Öffentlicher Bereich » re in position to move ahead.

(SportsNetwork.com) - One team will be getting a superstar back and another will still be without one Friday night when the New York Knicks visit Chesapeake Energy Arena to face the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder will get at least one integral part back on Friday. All-Star guard Russell Westbrook will return to play versus the Knicks. He practiced all week after a broken hand has sidelined him for close to a month. It feels great. I am rested, happy to be back and to go out and try to get a win, said Westbrook. Reigning MVP Kevin Durant also participated in practice this week, although hes not expected back until next week. This week, I dont know what day, theyll get evaluated and well go from there, head coach Scott Brooks told the Oklahoman. Theyll continue to go through this process and when theyre ready -- 100 percent ready -- theyll play. The third superstar surrounding these two teams is most likely out on Friday. Carmelo Anthony injured his back Monday night and missed Wednesdays overtime loss to the Dallas Mavericks. I dont think it will be too long, Anthony told the New York Post. I think the spasms will go away. But Im not going to play with spasms. Against Dallas, New Yorks J.R. Smith hit a jumper with less than a second remaining in regulation to force overtime. The Mavs won the extra session, 14-7, and earned a 109-102 victory. Dallas used a 9-0 run and forced six Knicks turnovers to pull away in the extra session. We made some mistakes down the stretch you cant make on the road, Knicks coach Derek Fisher said. Jose Calderon tallied 21 points, 10 boards and four assists for New York, which has dropped four of its last five games. Samuel Dalembert registered a double-double with 13 points and 13 rebounds. Smith finished with 15, Pablo Prigioni netted 12 and Amare Stoudemire chipped in 10. Fisher played 125 games with the Thunder, including all of last season. The Knicks return home Sunday to face the Miami Heat and will play three straight in Madison Square Garden. Reggie Jackson poured in 22 points and Jeremy Lamb scored 21 off the bench in Oklahoma Citys 97-82 home rout of the Utah Jazz Wednesday night. Serge Ibaka registered 20 points, eight rebounds and four blocks for the Thunder, who snapped a six-game losing streak and gained just their fourth win in 16 tries this season. It was a good team win, said Brooks. Weve been close so many times and I told the guys we have a lot of things to be thankful for this week. Anthony Morrow was the only other Thunder player in double figures with 12. The OKC bench outscored Utahs second unit, 44-3. The Thunder head out on a three-game road trip, starting Tuesday in New Orleans. The Thunder swept both meetings last season and are 11-3 in their last 14 against the Knicks. OKC has taken six of the last seven home matchups with New York. Peyton Manning Jersey . 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With the union re-formed, negotiations with owners will resume Friday on the remaining issues that would be in the collective bargaining agreement, according to a person familiar with the plans.The Vancouver Canucks unloaded an unhappy veteran centre, acquiring three assets in return as new GM Jim Benning starts off his tenure with a major trade. Numbers Game examines the Anaheim Ducks acquiring Ryan Kesler. The Ducks Get: C Ryan Kesler and a third-round pick in 2015. Kesler, 29, has been a very good two-way centre for most of the past seven seasons, scoring at least 20 goals in all six full seasons while missing 31 games during the lockout-shortened 2013 season. He scored 25 goals last season while playing a career-high 21:49 per game, and while Kesler didnt match the outstanding possession numbers he had from 2009 through 2012, he still had positive possession numbers despite facing high quality opposition and starting more of his shifts in the defensive zone, qualities that put him with a sound group of two-way forwards. Holding a no-trade clause, Kesler had control over the situation and that limited Vancouvers options. In Anaheim, Kesler slides into the second-line spot, behind Ryan Getzlaf, and Keslers presence may even free-up Getzlaf a little bit more -- as Getzlaf typically faces a high calibre of opposition with more defensive zone starts. If Kesler takes some of that responsibility, it may allow Getzlaf to get more favourable offensive matchups. While Kesler is a pretty effective shooter, 9.9% or above every year since 2006-2007, his on-ice shooting percentage (which includes the shooting of all others on the ice with him at 5on-5) was his lowest in that span last season, when he played primarily with Chris Higgins on left wing and then a rotating cast of right wingers. The positive of that is that, statistically, hes likely to have better luck next year, in terms of other players shooting percentage, so there may be room for a boost in Keslers production. The Ducks have a variety of young wingers that will be bucking for playing time and a couple of Patrick Maroon, Jakob Silfverberg, Kyle Palmieri, Matt Beleskey, Emerson Etem and Devante Smith-Pelly should have a shot to play on Keslers wings. Anticipating some boost in Keslers production operates on the assumption that he will be getting first-unit power play time because Bonino held that spot with the Ducks last season. For as much as Keslers reputation is built on being a two-way player who can check the oppositions best forwards, hes also been a productive triggerman on the Vancouver power play, ranking among the leaders in power play goals per minute of 5-on-4 play over the past five seasons. Kesler, in addition to being a valuable two-way forward, also comes at a reasonable cost for a veteran player. He has two years remaining on his contract, with a $5-million cap hit. If he plays well over the next couple seasons, there may be a decent chance to get him extended or re-signed, considering that Kesler virtually hand-picked his trade destination. The third-round pick offers about a 30% of chance of netting an NHLer, with maybe a six or seven percent chance of yielding a top-six forward, top-four defenceman or starting goaltender. The Canucks Get: C Nick Bonino, D Luca Sbisa, a first-round and third-round pick.. Bonino is a 26-year-old centre coming off a careerr year, in the first full season that hes played in the NHL.dddddddddddd Boninos 22 goals and 49 points were solid showings, tied for 75th and 72nd, respectively and he scored 20 points on the power play. Bonino has not typically faced tough opposition and has always started more shifts in the offensive zone, yet his possession numbers havent been very good. He was just below break-even last season for the Ducks, but was productive, in part, because he had a high on-ice shooting percentage, which makes Bonino something of a mirror image of Kesler, more likely to see his production fall. Hes not as good, but there was no chance the Ducks were getting a better centre in exchange for a player with a no-trade clause that wanted to be moved out of town. That said, Bonino is an okay option as a second or third-line centre for the Canucks. An inexpensive option for a rebuilding team, signed for three more years at a total cost of $5.7-million, a very reasonable $1.9-million cap hit. Sbisa, 24, was well on his way to a signficant role before he was bypassed on the Ducks depth chart this season. In the previous two years, he had played all but nine games and was up to a career-high 19:50 average time on ice per game last season. The first-round pick of the Flyers in 2008 appeared to be making progress, but then he sprained his ankle in training camp, and later tore tendon in his hand. Those two injuries cost him 41 games and the Ducks had new defencemen -- Ben Lovejoy, Hampus Lindholm, Sami Vatanen -- pull ahead of Sbisa on the depth chart. So, while Sbisa hasnt really established that he can handle a big role, its not unreasonable for the Canucks to put him on their third pairing next year to see if he can get back on track. Sbisa is under contract for one more season, at a cap hit of $2.175-million, after which he will be a restricted free agent. The 24th pick in the draft has typically yielded an NHL player 70% of the time, with a top-six forward, top-four defenceman or starting goaltender 25% of the time. The third-round pick was subsequently moved to the New York Rangers, to acquire veteran winger Derek Dorsett. Dorsett is a 27-year-old who is a willing scrapper, but has also played some tough minutes in a checking role over the past three seasons, with a lot of defensive zone starts. Dorsett is in the final year of a deal that brings a cap hit of $1.633-million. He will be an unrestricted free agent next summer. Will the Canucks be just as good without Ryan Kesler? Not likely. Does this move put them in a decent position going forward, in terms of having assets that they can use to re-shape the team? For sure. Big changes have begun in Vancouver and the first steps may be back before they are in position to move ahead. For the Ducks, theyve raised exectations with the addition of Kesler. They lost in seven games to the eventual Stanley Cup champs and, justifiably, made a move to improve their odds next season by getting a player that they tried to acquire before the trade deadline last season. Scott Cullen can be reached at Scott.Cullen@bellmedia.ca and followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tsnscottcullen. For more, check out TSN Fantasy on Facebook. 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