NEW YORK — Locked-out NBA players will have their escrow money returned to them for the first time because salaries fell below 57 percent of league revenues last season, two people with knowledge of the situation said Tuesday.
The players will get about $160 million back when a final audit of NBA revenues is completed this month.
Eight percent of player salaries has been withheld each season since the 1999 collective bargaining agreement to ensure that players don’t exceed their guarantee of 57 percent of league revenues.
But with revenues up during a successful 2010-11 season, salary costs will fall short of that mark for the first time, though it isn’t known yet by how far.
The escrow return, which was first reported Tuesday by , could strengthen the players’ contention that an overhaul of the current financial system isn’t needed and that team owners can address their losses by controlled, smarter spending.
The union has argued that the total value of negotiated salaries had decreased in recent years, so player costs weren’t the problem.
• New Rockets head coach Kevin McHale added Kelvin Sampson and J.B. Bickerstaff to his staff as assistant coaches, a person with knowledge of the hirings said.
Five painkillers in body of OU linebacker
OKLAHOMA CITY — University of Oklahoma linebacker Austin Box had five prescription painkillers and an anti-anxiety drug in his system when he died, according to a preliminary toxicology report released Tuesday by the state medical examiner’s office.
The death of the 22-year-old Box two months ago was ruled accidental. In the report, the agency said the combination of drugs likely caused pulmonary edema, or fluid in the lungs, and aspiration pneumonia, which is an inflammation of the lungs caused by inhaling foreign substances.
• West Virginia linebacker Branko Busick, a 20- year-old redshirt sophomore from Steubenville, Ohio, was dismissed from the team less than 24 hours after he was charged with an armed robbery at a Morgantown, W.Va., apartment building.
• Former Heisman Trophy winner Eric Crouch agreed to play for the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League.
The 32-year-old Crouch was a third-round NFL draft pick of the St. Louis Rams in 2002 after his stellar career as a Nebraska quarterback.
Bryant’s WNBA debut a success.
Ticha Penicheiro scored 18 points to help Joe Bryant win his WNBA debut as coach of Los Angeles in the visiting Sparks’ 84-74 victory over the San Antonio Silver Stars.
• Sue Bird scored 22 points and Swin Cash added 20 in the host Seattle Storm’s 79-71 victory over the Washington Mystics in the WNBA.
• North Dakota State golfer Amy Anderson, who finished 63rd at the U.S. Women’s Open at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs after a strong start, said she will return for her junior and senior seasons.
• Santiago Giraldo of Colombia upset second-seeded Jurgen Melzer of Austria 6-4, 7-5 and advanced to the second round of the Mercedes Cup tennis tournament in Stuttgart, Germany.
In another upset, German wild card Cedrik-Marcel Stebe beat sixth-seeded Nikolay Davydenko of Russia 3-6, 6-1, 6-4.
The Associated Press
