Basketball Players

It had taken all month for Lamar Odom and Mitch Kupchak to reach this point, with the free-agent forward and the Lakers' general manager sitting side by side at a news conference Friday. Odom agreed to return to the Lakers, but Kupchak noted that the contract negotiations "took many twists and turns." Odom called it "a tedious time." Still, Kupchak and Odom were finally together at the team's El Segundo training facility.

Clippers guard Baron Davis arrived last month at Mumbai Airport in India and stepped into a taxicab. He immediately noticed how India's driving habits hinge more on aggressiveness and efficiency than conventional traffic signs. "A dog was walking across the street and the driver was going 70 [miles per hour] and not looking," Davis said. "The closer it gets, I'm in the back of the car screaming like 'Aghhhhh'! Then he goes right past the dog, laughs and says, 'stupid American.

For most of his career in the NBA, there have been two Kobe Bryants, each evolving in mirror universes. One is a 6-foot-6 Los Angeles Lakers guard who grew up playing Double Dribble, a video game released in the 1980s, with his cousins during summer visits to his grandmother's house. The other is also a basketball player, albeit a digital one created 10 years ago by Visual Concepts, a video game developer in Novato, Calif. If the real Kobe built up his shoulders, so would the virtual Kobe.

So did you hear the latest from my new best friend, Ron Artest? Here I was, worried he would upset the Lakers' delicate championship chemistry, cause all sorts of ugly distractions, then he shows up for a promotional appearance in San Diego on Monday and the opposite happens. Artest was so certifiably loony, he made me momentarily forget about the current Lakers crisis. That being, of course, what sort of wedding gift does one buy Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian? How about two sets of strong hands to shake them both while you shout, "What are you doing?"

For years Kai Chen enjoyed the good life of a professional basketball player in China, playing on the national team and traveling around the world. But he was never happy representing a government that he said tore his family apart and was responsible for millions of deaths in his country. So after Chen married U.S. foreign exchange student Susan Gruenegerg in 1981, the couple moved to the United States to start a new life together. Chen eventually earned a degree in political science from UCLA and has since become a passionate anticommunist crusader.

The NBA player was only 2 inches tall, but he left quite an impression on Memphis Grizzlies guard Mike Conley. Conley was playing the popular video game NBA2K9 when a virtual Rajon Rondo appeared to go in for a layup. Instead, he pushed back off his left foot, deftly landed on his right and then made a short jumper from the paint. So Conley added the move, dubbed the Euro Step, to his personal repertoire of shots last season. "I hadn't really thought about it until it happened in the video game," Conley said.

NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has a rare form of leukemia, but the Lakers legend says his long-term prognosis is very good. Abdul-Jabbar, 62, revealed during an interview Monday that he has Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow that produces cancerous blood cells. The disease was diagnosed in December. But Abdul-Jabbar said his condition can be managed by taking oral medication daily, seeing his specialist every other month and getting his blood analyzed regularly.

For misinterpreting NCAA rules and awarding one too many basketball scholarships last fall, USC will have to offer one fewer for the 1999-2000 season. The Pacific 10 Conference learned that when USC awarded a scholarship to Claude Green, a walk-on player, last season, the school was over the NCAA-stipulated 13-scholarship limit, said Noel Ragsdale, USC athletic faculty representative. Green played one minute of one game last season.

Rico Harris, the 1996-97 state junior college men's basketball player of the year for L.A. City College, has accepted a scholarship offer from Cal State Northridge. Harris, a 6-foot-9 forward, averaged 17 points and 14 rebounds a game while leading L.A. City to the 1997 state title as a freshman.

The extent of J.J. Todd's varsity basketball experience is one season, and an average of only about four minutes a game. Yet, Todd will begin his senior year next month at Chaminade as one of the region's most sought-after basketball recruits. A tall tale? Not by a long shot. Todd is 6 feet 11, weighs about 210 pounds and wears size 20 shoes. Oh, he is 16 years old. "A lot of [college] coaches are really encouraged by that," Chaminade Coach Jeff Young said.