The Portland Trail Blazers signed free agent center Joel Przybilla from the Atlanta Hawks.  The Blazers will be the third team he has played for after he left the University of Minnesota after his sophomore year and was drafted ninth overall in the 2000 draft by Houston.

"Joel is a young man that has demonstrated the ability to rebound and block shots especially when given the opportunity to play last season in Atlanta," Trail Blazers General Manager John Nash said. "We would welcome those attributes to our team."

Przybilla has had a modest carrer thus far, but there are a finite number of 7 footers in the NBA and has a lot of upside and should become a contributer with the rebuilding Blazers.

Cavs center Zydrunas Ilgauskas will be a free agent following this season and Roger Brown of the Cleveland Plain Dealer is already speculating that there will be few suitors who will be able to sign him.  Amongst the teams with suitable cap room will likely be Golden State and Atlanta, but neither have proved terribly attractive to free agents in past seasons.  With the lack of options, combined with the Cavs losing Carlos Boozer this past offseason, Cleveland GM Jim Paxson will likely do all that is possible to resign his center.

According to ESPN, the Warriors and the Mavericks have agreed in principle to a deal sending Erick Dampier to Dallas.  

Eduardo Najera, Christian Laettner, two future first-round picks and cash would go to Golden State.  In return, the Mavericks would acquire Dampier, center Evan Eschmeyer and guard Dan Dickau.

The deal cannot become official until trade restrictions on Laettner and Dickau expire later this summer.  Both have recently been acquired so the deal can only be agreed upon in principle now.

Dampier is passing up the Hawks' $50 million offer over six years.  The Knicks and Pacers also pursued the big man.

Dampier averaged 12.3 points and 12.0 rebounds last season and finished third in the league in field-goal percentage at 53.5 percent.

Nearly two months after being the first player ever acquired by the expansion Charlotte Bobcats, F Predrag Drobnjak has been traded away in a move which gave Charlotte a 2nd round pick in the 2005 NBA Draft.

"This trade allows us to open up a roster spot and also gives us a second round pick next year that we lost last month," said general manager Bernie Bickerstaff. "We had six players at the power forward and center positions and this will relieve some of the logjam and present more minutes for the guys on our roster."

The lost 2nd rounder Bickerstaff is referring to was a trade with the Clippers which landed them Melvin Ely and Eddie House.

Drobnjak was a 2nd round selection in the 1997 NBA Draft, but chose to remain overseas in Serbia and later in Turkey until the 2001/02 season, when he came to Seattle. He played there for two seasons before signing a 3 year deal with the Clippers, but he never fit into coach Dunleavy's system. Drobnjak has a 7.7ppg and 3.6rpg career average.

For the last two months, Knicks' president Isiah Thomas has been trying to work a sign-and-trade with Golden State to land center Erick Dampier.  This week Thomas is expected to talk with Dampier and his agent Dan Fegan, in a last-ditch effort to make a deal.

Many sources say that Dampier will not be able to pass up on the four-year, $40-million offer that the Hawks are offering.  Thomas will be trying to convince Dampier to take a mid-level exception, starting at around $5 million per season.

If the Knicks fail to land Dampier, they may be forced to use the sluggish Baker at center, giving them few options for defending against Shaqille O'Neal in Miami.  

Baker is expected to sign within the next two days.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal confirms that the Memphis Grizzlies have asked the Chicago Bulls about trading center Eddy Curry, but the part about Stromile Swift and Bonzi Wells being the two that the Grizzlies are offering in return is not.

According to a league source, three other teams have presented the Bulls with offers for Curry, and Bulls general manager John Paxson remains somewhat hesitant to move the Bulls' big man.

Memphis is still trying to land Golden State free agent Erick Dampier via a sign and trade, with Curry being their fall back plan.  With Atlanta appearing to be the favorites to land Dampier's services after offering a six year - $50 million deal the Grizzlies may come up dry on both of their targets.

No, it isn?t Brent, this time it is his older brother Jon.  Four teams are supposedly in the hunt for the veteran shooter with the Denver Nuggets being the frontrunners.  The Sonics, Clippers, and Hawks are also said to be in the mix.

Denver has the most money to spend, however Barry currently lives in Atlanta and his son has just started school there.  He has been quoted as saying his family would stay in Atlanta no matter where he plays.

It is still anybody?s guess where the 35-year-old journeyman will end up.

Antoine Walker now feels like he has his own team and it wants him.  

And as his first order of business, Walker will start recruiting free-agent center Erick Dampier to come to Atlanta.

"If that's what it takes [to get Dampier to sign with Atlanta]," Walker said Tuesday after he and Tony Delk were introduced.

"I'm going to lobby for him to come here and help us," Walker said. "I'm going to let him know that what we're doing here, he can make better. With me, him and Al Harrington, we can be one of the strongest frontlines in the league."

Walker also thinks the Hawks can make it to the post-season.

"You've got to always set the goal of making the playoffs," Walker said. "I don't want to promise anything. We're going to use this year to surprise people. We want to be competitive every night, with the playoffs as the goal. And once you make the playoffs, anything can happen."

New GM Billy Knight has almost completely remade the Hawks' roster.

Jermaine O'Neal would like some big help in the frontcourt.  Erick Dampier seems to fit the bill.

"We've talked an awful lot this summer," O'Neal said of Dampier. "I told him he should do a one-year deal.  The only option out there for him is Atlanta. It's his judgment call. He understands we'd love to have him."

Dampier has a six-year, $50 million offer to play with the Atlanta Hawks, but the 30-year-old wants to go to a winner after eight bad seasons in Golden State.

Dampier was drafted 10th overall by Indiana in 1996.  A sign-and-trade deal that would send him to New York appears to have slim hopes.  

Now the Knicks seem to have given away most of their mid-level salary cap exception to Vin Baker, leaving too little for Dampier in New York.

"I'd love to play weak side and go get a couple of offensive rebounds and do stuff like that rather than coming down and having to bang against everybody and try to get the ball in there and score," O'Neal said. "That's hard on you.  I've been begging (Pacers CEO Donnie Walsh) and those guys, 'Please get a big guy. Please get a big guy.' My back won't be hurting as much, my legs won't be hurting. I love Jeff Foster ... but we also have to have another big guy."

Vin Baker is expected to re-sign with the Knicks this week, a move that will eliminate the ability to obtain Erick Dampier for the $4.9 million mid-level exception.

Baker would sign for more than half of the exception, leaving a sign-and-trade the only way to acquire the big man from Golden State.  But the Warriors' front office has rejected the latest Knicks' offers.

A source close to Baker said, "I do believe he'll be signed this week, and it even could be [today]."  Agent Aaron Goodwin is on vacation this week.

"We want Vin to still be part of the family and we also want Dampier as part of the family," Knick president Isiah Thomas said. "My job is to try to find a way to make both work. They're both a priority."