Kobe Bryant finding it tough to take it easy after surgery

July 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant is finding it hard to take it easy in the NBA off-season after having arthroscopic surgery on his right knee.

The twice NBA Finals MVP made a fourth trip to China in as many years this week to meet fans in the basketball-crazy nation, where he sells more shirts than the country’s own Yao Ming.

“The hardest thing for me to do is to do nothing,” he told Tuesday’s China Daily newspaper in an interview.

“I have always got to be working and pushing myself. This summer is really the best training for me — to do nothing.

“The body needs rest and the injury has to heal. You have to recharge your body and get ready for next season. So in lots of ways, this is the hardest training for me.”

Bryant started his five-city tour of China with an audience with some 1,600 basketball fans in Beijing late on Monday. A thousand more waited outside the theater in sweltering heat just hoping for a glimpse.

Despite having surgery on the same knee for the third time after 2003 and 2006, he assured the noisy audience he would be fit for his bid for a sixth NBA title with the Lakers.

“Another NBA championship ring next season is the biggest motivation for me,” he told the paper.

“It’s the same for us every year. We will not change much. We have the unity and the majority of the team is the same. So, it’s the same goal for us every year.”

Although retirement is still a long way away for the 31-year-old guard, Bryant has clearly given thought to what he does not want to do when his playing days are over — coach.

“No. Absolutely not. No, no, no,” he said.

“Being a coach is too frustrating for me. I like coaching kids and holding training clinics for the kids. But to be a coach from the regular season to the playoffs … I have no interest at all.”

(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney and Haze Fan; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

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Astronomers get sharpest view ever of star factories in distant galaxy

March 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 22 (ANI): Reports indicate that astronomers have combined a natural gravitational lens and a sophisticated telescope array to get the sharpest view ever of “star factories” in a galaxy over 10 billion light-years from Earth.

They found that the distant galaxy, known as SMM J2135-0102, is making new stars 250 times faster than our Galaxy, the Milky Way.

They also pinpointed four discrete star-forming regions within the galaxy, each over 100 times brighter than locations (like the Orion Nebula) where stars form in our Galaxy.

This is the first time that astronomers have been able to study properties of individual star-forming regions within a galaxy so far from Earth.

“To a layperson, our images appear fuzzy, but to us, they show the exquisite detail of a Faberge egg,” said Steven Longmore of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

Due to the time it takes light to travel to us, we see the galaxy as it existed just 3 billion years after the Big Bang.

It was Milky Way-sized at the time.

If we could see it today, 10 billion years later, it would have grown into a giant elliptical galaxy much more massive than our own.

“This galaxy is like a teenager going through a growth spurt,” said Mark Swinbank of Durham University.

“If you could see it today as an ‘adult’, you’d find the galactic equivalent of Yao Ming the basketball player,” he added.

The Submillimeter Array (SMA) data revealed four extremely bright star-forming regions. The large luminosities, 100 times greater than typical for nearby galaxies, imply a very high rate of star formation.

“We don’t fully understand why the stars are forming so rapidly, but our result suggests that stars formed much more efficiently in the early universe than they do today,” said Swinbank. (ANI)

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Two NBA teams to play autumn preseason games in Taiwan, China

March 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Taipei – Two NBA teams will visit Taiwan and China in October to play warm-up games before the start of the NBA season, a newspaper said Thursday.

The Denver Nuggets and Indiana Pacers will play a preseason game on October 8 at the Taipei Arena. Taiwan’s basketball association next month will announce details of the game, the Apple Daily quoted an unnamed sports official as saying.

The two teams will send a total of 30 players, including Denver forward Carmelo Anthony, Indiana forward Danny Granger and NBA legend Larry Bird, now the Pacers’ president of basketball operations.

Some 100 NBA staff members will arrive in Taipei with the two teams by charter jet. The trip to Taipei will cost the NBA 5 million US dollars.

It will be the first-ever game in Taiwan between two teams from the NBA, which was founded in 1946.

Taiwan will become the third Asian country to host an NBA game after Japan and China, the Apple Daily said.

The NBA has played six games in Japan since the 1990s, and has held preseason games in China since 2004, after Chinese star Yao Ming joined the Houston Rockets in 2002.

Online ticket booking for the Taipei game could start in April.

From Taipei, the two NBA teams will fly to Beijing to play a warm- up game on October 11. Both the Taipei and Beijing games will be aired live on TV in the United States, South-East Asia and the greater China area, the Apple Daily said. (dpa)

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Artest’s late heroics, help Rockets tame Bobcats

March 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Artest's late heroics, help Rockets tame Bobcats Los Angeles – In the end, Ron Artest made the big plays at both ends, to rescue the Houston Rockets.

Artest hit the go-ahead jumper in the closing seconds, and then blocked Vladimir Radmanovic’s potential game-tying three-pointer with 4.9 ticks left, helping the visiting Rockets escape the Charlotte Bobcats, 91-86 on Friday night.

“We’re very fortunate to get that win,” Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. “We had it in control and we made three straight mistakes. They had a chance to win it.”

China’s Yao Ming scored a game-high 23 points, and Argentine Luis Scola finished with 15 for the Rockets (43-24) who moved 1.5 games behind idle second place San Antonio in the Western Conference playoff race with a Texas-size showdown on Saturday night.

Yao’s three-pointer – the second of his career and first in six seasons – along with a 15-footer, put the Rockets ahead, 85-77. But they nearly blew the game.

Raja Bell’s long jumper, and Boris Diaw’s layup after Aaron Brooks coughed up the ball in the back court, pulled Charlotte within 85-84.

Yao committed an offensive foul, and blocked Emeka Okafor’s shot at the other end. But Diaw hit a 10-footer, giving the Bobcats an 86- 85 edge with 35 seconds to go.

Artest, then, took a pass from Shane Battier on a broken play, and drilled a 20-foot jumper with 22 seconds left as the Rockets regained the lead, 87-86.

“I wanted the ball,” said Artest, who finished with 10 points. “I always want the ball at the end.”

Bell missed a jumper with 10 ticks left, and Brooks hit two free throws to make it a three-point game, setting the stage for Artest’s defensive gem.

Looking to force overtime, the Bobcats got the ball to long- distance sharpshooter Radmanovich following a timeout. Artest, however, blocked the shot, and raced down court for the game- clinching layup with 1.8 ticks remaining.

“He had to bring the ball up, but he wasn’t off the ground fast enough,” Artest said. “So I just waited and swiped it back down.”

Gerald Wallace scored 17 points, and Bell added 16 for the Bobcats (28-37) who suffered a blow in their drive to make the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. (dpa)

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