First they made the NBA Playoffs, now three members of the Portland Trail Blazers could be me members of Team USA.

Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge and Greg Oden will receive an invitation to participate in training for the USA Basketball team this summer, according to managing director Jerry Colangelo.

If the three young Blazers accept the invitation, the three will be among 20-24 players competing for roster spots for USA Basketball as the team prepares for the World Championships in Turkey next year and the 2012 Summer Olympics scheduled for London.

Aldridge and Oden have already said they would accept the offer to go, while Roy was unavailable for comment.

Nets guard Keyon Dooling underwent arthroscopic surgery on his hip Monday at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan. Surgeons successfully removed loose bodies from Dooling's right hip, which had bothered him throughout much of the second half of the season.

Despite the intermittent pain, the nine-year veteran had what he termed the best season of his career, averaging 9.7 points and 3.5 assists in 77 games. Dooling is expected to be ready in time for the start of the 2009-10 season, but his rehab will determine whether he'll be on time for training camp.

Before getting down to the business of personnel, the Bulls are first re-arranging front office titles: “The Bulls are expected to make director of player personnel Gar Forman the general manager. John Paxson will be elevated to a new position, akin to team president, overseeing Forman, who will take over day-to-day operations of the front office.”

The general consensus is the Hornets again will try to trade Tyson Chandler, as they did in February and had the Thunder physicians reject Chandler. But it seems unlikely the Hornets will be able to with Chandler’s big contract and continuing heath problems that kept him out and limited in the closing of the Hornets season and that 58-point home loss. But the cash strapped Hornets will have to do something, and then the speculations turn to All-Star forward David West. The power forward would be a perfect complement to Joakim Noah for the Bulls, and you wonder if the Hornets would be interested in a package starting with Louisiana high jumper Tyrus Thomas and perhaps some firsts the Bulls have. Few think the Hornets can afford to lose West and keep Chris Paul happy. Yet, who thought the Suns this season would be trying to trade Amare Stoudemire? Stuff happens, especially in this economic environment, which has little to do with basketball decisions.

The Bulls, with Saturday’s Game 7 loss in Boston, joined the Spurs, Pistons, Jazz, Hornets, 76ers, Trail Blazers and Heat on the sidelines for the season. When you lose in the first round, you look for answers because teams in that position generally feel they are close.

The Pistons will make major free agent moves and league executives expect the Trail Blazers and Hornets to be active, though for different reasons.

Kirk Hinrich often has been mentioned as a possible target of the Trail Blazers, who want to upgrade at point guard from Steve Blake. Blake is under a team option for $4 million next season and would be an ideal backup guard at a lesser price. Portland is expected to have about $7 million in salary cap room, so they could absorb some extra salary. Maybe they throw in a draft pick the Bulls could use in a larger deal to try to lure away a star level player. That could be examined before the draft.

Though the really intriguing possibility is Dwyane Wade. He can opt out of his contract after next season. The general feeling has been the Heat has improved so much from last season Wade will want to return. But in the Heat’s seven-game first round loss to the Atlanta Hawks, Wade, obviously, still was having trouble with the maturity of the Heat’s young players.

“To be honest with you I have no idea (if they understand playoff intensity). I don’t,” Wade told South Florida media during the series. “If it seems like I’m calling them out, I’m not calling them out. But I want to see our young guys play like it’s Game 6 of the playoffs (the Heat would win and then lose in Atlanta). If ‘Rio (guard Mario Chalmers) says he’s won a national championship, well, I want to see him play like it. I want to see Michael (Beasley) play.”

SLAM contributor J. Gamble [making his debut with us next issue] hears from a close personal friend of Rasheed Wallace’s that unless Sheed gets $8 million to play next year, he’s going to retire. If that’s true, we’ve probably seen the last of Sheed in the NBA.

With two tender ankles, Josh Howard may now be leaning more on his jumper than his jukes.

Less pain that way.

The Dallas Mavericks forward who was already hampered by a balky left ankle turned his right one in the first half of a 109-95 loss to the Denver Nuggets in Game 1 on Sunday.

"This is not fun," Howard said. "Both ankles hurt? I've never had this before."

Sit out Game 2 tonight? No way. Not an option.

"I'm going to have to manage" the pain, said Howard, who missed two 11-game stretches this season with a bothersome left ankle and 30 games overall. "My team's depending on me."

"We will start to call the list and look at people that we think meet some of the qualifications that we're looking for, " said Kings President Geoff Petrie, who is heading their coaching search. "And it would be someone that (has) had a lot of experience in the NBA; No. 2, someone who has had experience as a head coach in the NBA; and, No. 3, somebody who has had some level of success at some point in their coaching career." (Geoff) Petrie was the Kings' general manager when (Byron) Scott was an assistant in Sacramento.

There's also a possibility Scott could become a candidate to replace Los Angeles Lakers Coach Phil Jackson if he retires this season or next, when his contract runs out. Scott won three NBA title as a guard on the "Showtime" Lakers in the 1980s.

With mounting injuries and an inconsistent bench, the Hornets went 49-33 to earn the seventh seed from the Western Conference before getting bounced from the playoffs by the Nuggets.

"I just felt like it was too much that went on this season; I felt it was tough for me because I was healthy for only 20 percent of the season, " Hornets center Tyson Chandler said. "I don't know, but I've heard that things were said about them (Hornets management) making changes after our blowout loss. But if anything, we should not been in the playoffs with all the injuries we had. Forty-nine wins is a huge accomplishment, and Coach did a good job."

Talk that Byron Scott might be available for the right price, or for no price at all, a year after winning NBA Coach of the Year honors hardly is unprecedented.

That doesn't mean it's the chatter of genius, but it's within the realm of possibility that a coach who earns the award one season could be ushered to the door the next, or soon after.

Such a scenario could present itself for Scott if Sacramento is willing to pony up a buyout or if the Hornets simply decide they want to fire Scott.

And it means that crawling across the finish line didn't do Scott, or his team, any favors.

So, sure, votes of confidence from players like David West and James Posey are well-intentioned, timely and weighty. Because nothing is worse for a coach than to have a team that has tuned him out, that no longer is willing to play hard for him, that begins publicly or privately to gripe about his methods.

But the players' actions the last month of the season -- when New Orleans was winning four times in 14 games, including playoffs -- didn't appear to correspond to West's and Posey's words.

The Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers will return to the John Labatt Centre in London for the first time since 2004 in an NBA preseason game scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 6 at 7:30 p.m.

The Sixers, which lost to Orlando in six games in the opening round last week, and JLC arena manager Global Spectrum are both owned by Comcast-Spectacor.

There are at least two items on (Dwyane) Wade's agenda this offseason, which officially began after Monday's exit interviews with the coaching staff.

''The first thing I want to do is watch my son play baseball,'' Wade said of Zaire, 7, the oldest of his two sons.

Wade also said he would like to take a few vacations, including a trip to Africa at some point this summer.

''I finally have a summer to myself, to do the things I've always wanted to do,'' Wade said.

If LeBron James, anointed Monday as this season’s MVP, matches (Tim) Duncan’s double-MVP feat next month, he’s probably going to emulate Duncan in another significant way next summer.

Then, look for him to re-sign with the Cavaliers after he becomes a free agent.

In the first sign of a thaw in the eight-month-old credit freeze in sports, the NBA this week is set to renew its $1.96 billion leaguewide loan pool, from which 17 of its teams borrow.

Last fall, the NFL and MLB “termed out” of similar loan pools after their lenders would not renew the financings on terms acceptable to the leagues. By terming out, the leagues were then confronted with accelerated principal payments.

The NBA, whose old loan pool expires today, now has no such worry.

“The glacier is melting a little bit,” said a banker familiar with the deal. “The market is beginning to open up again. Clearly, prices are going up, but still, this is a very good sign.”

The fourth-year pro had his season come to an abrupt end Feb. 2 when he suffered a torn labrum in his right shoulder against the Dallas Mavericks. The injury put (Jameer) Nelson in a self-described role as the “highest-paid assistant coach in the history of the game.”

“This is really frustrating, but at the same time, I’m still here in a position to help,” Nelson said before last night’s 95-90 victory against the Celtics. “One thing I have to understand is that everything happens for a reason. What I’m doing right now is learning a lot, especially from a coaching standpoint. It’s easier for me to see a lot more things now because the game is slower to me.”

Power forward Udonis Haslem, who holds an expiring contract for 2009-10 at $7.1 million, could wind up as a bargaining chip, with (Michael) Beasley waiting in the wings to take over as the starter. With Haslem as bait, the Heat might be able to package the deals of (Mark) Blount ($8 million) or Dorell Wright ($2.9 million guaranteed for 2009-10), as a means of opening spending space under the tax.

The Heat also holds trade exceptions worth $4.3 million (Marcus Banks) and $855,000 (Shaun Livingston) that can be used to acquire players, but cannot be aggregated with any other salaries or exceptions.

In previous years, in his dual roles of coach and team president, Pat Riley traditionally offered a forward-thinking assessment at season's end. Riley, now solely a team executive, did not attend Monday's session.

And yet, even (Erik) Spoelstra acknowledged it might be wise not to grow too attached to a roster that lifted the team from 15-67 in 2007-08 to 43-39 this season.

"You always have to expect the unexpected with Pat," Spoelstra said. "He has visions always greater than anybody in the league, which is fantastic. It's exhilarating working for him under those circumstances."

(Carlos) Boozer, although he expressed to the Salt Lake Tribune his desire to return, is expected to opt out of the last season of a deal that would pay him more than $12 million next season and become a free agent because of his desire for a long-term deal.

According to the Tribune, Boozer's best option might be to hang around for a season because few teams (such as the Pistons) would have the cap space to sign him outright as a free agent this summer.

If he decided to stay put, he becomes prime trade bait as the Jazz may try to get something for him before he leaves.

The Magic expect to have rookie guard Courtney Lee back in their starting lineup for Game 3 against the Celtics Friday night. J.J. Redick got his second straight start in last night's series opener.

Lee suffered a fractured sinus in Game 5 of the first-round series against Philadelphia last week - the result of an inadvertent elbow from teammate Dwight Howard - and missed the Game 6 clincher. Magic general manager Otis Smith, however, said the 6-foot-5-inch, 200-pound guard is expected to be available Friday.

Lee will wear a protective mask.

Miami is a long way from Minnesota, but that's not keeping former HEAT General Manager Randy Pfund from liking what the Wolves have to offer.

“I am looking to get back to work,” Pfund said.

“I would say there are several opportunities out there, the Wolves’ position being one, that intrigue me.”

Pfund resigned from the Heat last September after 13 seasons as GM, helping lead Miami to 10 playoff appearances and an NBA championship in 2005-06.

Prior to his time in Miami, Pfund served as an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Lakers for seven seasons including serving as head coach from 1992-1994.

Now he's anxious to get back to the front office, perhaps the Wolves could be his next stop.

“I’m flattered that they’re interested," Pfund added.

It's become clear the Chicago Bulls will make keeping Ben Gordon their main focus this offseason. But if Gordon - an unrestricted free agent - returns, someone in the Bulls' backcourt may have to go.

Could Kirk Hinrich be that someone? Hinrich may be moved to make room to keep Gordon, perhaps bringing a low-post scorer such as Utah’s Carlos Boozer in return.

Letting Hinrich go, and keeping Gordon would give the Bulls the depth to trade for a player such as Toronto’s Chris Bosh if he becomes available at next February’s deadline.