TORONTO – For all the endless bus rides to empty gymnasiums, the paydays when the owner couldn’t cut checks, the most trying turn of Jamario Moon’s journey had to be the passes the Harlem Globetrotters tossed toward the rafters. The lobs arched 15 feet in the air, tumbling over the side of the backboard, the shot clock and leaving a leaping Moon reaching higher and higher to deliver the deed.

Night after night, gym after gym, the Globetrotters told him to take that freakish leaping ability and flush those dunks on demand. His knees ached and his stomach fluttered and Moon had come to understand those silly, staged games with the Globetrotters tested his resolve and resilience, his professionalism and persistence.

“If you didn’t get those dunks, they would release you,” Moon said. “Wherever they threw the ball, you had to get it. And I don’t care how young you are, that takes an incredible toll on your body. You’ve got to be upbeat every night. You’ve got to smile. You’ve got perform.

There was no migraine headache holding Jason Kidd out of the New Jersey Nets' loss to the New York Knicks Wednesday night, but a superstar sending a message to a floundering franchise that he's irate with management and teammates, several league sources told Yahoo! Sports.

As the Nets flew back to New Jersey late Tuesday from a victory over Cleveland, sources said Kidd already had decided he would be sitting out against the Knicks in the Meadowlands. Kidd didn't tell Nets officials until Wednesday afternoon, but several people inside and outside the organization were made aware of the meaning behind his sick day.

Kidd's agent, Jeff Schwartz, isn't believed to have formally demanded a trade, but Wednesday's bold act could be the precursor to starting that process. Two sources said Kidd has been a constant text messaging partner with LeBron James since playing with him this summer on Team USA and that the Cavaliers are his preferred destination.

"They've been communicating about the

TORONTO – Two thousand miles away, an old Western Conference rival had empathy for Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo over this medical mess with Jorge Garbajosa. RC Buford and Colangelo aren't buddies, but they happen to be two of the elite executives in the sport. Together, they have a history for mining the globe for the game's best talent.

Most of all, Buford believes they share this now: Toronto's fight to protect its investment in its injured Spanish forward is a scrap that should matter to everyone in the sport.

"This is a huge dilemma for the league," Buford said Thursday night.

CLEVELAND – LeBron James walked out of the night with a snarl curled on his lips, his angry words to Kevin Garnett still lingering in the raucous roar of a standing ovation. He is playing out of his mind, the best basketball in the world, and something about these Celtics inspired a rage to rise within him. Garnett has come to take James’ championship dream, and it wouldn’t be long until it was getting nasty on Tuesday night, until LeBron was barking back at Garnett for some slight, some indiscretion.

The thing is, James doesn’t want to be buddies with the Celtics. He refuses to call them the Big Three. Above all, LeBron isn’t interested in bowing before Boston and surrendering the Eastern Conference.

“Nobody in here is afraid of anything,” he grumbled in the locker room.

Around him at the Q Arena, there wasn’t so much talent Tuesday night, but he doesn’t care. The rest of the NBA wants perfect circumstances, rosters to make life easier for them. Yes, James has urged GM Danny Ferry to

Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that Isiah Thomas is still employed as the president and coach of the New York Knicks, as there are three things that those familiar with Madison Square Garden chairman Jim Dolan believe are most important to him.

So far, Thomas hasn't hurt Cablevision's stock prices.

He hasn't been disloyal.

And he hasn't killed ticket sales.

NEW YORK – From across the gym, Don Nelson heard his most beloved player's description of him and bellowed to Stephen Jackson, "Older white guy?" The Golden State Warriors' un-exiled star held his arms to his sides, palms up, as though stumped for a comeback. Jackson started laughing, his teammates roared too, and he finally barked back to Golden State's coach.

"Well, I didn't want to say old man."

Nelson doubled over in laughter, and here was the reason that Jackson is so indebted to him, why in a lot of ways he played the best basketball of his life for him a year ago.

"It's amazing that an older white guy understands me more than anybody I've been around in my whole life," Jackson said. "He sees through all the tattoos and all the stuff people say about me. He knows how I love the game."

Over the summer, Jackson was visiting friends in New York when Nelson called with a question that no coach had asked him since high school.

Did he want to be a captain?

For a moment, Jackson slipped

No, the kid never was going to be the next Nash or Stockton, but he was going to be the best point guard my old college buddy's small Division I program had in years. I still can hear him talking about pulling his car into a hotel parking lot at 8 o'clock on that brutal Las Vegas summer morning, and discovering that recruit he had to have, Brian Dux, running himself through dribbling drills before a long day of AAU tournament games in the desert.

This was nine years ago, and Mike MacDonald, then the coach at Canisius College, told me on the phone, "I've got to get this kid."

Dux was a puny point guard out of Orchard Park, a Buffalo suburb, and oh how MacDonald desperately wanted to coach him. He was 6-foot nothing then, and he had maybe two or three scholarship offers. Dux did go to Canisius and had a wonderful career, becoming the second player in program history to go for more than 1,000 points and 500 assists. He'd become all-conference in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, and

Back on opening night, the NBA had planned a fabulous scene in San Antonio. The commissioner had come to pass out championship rings to the Spurs, and Greg Oden would be watching with the Portland Trail Blazers, waiting on Tim Duncan and thinking about the chance he had to be a champion someday.

Yet Oden would go down for the season before training camp, undergo microfracture surgery and never make the trip. Suddenly, one of the best young minds in the sport, Kevin Pritchard, had a touch of tarnish to his brief, golden run as Portland GM. He had made every bright move possible in restoring this wretched franchise, but there harbored a belief that true judgment wouldn't come until Oden had proven that he wasn't a broken-down mistake.

"That's the least of my worries," Pritchard said. "He's on our team. He's our guy. We're going to do the best we can to make him successful. I worry about a lot of things, but Greg Oden is not one of them."

Just two weeks ago, most of us were conditioned to