Full-Court Press

Details on PA auditions

OK, if you think you've got a set of pipes and some game when it comes to attitude, here's your chance.

It is indeed true that the Mavericks are going to have auditions for their next public-address announcer for home games.

Billy Hayes has left because of some family matters and the replacement will be picked from an audition that might be dubbed "So you think you can MFFL.''

Owner Mark Cuban said the Mavericks are looking for "someone who can embrace the attitude of the Mavs' fan.''

We're not sure what that means, but surely some creative Maverick fans can figure it out.

The audition, by the way, is Tuesday from 4-6 p.m. and time slots must be secured beforehand. Registered applicants must supply a resume, a bio and a non-returnable head shot.

Strong-voiced applicants may also enter via the web by sending e-mail recordings or via regular mail with CD or DVD recordings.

Visit mavs.com for more info.

Is there a new voice of the Mavs out there?

We're hearing that the Mavericks are looking for a new public-address announcer for games. Not sure what happened to Billy Hayes, but we'll see what Mark Cuban has to say about it after practice, which should be ending shortly.

There's a rumor about an open audition for game screamers - oops, I mean game announcers - coming next week.

Dirk to carry less weight?

Not just figuratively, as it turns out.

Dirk Nowitzki not only got more help this season, but he's toting fewer pounds.

The 7-footer said he was playing at about 255 pounds last season and now has shed down to 243 as training camp opened.

That should be good news. Not that Dirk was out of shape or anything like that, but a few less pounds of wear and stress on his knees and ankles couldn't hurt. And by the way, those ankles have been extremely durable in recent seasons after he had consistent problems with them earlier in his career.

The NBA gets it right -- again

Drew Gooden was asked about getting into the routine of training camp on Tuesday and whether twice-daily practices are a grind for veterans like himself.

His comeback was classic.

"Hey, listen, football has a month of this,'' he said. "We only got a week and then we're playing games.''

Once again, the NBA rules as the league that doesn't overdo the preseason, even if season-ticket holders who get hit for four exhibition games in their packages have a legitimate right to bristle.

Strange stuff from the gambling world

It's sort of NBA related, so we'll go with this one.

An enterprising online wagering site, bookmaker.com, has issued the following odds on, of all things, the length of the marriage between Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian.

Does it really get any better than that?

The website says that "with the usual fleeting trend of Hollywood marriages, one can assume it won't be long before we heard divorce bells.''

So with that, they have set the favorite odds that the marriage will last one to five months. You can get $120 for every $100 wagered on that proposition.

One to three weeks is $165 for $100; 6-11 months is $200 for $100 and one to two years is $300 for $100. If it goes over two years, you get $400 for $100, assuming you still have the ticket in hand 24 months from now.

McHale spreading wealth of information

For the second training camp in a row, the Mavericks had a marquee visitor.

After Reggie Miller stopped by to speak to the team last fall, legendary big man Kevin McHale spoke at the team dinner Monday night and was at practice this morning.

He's going to stick around all week to lend his expertise.

"For the first day of practice, I was very impressed,'' McHale said of the Mavericks. "They're a veteran team. It should be a very exciting year down here.

"They have the ability to play big, play small and (Drew) Gooden and (Shawn) Marion give them a whole different look.''

McHale, who somehow was let go by the Minnesota Timberwolves despite being a native son and doing a solid job building that team (and coaching it, too, at times). For now, he's just wanting to impart as much as he can to the Mavericks.

"He gave a good speech (at the dinner) and talked about the old days and what they're mindset was,'' Dirk Nowitzki said of the hall of famer who won three titles with the Boston Celtics. "I'm going to try to pick his brain while he's here. To me, he's probably the greatest low-post player the league has ever seen. He had every move in the book. It's good to have him and hopefully he can bring us to the next level.''

Nowitzki opens up about the tough summer

Dirk Nowitzki new precious little about the woman he dated for more than a year and was engaged to, the Mavericks' superstar said at the team's media-day session on Monday.

Nowitzki, whose fiancé Cristal Taylor is now jailed because of crimes committed before she knew the 7-footer, said when asked what he knew of Taylor's past:

"Not a lot, really. I don't want to really get into all that. There's been a lot of dirt and mud thrown around. But I don't like to get into all that stuff _ what did he say, what did she say. I like to think of myself as a gentleman. I always have and I'm not going to get into all that. I consider it over and I'm moving on.''

Nowitzki did a wonderful job of answering questions about his tumultuous summer during a 30-minute give-and-take with the media. He also said he hasn't soured on women despite the tough experience with Taylor.

"I still want to have a family at some point,'' he said.

The best thing moving forward for Dirk is that he feels like his play against Denver in the playoffs while all the stuff was going down with Taylor proved something to himself.

"I just think it showed me that I'm mentally tougher than a lot of people think,'' he said. "I've played through that and injuries and I always felt like I was always pretty tough. I might not be the most physically tough player. But mentally I think I'm right up there.

Looking ahead to media day

Do you think there's any chance Dirk Nowitzki might be a center of attention later today when the Mavericks get together for the start of training camp with their annual media-day obligations?

His summer has been unbelievably complicated with the arrest, jailing and subsequent uncertainty about whether Cristal Taylor was pregnant. Because she was not, that is obviously a large load off of Dirk's mind.

But the whole issue was a pain for Dirk, although he has moved on, as he has said in an interview with German media members earlier this month. If you can sift through some rather loose translation, here's a link to one of the interviews Dirk did earlier this month.

We're pretty sure he'll expound on things Monday.

http://translate.google.de/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.donaukurier.de%2Fsport%2Fsportinkuerze%2Fmeldungen%2FIch-hake-die-Geschichte-als-Lebenserfahrung-ab%3Bart605%2C2174931&sl=de&tl=en&hl=de&ie=UTF-8

Mavs have a backup center plan

The idea is to bring in longtime backup center Jake Voskuhl in to training camp for the Mavericks, mostly as an insurance policy.

Voskuhl won't have a guaranteed contract, but the big man who came out of high school near Houston and has spent nine years in the NBA, including last season with Toronto, for whom he played 38 games.

The 6-11 Voskuhl is one of several players the Mavericks expect to bring into camp on non-guaranteed contracts.

Clarifying the referee situation

Sometimes, there's more than meets the eye in a contract negotiations.

The NBA and its referees remain stuck in talks about a new collective-bargaining agreement, and it's true, as we mentioned yesterday, that the distance between the sides in terms of actual pay for the refs isn't that great.

It'll likely be covered in timely fashion.

But as usual, there are details that don't involve how much the refs actually will make in salary. The league is hoping to trim ancillary retirement stipends and tweak the pension package of refs.

That's a pretty significant amount of compensation that has to be ironed out.

In addition, the number of D-League refs that are used during portions of the season to get them NBA ready also is open to discussion.

Those three issues will have to be settled before there's a final agreement and those will be far more problematic than the actual pay for the present-day refs.

Still, most observers expect an agreement sometime in the next month or so. If replacement refs are used in the regular season, it will be a bit of a shocker. But stranger stuff has happened.