The Golden State Warriors have suspended guard Monta Ellis for 30 games for violating Paragraph 12 of the Uniform Player Contract, it was announced today by President Robert Rowell. The suspension will take effect immediately and will extend through the team's December 17th contest against the Indiana Pacers.

"The cooperation that we received from Jeff Fried (Monta's representative) enabled us to be very diligent in collecting all of the facts surrounding the incident," Rowell said. "This 30-game suspension is a result of that. From this point forward, it is the complete focus of everyone involved to provide Monta with all the support he needs to have a successful rehabilitation, and to get him back on the court as an integral part of this team."

On the eve of his 13th NBA season, Phoenix Suns star Steve Nash knows he's closer to the end of his playing days than the beginning, and he can easily envision finishing his career in Canada with the Toronto Raptors.

"I've enjoyed my success in Phoenix and would love to stay here," Nash said this week in an interview. "But if not Phoenix, playing in Toronto would be a dream come true in many ways."

The 34-year-old point guard says he wants to play for at least four more seasons. He has one season and a team option for a second left on his contract with the Suns, most likely making him a member of the vaunted free-agent class of 2010, joining the likes of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and the Raptors' Chris Bosh.

In that context, Nash was more than willing to put Toronto at the top of his list providing the Suns wanted to go in another direction.

"As long as it made sense from a basketball perspective and I could be an asset to a competitive team then I would relish the opportunity of playing there," Nash said.

Chances are there would be a lineup of teams looking to get a taste of Nash's magic. Certainly a reunion with former Suns coach Mike D'Antoni on Broadway with the New York Knicks seems to make sense; Nash thrived under D'Antoni in Phoenix and lives in Manhattan in the off-season.

"We've lived there in the summer for the past few years and so New York appeals on a lot of levels, with or without Mike being there," Nash said.

"We love the city, but who knows," Nash said, noting that with its lack of green space, Manhattan isn't the easiest for a family with young children.

If the Heat's final roster countdown wasn't going to be enough of an accounting nightmare, the broken left hand suffered Thursday by center Jamaal Magloire merely compounds the issue.

What appeared inevitable now is almost certainly fact: Pat Riley's team will have to eat hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Oct. 27 deadline to reduce the roster to the regular-season limit of 15 players.

Foremost, undrafted rookie guard Jason Richards, who initially was guaranteed $50,000 to work out with the team in the offseason, now will collect the full rookie minimum salary of $442,000 after tearing his ACL. By rule, a player is guaranteed the full value of his contact — even if it is not guaranteed — if he sustains a season-ending injury while performing for his team.

Further, Richards' contract will count at $798,000 against the salary-cap and dollar-for-dollar luxury tax under the league's complex minimum-salary rules.

In each of his first two exhibition outings, Orlando Magic big man Tony Battie had been looking to recover the familiarity and comfort level that was denied him last season after he was forced to sit out the year following surgery on a torn rotator cuff in his left shoulder.

But it appears Lady Luck isn't quite ready to shine on Battie just yet after a mishandled pass during Friday morning's shoot-around fractured his left index finger and again made him a spectator for the Magic's breezy 94-66 victory against CSKA Moscow.

Battie was in uniform on the sideline and called the injury a "minor setback," though he will have to wear a splint for up to two months. In desperate need of Battie's frontcourt presence this season, that's certainly welcomed news for a club that entered the preseason with hopes of having a completely healthy Battie for the start of meaningful games.

"It's still sore, still fresh. It was pretty painful. Not too bad," Battie said. "It's just my luck that it happened."

Carmelo Anthony sat out the Denver Nuggets' preseason opener against Minnesota on Friday night because of a bruised left ring finger.

Anthony was injured when he had the ball slapped out of his hand during practice Thursday. He attended Friday's shootaround with his hand wrapped, but did not participate.

The 24-year-old averaged 25.7 points and a career-high 7.4 rebounds last season. He was a key member of the U.S. team that won the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics,

Williams will forever be plagued by where was drafted, ahead of both Deron Williams and Paul, who since draft night have moved to the head of the point guard class. That fact overshadows what has been steady improvement from the former North Carolina star during the course of his first three years in the league. If you place his career statistics alongside No. 1 pick Bogut’s from their first three years there wouldn’t be a significant difference in the raw numbers. But Bogut is a true center and the foundation of Milwaukee’s future (hence the $72 million, with incentives, extension he received earlier this summer). Williams is also caught up in a financial matrix that the Hawks have to figure out since he, All-Star and captain Joe Johnson and All-Rookie team center Al Horford are eligible for extensions in the next two years.

The Wizards cut free agent F Taj McCullough. They have 17 players on their roster.

Add Drew Gooden to the list of the Bulls' walking wounded. The veteran forward will skip Friday night's preseason game here with back soreness.

With Joakim Noah already out with an eye injury and Michael Ruffin still sidelined by a sprained ankle, a thin frontcourt is getting thinner.

With injuries cutting out almost a quarter of the available bodies, the Raptors are scraping and scratching to have enough players for a full scrimmage in practice.

With Nathan Jawai still sidelined with the cardiac problems that have kept him out of all of training camp and Joey Graham (hamstring) and Jamal Sampson (wrist) unable to go, there were just 10 players available to work out yesterday.

"We had 10 to practice so we got a lot of stuff done," said coach Sam Mitchell. "We had a really good practice. You just have to know what you're doing."

''It's more just a comfort thing,'' Hinrich said. ''I feel I can do real good things with the ball. Off the ball, it's just a little more challenging. I have to be a little more precise in everything I do, because usually, whether I'm running the floor or coming off a pin-down or something, I have a bigger guy on me. That's the main adjustment, just the comfort level.''

Coach Vinny Del Negro has tried to accelerate the transition by pairing Hinrich and Rose in the backcourt through much of training camp.

''Kirk has a real good feel -- he can guard both positions,'' Del Negro said. ''He's a veteran guy, which helps Derrick. He's been really helpful in practice working with Derrick, which is great. And he can take some of the pressure off his ball-handling, too. He can kind of float, and Derrick finds him. He gets easier baskets at times. So he doesn't always have to control the basketball.''

The topic of conversation had been the defensive shortcomings that Skiles has witnessed among his players already this season when he was asked whether the reason for that was that his players had developed bad defensive habits over the years.

"Yes," Skiles said. "And it's not just the guys who have been with the team (in recent seasons),"

Old habits are hard to break sometimes but that will be one of many challenges facing the Bucks this season as they attempt to turn the corner back to respectability. The Bucks were clobbered for the second time in three exhibition games, 105-79, to the Dallas Mavericks Friday night at the La Crosse Center and the Bucks' defense again was not worthy of a passing grade.

But then again, neither were any other aspects of the Bucks' game.

"We were OK the first few minutes," Skiles said. "But they cut harder than us, they were quicker than us, they shot the ball better, they executed better on both ends of the floor and they were clearly the better team. We had so many defensive breakdowns.

The exhibition season will be half over by the end of the weekend, so what have we learned about the Pistons?

Start with this: Perhaps the biggest question coming into camp already has become a non-issue -- Michael Curry's relative inexperience as a coach.

Could a rookie coach affect change on an established team? Would the veteran players accept leadership from a guy they played with and against just a couple of years ago? Would one season of actual coaching experience be enough to ready Curry for this challenge?

Yes, yes and heck yes.

Curry, through his 16-year playing career and success as the head of the players' association, had the players' respect before he took the job.

When Vinny Del Negro announced he sought an up-tempo offensive style, visions of Aaron Gray either needing oxygen or rarely playing emerged.

Yet there the slimmed-down Gray was Friday night, starting at center when a sore back sidelined Drew Gooden. Gray finished with 13 points and 11 rebounds in 28 minutes after tallying 14 points and nine rebounds Thursday against Dallas.

"We do want to get up and down because I think that benefits our personnel, but at times you have to slow it down and Aaron has good size and post moves," Del Negro said. "Give Aaron credit. He has lost 30 pounds and there are spots we can use him effectively."

Gray said he's near 280 pounds, close to his college playing weight at Pittsburgh.

Coach Erik Spoelstra said Friday that there were no immediate plans to sign a replacement for Magloire, who sustained the injury in the third quarter of Thursday's exhibition loss to the New Jersey Nets in Paris.

Allan Houston (strained right quadriceps) did not play and will probably see his first action of the preseason Tuesday, when the Knicks host the 76ers.

As Nate Robinson bounced around the floor Friday during a pregame shooting drill, a Knicks’ assistant coach remarked out loud, "Boy, I wish I had some of his juice."

Mike D’Antoni loves that juice and everything about the littlest Knick, his favorite player of the preseason so far and of whom he said Friday before his first victory as Knicks’ coach (albeit a preseason one), 110-104 over the 76ers, "He’s going to change up the china."

He’s going to do, if D’Antoni has his way, the kinds of things with his energy and athleticism Robinson didn’t always do for Isiah Thomas. Much as Leandro Barbosa did for D’Antoni when he coached Phoenix, the Knicks’ coach wants Robinson to ratchet up the pace even higher than what the team is playing at when he enters, ball-hawk on defense — spill that juice and change that china.

"I think he can do whatever he wants to do. I have that much confidence in his talent," D’Antoni said. "He can be on the ball some [handling it at the point] or he could be off. He’ll be the spark plug off the bench."

Here is the update: the Nets arrived London and didn't practice. Vince Carter received treatment, said he feels pretty good and they should know more tomorrow about whether he plays Sunday.

If he doesn't for precautionary reasons, no biggie. It gives someone else a chance. We know what Carter can do. Everyone wants to see more of Chris Douglas-Roberts, Ryan Anderson and everyone wants to see Yi Jianlian and Brook Lopez - the two bigs who didn't play yesterday but should Sunday barring injury.

D'Antoni said he expects Curry, who has practiced just three times, to look "befuddled" tonight.

Veteran center Jeff Foster signed a contract extension with the Indiana Pacers on Friday.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The 6-foot-11 Foster was a first-round pick by Golden State in 1999 and came to Indiana in a trade following the draft. He has spent his entire 10-year career with the Pacers, averaging 5 points and 7 rebounds.

Foster says he wants to finish his career with the Pacers.

The Indiana Pacers traded forward Shawne Williams to the Dallas Mavericks for 14-year veteran Eddie Jones, future draft picks and cash, the Pacers said Friday.

Bird, the Pacers' president, has made it clear he plans to repair the team's image after several negative off-the-court issues in recent years. Williams, Indiana's first-round draft pick in 2006, was dogged by three incidents involving police in the past 13 months.

"He's got a lot of potential," Bird told the Associated Press. "You hate to give up on those type of players, but with what we're trying to do here, we felt it was best to move Shawne. This trade wasn't made because he wasn't talented enough, it was because of the other things."

Sixers starting forward Thaddeus Young left the game late in the third quarter with a left-eye corneal abrasion and Lou Williams left in the fourth with a lacerated chin that required three stitches. Neither returned.

Since joining the Celtics, Walker has been working out with strength and conditioning coach Bryan Doo on landing properly after jumps to try to prevent another knee injury.

Walker says that both of his knees are feeling “great,” and that he is as explosive as he was two years ago.

Rivers admits the toughest job of the fall will be eliminating one member of his 16-man roster by the Oct. 27 deadline.

The Celtics coach also admits that although he’d be doing the unlucky pick a favor by cutting him quickly, thus enabling the player to catch on with another team, all of the remaining time may be needed to make a decision.

Naturally, that won’t be fair to the odd man out.

“Someone who can really play won’t make our team,” Rivers said. “But we’re still going to need a lot of time to get a look at what we have. I could see it going to the last day.”

"That's all we talk about," Williams said before the Celtics beat the Cavaliers, 96-94, in an exhibition game. "That's all we talk about. You got to knock the king off the throne. And I'm playing with the king, so you can take that how you want."

Celtics nation might be asking: Who the heck is Mo Williams? Well, the Mississippi native who played in obscurity in Utah and Milwaukee is definitely someone the Celtics are very familiar with and respectful of. Williams also could be the X-factor Cleveland needs to truly threaten the champs.

"He's a great addition to our team," said James, who posted 15 points in 13 minutes last night. "Going against him four times last year, he completely destroyed us. Now, he is completely going to destroy other people."