The fella they supposedly would like to grab the most is Washington Wizards center Brendan Haywood(notes), who has an expiring $6 million contract. The Wizards reportedly asked for Rudy Fernandez(notes) and Nicolas Batum(notes) in exchange. So the Blazers said nix on that.

A backup plan for the Blazers is the Chicago Bulls‘ Brad Miller(notes), but it appears that Chicago is becoming increasingly less interested in moving Miller as time passes.

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"We will not be averse to being active before the trading deadline,” Dumars told the AP. "But we’re definitely not going to be active just to be active. At this stage, it has to make sense for us going forward. We’re not looking for a short-term fix.”

It would take a lot to even have a short-term fix for the Pistons who will likely try to find a point guard a low-post player that is up on the trading block.

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Some had thought that salary-cap drop could be as much as $6 million or $7 million, according to ESPN, but that seems like an outsize number at this point. It is still expected that the cap will drop while simultaneously the streets swell the number of talented free agents becoming available this summer.

The current salary cap is $57.7 million and ESPN has dug up what a few teams are projecting to be the numbers for next season as they plan out their free-agent-signing strategies: The Miami Heat apparently has the biggest projected drop in the cap and is planning around a budget of $52 million. Meanwhile, the New York Knicks are banking on the number being closer to $53 million. And the New Jersey Nets are hoping things don’t drop that much and are projecting a budget of between $54 million and $55 million to work with.

Well, Donaghy made himself another foe this week, according to the New York Post. The lead negotiator and spokesman for the NBA’s referees, Lamell McMorris, has apparently had it up to here with Donaghy’s claims, which he trotted out on ESPN and "60 Minutes" this week.

McMorris is saying that not only is Donaghy a compulsive liar but that he made some threats against him, according to the Associated Press.

Abdul-Jabbar is currently employed by the Los Angeles Lakers but his role as a special assistant to head coach Phil Jackson has apparently decreased this season, according to the Los Angeles Times. Now the Memphis Grizzlies are apparently after him to come work for them. Rumor has it that the Grizzlies asked the Lakers if they could talk to the Hall of Famer and Los Angeles gave Memphis permission. That would explain what he was doing at the Grizzlies’ practice on Monday and why he supposedly had dinner with the Memphis big men on Sunday.

Abdul-Jabbar never ceases to surprise.

He apparently said last week, "It is vital that I start to memorize the plays." Um, yeah, that would be good. He went on to say, "I’ve been used to a certain system for 17 years, so I have to work on that. I still have a few days before we start."

Guess Shaq has been too busy hosting his own reality show to learn his plays. You’d think for $21 million, the Cavs would have a guy who would at least study his playbook more than a week before the season gets underway.

Bell is supposedly waiting to hear what a specialist in Chicago says about the hand. Meanwhile, he’s wrapping up the hand and practicing layups and three pointers. What ligament tear?

Bell is saying he’s split down the middle between the obligation he’s made to himself, his family, and his career and the obligation he’s made to the team. "Being a competitor and a businessman, I’m kind of split down the middle," he said. "Hopefully this (specialist) comes back, tells me I’m fine to play, and then I don’t have to make a decision.”

According to the New York Post, Johnson’s book alleges that Thomas went around the league spreading the rumor and trying to find proof that Magic was gay or bisexual after Johnson announced that he had HIV. Magic admits in the book that he went out of his way to blackball Thomas off of the initial Dream Team in 1992 that went on to win the gold medal at the Olympics in Barcelona.

Perhaps Magic felt so bad about that that he recommended Thomas to former Madison Square Garden President Steve Mills to take over the New York Knicks back in 2004. Of course, that ended up being a fiasco for both Thomas and the Knicks.

Thomas tells the Post that he and Magic used to go dinner along with Herb Williams whenever Johnson came to New York and stopped in at a Knicks game. Those days are over, fellas.

Meanwhile, some residents of Brooklyn, where the team is planning to move, are hoping that the team hits enough legal hurdles in its plans for a new arena and also finds Newark so welcoming that it will bag on its plan. Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who only needs to gain approval from other owners in order to take over the team, seems more interested in having a team in New York City’s five boroughs than in Newark, though.

Prokhorov apparently met up with a bunch of owners this week and NBA Comissioner David Stern is seeing no reason the basketball-loving fella who is worth $9.5 billion won’t be pass muster. Who woldn’t want that kind of cash around in these rough financial times?

So Ratner is one ownership vote that the richest man in Russia can count on when team owners meet to say yes or no on the deal. Before then, though, Prokhorov has to go through an extremely thorough background check that NBA Commissioner David Stern says some people classify as "invasive," but he wouldn’t, according to the New York Times.

The word is that Prokhorov’s background check will be slightly more detailed than the usual ownership transaction since he will be the first non-North American to take controlling interest in any team of the NFL, Major League Baseball, and NBA since Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi took over the Seattle Mariners in 1992.

Prokhorov begins his attempt to woo NBA owners when he meets with the league’s advisory and finance committee in Manhattan on Wednesday.