Andrew Bogut will serve as an assistant coach for the Australian national team when they meet New Zealand in an Olympic qualifying series.

Bogut hoped to play in the series, but Basketball Australia was unable to insure his NBA contract.

Head coach Brett Brown joked Thursday "he'll be my richest assistant coach. He's fantastic about wanting to play, but with injury and insurance issues with the NBA lockout, he'll play his role from the bench next to me." 

Bucks point guard Brandon Jennings is based in Baltimore this summer with the NBA lockout in full swing and no end in sight. Prior to June 30 and the start of the lockout, Jennings was a regular at the Bucks' training facility while working with coach Scott Skiles and the team's staff.

"I'm just training and just living," Jennings said in an interview from New York, where he was doing a couple photo shoots on Monday. "The main thing is being consistent and to keep working."

Jennings said he has dabbled in boxing and martial arts training for the first time. "It's really helping my arms get stronger and my core," he said.

And on the basketball side, Jennings is working out with former Duke star Jason Williams, whose pro career was sidetracked by a serious injury.

Jennings said he is not pursuing any opportunities in Europe at present but is keeping his options open.

"I feel if it does drag out, any player would consider going overseas," Jennings said.

In a recent interview, Andrew Bogut said his elbow was recovering nicely from an April surgery that ended his season.

"It’s good. It’s much better," said Bogut. "It’s not totally pain free, but it’s much, much better than last season."

Last December, Brandon Jennings suffered a left-foot injury that required surgery and forced him to miss 19 games, which snapped a streak of 114 straight games (including playoffs) in which he had started. That injury left a lasting impression on Jennings and is part of the reason he has taken a determined, no-nonsense approach to his off-season workout program.

The team's hope is that Jennings will become a stronger player fundamentally this summer.

"I'm just getting back to the basics of basketball," said Jennings, who worked out regularly at the team's training facility before the NBA lockout was imposed July 1. "Just working on my fundamentals. Getting set back last year with the injury made me have a different approach to the game. It's not (taken for) granted.

"Next year will be my third year and I need to establish myself as one of the best point guards and one of the best players in the game. It's just trying to get better and better every day. Working with Scott Skiles (before the lockout), getting in the weight room, dedicating the summer to strictly basketball. It's going to be my third year, so it's time to become an all-star."

Jim Boylan will be back on the Milwaukee Bucks' bench next season.

Boylan, who has been a Bucks assistant coach for the last three seasons, has turned down an offer to join the Phoenix Suns coaching staff.

The Suns were one of the worst defensive teams in the NBA last season and were looking at Boylan to fill their newly-created "defensive" coach position.

Boylan, who played a prominent role in the Bucks being one of the best defensive teams in the league last season, had been in discussions with Suns officials for several weeks.

The scuttlebutt is that after negotiations dragged on and the parties couldn't come to an agreement, Boylan decided to sign a new one-year contract with the Bucks.

The time is quickly approaching for Argentina’s national team players to launch their preparations for the FIBA Americas Championship in Mar Del Plata.

It remains to be seen if stars Luis Scola, Manu Ginobili, Andres Nocioni and Carlos Delfino will be among them because of the insurance quandary caused by the NBA lockout.

"This has to be resolved in 15 days time because all the teams will soon begin training,” Argentina Basketball Confederation president German Vaccaro said to FIBA.com.

“Argentina will start training on July 29.

“In our case, I’m optimistic that Argentina will have all of their players to play in the tournament we are hosting."

The cost of the insurance?

"We know it´s a lot of money, but we are not sure exactly,” Vaccaro said.

“What we have heard is that a player who has a three-year contract and is not one of the highest earners but an average one, if we had to insure him for the three years, we would be talking about 300,000 US dollars.

“So we are talking about an amount that would be unreachable for any federation.”