Newsmakers
Re-signed The New York Knicks re-signed veteran forward Kenyon Martin. The 6-foot-9 Martin averaged 7.2 points and 5.3 rebounds over 23.9 minutes in 18 games (11 starts) with New York last season. In 12 playoff games, he averaged 5.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.42 blocks over 21.1 minutes.
Signed The Nashville Predators signed forward Nick Spaling to a one-year, $1.5 million contract. Spaling, 24, from Drayton, Ontario, tied for fourth with nine goals in 47 games last season.
Announced Phoenix center Brittney Griner will miss Saturday’s WNBA All-Star game while recovering from a sprained left knee she suffered earlier this month. Griner sat out the last five games and will be replaced on the Western Conference roster by Seattle’s Tina Thompson, who announced earlier this season that she would retire after the year. This will be her record ninth All-Star appearance.
Revealed New Rutgers athletic director Julie Hermann revealed in her online biography that she is a lesbian. Hermann took the job in May after 15 years as an associate athletic director at Louisville and spent part of this week in Chicago at Big Ten media days, with the Scarlet Knights set to join the conference next year. She answered questions about her biography, in which the last line reads that “Hermann and her partner Dr. Leslie Danehy are the proud parents of a seven-year-old son, Aidan.”
Suspended Serbian tennis player Viktor Troicki has been suspended for 18 months for refusing to submit to blood testing before the Monte Carlo Masters. The International Tennis Federation said he broke an anti-doping rule in April by “refusing or failing without compelling justification to submit to sample collection.” Troicki was told to provide a urine and blood sample. The ITF said in a statement the 27-year-old player gave a urine sample but told the doping control officer he was ill and didn’t want to give a blood sample.
Extended California women’s basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb received a two-year contract extension that takes her through the 2017-18 season after guiding the Golden Bears to the first Final Four appearance in program history.