Jeff Van Gundy said it the other night. Our own Michael Holton, for criminy sakes, has said it.

Fellas, you score points. You shoot the basketball.
ESPN’s Stuart Scott, after an interview Wednesday night with new Lakers coach Mike Brown: “Hey Laker fans, don’t sleep with this man. He’s the fifth-winningest coach percentage-wise in NBA history.”

Do you think Scott meant, “Don’t sleep on this man?”
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Or what?

• Of course Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is right. He deserves a statue outside of Staples Center. No argument here.

But it is unbecoming for anyone to campaign for that in public, as the Hall-of-Famer did through a series of tweets and in an interview with The Sporting News this week.

• I’m hearing more clamor on the subject of paying college student-athletes, a popular notion among talking heads who aren’t thinking things through clearly.

Only 14 of 120 Division-I football schools showed positive net revenue for the 2009 fiscal year, according to the NCAA. Whether or not you think schools are spending their money wisely, until it gets corrected, funding is simply not available.

Scholarship athletes get tuition, room-and-board, training table, medical and dental care, tutorial, nutritional and strength-and-conditioning help and make connections that can help them springboard a career outside of sports. The situation isn’t ideal, but it’s way ahead of whatever’s in second place.

• I hate to take on a high-schooler, but ...

Kyle Kalis of Lakewood, Ohio – one of the nation’s top offensive tackles from the class of 2012 – has verbally committed to Ohio State. He says times have been tough in recent months since NCAA violations committed by coach Jim Tressel became public.
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“Ever since all of this started up, (college coaches) from all over the country have started to come watch me and the team lift,” Kalis tells The Sporting News. “They force me to sit there and listen to all their sales pitches, which is the most annoying thing anyone could ever imagine. It’s like watching the HSN channel all day, except instead of selling Dyson vacuum cleaners, they’re selling you scholarships and opportunities.”

Somebody please tell Kalis there are more annoying things than to have college scouts tell you how good you are and offer a scholarship. If he doesn’t want the sales pitch, tell them. What’s really annoying is to hear a coddled, pampered athlete complain about it.

• Texas developer Chris Milam is proposing to build what he is calling the “Las Vegas National Sports Center” – a state-of-the-art sports and entertainment complex to be built at the south end of the Las Vegas Strip.

Milam’s plan calls for a 17,500-seat arena designed for NBA games; a 36,000-seat MLS stadium that could be expanded to 50,000 for college football bowl games and to 72,000 for the NFL, and a 9,000-seat Triple-A baseball park that could be expanded to 36,000 to accommodate major league baseball.

Milam, who promises to invest more than $500 million in equity to the project, says it would require no new taxes and no redirection of existing taxes. Taxes generated only by the athletic facilities and user fees would help pay for the project.

I’m not sure if it will ever fly. But wouldn’t it be nice to have somebody with deep pockets and aspirations like Milam in Portland?