I guess they were just too big for FIBA.

The 2010 FIBA World Championships has began and Team USA is in good shape as it posted its fourth straight win over Iran 88-51 to lead Group B. Also known as basketball’s World Cup, the World Championships are also held every four years and share similar qualification and scheduling formats to determine a winner.

The FIBA tournament may only be held once every four years, but coupled with the quadrennial Olympic men’s basketball tournament, an international basketball champion is decided every two years.

The biggest difference between the Olympics and the World Championships is that the United States’ dominance on the basketball court is limited only to the former. The United States has won 13 gold medals in the Olympics; no other country has more than two.

On the other hand, the USA basketball team has won three gold medals at the World Championships, but so have Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, and the U.S. has not won since 1994.

This year’s tournament is hosted by Turkey, it lasts more than two weeks with the gold medal game taking place on Sunday, Sept. 12, or what is better known in the United States as NFL Week 1.

The teams were drawn into four six-team groups. Group play began Saturday with teams playing five games in their group and the top four teams advance to the…

It seems that is the trend in sports these days.

Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony said today that he will continue pondering whether to sign a three-year, $65 million contract extension offer from the team coming to the 2010 NBA basketball season, problem is, it looks like he’s leaning towards a trade more.

Asked if he had a timetable by when he’d like to have a final decision, Camelo Anthony said, “No. I’m just taking my time with it,” he said during his basketball camp at ThunderRidge High School. And without a team-imposed deadline, Anthony has all the time he could ever want. League rules say he has until June 30, 2011 to sign the extension or pick up the option on his current contract, which would pay him $18.5 million for the 2011-12 season.

He’s already said winning and a roster with the potential to win are factors. The Denver Nuggets recently parted ways with team executives, Mark Warkentien and Rex Chapman. Anthony is being kept in the loop in the team’s search for a new general manager, but he says that person won’t factor into whether he signs the extension or not.

“I think my decision is my decision,” Anthony said. “I don’t think it’s based on who is in the front office or anything like that. I’m going to make my decision based on my feelings.”

What will factor heavily is progress on a new collective bargaining agreement. Anthony has attended the last two meetings, one just a few days ago in New York, where owners and players had productive dialogue.

Depending on the layout of the new CBA — if there is one…

Tracy McGrady is known to carry a relaxed persona, and he stayed true to form — for the most part — upon his introduction to Detroit.

“Anyone that knows me knows I have a chip on my shoulder,” said McGrady, a seven-time all-star who signed with the Detroit Pistons for the 2010 NBA basketball season. “Guys have injuries in this league. I’ve worked my butt off the last two years and I’ll continue to do that.”

McGrady, 31, agreed to a one-year, $1.35 million deal with the Detroit Pistons after playing last season with the Rockets and Knicks. He said Pistons president Joe Dumars has coveted him for years, and this low-risk, high-reward setting was “perfect timing.”

Yes, this is the same Tracy McGrady who claimed he was “happy to be in the second round” when his Magic had a 3-1 lead over the Pistons in the 2003 playoffs — before being eliminated in seven games.

And this is the same McGrady who told ESPN to “put it on me” if his Rockets failed to advance in the 2007 playoffs, and after a 29-point, 13-rebound performance in Game 7 that resulted in a loss, cried afterward.

“A lot of negative things were said about me, that I was done,” he said before sporting his No. 1 jersey. “It was like God came down and stripped me of my talent. I have a lot of basketball left in me.”

McGrady has played a total of 65 games the last two seasons, spending most of the time on a training table recovering from various injuries, most notably microfracture knee surgery. He also has endured…

I guess that makes the Boston Celtics a walking museum of hoops history.

The Boston Celtics will enter the upcoming 2010 NBA basketball season with nearly as much sizzle as their counterparts in Miami, as NBA icon, all-time great center, and Hall of Fame personality Shaquille O’Neal signed a two-year, $2.8 million contract with Boston, his fifth team in an illustrious but rocky career.

In case you didn’t know, Shaquille O’Neal has four NBA championship rings — three with the Lakers and one with the Heat — but he has left most of his previous teams with hard feelings, as he has been prone to clash with teammates and eventually wear out his welcome.

So with the Boston Celtics having so many strong personalities and being an organization that makes team chemistry a priority, the signing of the 38-year-old center could be a risky move.

Yet if O’Neal blends into the system, they could have a defen sive and physical answer for most of their top rivals. When healthy and focused, O’Neal remains a skilled center who can draw double-teams — something Kendrick Perkins has yet to accomplish — and open up the floor for Paul Pierce and Ray Allen.

“It is not every day that you can add a player of Shaquille’s caliber to your team,’’ said Celtics president Danny Ainge in a statement. “His past experience speaks for itself and we believe that he is…”

Let’s just hope it won’t be on national TV this time.

Newly hired New Orleans Hornets GM Dell Demps will have his hands full even before the start of the 2010 NBA basketball season because, in case you haven’t heard, Chris Paul, the face of the franchise has accelerated his efforts to leave the team, citing a person with “direct knowledge” of the situation.

“He wants out,” the source said. “He wants to play with another superstar. He wants to follow LeBron’s model of teaming up with other great players.” Paul’s list of preferred destinations includes the Knicks, Magic and Lakers, the report said.

The three-time All-Star Chris Paul still has two years before he can become a free agent. But his dissatisfaction with the Hornets’ downward spiral, coupled with the coup pulled off by James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami has only accelerated his desire to seek a trade. Sources within the NBA say members of Paul’s camp have told them recently, “He’s not going to start the season in New Orleans.”

In the past year, Paul has publicly expressed mild and measured frustration with the direction of the New Orleans Hornets, who have spiraled out of contention since they capped a 56-win season in 2007-08 with a loss to the Spurs in the Western Conference semifinals. That was followed by a 49-win season that ended with an embarrassing first-round loss to the Nuggets, including a disgraceful 58-point home loss in Game 4.

Byron Scott was fired nine games into the 2009-10 season, and…

You can bet your ass they certainly hope so.

New Orleans Hornets president Hugh Weber both told CBSSports.com that they plan to sit down face-to-face with Chris Paul to sell him on the team’s new direction for the coming 2010 NBA basketball season. Paul can’t go public with his trade request — if he did, he’d be subject to a fine under NBA rules — but those with knowledge of his plans believe his desire to pair up with another superstar (or two) has gained too much momentum to stop.

In late June, Chris Paul, 25, spent several days in Akron, Ohio, with James, who was busy orchestrating his own exit strategy from Cleveland. The two friends and superstars picked each other’s brains, with each persuading the other to make significant changes in their branding strategies.

For Paul, it was a big step to persuade James to join the social networking phenomenon that is Twitter. For James’ part, he finally persuaded Paul to join his Cleveland-based marketing company, LRMR.

Paul’s decision to sign with LRMR, headed by James’ close friend and advisor, Maverick Carter, was only the first step in his exit plan from the New Orleans Hornets. Paul officially severed his representation agreement with Octagon earlier this month and will soon officially join the influential stable of clients represented by Creative Artists Agency.

With a stranglehold on the top free-agent talent…

One thing’s for sure, Boston Celtics general manager Danny Ainge isn’t worried about the Miami Heat.

“We’re the Eastern Conference champions. And we think we’re going to be better next year.” Those were the words uttered by Boston Celtics manager Danny Ainge heading to the 2010 NBA basketball season, a season already proclaiming the trio of Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh in Miami the heavy favorites to win it all.

Ainge confirmed that the Boston Celtics have agreements in place with Paul Pierce and Ray Allen that would keep Boston’s Big Three intact for a run at a third NBA Finals stint in four years. Ainge also said he expects to sign free agent center Jermaine O’Neal to fill in while center Kendrick Perkins recovers from knee surgery.

A six-time All-Star, Jermaine O’Neal has averaged 14 points and 7.5 rebounds in a 14-year career for Portland, Indiana, Toronto and Miami. With the Heat last year, he averaged 13.6 points and 6.9 rebounds in 28 minutes. However, O’Neal struggled mightily in the playoffs against the Celtics, averaging just 4.2 points per game in the five-game series.

Remaining on Ainge’s list of potential free agents are re-signing longtime Celtics bench player Tony Allen and midseason acquisition Nate Robinson.

“We’re trying to fill our roster in. Once we get this taken care of the next couple of days, then we’ll start working on the next group of guys,” Ainge said. We like Nate and Tony. I’m sure they’re still looking at the market, too, because the market’s pretty crazy right now. So we’ll be patient and look at other options as well in case they go in another direction.”

“We intend to sign him,” Ainge said. “Our priorities to…”

After he got Zydrunas Ilgauskas to leave Cleveland too and join him in Miami, LeBron might really be fucking with Cleveland now.

And in case you didn’t know, yes, Zydrunas Ilgauskas is the latest former Cavalier to join and follow LeBron James to the Miami Heat. Add him to the list of players that shapes up to be a serious title contender in Miami, joining not only James but Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh as we head closer to the 2010 NBA basketball season.

The veteran center, who started playing for Cleveland in 1997 and has never suited up for another NBA team, signed a two-year contract with the Heat to join former Cavaliers teammate LeBron James. The two-year deal would come with a player option for the second season.

The decision Zydrunas Ilgauskas made became known less than a week after James sparked outrage and outcry in Cleveland by going on a made-for-television special and saying he was joining the Heat. His departure won’t generate the same reaction from Clevelanders, but it’ll hurt more the owner of the Cavs Dan Gilbert.

Ilgauskas was a fan favorite for more than a decade, and when he returned to the Cavs after getting traded to the Washington Wizards this past season, a sellout crowd welcomed him with huge signs bearing the letter “Z”—his moniker. Ilgauskas never played for the Wizards, quickly getting bought out and then returning to Cleveland after a 30-day waiting period.

Playing with James again was a major factor in Ilgauskas’ decision…

The New York Knicks have had the 2010 NBA free agency period in their sights for quite a while.

LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh, among other superstars, were set to become free agents, and the New York Knicks are supposedly the ultimate free agent destination before the 2010 NBA basketball season starts.

The reality is, the New York Knicks failed to land LeBron James and couldn’t get Wade or Bosh either. The back up plan was to get Stoudemire and Johnson, but that failed, too. The Knicks ended up with only one big-name free agent, Amare Stoudemire. Stoudemire is a great player, but it is definitely not what the Knicks had anticipated.

The question now is, is Amare Stoudemire that much of an upgrade over David Lee? It’ll be interesting to see what he gets, but we’ll guess it’ll be somewhere in between $8-$12 million a year (especially if scrubs like Drew Gooden and Amir Johnson are getting $5-6 million a year).

Lee is only six months younger than Amare, and let the record show that while we like Lee, he posted 20-11 and 16-11 the last two years mostly because the Knicks had nobody in the frontcourt. Somebody has to collect those rebounds and score those garbage points. This is not to say Lee will be a bust at his next stop, but if he goes to a team with actual talent, we expect that scoring to be cut in half and then you basically have Troy Murphy without the range.

With the addition of Raymond Felton, the Knicks got a…

For the Bulls’ sake, let’s really hope that’s the case.

In case you didn’t know, two-time All-Star forward Carlos Boozer has agreed to a five-year, $76 million deal to play for the Chicago Bulls in the coming 2010 NBA basketball season.

Anticipating about $30 million in cap room, the Chicago Bulls were looking to make a big splash in free agency after consecutive first-round playoff exits. Adding Carlos Boozer strengthens their standing in the Eastern Conference.

Boozer has spent six seasons with the Utah Jazz, and he averaged 19.5 points and 11.2 rebounds last season. His arrival gives the Chicago Bulls a formidable pair in the frontcourt with Joakim Noah, not to mention a good pick-and-roll partner for All-Star point guard Derrick Rose. Boozer said he felt like the Bulls were the team for him from the beginning of his free agency.

“I came up here on the 1st. I was here on Thursday and Friday as soon as free agency opened up. It felt like it felt right the entire time,” Boozer said. “I went to talk to some other teams, of course, both for my due diligence and to see what the other teams had to offer. But Chicago always felt like it was the best fit.”

This is because Boozer believes the Bulls have the potential to win NBA championships. “They want to win, and that was the biggest thing for me,” he said.

With Boozer, the Bulls finally have a big man who will command double-teams — something they’ve craved for years — and can hit the jumper. They now have two double-double players, with Noah averaging 10.7 points and 11.0 rebounds last season, and can still add a perimeter player.

When he looks ahead, Boozer likes what he sees. He had a…