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Posey changes sides

by Terry Brown

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Also Below: Are the Knicks legit contenders? | Peep Show

Live from Belgrade

Chad Ford, ESPN's NBA Insider, is traveling through Eastern Europe this week with NBA international scouting guru Tony Ronzone. Together, they're checking out some of the top European prospects for the 2003 NBA Draft. Follow Ford's trip in his daily journal:

Mon: Out of the Darko

Chat: Chad & Tony transcript

Tue: Face to face

Wed: The Springer League

Thur: The Knicks' savior

Christmas came early this year for 6-foot-8 swingman James Posey.

The cellar-dwelling Denver Nuggets (6-20) dealt the fourth-year player to the up and coming Houston Rockets (14-10), who are currently fourth in the Western Conference, in a three-team trade also involving a few big men, a few draft picks and the Philadelphia Sixers.

"I'm excited," Posey said to the Houston Chronicle. "It all came as a surprise to me, but I'm really looking forward to it. I already know a lot of the guys there, so that part [getting adjusted] will be easier. The Rockets are making some good moves, and I think they're moving in the right direction."

The Nuggets landed 6-foot-9 Art Long (2.1 ppg), 6-foot-9 Mark Bryant (1.1 ppg) and a first-round draft pick from the Sixers to go along with a second-round pick from the Rockets. The Sixers get forward Kenny Thomas (9.9 ppg, 6.9 rpg, 43% from the field), who will be a restricted free agent at the end of this season.

"It's tough just sitting there and being on the losing side every game," Posey said. "I've been there a long time, so I've been through it [losing] for a few years. But now I'm going to Houston, which I think is a team on the upswing."

James Posey

Guard-Forward

Denver Nuggets

Profile

2002-2003 SEASON STATISTICS

GM PPG RPG APG FG% FT%

25 14.1 5.8 3.1 .373 .843

Houston, which had a glut of power forwards with Thomas, Maurice Taylor and Eddie Griffin all having started there at different times this season, will add a defensive-minded small forward who is averaging a career-best 14.1 points per game as well as 5.8 rebounds and 3.1 assists to a line up already featuring Steve Francis (23.5 ppg), Cuttino Mobley (18.1 ppg) and 7-foot-6 Yao Ming who had 29 points and 10 rebounds in a win over the Eastern Conference leading Indiana Pacers Wednesday night.

"Everybody knows we had an overload at the power forward spot, which has been talked about quite a bit," said Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson. "We've been looking at different things we could do, and this was the most obvious thing we could do without waiting a whole lot longer. It's something we think will add to the team . . . It gives us more of a balance."

Long is expected to be waived by the Nuggets along with guard Kenny Satterfield while Bryant is expected to sit bench. Denver now has only $20 million in committed salary next season and no longer has to worry about Posey's expected $5 million salary demands when he becomes a restricted free agent at the end of the season.

"We picked a direction last year," Nuggets general manager Kiki Vandeweghe told the Denver Post. "We haven't tried Band-Aid solutions. We've tried to accumulate assets. We've tried to clear salary-cap space. Everything we've done has pretty much been consistent. To do that, you have to make tough choices with players you like . . . We had the future of the franchise in mind."

Posey, who spends much of his offseason in Houston already, was the second-leading scorer on a team that is on pace to be the lowest scoring in league history at 79.9. Thomas, meanwhile, had been spending much of his offseason in Philly, which is 17-9 and on top of the Atlantic Division.

"As I look back, it's real funny," the Sixers' Aaron McKie said to the Philadelphia Daily News. "We always told him he'd be a great fit with our team, not thinking for a minute that it would happen. I thought he was a fixture in Houston."

Added Sixer small forward Keith Van Horn: "I look at it as us getting a guy who can help us get to the level we want to get to. He's going to make us a better team. That's what it's all about."

It's hello to Posey, so long to Thomas

Michael Murphy / Houston Chronicle

Nuggets launch Posey to Rockets

Marc J. Spears / Denver Post

Nuggets clear decks for youth as they trade Posey to Rockets

Chris Tomasson / Rocky Mountain News

Sixers' wish granted with Thomas acquisition

Phil Jasner / Philadelphia Daily News

Are the Knicks legit contenders?

Has [censored] frozen over? Do pigs fly? Can the New York Knicks really make the playoffs?

"I looked at the standings today and we're only three games out of the eighth spot," Latrell Sprewell said to the N.Y. Daily News. "Going back to last year, I've always said that in the East the thing you want to do is stay close and hopefully sneak in."

Despite starting this season 1-7 with all-star starters Antonio McDyess and Sprewell on the injured list, the Knicks have fought back to an 8-14 record with upcoming games against the Milwaukee Bucks (10-14) and Miami Heat (7-18).

"We're making strides," forward Clarence Weatherspoon said.

The Knicks' latest win, a vengeance-minded drubbing of local rival and defending Eastern Conference champion New Jersey, brings them that much closer to the Washington Wizards, who are 11-13 and currently positioned in the No. 8 playoff spot.

"Our goal is to get better every game," said Knick coach Don Chaney to the New York Post. "Our distant goal is, if we're lucky, make the playoffs."

Much talk was made a few days ago when McDyess declared that it was his intention to return this season after re-injuring a knee that kept him out of almost all of last season and was expected to keep him out of this one.

McDyess is expected back in mid-March as the Knicks have won three of their last four games, with all three wins coming against playoff-caliber teams (Seattle, Boston and New Jersey), holding them to 90.3 points per game.

The Wizards, though, have won three in a row themselves as Michael Jordan has scored 63 points in their last two games.

"We may not be out of the dark yet, but I hope we are," Chaney said. "We've had problems finishing games. I think our guys have settled down a lot in execution and poise."

Visions of playoffs dance in Knicks' heads

Frank Isola / New York Daily News

Knicks Sniffin' At 8th Seed

Marc Berman / New York Post

Peep Show

Bibby

Kings: Mike Bibby is healed. Or so he says. "I'm starting [tonight]," he said to the Sacramento Bee. "That's all you need to know." Bibby has yet to play this season after having surgery to repair a broken bone in his right foot on Oct. 12 but has been practicing strenuously with teammates as of late. However, not everyone is convinced. "Mike may say he's coming back, but he's still got to get [onto] the floor," coach Rick Adelman joked.

Raptors: The Raptors, speaking on behalf of NBA teams everywhere, are arguing before the league's planning committee that a franchise shouldn't be levied the upcoming luxury tax if its salary-cap infraction was brought about by a career-ending injury to a player. "They've [the planning committee] come up with a concept," Toronto president Richard Peddie told the Globe and Mail. "I don't think I'm at liberty to discuss it right now, and it still has to be approved by the league's board of governors . . . With the case of Hakeem, not only have we lost the benefit of the player, but we then had to go out and get Nate Huffman because we were worried about Hakeem's ability to play. We were a very responsible team not intending to be taxed. But because of all these replacement players and injuries, we're now a tax team."

Anderson

Sonics: If Kenny Anderson wasn't sick before, he is now. After missing practice on Tuesday and failing to call the Sonics to let them know, he was fined by the team. "It had nothing to do with nothing," Anderson, who will make $9.1 million this season, told the Seattle Times. "I wasn't feeling well, period. Just like if you weren't feeling well and missed a day of work. I paid the consequences. I was fined accordingly, and now we can forget about it." But coach Nate McMillan hasn't. "It was an unexcused absence," McMillan said sternly to the Seattle Times. "He'll suit up, but we won't play him. That's just the way I'm playing the game."

Bucks: The Bucks are sick and tired of losing. But they're also, simply, sick and tired. Ervin Johnson, Kevin Ollie, Dan Gadzuric and Ronald Murray as well as assistant coaches Sam Mitchell and Don Newman have all been affected by a virus that forced coach George Karl to cancel the latest practice and team visit to a children's hospital. "We live in a world of competition," Karl told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Wins and losses. Sometimes you forget about the other side of life."

Bibby's absolute decision: He plays

Martin McNeal / Sacramento Bee

Notebook: Anderson fined, sits out after missing practice

Jayda Evans / Seattle Times

Sick Bucks miss practice

Tom Enlund / Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Raptors urge financial relief for injuries

Robert MacLeod / Globe & Mail

[cyman3]

I will be EXTREMELY MAD!