NHL might be heading toward another lockout?

The NHL might be heading toward another lengthy lockout

The owners are seeking  cuts into the players’ percentage of the league’s gross income, according to a New York Post report. The owners are demanding that the players accept 46 percent of the revenue, down from the current 57 percent.
The league also wants to reduce teams' salary cap number from $8 million over the midpoint to $4 million and is calling for a five-year limit on all player contracts and the removal of all signing bonuses.
The report also states that unrestricted free agency would be limited to players with 10 seasons in the league. Players currently need to have seven seasons in the NHL to become unrestricted free agents.

Breaking News Drew Brees Agrees To 5 Year $100 Million Deal

Drew Brees has agreed to a five-year, $100 million contract with the New Orleans Saints, with $60 million guaranteed, said a person familiar with the deal.

Brees and the team Friday reached the agreement, which will pay the quarterback $40 million in the first year, the person told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the contract had not been publically announced.
The Saints announced they had reached a five-year deal with Brees but did not release financial details of the contract.
Brees posted  on his Twitter page reading, ''Deal is Done! Love you, Who Dat Nation. See you soon!''
Brees had been tagged as the Saints' exclusive franchise player and could not negotiate with other teams.
Had a deal not been reached, the tender for a quarterback was worth $16.3 million. Brees would have had to play for that amount or hold out for a better one-year deal, which would have left his long-term future in New Orleans uncertain.
Brees skipped the Saints' offseason practices while holding out for his new long-term contract, which now gives him the highest average annual pay ($20 million) in NFL history. Buffalo defensive end Mario Williams also has a $100 million contract, but for six years.
Now Brees is set to report for the opening of Saints training camp on July 24, a needed does of good news for a club whose offseason has been plagued by the bounty scandal that resulted in the season long suspensions of head coach Sean Payton and linebacker Jonathan Vilma, among other sanctions.A/P

2012 USA Olympic basketball team couldn't beat the 1992 Dream Team.

Michael Jordan says there's no way Kobe Bryant and this year's USA Olympic basketball team could've beaten the 1992 Dream Team.

Jordan told The Associated Press Thursday that he laughed, ''I absolutely laughed'' when hearing Bryant's comments that the squad training in Las Vegas could take Jordan and company.
Jordan says there was ''no comparison'' which team was better, adding that Byrant comparing the two teams ''is not one of the smarter things he ever could have done.''
Jordan spoke prior to a celebrity golf tournament in Charlotte.
He says the 1992 team, which included 11 future Hall of Famers and won its six games by an average of more than 43 points en route to capturing the gold medal, may not have been as athletic but was definitely smarter.A/P

Joe Paterno's ''61 years of excellent service to the university is now marred''

 Penn State's board of trustees says the panel believes Joe Paterno's ''61 years of excellent service to the university is now marred'' by the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal

Karen Peetz  says the board ''accepts full responsibility for the failures that occurred.''
A board-sanctioned investigation into the scandal concluded that the Hall of Fame coach and other senior school officials ''concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse'' because they were worried about bad publicity. The 267-page report is the result of an eight-month inquiry by former FBI director Louis Freeh.
Trustee Kenneth Frazier says ''we have to take some time ... before we start thinking about how we think about Joe Paterno's entire life and entire body of work.''
Sandusky is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of 45 criminal counts.A/P

Brees and Saints Still Far Apart On Money

Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints still must close a large gap in guaranteed money if they are to agree on a five-year contract worth about $100 million by Monday's looming deadline for a long-term deal, said a person familiar with the negotiations.

The sides were more than $10 million apart in the guaranteed part of the contract on Wednesday, the person told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because talks are ongoing.
The stakes are high for both sides and the negotiations have lasted for months, including long gaps in communication between the two camps.
Brees, who is 33 and entering his 12th season, has never before had the chance to negotiate a contract on par with the elite quarterbacks of the game.
The Saints, meanwhile, risk alienating the best quarterback in franchise history, not to mention their fan base, by failing to make an offer to his satisfaction by Monday — the deadline for players with the franchise tag to sign long-term deals.
 Brees first raised the possibility that he would not report to the opening of training camp if all that was on the table at that time was the one-year franchise tag of about $16.3 million. People familiar with the quarterback's plans say that remains the case.
Brees has said he does not want to play under a one-year contract with no long-term security in the coming seasons. He did it once before, with costly consequences, when he played under the franchise tag for San Diego in 2005 and wound up with a career-threatening injury to his throwing shoulder.
That injury led him to accept a six-year, $60 million deal with New Orleans in 2006, which left him playing for well below market value during the past few seasons, even as he was setting club and league records.
Brees had hoped that an extension would be done before 2011, but when it was not, he decided against holding out and played without the security of a long-term contract. He remained healthy the entire season and passed for an NFL single-season record 5,476 yards. Brees considered that an act of faith in the Saints, and now he is expecting that faith be returned in the form of a contract that not only would give him the highest average annual salary in the game, but also guarantee a significant portion of his salary.A/P

Rockets trade Camby to NY Knicks

The Houston Rockets traded center Marcus Camby to the New York Knicks for guard Toney Douglas, centers Josh Harrelson and Jerome Jordan and future second-round picks.

when the NBA's moratorium on trades ended, Houston dealt point guard Kyle Lowry to Toronto for a future first-round lottery pick and forward Gary Forbes.
The Rockets have been collecting draft picks for a potential package to entice Orlando to send All-Star center Dwight Howard their way. The Lowry deal was in place several days ago, and the Camby deal was agreed to on Monday.
The 38-year-old Camby will return to New York, where he played from 1998-2002. Yahoo Sports reported that Camby's deal was for three years and $13.2 million.
The 6-foot-11 Camby was the No. 2 overall pick in the 1996 draft and became a fan favorite in New York before the Knicks dealt him to Denver in 2002. He should become a valuable backup at center to Tyson Chandler, last season's NBA Defensive Player of the Year.
The Rockets obtained Camby from Portland at last season's trading deadline. He averaged 7.1 points and 9.3 rebounds in 19 games.
Houston is also expected to sign Bulls center Omer Asik and Knicks guard Jeremy Lin to offer sheets. Chicago and New York will have three days to match the Rockets' offers.A/P

Lack of Interest in Alexander Semin?

Alexander Semin? He remains all but ignored on the free agent scrap heap 10 days into July.
Actually, being ignored would be an improvement for Semin, who has been savaged by critics this summer. The TSN panel for the Canadian sports network's free agency coverage on July 1  with Marc Crawford labeling Semin as a player with "no character" and "a complete loser." And he was the good cop. Pierre McGuire really laid  the hammer as the bad cop.

"This is not a great teammate, I'm telling ya right now," McGuire told viewers. "Not a good guy to have around your group unless you got unbelievably strong leadership. He's the ultimate coach killer, that's what he is."

Mark Gandler, Semin's agent, called the exchange "the worst I've ever heard an analyst say about any player" and threatened "to check with my attorney" over the perceived defamation.

Other than those possible chats with his lawyer, Gandler's phone lines haven't been burning up with calls as teams have largely steered clear of the enigmatic Russian star.

The closest Semin has come to a nibble was this candid admission by Carolina general manager Jim Rutherford after the Hurricanes lost out in the Parise sweepstakes and were rebuffed in efforts to trade for Columbus forward Rick Nash.

"We would look at Semin on a short-term basis," Rutherford told the Raleigh News and Observer. "We wouldn't want to get locked in to anything, because we've all heard the stories about him. We do like his skill level. It could be that we could bring him in for a year, get to know him and go from there in terms of considering something longer term."

And that was from a team that, according to captain Eric Staal, was just one elite forward away from being a contender.

"We've got some very good pieces in place, and if we can add, like they're saying, another elite forward, it will definitely put us in the mix among the top teams in the Eastern Conference," Staal told the News and Observer. "It's exciting. I hope they'll continue to push -- and not just grab anybody, but the right person for our group."

It doesn't seem like Semin, for all his skill, is viewed as the "right person" by anyone in the NHL, or at least not the right person to commit to with a multiyear deal. That's nothing new for Semin. After signing a two-year, $9.2 million deal with Washington in 2008, he's had to settle for one-year deals the past two seasons, albeit with raises to $6 million and $6.7 million, respectively.by douglas flynn