A few NBA notes on the eve of free agency

- Carlos Boozer decided to remain in Utah for next season, exercising his player option for $12.7 million. He will remain in Mormon country for another year because a) the economic slowdown and the subsequent reluctance of many teams to pay the luxury tax meant his options to better that amount were very limited and b) he felt the need to continue his penance for stabbing the blind owner of the Cleveland Cavs in the back a few years back. Well, maybe only one of those reasons actually factored into his decision.

- Mehmet Okur also exercised his option, which gives the Jazz the bulk of their frontcourt back, but makes it harder for them to re-sign another key piece: Paul Millsap. As far as I know, there's no karmic reason for his decision to eschew free agency.

- Detroit, in an effort to make their team a more attractive destination for free agents, fired coach Michael Curry after just 1 year on the job. The main reason appears to be the fact that he lost a number of the veterans on the team when he decided to bring Rip Hamilton off the bench to accomodate Allen Iverson. It apparently got so bad that Hamilton and Curry weren't speaking by the end of the season. Of course, this situation was brought about by the midseason trade made by the very man who fired Curry, GM Joe Dumars.

- Houston may be facing a tougher offseason than they initially thought. They already have a decision to make on Ron Artest, and must decide whether to let playoff hex Tracy McGrady anywhere near the team, but now Yao Ming's feet aren't healing from the break he suffered in the 2nd round series loss to the Lakers. There is talk Yao might miss all of next season, or his career may be in jeopardy.

Of course, this may be a devious ploy by Yao to avoid playing through the entire offseason on behalf of the Chinese sports federation. To be fair, I'm not sure there's another way he could really say "no" when the Chinese government "asks" him to participate in national team events. For his sake, especially given the fact that he's missed 95 games in the past 4 seasons due to foot issues, I hope that's the case.