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By Don Ellis

The NBA according to Ellis

Man, I really, really hate the summer.

Yeah, I know, everyone loves the summertime, but when you live in Central Florida, it's nothing more than a three month sauna.

It's constantly 95 degrees with 95% humidity and it rains every single day, which means the only time you go outside is to start your car and let the air conditioning run for 10 minutes so you can get to the grocery store - after all, you gotta eat (sorry, Checkers).

But the worst part of the summer is that there is no NBA basketball, which causes a true hoops junkie like myself to suffer through some serious withdrawals. Sure, there are lots of free agent and trade rumors, but most of them never amount to anything, and I do not get the least bit excited writing about a bunch of stuff that is mostly fiction.

The best NBA story I have right now: Last weekend, I spoke with Orlando's Pat Garrity at a social function. He had no posse, he drank very little, he did no drugs, and he didn't hit any women. He also added that he is very happy in Orlando. Thanks a lot, PG, I'm sure the Pulitzer Prize committee will be calling me any day now...

Of course, the big news in the NBA world right now is the Kobe Bryant situation. He is due back in court on October 9. And that's all I'm saying about the story, because only two people really know what happened in Kobe's hotel room. One of them is an admitted adulterer, and the other has (in the past six months) overdosed on pills because she was upset that her boyfriend dumped her. Sounds like a pair of real winners to me...

Is the world coming to an end? It must be, considering the fact that Clippers' owner Donald Sterling actually re-signed Elton Brand and Corey Maggette, and he also vowed to match any offer that Lamar Odom receives.

Has the Donald finally decided to pay the money necessary to field a contending team? It seems that way now, but I'll believe it only if Brand, Maggette and Odom haven't been traded for younger, cheaper players by the end of the 2004-2005 season.

Why is everyone making such a big deal out of the T-Wolves' off-season? Sure, they added some very nice players in Sam Cassell and Latrell Spreewell (Kandi does nothing for me), but does anyone really think that they can get past the Lakers, Dallas, Sacramento or the Spurs in the first round? They might, but I'm assuming that KG will continue to disappear in the last five minutes of big games. If he would play like a 7-footer and actually score in the post during crunch time, I'd give Minny a chance. But I don't see that happening, so we'll all see next summer if Garnett wants to stay in the Twin Cities after yet another first-round playoff defeat.

What the hell are the Knicks doing? Sure Spree was expendable, but Keith Van Horn? He's just what the Knicks need, another tweener who is too slow to play small forward and too soft to play power forward. He should fit in quite nicely in the Big Apple...

The Bulls have brought Scottie Pippen back to Chicago, and in this writer's opinion, it's a great move. Not only does Pip provide the Bulls with a much-needed veteran leader for their talented youngsters, his signing was also a major PR coup for the Bulls. Pippen is over the hill, but he should have enough left in the tank to lead the extremely talented "3 C's" (Jamal Crawford, Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry) into the playoffs in the East.

I'd like to hear from you Hornets fans out there - how peeved are you that the team hired Tim Floyd, the worst coach in NBA history? Send your responses to the new e-mail address for this column, dellis@bullsnews.net.

Send all of your comments and/or questions to the same address, and I'll do my best to answer them. If you want your question to appear in this column, please include your name and hometown.

Florida people, note that the Orlando Sports Reporters have now become the Florida Sports Reporters. The show is still hosted by Gary Cohl and the Orlando Sentinel's Brian Schmitz, but it now appears on both ESPN 1080 in Orlando and ESPN 1060 in Melbourne.

Finally, if any of you Magic fans out there have a question for B-Schmitz, send them to me and I'll make sure you get a prompt answer.