USA - D'Antoni gives thumbs-down to Letterman

NEW YORK (NBA) - Mike D'Antoni is set for his debut season as the coach of the New York Knicks and that means he will be in the media capital of America.

The Team USA assistant coach wants to focus on the Knicks instead of hitting the talk show circuit, though.

He turned down the chance to appear on the David Letterman Show.

"We're not gonna do it," D'Antoni said on Monday to the New York Post.

"It was never set in stone. But it's just not good timing. Let's win some games first."

The Knicks, meanwhile, decided to make Patrick Ewing Jr their final cut.

Ewing Jr is the son of club great and former Team USA center Patrick Ewing.

Anderson excited for new season

The Cleveland Cavaliers will look to gain partial revenge when they take on the Boston Celtics in their NBA season-opener on Tuesday.

The Celtics beat the Cavs in last year's Eastern Conference play-offs en route to the title and one of the players who will be looking to knock off the champions is Anderson Varejao.

Anderson, who missed the start of last season due to a contract dispute, is chomping at the bit to play from the off this time.

"We have had a good pre-season," Anderson said.

"The team changed a lot and started to show a face that is more clearly defined in recent games, with more talking to each other and a good defense ...

"I like to get started on a strong pace, come to Boston to get a good result."

Anderson decided to skip this summer's FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Athens and his fellow Brazilians felt his absence as they failed to reach the Beijing Games.

The frizzy-haired center could return for next year's FIBA Americas Championship when Brazil attempt to reach the 2010 FIBA World Championship.

Spurs minus Manu must dig deep

The San Antonio Spurs go into the new season as one of the favorites to win the NBA title but they will have to dig deep for the first couple of months without Manu Ginobili.

The Argentina superstar is recovering from an ankle operation and isn’t expected to play until December.

Star center Tim Duncan said in the San Antonio Express News: “Without him in the playoffs, obviously we struggled at times.

“So we're going to have to work around that this year. We may have to figure it out on the run.”

Michael Finley says this is a chance for others to show their worth.

“No one's going to come in and replace Manu,” Finley said.

“Everybody just has to come in and take advantage of the opportunity they may get.”

Bargnani to stay a little longer with Raptors

Italy's Andrea Bargnani has done enough with the Toronto Raptors to convince the NBA's only Canadian club they should guarantee his contract through the 2009-10 campaign.

Bargnani, the first overall pick in the 2006 NBA Draft, has averaged 10.8 points and 3.8 rebounds in 143 regular season games with Toronto.

The club said in a statement: “The Toronto Raptors announced Monday they have exercised the fourth year team option on the Rookie Scale Contract of forward Andrea Bargnani.

"Bargnani is now guaranteed through the 2009-10 season. In accordance with the league’s collective bargaining agreement, the Raptors had until October 31 to exercise their option on Bargnani. Per team policy, financial terms of the deal were not disclosed."

Raptors nation, meanwhile, will be hoping that Spain point guard Jose Manuel Calderon remains healthy all season.

Calderon is now the starter after the club's decision to trade TJ Ford to Indiana in a deal that brought Jermaine O'Neal to the Toronto.

Mike Ganter covers the Raptors for the Toronto Sun and he wrote of Calderon: "If the better part of a month of practice and pre-season games has proven anything, it is that without Jose Calderon healthy and running the Raptors for somewhere in the vicinity of 38 minutes a night, this team is in serious trouble."

The Portland Trail Blazers, meanwhile, have decided to exercise the fourth-year option on Calderon's fellow Spain international guard Sergio Rodriguez.

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