Associated Press
NEW YORK ó NBA owners held a conference call Thursday to receive an update on the lockout, a person with knowledge of the details said.
Also Thursday, the antitrust lawsuit filed by players in California was reassigned to U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti. The first case management conference has been scheduled for March 9.
Though that would be too late to save the season, the sides could request the date to be moved up, or they could settle before it ever got that point. Attorney David Boies, representing players in an antitrust lawsuit against the league in California, said he hoped it wouldnít be necessary to litigate the case all the way through.
Representatives for the players have also said the league could let the players return while negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement continued, though that seems unlikely.
The playersí association disbanded Monday, and players filed two lawsuits Tuesday, one each in California and Minnesota.
The conference call involving the leagueís Board of Governors was not in response to the litigation, but rather a planned update on the status of the collective bargaining negotiations, the person told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the details were to be kept private.
Former NBA guard Cuttino Mobley filed a lawsuit against Madison Square Garden, accusing the New York Knicks of pressuring him to retire as a way to save approximately $19 million.
Mobley retired because of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a heart disease, shortly after the Knicks acquired him from the Los Angeles Clippers on Nov. 21, 2008. He knew he had an irregularity with the heart, but an MRI exam the team ordered after his physical revealed the more serious condition.
The lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York contends the Knicks knew of Mobleyís condition but pushed to make the trade anyway, then sent him to specialists they knew would oppose him playing, so insurance could pay his contract and it wouldnít count against the luxury tax.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. ó Penn State campus police and their counterparts in State College said they had no record of Mike McQueary reporting an alleged sexual assault by Jerry Sandusky on a 10-year-old boy in a campus shower.
The details ran counter to McQuearyís claims in an email to former teammates and made available to The Associated Press this week.
McQueary, then a graduate assistant, wrote in the email that he had discussions with police about what he saw.
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. ó Penn State is turning to a member of its board of trustees who played football and wrestled for the school to serve as its acting athletic director in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal.
Dr. David M. Joyner, a business consultant and an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in sports medicine, will take over the job performed until last week by Tim Curley.
Curley is on leave as he defends himself against criminal charges that he failed to properly alert authorities when told Sandusky allegedly sodomized a young boy in the Penn State football showers in 2002, and that he lied to a grand jury.
SAILING
SAN DIEGO ó While reigning Americaís Cup champion skipper Jimmy Spithill spent a gorgeous afternoon proving heís human, Franceís Energy Team surprisingly edged two sailing powerhouses to come out on top after the opening day of the third stop of the new Americaís Cup World Series.
Energy Team, skippered by Yann Guichard, finished third, fifth and first in three fleet races to score 24 points and claim the top seed for the match racing championships. Emirates Team New Zealand, the overall ACWS leader coming into the San Diego regatta, was second with 23 points, while Oracle Racing-Spithill was third in the nine-boat fleet with 22.