We leave today and tomorrow for the Centro Basketball Tournament. You would think it would be easy to get to Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic from Orlando Florida but it is not as easy as it looks. There are only 2 direct flights out a day. The other flight end up with one or two connections with usually a 10-14 hour layover. Not good. As a result the whole team could not get on one flight. We will be taking different flights starting tonight Friday at 11:55pm with a 3:00am arrival. Guess who is on this wonderful flight? yep, yours truly. We do what we have to to get it done. The rest of the team will be going in shifts, 3-5 at a time. When we get there we should have a couple days of practice before we play our first game on July 6th against the home team, Dominican Republic. We will not know who is on the teams we play until we arrive and we get to scout the first day of games on July 5th. National team rosters fluctuate a lot from year to year. Even more than NBA Development team rosters. Our roster has changed in the 2 weeks we have been training here in Orlando. Samardo Samuels, a very good forward from University of Louisville is not coming. He was not drafted in this years NBA draft but it looks like he going to summer league with the Chicago Bulls. He should have a good chance to make that team. Patrick Ewing Jr. will not be coming. He is going to summer league with two teams. The Orlando Magic and the NY Knicks. We will miss them but will do our best to finish top four and qualify for the Tournament of Americas next summer!
The Lebron James sweepstakes. 2010, what a free agent class! With all the rumors and talk of who is going where, it starting to look like a lot of the free agents are going to take the more money and more years and stay with their teams. Rudy Gay staying in Memphis, looks like Joe Johnson will stay in Atlanta and I don't see Paul Pierce leaving the Celtics or Dirk leaving the Mavs. Have a feeling that Bosh will leave Toronto and Stoudamire will leave Suns for greener pastures. And King James......... Only time will tell. It must be nice to have so many teams begging you to take their hundreds of millions of dollars to play for their teams! Lebron, don't make this all about the money. A lot of players say they want to go to a winner and do "whatever it takes" to win but very few players really back that up with their actions. No matter where you go you will make enough money to have you, your kids, your kids kids and their kids kids set for life. Take this opportunity and take less money and go to the team that gives you the best chance at winning a Ring. Take it from a guy that played 12 years in the NBA and came close but never got there. Talk to Karl Malone, John Stockton, Bob Lanier or Sidney Moncrief. All great players who never got a ring. Ask them what is more important, Money or a championship! Pick your team wisely.
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