Briefly
The NBA is going “all-in” with its All-Stars.
The 2007 NBA All-Star game is headed to Las Vegas, the first time a city without a franchise has been chosen to host the event.
The festivities will take place just off the Strip, at the Thomas & Mack Center on the UNLV campus.
Commissioner David Stern called it “a merger between the basketball capital of the world and the entertainment capital of the world” during a news conference Friday while downplaying any concern about linking the image-conscious NBA with Sin City and gambling.
“If I were concerned, I wouldn’t be doing it,” he said.
Casinos will not take bets on any All-Star events under a ban proposed by the NBA and approved in June by state gambling regulators.
Such bans are not unprecedented in Las Vegas. The Palms hotel-casino does not accept bets on professional basketball games because it is owned by the Maloof family, which also owns the Sacramento Kings.
Memphis and New Orleans also submitted bids to host the 2007 game, but Stern said the league wanted to expand its reach.
•Free-agent guard Rick Brunson signed with the Seattle SuperSonics, his seventh different team in a seven-year NBA career.
•The Milwaukee Bucks re-signed forward Toni Kukoc to a one-year contract.
•Guard Damon Stoudamire signed a four-year contract with the Memphis Grizzlies, who traded Jason Williams and Bonzi Wells earlier this week.
The 10-year veteran spent the past eight seasons in Portland. He is coming off his best season with the Trail Blazers, averaging 15.8 points and 5.7 assists and shooting 91.5 percent from the free-throw line.
Hydroplane racing
Villwock qualifies first
Dave Villwock drove Ellstrom Manufacturing to the top qualifying speed for Sunday’s Chevrolet Cup at the Seafair unlimited hydroplane race at Seattle.
Villwock averaged 150.662 mph over the 2-mile oval course on Lake Washington.
Villwock was followed by Jean Theoret, aboard LLumar Window Film, at 144.749 mph.
College sports
Brand gets extension
The NCAA executive committee gave president Myles Brand a two-year contract extension through 2009.
The deal also includes an indefinite two-year rollover clause. Brand’s term was to end Dec. 31, 2007.
•Texas Tech coach Bob Knight criticized the NCAA during videotaped testimony at an antitrust trial, contending the governing body wants to get rid of the NIT.
His testimony was considered a key part of a case brought against the NCAA by five New York schools that sponsor the preseason and postseason National Invitation Tournament, which has long been eclipsed by the NCAA’s championship event. The semifinals and final of the NIT are played at Madison Square Garden.
“I have felt as long as I have been in coaching that the NCAA has wanted to eliminate the NIT,” Knight said in a deposition played in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Thursday. As for the NCAA, he added, “it’s a monopoly.”
Tennis
Peng shocks Clijsters
Kim Clijsters lost in the United States for the first time in nearly two years, dropping a 6-4, 6-4 decision to unseeded Shuai Peng of China in the quarterfinals of the Acura Classic at Carlsbad, Calif.
Peng beat her third straight seeded opponent.
•Lindsay Davenport and Serena Williams withdrew from next week’s JPMorgan Chase Open.
Sports people
Tech extends Hewitt
Georgia Tech men’s basketball coach Paul Hewitt received a one-year contract extension that would keep him with the Yellow Jackets through the 2010-11 season. Hewitt received an extension of the six-year contract he agreed to before the 2004 Final Four. That deal pushed his annual salary to more than $1 million. … Former South Carolina defensive lineman Moe Thompson, who is facing burglary charges, was granted permission by a judge to continue his college football career at Grambling State. … University of Oregon defensive end Devlin Bayne has been suspended indefinitely for violation of team rules, coach Mike Bellotti announced. … Jim O’Hora, a Penn State center in the 1930s who went on to coach the defense on three undefeated Nittany Lions football squads in the 1960s and 1970s, died at 90 in a nursing home in State College, Pa.