Two veteran National Basketball Association assistant coaches are being considered by the Milwaukee Bucks for the team's vacant head coaching position, according to a league source.

Marc Iavaroni, who has coached under Pat Riley in Miami and Mike Fratello in Cleveland and was with Phoenix last season, is on the Bucks' list of coaching prospects. Suns general manager Bryan Colangelo said Wednesday that he had granted permission for the Bucks to talk to Iavaroni, and the Suns assistant will be interviewed within the next week.

Other known candidates include Atlanta Hawks interim coach Terry Stotts, Detroit Pistons assistant Mike Woodson, Bucks assistant Don Newman and Sacramento Kings assistant Terry Porter.

The 46-year-old Iavaroni joined the Suns after working three years under Riley with the Heat.

Iavaroni was coaching the Suns team in the Rocky Mountain Revue summer league and could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Seattle SuperSonics associate head coach Dwane Casey also is expected to be interviewed by the Bucks. SuperSonics general manager Rick Sund said Wednesday that he could not comment on Casey until formal permission had been granted for the Bucks to talk to him.

On a night when DeShawn Stevenson scored 27 points and injury-plagued rookies Raul Lopez and Curtis Borchardt made their long-awaited debuts, Michael Ruffin might have been the big story for the Jazz.
   
During Phoenix's 89-84 overtime win in the Rocky Mountain Revue over Utah at Salt Lake Community College on Friday, Ruffin had 13 points and 11 rebounds.
   
Did anyone mention that Ruffin is an experienced power forward?

Leandro Barbosa, the second of the Suns? two firstround picks, agreed to terms of his rookie-scale contract and joined the club?s summer camp on Wednesday.

The 6-foot-3 point guard from Brazil will get about $2.6 million, including incentives, over three years.

As with all rookie contracts, the Suns will have an option to extend his contract for a fourth season.

Center Scott Williams said he?s "almost 100 percent sure" his new one-year, $1 million contract for the upcoming season will be completed by today.

Williams, 35, said, "I?d like to play until I?m 40," but acknowledged that the wear and tear of the NBA has taken a toll and he?ll think long and hard next summer about whether to continue.

"I?ve done well with my money," Williams said. "I want my quality of life to be high after basketball."

Shawn Marion?s six-year contract extension, which kicks in starting with the upcoming season, will cost the Suns $86 million, about $3.6 million more than the Suns had unofficially calculated, thanks to the new salary cap calculated by the NBA.

Based on revenues earned by the league, the salary cap for next season was set Tuesday at $43.84 million, up 9 percent from the past season?s level of nearly $40.3 million.

Marion?s contract calls him to start his contract at 25 percent of the team salary cap, or nearly $11 million. Add in a 12.5 percent annual raise, based on the contract?s first year, and the deal comes out to $86.3 million.

Originally, with the salary cap estimated at slightly more than $40 million, Marion?s contract would have started at $10,065,000 and would have totaled about $79 million.

It was a busy Monday morning for the Suns, and not just because they started preparations for the Rocky Mountain Revue in Salt Lake City.

? They announced that first-round draft pick Zarko Cabarkapa has signed a three-year contract.

? They learned that free-agent center Jake Voskuhl will sign a three-year deal.

? They still were trying to get rookie Leandro Barbosa, drafted 28th in the first round by San Antonio and traded to the Suns, out of Brazil.

Cabarkapa, a 6-foot-11 Serbian forward, agreed to terms under the league's rookie salary cap.

The club did not release contract terms, but the scale calls for a three-year, $3.282 million contract for the 17th pick in the draft, including a first-year salary of $1.017 million.

Teams can go as much as 20 percent above or below the scale number. In most instances, players get the additional 20 percent in the form of incentives.

Salary-cap restrictions, first-round draft pick Zarko Cabarkapa and the expected returns of Jake Voskuhl and Scott Williams probably will keep the Suns from pursuing another free agent.

"It's very unlikely," Bryan Colangelo, Suns president and general manager, said Tuesday.

Free agents can begin signing next Wednesday. It has been speculated that the Suns are interested in Predrag Drobnjak, a 6-foot-11 power forward who averaged 8.3 points and 3.7 rebounds for Seattle the past two seasons. Drobnjak is a restricted free agent, and the SuperSonics can retain him by matching any offer.

Any interest in him apparently has cooled because of Cabarkapa, a 6-11 forward, and smooth negotiations with Voskuhl, a restricted free agent, and Williams, an unrestricted free agent.

"We feel like we've addressed some of the things that we were hoping to," Colangelo said. "Now, that doesn't mean that somehow we wouldn't talk about a sign-and-trade scenario. I'm pursuing things like that as part of my normal, everyday conversations."

Colangelo expects Cabarkapa, the No. 17 pick, and playmaker Leandro Barbosa, the No. 28 pick whom the Suns acquired from San Antonio, to sign standard, three-year rookie contracts before a camp for rookies and free agents next week. The camp will run Monday through Thursday at America West Arena.

He was there in Philadelphia on April 16 when Michael Jordan retired all over again. But nobody noticed.

There were whistles, but no bells, in Tommy Nu?ez's final NBA game.

In a way, the anonymity was perfect. It was a deafening affirmation of a job done well. Or, at least, of a job done according to the book. Referees aren't supposed to get in the way. When they do, something has probably gone wrong. Silence is their biggest cheer.

In part, that's why Nu?ez didn't announce his plans in time for anybody to take notice.

"I didn't let anybody know until the middle of April," Nu?ez, 64, said. "But all along, I knew I was going to do it after 30 years. I wanted to do it before I started slipping."