Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski reports that the Los Angeles Lakers could “entice Paul and Howard to sign extensions” and may trade young center Andrew Bynum to get one of them.

Sources told Wojnarowski that “the Lakers and Hornets talked several days ago … but it was one of those circuitous conversations that left the sides unclear what it would take to get a deal done, and the talk ended with no formal offers.” The conversation will pick up again this week, the sources tell Wojnarowski.

Meanwhile, Bynum sounds ready to leave Southern California. He “has privately been heard to say this offseason that he wants his own team,” Wojnarowski reports. And he may end up getting that with the Magic or Hornets.

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The word from a EuroBasket senior writer is that 26-year-old Phoenix Suns point guard Aaron Brooks “was offered” to Israeli pro basketball team Maccabi Tel Aviv, which has won the Euroleague title five times and placed second eighttimes.

Brooks, a Seattle native, has been in the league since 2007 when the Houston Rockets drafted him. He moved to the Suns at the trading deadline this year in exchanged for Goran Dragic and a first-round pick, and averaged 10.7 points, 3.9 assists and 1.3 rebounds a game over theseason.

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Sources tell the site that the Blazers are interested in both Cleveland Cavaliers vice president of basketball operations David Griffin and Los Angeles Clippers vice president of basketball operations Neil Olshey.

Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski reported last week that Oklahoma City Thunder executive Troy Weaver had already interviewed and that the Blazers are also interested in ESPN analyst Chris Mullin, formerly vice president of basketball operations for the Golden State Warriors, and San Antonio Spurs assistant GM Dennis Lindsey for the job.

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The new rule isn’t freaking out Denver Nuggets free agent guard J.R. Smith. Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski reports that the freshly minted 26-year-old “is nearing an agreement on the richest contract in China Basketball Association history.”

Wojnarowski reports that “Smith would make more than $3 million to play the 2011-12 season with Shanxi, but lose his chance at unrestricted free agency prior to the start of the NBA season.”

Smith was drafted in the first round of the 2004 draft by the New Orleans Hornets out of high school. Last season, he averaged 12.3 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 2.2 assists for the Nuggets.

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That’s good news because Commissioner David Stern said that the two sides have “three weeks” to get a deal done without affecting anything, according to CBSSports.com.

According to the site, that was “the first publicly acknowledged deadline for a deal to be reached without canceling at least a portion of training camps or preseason.”

Union chief Billy Hunter told the site that he thinks “there’s more than enough time” to get an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement and not cancel training camps or preseason games.

Stern noted one thing the sides did agree on: “We agreed that we’re going to sit here for as many days as we can to see if we’re going to be able to make progress,” he said, CBS reports.

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The site notes that the players have come back with several suggestions to change the draft as well, including having the 15 teams with the worst recordscontinue to pick first through 15 and then select again with the 16th-30th picks.

Another proposal had the worst eight teams getting an extra first-round pick while the top eight teams wouldn’t get to pick till the start of the second round, the site reports.

SheridanHoops points out that the NBA has been without a third round since 1988.

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One Italian team decided to try and leverage Delfino’s heritage into a contract: According to Sportando, Bologna Basket is reporting that the owner of Virtus Bologna, Claudio Sabatini, has said that the team offered the 29-year-old a contract with an out clause in case the NBA season got underway.

“We were interested in him and we made an offer but we could not find an agreement,” Sabatini said, Bologna Basket reports.

Manu Ginobili played in Bologna from 2000-2002, but Sabatini denies that any proposal has been made to bring the San Antonio Spurs shooting guard back to town, Sportando notes.

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Sportando passes along a report by La Gazzetta dello Sport that Siena is “ready to make a big offer” for Bargnani when the NBA season is postponed, particularly if the team’s rival, reigning Italian champion Olimpia Milano, brings back New York Knicks forward Danilo Galllinari.

Bargnani is currently playing for the Italian national team at Eurobasket and is considering “to extend his insurance even for the period after Eurobasket to get ready for a proposal to play overseas if he decides to play somewhere else during the lockout.”

The 7-0 Bargnani averaged 21.4 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 0.7 blocked shots per game for Toronto last season.

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However, Los Angeles Lakers forward Ron Artest, who will likely soon be known as Metta World Peace, gave NBA fans a reason for hope Wednesday when he appeared on 710 ESPNLA radio Wednesday night: “A week ago I expected us not to play until January (or) February, but now I have a good feeling we might have one on time,” Artest told the station, according to ESPN Los Angeles. “It seems like we might possibly have a season. I’m hearing progress in these last couple days. I haven’t heard this all summer. I’ve heard people not even talking, going to meetings, showing up. But now I’m hearing some very good things and I’m very excited.”

Those good vibes are coming out of the meetings occurring in New York between league execs and the players union. Meanwhile, Artest, who will be seen on the upcoming season of “Dancing With the Stars,” is planning to join the Cheshire Jets in England after Thanksgiving if his vision of NBA ownership and player harmony doesn’t occur, the Los Angeles Times reports.

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ESPN New York reports that Anthony is thinking about getting his teammates that he only spent 27 games with last season together to work out. “Most likely I think as the month goes on, probably early October, well start getting guys together,” Anthony said, the site reports. “I’ll make it my duty to get guys together whether it’s in LA, New York or a neutral place.”

While that plan sounds like a thoughtful one, another one of Anthony’s brainstorms isn’t likely to become reality. The Brooklyn native suggests that players would like to go ahead and play ball while the negotiations take place: “Just let us play and continue to negotiate. That’s what we say,” Anthony said Tuesday, ESPN New York reports. “I want a deal done, we all want a deal done. We just want it to be fair for both parties. We want to play basketball at the end of the day. We don’t care about none of that other stuff. They could settle that; just let us play and continue to negotiate.”

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