Today's warnings : 21 July, 2008

Summer League action has provided a glimpse at some of the incoming rookies for 2008, Olympic teams are set and the last crumbs of free agency are still being devoured by the few with enough room in their bellies (salary caps) to fit them. Here's a round-up of your warnings for today:

• John Rillie has a great summary of the happenings in the world of Australian and Olympic basketball this week.
• Angola, the one-time punching bags of Charles Barkley (circa 1992), beat Serbia in an Olympic warmup match.
• Red's Army comes up with the worthwhile question: Did the '92 Dream Team ruin the NBA? Believe me, it's more than just a juicy headline and perhaps telling of the current and future state of international basketball.
• Once Were Sonics, now are Thunder...
• The Akron Police are going to be getting around on some King James bicycles!
• Bostjan Nachbar to play in Russia. "Already this summer, Tiago Splitter of Brazil, a first-round pick of the Spurs in 2007, and Goran Dragic of Slovenia, a second-round pick of the Spurs in 2008 whose rights were traded to the Suns, have opted for more lucrative deals in Europe than they'd be eligible for as rookies in the NBA.
  And four international players with NBA experience -- Carlos Delfino, Jorge Garbajosa, Pops Mensah-Bonsu and Juan Carlos Navarro -- have accepted offers from European teams that easily trumped the money NBA teams were willing to offer.
  "The NBA had better be careful," Nachbar said. "European teams are offering a lot of money. It's much more, considering there are no taxes, than what I could make signing for the mid-level exception."
• Josh Childress is seriously considering his European options (in Greece), unless someone throws a good contract his way quickly. Of course all of this talk of players going overseas must be of some concern, or at least thought-provoking, for my namesake Mr Stern. However, overall I think that this is nothing but good for world basketball. Sure, the NBA would like to retain as many top players as possible, but until the marquee players start heading overseas (say Dirk Nowitzki, Tony Parker or Pau Gasol for example), this is not a major problem for the NBA,
• Lakers fans will miss the intensity of Ronny Turiaf, but there simply isn't room in the rotation for him behind Odom, Gasol, Bynum, Radmanovic and Mihm -- at that price anyway.
• Get your feed of Raptors links from Cuzoogle.
• Final Summer League thoughts from the land of the Blazers. "Yes, Bayless tweaked his hand during that breathtaking, game-saving 36-point outburst against the Suns. But three team sources, including Bayless, insist he did not undergo any tests on his hand."