NBA san antonio Spurs

It's July 1st, which means the free-agent season has officially begun in the NBA. While some teams have made legitimate and official contact with players, there are some others where rumors and speculation continue to be all we have in trying to figure out what may be on their minds.

Not every rumor deserves our attention, but a couple that popped up Wednesday regarding the Lakers' Lamar Odom seem to make so little sense, that they need to be, at the very least, touched upon.

There was a lot of activity in the NBA this week, and we're not just talking about the draft. Some of the NBA's big names and better teams were in on it.

Here's a quick look at the trades that went down and what they mean:

The Deal: Phoenix sends Shaquille O'Neal to Cleveland for Sasha Pavlovic, Ben Wallace, a second-round pick in 2010 and cash.

The Thinking: The Cavaliers get an aging O'Neal, with the hope that he can have a productive year playing alongside LeBron James. The only way this trade is a success is if the Cavaliers are the 2009-10 NBA champions. For the Suns, trading O'Neal means that they are beyond tinkering and are leaning toward turning over the personnel of a team that missed the playoffs last season.

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The NBA Draft started with a no-brainer -- Blake Griffin going No. 1 overall to the Los Angeles Clippers. Then, the fun happened, with Memphis taking Hasheem Thabeet and the Timberwolves' vexing decision to horde as many point guards as they could. A few other teams lucked out when players dropped down the board and into their laps. Check out the grades for the Western Conference after the jump.

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DeJuan Blair was one of the toughest players in the NCAA this year. He broke all sort of unofficial rebounding marks, manhandled No. 2 pick Hasheem Thabeet in front of the entire NBA, and gave some of the best interviews you've ever seen. His wingspan measured well in Chicago, and he dropped a ton of weight between the end of Pitt's season and the combine. He's an absolute beast.

But a bad MRI has been going around, and Blair -- who was considered a potential lottery pick this morning -- fell all the way out of the first round. And he kept falling. Past Portland for a third time, past Washington, past Memphis, past Detroit ... all the way to the Spurs at No. 37. It's the vogue thing to say Blair will now proceed to destroy the NBA. But it's also the accurate thing to say. Blair will now proceed to destroy the NBA.

Just hours after being traded from the Spurs to the Bucks, Fabricio Oberto is reportedly on the move yet again, this time going to the Detroit Pistons in exchange for Amir Johnson. The deal has yet to be officially announced by either team, but multiple outlets, including Sean Deveney of Sporting News, who broke the story, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, cite unnamed sources within the Bucks organization confirming the deal. (Update: It's official.)

As if being traded twice in one day wasn't enough, Oberto should probably wait by the phone; his contract is only partially guaranteed, meaning the Pistons have the option of waiving him before July 1 and only be on the hook for $1.9 million of the $3.8 million he'd otherwise be owed.

San Antonio needed a major infusion of offensive talent this season, and it appears the team has found it. Multiple league reports indicate the Spurs have traded for Milwaukee's Richard Jefferson, sending away only bit players Bruce Bowen (age 38), Kurt Thomas (age 36) and Fabricio Oberto (age 34), according to Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski.

Jefferson has been in Wisconsin for one year, following last June's draft day trade which sent Yi Jianlian and others to New Jersey. Jefferson has always been a moderately efficient scorer, and he should provide some relief for Tony Parker and Tim Duncan in the Spurs starting line-up. He's not quite an ace defender, but he played hard for Scott Skiles last season and hasn't missed a game in two seasons.

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Some things figure. The Southwest Division is considered the NBA's toughest – or at least it is by some – so it's no wonder most of the teams in it aren't involved at the top of the draft.

One team isn't involved at all. But the Memphis Grizzlies – selecting at No. 2 – in some ways will dictate the direction of the thing. Will the Grizz take Ricky Rubio or not? That's the big question.

All rumors involving the Spurs are interesting, and not just because of the team's status as one of the league's best year after year (after year after year). San Antonio does things differently, and ape as other franchises might try, no one can quite replicate the funky method to the Buford/Popovich madness. Even if a rumor susses out false, the anatomy and evolution of said rumor deserves attention. Every bit of understanding helps.

As such, the burgeoning rumor placing Olympiakos center Yiannis Bouroussis in a Spurs uniform for three years, $10-12 million, as reported by 48 Minutes of Hell and backed up by Greek sources ... that makes you pay attention. S.A. is always always looking for an appropriate running mate for Tim Duncan, and anyone who follows European basketball knows Bouroussis' reputation as a bad-ass bruiser. It seems like a match made in Heaven.

Here's a nice little mix from the NBA of some of the funnier highlights from this year's postseason press conferences. Besides the irony of LeBron James saying that "talking is what he really does," there's some good stuff from Gregg Popovich wondering if he's getting "punk'd," and Stan Van Gundy using the proceedings to ask a local high school to vote for his daughter for student council.

The real stars though are Ron Artest, Aaron Brooks (or at least his choice of attire), and Yao Ming, who in my opinion delivers the funniest line of them all as the clip comes to an end.

When you have won seven -- 7! -- championship rings, more than any other non-Celtic, it may be difficult to keep track of all of them. Robert Horry, however, admitted Thursday that he is uncertain of the location of all seven of his rings -- three won with the Lakers and two each with the Rockets and Spurs. The recently retired Horry said a recent move has left his rings MIA and he believes movers may have placed his jewelry box amongst dozens of unopened boxes, against his orders.

"I never wear them and the thing is, I don't know where they are," he said on a conference call to recall playoff memories. "I just moved and they are in a box somewhere. The movers weren't supposed to touch it, but they touched it, but I am hoping they are in the house somewhere. I usually keep them in the bathroom in a drawer."