Liu, Chinese Men Win Asian Championships
The Chinese men easily captured the team and all-around title as competition began Sunday at the 5th Asian Championships in Putian, China, where the North Korean team finally resurfaced after a two-year international ban.
Men's all-around medalists Zhou, Liu and Ko
The young Chinese team made a few mistakes but still won the team title by nearly 15 points, earning 361.50 to Japan's 346.40. Japan, North Korea and South Korea battled for the silver and bronze. In the end, Japan edged North Korea by just 0.1 and South Korea by 0.3 to take the silver medal.
Liu Rongbing, 20, topped teammates Zhou Shixiong and Lin Chaopan with less than a one-point margin to win the all-around title. Liu, the 2012 Pacific Rim pommel horse champion, also topped pommel horse and high bar qualifications.
The Chinese earned the three-highest scores, but the two-per-country rule meant the all-around bronze went to South Korea's Ko Ye-Darm instead of Lin.
Outside of the host team's dominance, the biggest buzz in Putian was the return of North Korea following a two-year ban by the International Gymnastics Federation. In 2010, the FIG following the expiration of the two-year suspension the FIG handed down in 2010 after accusing the federation of falsifying the age of gymnast Hong Su Jong at several competitions.
North Korea sent full teams to Putian including 2008 Olympic vault champion Hong Un Jong and vault specialist Ri Se Gwang. The 27-year-old Ri is still able to stand up his namesake vaults (Tsukahara full-in) and a piked Dragulescu (double pike front with half twist), both of 7.2 Difficulty scores and easily topped vault qualification with a wide margin.
The legendary Pae Gil Sue, world and Olympic champion on pommel horse, traveled to Putian as team manager.
Japan and South Korea sent younger teams to this meet than China did. Japanese supertwister Kenzo Shirai, 16, led floor qualifications with a 6.7 D score, followed by Korean national high school champion, 17-year-old Lee Jun-Ho.
China's Zhou Shixiong was first in parallel bars qualification with a 7.1 D score/9.1 Execution score (peach full with extra quarter turn to the outside rail; stutz, peach full to giant to peach half; giant full at end to Tippelt; uprise to manna to double front-half dismount). Zhou is a graduate of Li Ning's Gymnastics Academy, the only private gymnastics school at elite level in China. First on rings was Yang Shengchao of China.
Competition continues Monday in Putian with the women's team and all-around events.
Eccentric Tech Wizard Wanted for Questioning in Belize Slay
John McAfee, the tech wizard who developed the McAfee anti-virus software in the 1980s and helped pioneer instant messaging in the 1990s, is wanted for questioning by Belize Police in connection with the murder of a neighbor and fellow American expatriate.
Police say 52-year-old Gregory Faull was found dead in his tropical island hacienda on Sunday -- discovered lying face down in a pool of blood by his housekeeper. Police say he was shot in the back of the head. Gang Suppression Unit commander Marco Vidal told ABC News that McAfee was one of several individuals wanted for questioning. Belize Police spokesman Raphael Martinez also said that McAfee is one of several "persons of interest" in the inquiry.
But McAfee told Wired magazine he was innocent, and that he watched police search his property from a hole he'd buried in the sand – covering himself with a cardboard box. "It was extremely uncomfortable," he told Wired, adding, 'You can say I'm paranoid about it but they will kill me, there is no question. They've been trying to get me for months."
He said Belizean authorities had targeted him, but killed the wrong American. Authorities in Belize denied any wrongdoing, telling ABC News they are just trying to investigate the murder and McAfee's possible connection.
McAfee and Faull lived in adjacent lots on the Belizean jungle island of Ambergris Caye and had traded barbs and nearly blows over McAfee's nine dogs. Faull's father, Arthur Faull, told ABC News his son had demanded that McAfee quiet them down. McAfee allegedly threatened Faull that the next time he set foot on his property he'd shoot him. Faull promptly filed a complaint. He was shot a few days later.
McAfee's life began unraveling in 2008, when he lost most of his estimated $100 million fortune in the combined collapse of the stock market and real estate market. He auctioned off everything he owned in an open auction filmed by ABC News Nightline.
He then moved to Belize, where he established a company that sought to transform jungle plants into modern medicine. That company began to fall apart in 2010, after an investor fled the country.
The combative McAfee kept running afoul of police. In May, said Vidal, his teams raided McAfee's home and lab, finding an unknown substance thought to be narcotics, which McAfee insisted was a natural antibiotic. He was not charged with a crime.
According to freelance writer Jeff Wise, who profiled McAfee's decline on the website Gizmodo.com, McAfee had become deeply enmeshed in the world of gangs, narcotics and arms. Wise told ABC News McAfee had become something of a prophet of "bath salts," crowing about the "super perv powder" and the drug's erotic effects on various hardcore drug message boards.
Bath salts, synthetic drugs that can mimic the effects of cocaine, have been linked to numerous bizarre and violent incidents in the U.S.
Sullinger gets second straight start for Celtics, against Wizards
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Jason Terry scored 16 points in 32 minutes, but his defense was something to talk about in the Celtics’ 100-94 overtime victory. |
Jared Sullinger, 20, who became one of the youngest starters ever for the Celtics last week at Washington, made his second successive start in Wednesday’s rematch against the Wizards.
But the Celtics went with veterans in crunch time as they took a 100-94 overtime victory over the Wizards.
Brandon Bass, who started the first two games of the season before being replaced by Sullinger, broke a 92-92 tie with 5 points over a 1:44 span as the Celtics closed out the game.
The Celtics went with a lineup of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo, Jason Terry, and Bass in overtime.
“I thought [Terry] was terrific,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. “And, you know, it’s funny, we left Jason in because he was playing great defense. That may be a first in his career that that’s ever been said about Jason Terry. But he was terrific. I thought the ball pressure, and he did a lot of good things, defensively. And when he does that, with his shot, we keep him on the floor, because he gives you a shooter’s chance all night.”
Sullinger had 4 points and 4 rebounds in 24 minutes.
“I do like Jared, he gives us a rebounder and another passer,” Rivers said before the game. “Right now, at this point in his career, he’s not looking to score but he will score. Scoring happens for him and it’s a good fit.
“It’s been proven if you’re a great rebounder in college, you’re usually a great rebounder in pros, or anywhere. It’s almost an instinct. If you’re a rebounder you’re a rebounder. He’s good at it, the ball hits his hands, it sticks.”
The Celtics selected Sullinger with the 21st pick in the draft.
“Character is really important,” Rivers said of evaluating draft-eligible players. “If that’s the reason I would say most of the time we would pass. But it wasn’t a character issue with Jared. It was health.”
Saved by Wilcox
Chris Wilcox added 6 points in 3 minutes, 41 seconds late in the third quarter, his most productive stint since returning from heart surgery.
“Chris played great for us – great minutes,” Garnett said. “It’s inspirational to see someone get a chance to do something they love and do it passionately. It’s moving and I’m just glad he had a great night.”
Said Rivers: “I thought Chris Wilcox saved the game for us, single-handedly, with his effort.
“But we’ve got to get more guys that play harder, better. I don’t care about ‘well,’ you know. I don’t care if we play ‘well’ or not, because that’s just human. If you can make shots or not, it happens.
But we just have to play with a better focus and we’ve got to run our schemes better.”
Youth served?
Rivers on last year’s Celtics rookies, JaJuan Johnson and E’Twaun Moore, who were traded before the season: “I know [Johnson] has the talent and told him that this summer. He’s going to either have to pull it out of himself or he’ll be [in the D League]. I do believe he has NBA talent. E’Twaun, on the other hand, is playing unbelievable. He was ahead of JaJuan last year and it had nothing to do with individual talent, it had to do with mental makeup. E’Twaun is a smart kid, gets it, and JaJuan has to figure it out.”
Small business
Rivers on the Celtics’ “small” lineups: “If I can get [a big] that runs and jumps and has a sky hook, I’ll take him. It’s one of those periods where there are not many great bigs. There are bigs, just not a lot of great ones, you know. This generation of coaches, we’ve all decided just play your best five. If you can’t have a traditional lineup, play the best five and play chicken some nights. And I think that’s what we’re all trying to do.” . . . Rivers spent Tuesday night following election results and watching the film “Argo.” “That was a good night if you’re a supporter of the president, which I am,” Rivers said. “Nerve-racking. I went to a movie in the middle of it because I couldn’t take it anymore. I was getting texts from people and I didn’t believe that, either. I was tuning into Karl Rove, it was unbelievable. “Then I got a text in the middle of it that [President Obama] won, so I left, and didn’t see the end [of the movie]. So, that really [makes me mad]. I’ll have to see it twice. Like ‘Titanic’ — you know the ending, but it’s still a good movie.”
Andrew Bynum sits; Sixers willing to wait
PHILADELPHIA – Here unfolded the ferocious, final minutes of the opening night that this Philadelphia 76ers franchise had fantasized for itself: The 7-footer with the big hair reaching into rafters, blocking shots, bobbing for baskets and the Wells Fargo Center sellout crowd letting loose with an "MVP… MVP…" chant to punctuate a victory.
It wasn't the outgrown afro of Andrew Bynum, but the magnificent mullet of Spencer Hawes delivering an inspiring performance in an 85-75 victory over the Denver Nuggets. Bynum is the future of this franchise, an All-Star center plucked down in the middle of this Eastern Conference, a weapon the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics remain without.
The Sixers had expected Bynum to be prepared for the start of training camp, but a knee procedure didn't allow it. They expected him to be healed for Wednesday night, but his knee still hurts, and they won't let him play until the pain stops. The Sixers have turned the franchise over to Bynum, turned over the promise, the possibilities, of contending in the East.
For now, the Sixers have a chance to stay competitive without him. With Bynum, they're an enormous threat in the Eastern Conference. Jrue Holiday is 23 years old, Bynum still 24, and there's a core of talent that will be a problem for everyone in the East.
For everything that had come with Hawes' 16 points, 12 rebounds and five blocks in Wednesday's 84-75 victory over the Denver Nuggets, he understands he has a chance to be the great beneficiary of playing with Bynum. As Sixers coach Doug Collins would say, Hawes was one of the important reasons the Sixers had their terrific start a season ago, and it was no coincidence that the team's struggles paralleled Hawes going down midseason with a heel injury.
After a summer of working relentlessly on a 3-point shot – he hit two of three on Wednesday night – Hawes waits for a center, Bynum, who'll make his life so much easier next to him at times this season.
"What we've got to realize is this: We don't know what life is like with him yet," Hawes said. "In the mean time, we've been together for six weeks with his new group. We've had time to jell and mesh. We've got to hold down the fort until he gets back."
Around the Sixers' locker room, they love Bynum's presence. From afar, they could never tell. "When he was out in LA, he didn't get a lot of the individual attention," Hawes said. "Maybe it was more about Kobe [Bryant], or [Pau] Gasol, or someone else, but we've seen here what a great personality he has, what a teammate he's going to be for us."
[Also: Kevin Garnett ignores Ray Allen, fake-throws elbow at Mario Chalmers (VIDEO)]
Bynum came to the Sixers in the trade that sent Dwight Howard to the Lakers. (Reuters)For everyone clamoring for Bynum on opening night In Philadelphia, Hawes and the rest of these Sixers gave him the kind of night, the kind of performance that makes it easier to wait on him. Around the organization, they remember Bynum at the opening news conference in downtown Philadelphia in a big public rotunda, and how he relished that it was suddenly about him. No more Kobe Bryant. No more Pau Gasol.
Bynum is the star here, and Sixers management marveled over his grace and command of the moment. A thousand people had shown for the event, and they saw how Bynum noticed the roar that let go when he suggested he could imagine signing a contract extension next summer to stay here for a long time.
Until he's on the floor again – until he proves he can stay on it – there will be justifiable concerns about that right knee, about his history of problems, about whether the big deal to bring Bynum here will be Elton Brand all over again.
For now, though, the Sixers insist they're being prudent and patient. It won't be too long until the big noise in the Wells Fargo Center, the chants of MVP, will belong to Bynum. For now, the rest of these Sixers work to hold down the season and hang in contention in the East, but eventually Andrew Bynum will have his own opening night, and that will change everything.
Taj Gibson agrees to $38M deal
CHICAGO -- Chicago Bulls forward Taj Gibson said Wednesday night he agreed to a four-year, $38 million extension after the Bulls' 93-87 win against Sacramento.
"I looked at the numbers," Gibson said. "That's a lot of money. I can't really turn down that much money. Especially for the security, you never know what can happen all through the year."
Earlier Wednesday, Gibson said he was not optimistic about getting an extension done before the midnight deadline. After the Bulls' win, Gibson explained his decision-making process.
"You just do want to see what else is out there (in the free-agency market), but then you look (and think) you don't want to be in some hell hole somewhere just chasing the bucks," Gibson said. "It's a great team here, family, organization. I just made a decision that would help me and my family.
"At the end of the day, I asked my agent (Mark Bartelstein), 'What do you think?' 'Don't give me the bullcrap, just be real with me,' and he was real with me. He said, 'I don't want you to turn this down.' He said, 'I know we can probably get more this summer, but it's all about if you're happy or not.' And he said, 'I want you to take this; it's too much of a risk to go out there, you never know what can happen.' "
Bulls GM Gar Forman and Bartelstein worked throughout the game to get the deal done. The negotiations went down to the final hour as Gibson met again with the Bulls' front office right after the game. He found out the deal was going to get hammered out before he had even taken a shower and admitted a huge weight had been lifted off his back.
“It's very well deserved. I see Taj's grind every day. And I know how much he fights every night to represent for the Bulls. That's just the icing on the cake.
” -- Bulls forward Joakim Noah, on teammate Taj Gibson's contract extension with Chicago
"It's a load off my back now," he said. "I'm just focused back on basketball."
Gibson also acknowledged that the knee injury Derrick Rose suffered weighed heavily on his mind as he decided whether or not to accept the offer.
"That played on my mind," Gibson admitted. "The fact that it's even a longer season (than last year) and a lot of ups and downs knowing that any given moment I could pull a groin, I could hurt my knee, knock on wood, just having that security that (the contract) is going to be there no matter what, that was the main thing. I just didn't want to go out there and basically just get hurt."
Bartelstein said that he and Forman continued negotiating throughout the game. By the time the pair hammered out the language of the contract, there were just minutes to spare to get it to the league office to beat the midnight ET deadline.
"Taj's eyes were literally on the clock and he kept saying, 'Are we there yet?'" Bartelstein said during a phone conversation early Thursday morning.
Bartelstein, like Gibson, ultimately decided that there was just too much money on the table to walk away from.
"It's good for Taj," the veteran agent said. "Now he can just relax and go play basketball."
A league source said that Gibson's deal is actually for $34 million guaranteed and with different escalators in the contract it could reach as high as $39 million over the next four years.
Chicago Bulls Blog
The news of Gibson's agreement spread quickly in the locker room. Carlos Boozer screamed that Gibson was buying the whole team steaks. As Gibson entered the doorway into the shower area, Joakim Noah exclaimed, "WUUUUUU!" given that Gibson is affectionately known by his teammates as Tajy Wu. The joy over the news Gibson had finally gotten paid was palpable throughout the locker room.
"I'm happy, man," Noah said. "That's my young boy. Taj is my young boy ... I'm really happy. It's very well deserved. I see Taj's grind every day. And I know how much he fights every night to represent for the Bulls. That's just the icing on the cake. I've been through it so I know it's an unbelievable feeling. It's a very stressful situation, too, because a lot of people are telling you what you should do, what you shouldn't do. But at the end of the day, there's very few people that get it. It's a very unique situation to be in. But with that amount of money comes a lot of responsibility, but Taj is a hard worker and somebody who really deserves (the deal)."
The interesting part of Gibson's comments is that he admitted he would eventually like to start. With that in mind, it is a near certainty that Boozer will be waived via the amnesty clause before the end of his contract in three years. Boozer was always the likely candidate for the amnesty clause given his hefty salary. But since Gibson is still just 27 and the Bulls would be very hesitant to pay two power forwards almost $30 million a season, Gibson's deal is likely the final nail toward Boozer's future with the Bulls.
An Owner With Some Eyebrow-Raising Moves
On the day he elevated Garth Snow from backup goaltender to general manager in 2006, Charles B. Wang, the Islanders’ owner, conceded that the move was unorthodox but said that much of his business career had been based on doing things differently.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Charles B. Wang, the Islanders’ owner, wanted to try out sumo wrestlers as goaltenders, a former Islanders executive said.
Of course, what some call unorthodox strikes others as, well, eccentric or weird. Shifting Snow from the goal crease to the front office has not restored the franchise to glory. In the years since, the team has made one playoff appearance and has had five consecutive postseason-free losing seasons.
But then Wang was, from the start, a basketball fan and a hockey novice. Mike Milbury, a former general manager of the Islanders, recalled that Wang wanted to get rid of the team’s scouts (to rely on the league’s central scouting system) and try out sumo wrestlers as goaltenders.
“He assumed that nobody could put a goal past a sumo wrestler,” Milbury said in a telephone interview from Boston. But, Milbury added, Wang’s heart was in the right place. “He was a man of his word, a guy who desperately wanted to keep the team on the Island,” he said.
Wang was unable to secure a renovated or new arena in Uniondale. But the announcement on Wednesday that he has agreed to join the Nets in 2015 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn means that the franchise is still, geographically, on Long Island.
“Hello, Brooklyn!” he said at a news conference at Barclays, wearing a blue pinstriped suit and an Islanders tie.
Wang, who made his fortune in the computer software business, will remain the sole owner of the Islanders. He said he did not offer to sell a portion of the team to Bruce Ratner, the majority owner of the arena, and Ratner did not ask. The team will not become the Brooklyn Islanders, and Snow will remain the general manager.
Wang and his partner Sanjay Kumar were an odd couple, certainly in sports ownership, when they acquired the team in 2000. Wang was born in Shanghai, grew up in Flushing and attended Queens College. Kumar — who by 2007 would be in federal prison for securities fraud — immigrated from Sri Lanka. They were running Computer Associates International, a software maker that Wang had co-founded.
On the day they took control, Wang offered a vow typical of owners buying losing teams: to restore it to first-class status.
But, he said, “We are not medicine men promising a very quick cure.” He chided the Rangers for their high payroll, and with a gleeful smile, said, “Ooh, that’s mean to Chuck,” referring to Charles F. Dolan, the head of Cablevision, the Rangers’ owner.
Over time, though, Wang has more than matched Dolan in the volume of turnover in senior management.
Wang’s second general manager, Neil Smith, was fired after 40 days.
“His vision of how he wanted the organization to work internally, and mine, were total opposites and it couldn’t work,” said Smith, who built the Rangers team that won the 1994 Stanley Cup and is now a television analyst. “He owned the team, and he won.”
But owning the team has been a losing proposition. By 2003, Wang admitted that the Islanders had lost $52.2 million on his watch.
“The team has to be self-sustaining,” he said. “This is not a church that will stay open forever.”
The doors to the church stayed open, however. By 2009, he told Newsday that he would not have bought the team if knew how difficult it would be, with playing at the aging Nassau Coliseum and failing to get a new or renovated arena. By then, Newsday reported, he had spent $209 million to keep the team solvent. None of that should have made any sense to Wang, who has a mathematics degree. By then he had accumulated more in losses than what he and Kumar had paid for the team: $187.5 million.
Wang’s penchant for some peculiar long-term contracts might forever cling to him.
In 2001, he signed Alexei Yashin to a 10-year, $87.5 million contract. But Yashin was not the superstar Wang hoped for, and Wang paid him nearly $18 million to buy out the remaining four years of the deal.
Milbury said he wished he had balked at the deal, “but it was his money.” Soon after, Wang gave Michael Peca a five-year deal; Milbury said he managed to talk Wang out of giving Peca 10 years, too.
Five years later, Wang wielded his checkbook to give the goaltender Rick DiPietro what was, until then, the longest contract in National Hockey League history: $67.5 million over 15 years. At the time, Wang said that “this is not a big deal,” and that it was no different than some other major commitments in his business career.
“Now I’m doing it in sports and everybody is like: ‘Oh, my God. How could he do that?’ ”
People are still asking that; the often-injured DiPietro has not lived up to Wang’s hopes for him.
The same could be said for his team, which will be a lame duck at a substandard arena for three years. The future will be one in which his landlord, Ratner, is a friend who shares his passion for photography.
“I’m a tenant,” Wang said, but in the sort of arena that he aspired to build, without success.
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