MIAMI — Dwyane Wade has decided he cannot take a year away from basketball. And if the NBA goes that route, the Miami Heat guard will go somewhere else.
Though he remains cautiously hopeful a deal between owners and players can be struck to end the lockout and ultimately save the 2011-12 NBA season, Wade said Tuesday that he will be playing somewhere this winter — whether that’s with the Heat, as he’d obviously prefer, or an international club.
“I’m going to play basketball this year,” Wade said. “I don’t know where, but I love the game so much that I will play it. And we will figure that out.”
Wade denied receiving any international offers, including a report of a $2 million-per-month proposal from a Chinese team.
• Retired Houston Rockets center Yao Ming could enter the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as early as next year — not as a player, but as a contributor to the game.
John Doleva, the president and CEO of the Hall, said Yao has been nominated by a member of the Chinese media and his credentials will be considered by an international panel. As a contributor, Yao would bypass the usual five-year waiting period for retired players. The 7-foot-6 Yao retired in July after leg and foot injuries ended his eight-year NBA career.
Former U.S. coach Bradley candidate for Egypt job.
Bob Bradley‘s agent said the former U.S. soccer coach is a candidate to lead Egypt’s national team.
Bradley is among three candidates to replace longtime Egypt coach Hassan Shehata, who stepped down in June with the Pharaohs in danger of failing to qualify for the African Cup of Nations for the first time in 33 years. Bradley was dismissed last month after going 43-25-12 in four-plus years as U.S. coach.
Meanwhile, Juergen Klinsmann makes his debut as U.S. coach tonight when he leads the Americans against Mexico in a friendly in Philadelphia.
• Martin Rennie, coach of the Carolina RailHawks of the North American Soccer League, will take over the Vancouver Whitecaps in 2012.
• England called off a friendly tonight against the Netherlands because of concerns about player safety amid a wave of rioting and looting across London. The violence also threatens the staging of Premier League matches this weekend.
Manager: Probe shows Gatti didn’t take own life
NEWARK, N.J. — A private probe into the 2009 death of former boxing champion Arturo Gatti will disprove the official conclusion that it was a suicide, Gatti’s former manager Pat Lynch said.
Gatti, a junior welterweight champion who retired in 2007, was found in July 2009 at an apartment he and his family had rented in Brazil. Police initially arrested Gatti’s wife Amanda Rodrigues but released her a few weeks later. They eventually concluded Gatti hanged himself with a handbag strap from a wooden staircase column in their apartment. Lynch said results of the investigation that contradicts the suicide scenario will be released at the end of this month.
Footnotes.
Duke freshman guard Quinn Cook is being shut down until at least mid-September to allow his right knee injury to continue healing.
• Marathon swimmer Diana Nyad ended her second bid to swim from Cuba to the Florida Keys, ending the quest that she failed to accomplish at age 28 in 1978 about halfway through.
The Associated Press
