After a career with the Kings in which he only missed three games in five seasons, Doug Christie will have to sit out of training camp after undergoing treatment on his left foot to ease discomfort stemming from plantar fasciitis.  

The positive to Mr. Christie sitting out the preseason is that rookies, Kevin Martin and Ricky Minard will see more minutes.

Doug Christie could not be reached for comment.

After having a breakthrough season with Indiana and earning the NBA?s defensive Player of the Year award on route to a 61-win season, Ron Artest is positioning himself to be traded.

During the Eastern Conference finals versus the Pistons he was reportedly goofing off in practice, threatened to quit the team during Game 5, and was not at practice the day before Game 6 because he missed the team?s charter plane to Detroit.  Artest also blew off a postseason meeting with Larry Bird to boot.  In an attempt to maintain team unity, the Pacers never let his actions leak to the public until now.

In a recent interview with Slam Magazine Artest went as far as to say, "I thought I was the MVP last year because we had the best record and I was the best player on the team, so I felt that I should have at least been talked about for it."  He does not mention Jermaine O'Neal of course.

In light of all of Artest?s actions, the Pacers may be looking simply trade away the problem.  The biggest name out on the market is Peja Stojakovic who has said he wants out of Sacramento, albeit in a more tactful manner than Artest.

In the end, the Pacers might not be able to get fair value for Artest, and a trade -- for Stojakovic or anybody else -- might not happen. But they're going to try.

All 3,000 tickets for the NBA pre-season game in Shanghai were sold out in just 10 hours on September 12, according to Eastday.com.

About 2,500 fans started queuing up at the Shanghai Stadium gate September 10, according to a local report.

The NBA announced its decision to hold two pre-season games in China in February, hoping to cash in on the huge popularity of the Houston Rockets' Chinese player Yao Ming.

The Houston Rockets will play the Sacramento Kings in the first game on October 14 in East China's Shanghai Municipality, and in Beijing on October 17.

The Houston Rockets and Sacramento Kings are readying for their preseason game in Shanghai, China.

The Oct. 14 matchup is the first between two NBA teams in China, 25 years after Wes Unseld and the former Washington Bullets visited Shanghai to play the Chinese national team. The Kings and Rockets will meet for a second game in Beijing on Oct. 17.

The games are the NBA's latest attempts to harness basketball's surging popularity in China, boosted by Shanghai native Yao Ming in the Rockets lineup.

Every Kings preseason and regular season game will be televised to Sacramento-area viewers under a new deal between the Kings and Comcast Cable, a first in franchise history.

As part of the deal, Comcast will launch a 24-hour regional sports network that will feature the Kings as a centerpiece.

Though no financial aspects of the deal have been released, the contract will reportedly last for ten years.

In an interview he gave to his former team in Greece, PAOK BC and its official site, Peja Stojakovic touched upon his NBA career, trade demands he made, the Greek national team and possibility of having played for it, as well as the Olympic games which had just ended.

Q: Are you happy with your NBA career?
A: I am. The way my career is going, I think everything is good and I don't have a reason not to be happy. I believe I am at the prime age for playing basketball and will be for 4-5 more years.

Q: Did you ever believe you could be the league's 2nd leading scorer?
A: I didn't believe it. The way my career was going, I believed I would eventually be in the top ten, but the top two? I never thought that.

Q: It's well known that the Kings do not want to trade you as they can't find a player of equal value as you. What are you thinking of doing from at this point?
A: Becasue I have a contract with my team, and they have the final say, I will honor whatever they decide if I'm not traded by October 1st.

Q: Will you insist on a trade even if it doesn't happen?
A: Yes, I will. There are still opportunities for something to happen during the regular season.

Q: Which team would you like to be traded to? On which team would you like to play?
A: There isn't any particular team in my mind, but I would like to go to ateam that is on top, on a team that has the potential to be in the play-offs and win a championship. There are few teams with such potential, and usually
when you ask for a trade from a Western conference team, you  end up in the East. It would be best for me to go to a city I like and one that has a very good team, but on the flip side, basketball is my job and that is what's most important to me.

Q: After the end of your NBA career, would you like to return and finish off your career with PAOK?
A: I don't have any problem returning to finish my career with PAOK, this I think you all understand. However, I don't know when this moment will come, at what age and in what condition I will be then.

Q: What is your ideal team, with Stojakovic at the 3?
A: Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Jason Kidd. I don't think they'd have any problems beating any opponent without me.

Q: Which player do you admire?
A: I don't have any particular player in mind, but I have had an opportunity to see almost all the great players from Yugoslavia. I also had the chance to be teamates with some of those, or face them as opponents.

Q: Would you like to play for the Greek national team?
A: That is a topic that I had discussed in the past. They had asked me years ago, and I had said I wanted to, but when the league and Players' Union didn't want me, that was the end of the discussion. I don't think we need to say anything else. I don't think there is any reason to insist, because since I've played for Serbia (formerly Yugoslavia), we've won the European and World Championship. That topic is done now.

Q: Who is the tougest opponent that you face?
A: I think that Bruce Bowen is very tough. He's very smart, he studies and learns the opponent. He knows how to guard him and he prepares himself very well before each game.

Q: Did it bother you that you didn't play in the Olympic games?
A: I would have wanted to play, but the reason I didn't is well known. I watched quite a few games on TV and I was sad to see Serbia finish so low, but I can't do anything, nor do I want to say anything further on the matter.

Q: How do you analyze the disappointment of the US team in the Olympic games?
A: If all the good players had come, such as Garnett, Shaq, Kobe, do you think Argentina would have had a chance to win? Simply put, Aregentina was lucky, just as we were in Indianapolis. It was on a bad day, it's one game and this result came. I feel the Europeans feel more loose, because many play in the NBA and they've gotten used to the game and players they will face.

Translated by flyingvee.