Liz Robbins of the New York Times reports: New Jersey Nets forward Kenyon Martin got some good news on Sunday.

Results from the MRI on his sprained right knee were negative.

"That's very good news," the Nets' president, Rod Thorn, said. "It looks like he'll miss tomorrow's game, but hopefully he'll be able to come back as quickly as possible."

New Jersey Nets forward Kenyon Martin sprained his right knee after being fouled hard by Golden State's Antawn Jamison reports Liz Robbins of the New York Times.

Martin will have an MRI today to determine the seriousness of the injury. The injury occured the same night when Nets center Dikembe Mutumbo was returning to the lineup after missing most of the season with torn ligaments in his wrist.

While the team played well and still managed to win, the concern was clearly on the impact this could have going into the playoffs.

"This puts a damper on the win," Coach Byron Scott said. "Because not only did we get Dikembe back, but Kenyon was playing so great. He was really playing at a very high level, and to not know what exactly the situation is, it's not a great feeling."

Jason Kidd said: "He's such a strong person. He can take a lot of pain or play hurt, but when he said he couldn't get through it, then you start to wonder if it's bad."

One person, however, wasn't too concerned.

"Kenyon is one of the toughest guys I've ever met," Jefferson said. "He'll be fine."

Meanwhile, Mutumbo's return was one of the good signs amid the loss of Martin.

"I think that motivated everybody, to see a 7-foot-2 guy diving for the ball after just coming off an injury of his wrist," Kidd said. "I don't think he knows how much that sparked everybody on the floor."

Mutumbo said:"I didn't even think about it."

Dikembe Mutombo now has less than three weeks to get prepared for the playoffs. The Associated Press reports that Mutombo was activated by the New Jersey Nets after almost four months.

The 7-2 center has been recovering from wrist surgery. After missing 56 games, Mutombo will have little time to find his role in the Nets lineup. He was acquired from Philadelphia in the offseason to help anchor the interior defense of the Nets.

After struggling early in the season, Mutombo suffered torn ligaments in his wrist on November 28th when he was hit by the Clippers? Eric Piatkowski. Surgery followed on December 5th. After months of rehab, he returned to practice on March 21.

Mutombo is expected to see action tonight against the Warriors.

The Associated Press is reporting that Jason Kidd's future in New Jersey may hinge on what Kenyon Martin plans to do. Kidd plans to talk to Martin about what he plans to do in the future to make sure they are on the "same page".

"I don't want to be here if [Martin's] not," Kidd told the newspaper. "If that is what's driving him, I want him to keep doing that. (But) he shouldn't think that if he has a bad game that, 'Well, he's lost Jason.' Because I'm going to be here when (Martin and Richard Jefferson) are in their prime and I am an old man and I can say that these guys are carrying me now."

As for Martin, he isn't addressing his future plans right now.

"We'll see," Martin said. "I'm just going to wait and see what happens with (Kidd). If (the Nets) want me here, and they express that to me, then either way it goes, I am comfortable here.

"If (Kidd) is looking for that second (marquee) guy, I can be it," Martin said in the report. "If that is what he is weighing his decision on, I am trying to do my part."

While the end of the season run is important, it will not play a role in Jason Kidd's decision whether or not to stay in New Jersey this summer. The real deciding factor may be how far the Nets can advance in the playoffs reports Fred Kerber of the New York Post.

"These [final]12 [games] don't have an impact. The playoffs won't have an impact [on the decision]," Kidd said. "It's, ?Do I have a realistic chance of winning a championship?' That's the bottom line.

"If it goes badly it's something I would have to look at a little closer, but it's not something that's going to be heavily involved in making my decision. I'm hoping that it doesn't go bad," Kidd added.

If you ask Byron Scott, he feels the team has shown they are capable of winning it all.

"We've shown that just with last year. The trick is to try to repeat what we did last year in the playoffs," Scott said. "That's the question: can we get to the playoffs and do the things we did last year?"

In 1999, Antonio McDyess was a highly coveted free agent with a decision to make. Stay with Phoenix or leave to Denver. More than 4 years later, McDyess still regrets the decision he made reports Frank Isola of the New York Daily News.

"I blame it on how young and stupid I was," McDyess said. "There was a lot of pressure on me. Honestly, I was young and I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't look back to see what we had. I wasn't thinking what we could do and how far we could go. I just made a silly mistake.

"I always look back at that and think what could have and should have happened. I try to let it go and put it in the past but it's kinda hard when you see how well he's playing now with the Nets and I think about how good we played together when we were at Phoenix."

How good is right. McDyess averaged 15.1 points and 7.6 rebounds per game on 54% shooting in 1997-1998, their only season together. It was the only season McDyess has made the playoffs as well.

"That was great," said McDyess, who is expected to re-sign with the Knicks when his contract expires next summer. "I still kinda think about why I left because I think we had something special."

Now Kidd faces a similar situation, so what will he do Antonio?

"Honestly, I don't know," McDyess said, laughing. "He doesn't really say anything about it."

Fred Kerber of the new York Post reports: Nets head coach Byron Scott is not worried about his job security and it doesn't seem that he should be.

On Tuesday, Scott got a vote of confidence from team president Rod Thorn.

"I think the coach is doing fine," Thorn said regarding recent criticism - some leveled by Scott himself - and speculation that the coach is on shaky ground.

"The coach doesn't shoot .345 percent, the coach doesn't turn the ball over at critical times, I can't fault the coach for that."

Scott also said that he is not worried about his job.

I haven't thought about it. I just haven't. ... I question me at times, just like I did last year, just like I did the first year. But I think that's any coach in this league when their team is not playing up to its capability."

Scott, who has 119 coaching victories in this, his third season, is only under contract for one more season after this one.

Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News reports: Yesterday, the New Jersey Nets brought back team favorite Donny Marshall by signing him to a 10-day contract.

"The first thing you are looking for is someone who can help your team, and helping a team is not always on the basketball court," Nets coach Byron Scott said. "He fits in with our guys. We are as happy with him as he is happy with us."

"There may be some guys in the league that are on the bench and they are not really comfortable with their role," Kenyon Martin said. "Donny is. He is the first one off the bench at every timeout. He is the first one to meet somebody who is not playing well. He's there to pick you up when you need it."

Marshall was with the Nets in training camp but they had to cut him inorder to sign Anthony Johnson, who stepped in for Chris Childs, who was recently cut.

Hey, remember that big defensive center Dikembe Mutombo?  Well look out, because it seems as though he'll be back in uniform for the Nets very soon.

According to Liz Robbins of the New York Times Mutombo will participate in shooting drills this week and may practice next week. "I'm very close," he said.

Having their 7-2 monster back in uniform will surely help the Nets, but even they are not sure what to expect.

"I think that's real unfair to look at Deke and say he's our savior," Coach Byron Scott said. "We want to be playing real solid basketball when he gets back and get him into that puzzle, not look at him once he gets back and everybody takes a big sigh of relief. He'll anchor the center position, he'll block shots and rebound and intimidate guys."

Mutombo, however, is sure in what he can deliver.

"When I come back, I am going to have an impact," Mutombo said. "I'm going to be much better than I was at the start of the season. I'm more fit, and skill-wise, I have improved a few things. I have improved my shooting with my left hand."

Last year I made the mistake of thinking that the Eastern Conference wasn't as bad as other people believed. I wasn't about to put that opinion out there at the start of this season, but I also pledged not to write off the good ol' East too early. I thought: Let's give those New Jersey Nets, those Detroit Pistons and those Indiana Pacers some time to jell. It was a season, after all, in which the three-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers appeared ready to implode, paving the way, perhaps, for a beast from the East to rise.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it appears time to write off the East. I still believe the Nets are the best team in the conference, and while there was a time when I believed they might be the third best team in the NBA behind the Lakers and Sacramento, I don't think that's the case anymore. I put New Jersey at No. 7 or 8 in the league, just ahead of the Pacers and a couple of spots in front of the Pistons. In fact, while everyone has to appreciate what Detroit gets out of its talent, I now wonder if the Pistons shouldn't be ranked behind the Philadelphia 76ers, the only Eastern club that's made a real run recently and one that at least knows how to bow out valiantly in June, having won a game in the Finals against the Lakers in '01.

The wise-ass answer to the question of what makes the West so dominant is obvious: They have better teams and better players. Ha ha. The question is: Why? When the dominance of the West is brought up to NBA execs, understandably, they say something about this conference-dominance thing being cyclical. That's true to a certain extent. The Houston Rockets' improbable back-to-back conference title wins in '94 and '95 were the only championships won by a Western team from '89 through '98. But that wasn't an East-is-dominant thing as much as it was a Michael Jordan-is-dominant thing, as the six Chicago Bulls' championships followed back-to-back title wins by the Bad Boy Pistons. The competition in the West during those years (in no particular order -- the Lakers, the San Antonio Spurs, the Utah Jazz, the Phoenix Suns, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Seattle SuperSonics and, of course, the Rockets all had strong teams) was just as good as it w! as! in the East. It harkened back to the '60s when the East was ascendant basically because the Boston Celtics were next to unbeatable.

What we're seeing these days is unusual because of the depth of good teams in the West vis-a-vis the East. Something is bound to happen with the expansion team in Charlotte coming aboard in 2004 (probably the Minnesota Timberwolves joining the East). But it's interesting to note that, to a large extent, the East has only itself to blame for the current state of affairs.

Take a look at the top teams in the West and consider:

The Milwaukee Bucks drafted Dirk Nowitzki with the ninth overall pick in the '98 draft, but traded away his rights for Robert (Tractor) Traylor, who is still, basically, a tractor trailer, now rumbling along the interstate in New Orleans, while Nowitzki has become, as the ad copy might say, a marvel of German engineering.

The Orlando Magic had the draft rights to Sacramento's Chris Webber but traded them to Golden State for Penny Hardaway, a deal that, to be fair, didn't look bad at the time. When Webber came back to the East, as a Washington Bullet, he was famously unloaded to the Kings for two nice, but over-the-hill, players, Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe.

Both the New York Knicks and the Toronto Raptors traded Webber's underrated teammate, Doug Christie, and any number of Eastern teams probably could've made a deal to pry Mike Bibby from Vancouver, as canny Sacramento general manager Geoff Petrie did. Speaking of Petrie, while many GMs still couldn't find Yugoslavia and Turkey on a world map, he was drafting Peja Stojakovic and Hedo Turkoglu.

Those two picks speak to the fact that, in general, the West has shown more perspicacity than the East in selecting foreign players. The only international player of recent vintage making a true impact in the East is Zydrunas Ilgauskas, drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers at No. 20 in the '96 draft. Meanwhile, the West's list doesn't stop with Nowitzki and the mini-United Nations established in Dallas. San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich (he gave up his GM handle this season but no Spur gets drafted without Pop's approval) plucked point guard Tony Parker with the 28th pick of the '01 draft and, two years earlier, beat the East (and everyone else) to Emanuel Ginobili, snagged with the 57th pick. (Andrei Kirilenko adds to that case: the Utah Jazz got him at No. 24 in the '99 draft.)

The Trail Blazers aren't, in my opinion, a title contender -- they probably blew their best shot in '00 when they had the Lakers all but beat in the Western finals -- but Portland would certainly be the cream of the East. The theme continues. The team's best player, Rasheed Wallace, played in Washington for one season, before being traded to the Northwest in '96, while Portland's second best player, Bonzi Wells, was drafted by Detroit and then had his rights traded to the Blazers for a draft pick. (It's probably not fair to mention Scottie Pippen, who made a stop in Houston before going to Portland, but, for the record, there's another Eastern expatriate.)

The Rockets and Suns are probably a couple of years away from a title run, but shrewd rookie picks -- Yao Ming for the former, Amare Stoudemire for the latter -- have helped fuel the resurgence of both clubs.

Anyone else? Oh, yes. There is the matter of that former Eastern Conference resident Shaquille O'Neal (who came to L.A. from Orlando via free agency) and his playmate, Kobe Bryant, whose potential was apparently insufficient to satisfy the Charlotte Hornets -- they traded him to the Lakers for Vlade Divac, who is now back in the West helping the Sacramento Kings.

Look, some of this is 20-20 hindsight. Playing alongside Tim Duncan, as Parker, Ginobli and ex-Miami Heat swingman Bruce Bowen are doing, would make anyone look better. Then, too, the East has had some bad breaks, most recently the possibly career-ending injuries suffered by two centers. But with apologies to Philadelphia's Todd MacCulloch (a progressive nerve disorder) and Detroit's Zelijko Rebraca (irregular heartbeat), they are not the kind of players who make franchises. Now, Grant Hill was that type of player and, partly due to his bad ankle, the Orlando Magic have never risen the way many observers thought they would.

Speaking of the Magic Kingdom, for a long time it was the rumored destination of Duncan, who will be a free agent at the end of this season. Now? The betting is that Duncan will stay put and the Nets' Jason Kidd, the second-most coveted free agent, will flee to San Antonio. Add to this the factor of Jordan's retirement, and the East's future isn't exactly getting brighter, is it?