Newsmakers

Surgery Lakers guard Steve Blake will undergo laparoscopic surgery on Wednesday to repair a torn abdominal muscle and will miss at least six to eight weeks. Blake has missed 10 games since Nov. 12. He averaged 5.1 points, 2.4 rebounds and 3.4 assists playing 26 minutes per game.

Richest The man who runs the resort that stages the Battle 4 Atlantis is ready to make his tournament the best of the preseason college basketball events. “This is the richest preseason tournament. Period,” said George Markantonis, president and managing director of the Atlantis megaresort. “Most tournaments don’t pay the schools anything. Nothing. Nada. All they do is give them a hotel room and their 22 seats of airfare. We knew there was no way we would be able to convince teams that it’s just better in the Bahamas, even if we got that NCAA exemption. There was no way we could just convert a ballroom into a basketball court and say: Trust us. So what you really need is a bit more firepower.” He said the resort dishes out almost $2 million in prize money. All eight teams get $150,000 just for taking the court.

Traded Real Salt Lake has traded top veterans Fabman Espindola and Jamison Olave to the New York Red Bulls in exchange for an undisclosed amount of allocation money. The 27-year-old Espindola was an MLS All-Star in 2012. He started 104 games for Real Salt Lake and registered 35 goals and 17 assists. The 31-year-old Olave appeared in 119 games and was 2010 MLS Defender of the Year.

• Toronto FC has acquired forward Justin Braun from Real Salt Lake for defender Aaron Maund. Braun has appeared in 110 regular- season games and has 24 goals over five seasons in Major League Soccer.

Honored Forward Alex Morgan is the U.S. Soccer Federation’s Female Athlete of the Year. The national team star won voting that was weighted equally between fans on Facebook, representatives from U.S. Soccer and the national media. She led Team USA this year with 28 goals.