DENVER (AP) — The Denver Nuggets signed guard Erick Green to a deal on Friday.
Green was the 46th overall pick in the 2013 draft and spent last season playing for Montepaschi Siena of the Italian League, where he averaged 11.3 points and 1.2 assists.
The 6-foot-4 Green led the NCAA in scoring his senior season at Virginia Tech.
On Thursday, Denver reached deals with first-round picks Jusuf Nurkic and Gary Harris.
DENVER (AP) — The Denver Nuggets reached deals with first-round picks Jusuf Nurkic and Gary Harris on Thursday.
The team picked up the rights to both players in a draft-night trade with Chicago that sent high-scoring Creighton forward Doug McDermott to the Bulls along with forward Anthony Randolph, who was later dealt to Orlando.
The 7-foot Nurkic was the 16th overall pick in the draft. He averaged nearly 12 points and six rebounds for Cedevita Zagreb last season in the Adriatic League.
Harris was taken at No. 19. He averaged 16.7 points and 2.7 assists last season for Michigan State.
The 19-year-old shooting guard had a solid summer league for the Nuggets, leading the team with an 18.6 scoring average.
NEW YORK (AP) — The NBA is adding its Twitter handle to its official game ball for next season.
The league announced the change on Thursday. The handle @NBA will be added to the left of the league’s logo, making it the first game ball to have it in any of the four major pro sports in North America.
The NBA’s Twitter account has 10.7 million followers, by far the most when compared to the NFL, MLB and NHL.
Unlike a few years back when the league tried to introduce a new synthetic leather game ball, the Spalding ball’s composition will not change. The league quickly abandoned the synthetic ball.
LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) — Forward Rachelle Tucker, of Pierce, Nebraska, has verbally committed to play for Wyoming.
The 6-foot-2 Tucker is entering her senior year at high school and is the second recruit for the 2015 Cowgirl class. She joins 6-1 forward Daley Handy of Maize, Kansas, as verbal commitments for the Cowgirls.
The earliest a basketball player can sign a national letter of intent is November.
Tucker averaged 19 points and 8.3 rebounds a game during her junior year last season. She also shot 60 percent from the field and 70 percent from the free-throw line while averaging 1.7 blocks and 1.3 steals a game.
Tucker said that she will have to work on improving her 3-point shooting but she believes she can do that.
Derrick Rose and four returnees from the 2012 Olympic men’s basketball champions are among the 19 players selected for this summer’s U.S. national team roster.
Kevin Durant, Kevin Love, James Harden and Anthony Davis were the four holdovers announced Monday, along with new additions DeMar DeRozan of Toronto and Chandler Parsons, who is leaving Houston for Dallas.
Players will report to training camp in Las Vegas this month, with the roster cut to 12 for the World Cup of Basketball in Spain.
Rose is trying to make the team after his NBA season was cut short by another knee operation.
The rest of the roster: Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson (Golden State), Kyrie Irving (Cleveland), Blake Griffin (Clippers), Paul George (Indiana), Damian Lillard (Portland), Gordon Hayward (Utah), DeMarcus Cousins (Sacramento), Bradley Beal (Washington), Andre Drummond (Detroit), Kenneth Faried (Denver) and Kyle Korver (Atlanta).
Lincoln – Sophomore Tai Webster begins a busy summer this weekend, as he returns to New Zealand in hopes of making the senior team’s roster for the FIBA World Cup.
Webster, who hails from Auckland, New Zealand, is one of 17 players selected to the camp. He has been in Lincoln training and taking summer classes which end this week. The competition begins for Webster next week, as New Zealand hosts Korea in a three-game series beginning on July 15 in Wellington. It is one of five events that New Zealand will participate in prior to the FIBA World Cup in late August.
New Zealand will play in the Three Nations Tournament in Korea, travel through China, Lithuania and Serbia before opening the 2014 FIBA World Cup on Aug. 30 against Turkey.
“What we have identified is we are maybe a little thin in the guard line,” Nenad Vucinic said after trimming the roster from 24 to 17 players this week. “Tai (Webster) boosts our stocks in that regard when he arrives on Monday. He was with us a couple of years ago and enjoyed a good season with Nebraska, and we are hoping that he comes back in good shape and good form and is able to slot in quickly.”
If Webster makes the World Cup roster, he will be tested in a six-team bracket that includes Team USA (Sept. 2), Turkey (Aug. 30), Dominican Republic (Aug. 31), Ukraine (Sept. 3) and Finland (Sept. 4)
Webster started 30 games for the Huskers in 2013-14, helping Nebraska make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1998. He averaged 3.9 points, 2.1 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game. He topped the Huskers with 63 assists and reached double figures four times as a true freshman.
Webster made his national team debut in 2012, leading New Zealand in scoring three times in six contests in his first competition on the senior national team. He averaged 13.5 points per game in the 2012 FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournament, while shooting 52.5 percent from the field. He made his debut at age 17, becoming the youngest player to make the New Zealand National Team.
NEW YORK (AP) — Next stop: New York.
The NBA unveiled the logo for the 2015 All-Star weekend on Thursday, a subway-inspired theme that’s fitting for an event that will have fans on the move when it comes to the Big Apple.
The Friday and Saturday events will be held at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, before the All-Star game is staged at Madison Square Garden, home of the Knicks, on Sunday, Feb. 15.
The logo features the teams’ abbreviations, BKN and NYK, next to a picture inspired by the colorful subway and bus line maps that are featured throughout the city’s transportation system. The numbers in 2015 are written to appear like they are subway lines.
NEW YORK (AP) — The NBA has set the 2014-15 salary cap at $63.1 million, an all-time high, paving the way for contracts to be signed.
Deals can become official starting at 12:01 EDT on Thursday. Players and teams could agree to contracts starting July 1, but they couldn’t be signed during the moratorium period.
The cap is a 7.5 percent increase from last season’s $58.7 million.
The league also says Wednesday that the tax level jumped 7.1 percent to $76.8 million. Teams exceeding that will have to pay a luxury tax.
North Platte – The North Platte Community College Lady Knights basketball team announced the signing of Dijmonii Jackson to a National Letter of Intent to play basketball during the 2014-15 season. Jackson graduated from West Brook High School in Beaumont, Texas.
Jackson excelled on the defefensive end of the floor for the Lady Bruins where she set the school record for steals. She was voted the Mosts Valuable Player on her team at West Brook High School. Jackson was named 1st-Team All-District and was selected to play in the in the Southwest Texas All-Star Game where she scored 11 points.
“Djimonii will help out team quickness,” said head coach Richard Thurin. “She has very good court speed and will give us more depth at the guard position. Djimonii will make a difference right away.”
Lincoln – University of Nebraska men’s basketball coach Tim Miles announced Tuesday afternoon that senior forward Leslee Smith has suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his left knee. The injury was discovered during an MRI examination Tuesday afternoon in Lincoln.
Smith will be out indefinitely, as Miles, men’s basketball athletic trainer R.J. Pietig and the Husker medical staff are currently in the process of developing a timeframe for his surgery and rehabilitation. This is the second time that Smith as torn an ACL, as he tore the ACL in his right knee in March of 2011 when he played at SMU.
Smith, a 6-foot-8 forward from Longlook, British Virgin Islands, suffered the injury on July 3 playing for the British Virgin Islands at the FIBA Caribbean Basketball Championships in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. The injury occurred in the first half of an 89-60 loss to the Virgin Islands.
Smith, who averaged 7.6 points and 4.3 rebounds per game despite playing just eight minutes in Thursday’s loss before the injury. Prior to the injury, the British Virgin Islands was 2-0 in tournament action, but went winless after Smith’s injury and placed fourth.
As a junior, Smith played in all 32 games for the Huskers, averaging 5.4 points on 52 percent shooting and 4.8 rebounds per game as the Huskers’ first post player off the bench. He was third on the team in rebounding and second in both steals (29) and blocked shots (20). Smith led the Huskers with three double-doubles and had five games with at least 10 rebounds in his first season at Nebraska, as the Huskers went 19-13 on the season and reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1998.
