ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish club Besiktas is in talks with Kobe Bryant‘s representatives about the possibility of the Los Angeles Lakers star playing in Turkey during the NBA lockout.
“It is a fact that Kobe Bryant’s managers have contacted us,” coach Ergin Ataman said Thursday, a week after Besiktas signed New Jersey Nets point guard Deron Williams.
Ataman said Bryant was waiting for an offer from Besiktas. The club, however, said it would need a sponsor to be able to pay for Bryant’s contract.
“Our board will evaluate that,” Ataman said.
Bryant, who has won five NBA titles with the Lakers and is a 13-time NBA all-star, has been on a tour of China. He said he would consider playing overseas during the lockout and mentioned China and Turkey as possibilities. The Turkish League season starts in October.
• The Detroit Pistons will offer Lawrence Frank their coaching position within two days, according to Yahoo Sports. The Pistons fired John Kuester on June 5 after the team missed the playoffs each of his two seasons as coach. Frank went 225-241 in 6 1/2 seasons as coach of the Nets.
Big 12 blocks prep games on Texas network
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe announced the conference will not allow the Longhorn Network to televise Texas prep football games.
The Longhorn Network, devoted to the University of Texas, will launch next month on ESPN. When the enterprise was announced in January, ESPN and Texas said as many as 18 high school games would be part of the programming. Texas A&M was among the schools that openly questioned the NCAA legality of the Longhorn Network broadcasting high school games, suggesting the arrangement violated recruiting rules.
Also, Texas will not televise a conference game on its network. Earlier, Texas and ESPN announced a Big 12 game would be broadcast on the Longhorn Network, prompting an outcry from fans for having to subscribe to a Texas network to watch their team play.
Brother could face charges in Boogaard’s death
MINNEAPOLIS — A brother of Derek Boogaard, the hockey enforcer for the Minnesota Wild and the New York Rangers who died of a painkiller-and-alcohol overdose in May, faces potential felony narcotics charges in relation to his brother’s death.
The brother, Aaron Boogaard, 24, surrendered to Minneapolis police late Wednesday and was being held in a Hennepin County jail. Investigators have until today to file charges or release him, a police spokesman said. The charges, if they come, could involve illegal possession and distribution of prescription drugs.
Footnotes.
Former Olympic gold medal-winning sprinter Marion Jones was cut by the WNBA’s Tulsa Shock, which signed former Oklahoma center Abi Olajuwon.
• Olympic and world champion Cesar Cielo was cleared to compete at the world swimming championships this weekend in Shanghai after the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a decision by the Brazilian swimming federation that said a positive test for a banned substance in May was caused from a contaminated batch of a food supplement he regularly used.
• Stacy May-Johnson homered and the United States beat the Czech Republic 7-2 at the World Cup of softball in Oklahoma City.
