HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Veteran center Marcus Camby is on the move again, this time to Houston that continues the Portland Trail Blazers’ roster trade deadline roster makeover. The deal was first reported by Yahoo! Sports.
The Trail Blazers will receive Hasheem Thabeet and point guard Jonny Flynn from the Rockets. Portland will take a totally new team on the floor after this afternoon’s trade deadline, including Mehmet Okur and Shawne Williams from an earlier deal with New Jersey.
The Trail Blazers are also in discussions with several teams about moving veteran guard Jamal Crawford as well.
Dwight Howard waiving his early termination option took him off the trade market and out of the free-agency pool for 2011-12. That put a kink in the rebuilding plans for New Jersey, which was on Howard’s preseason draft “wish list”.
The Portland Trail Blazers have agreed in principle to trade Gerald Wallace to the New Jersey Nets for Mehmet Okur, Shawne Williams and a protected first-round pick, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.
GREENBURGH, NY – The New York Knicks played pretty well without Chauncey Billups and Amar’e Stoudemire in the second half of Tuesday’s Game 2 in Boston. And the numbers show that the Knicks have played much better when they’ve had just one of their stars on the court than when they’ve had two or three.
But, of course, Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni would prefer that Stoudemire and/or Billups are healthy for Friday’s Game 3 at Madison Square Garden (7 p.m. ET, ESPN).
The Knicks practiced without Stoudemire or Billups on Thursday. Billups received treatment on his strained left knee at the Knicks’ practice facility, but Stoudemire was getting treatment at his home in Manhattan, so that he didn’t have to travel an hour each way in the car and possibly aggravate the pulled muscle in his back.
D’Antoni is clearly more optimistic about the chances that Stoudemire will play Friday, but the team will have to wait until at least Friday morning to see how Stoudemire feels.
Billups had blood drained from his knee and took a cortisone shot on Wednesday.
“At this point, I know there’s no way I can come back and be 100 percent,” Billups said. “But I don’t have to be 100 to come back. I just want to be able to help the team and not hurt the team. If I can get to that point, then I’ll be out there.”
