Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicls writes that Vlade Divac may have been confident in his team?s chances against Team USA, but he never said they would beat Spain.

A crazy day at the Basketball World Championships saw two incredible upsets. The Grizzlies? Paul Gasol and his Spanish team beat Divac?s Yugoslavian club and the team from Brazil defeated Turkey in spectacular fashion.

Yugoslavia fell behind by 19 points in the first half against Spain. They mounted their comeback in the second half, finally taking a lead with 7:44 remaining in the fourth quarter. Spain recovered as Divac fouled out.

A pair of 3 pointers gave Spain the lead with 45 seconds remaining. Paul Gasol was fouled with 27 seconds left giving him a chance to extent Spain?s lead to 4 points. After scoring 25 points in the game, Gasol missed both free throws. Yugoslavia?s last second attempt rattled out and Spain had a 71-69 victory.

In the other game, the favored team from Turkey built a 16-point lead against Brazil but the Brazilian team fought back. After 2 missed free throws by the Truks, Brazil had a chance to win with 15.6 seconds left.

Brazil isolated Marcelo Machado on ex-NBA player Mirsad Turkcan. Machado ran the clock down to his last possible chance before launching his shot just before the buzzer and just beyond Turkcan's reach 22-feet from the basket. It swished, giving Machado a 30-point afternoon and Brazil the 88-86 win.

Steve Wyche of the Washington Post reports that Vlade Divac believes that the Team USA?s grip on the World Championships is in jeopardy.

"We don't think we can beat them, we know we can beat them just like somebody can beat us before we can meet [Team USA] in the finals," Divac said after his team beat Angola, 113-63. "They are the favorites and they are number one and the best. [Do] we have a chance against them? Yeah, we do have a chance. If we come close, we will take advantage of it."

Team USA?s Paul Pierce, was unfazed by Divac's remarks. "The [Yugoslavians] are supposed to feel that way," he said. "I'm glad they feel confident. I'm not going to make any comment to give them any fuel. Vlade has been known to make comments like that." Said U.S. Coach George Karl: "It's our job to shut up the critics. . . . We've just got to go do our jobs and if we do our jobs then everyone has to write their apologies."

American forward Ben Wallace was a little less diplomatic. "That's Vlade shooting off at the mouth again," he said. "He does a lot of that. It's his personal opinion and if that's his personal opinion, who am I to argue with that? That's why we play the games. We're going to be right here."

Vlade?s Yugoslavian squad has five NBA players and feels they can break the US dominance in international play. The Kings? Peja Stojakovic, Seattle's Vladimir Radmanovic and Predrag Drobnjak and Clippers rookie Marko Jaric want to prove their skills and national pride against a lesser US team.

A weaker Team USA, which features Raef LaFrentz instead of Shaquille O'Neal, Shawn Marion instead of Kobe Bryant and Jay Williams instead of Jason Kidd, is a main reason for Yugoslavia's confidence. "If they had Shaq, Kobe and everybody else it would be a different story," Divac said. "This USA team . . . they are not the real Dream Team. The Dream Team is in the past."

Martin McNeal of the Sacramento Bee reports: On Thursday, Mike Bibby agreed to a new seven-year, $80 million contract with the Sacramento KIngs.

 "I'm happy," Bibby said Thursday night from Las Vegas before a late dinner. "I figured something would happen in that meeting. I'm glad to be back in Sac."

The Kings will announce the signing today at a news conference in Las Vegas.

It is the team's second news conference in three days after signing free-agent forward Keon Clark on Wednesday.

The Sacramento Bee reports that Keon Clark is happy to be joining a winning team with a bright future. "I'm excited to be here," the 6-foot-11 Clark said after his signing was announced. "Not too often do you get to go from a playoff team to another playoff team with championship potential."

Clark signed a one-year contract for the $4.5 million mid-level salary cap exception. The deal has an option for another season, said Clark's agent, Jim Mourer.

Kings coach Rick Adelman said Clark gives the team "a lot more versatility. Having him adds depth up front," Adleman said. "He can block shots off the ball. He runs the floor and has developed into a good offensive player."

Clark became an unrestricted free agent in late July when the Raptors rescinded their $3 million qualifying offer, which would have given them the right to match an offer from another team. He played in 81 of 82 regular-season games for Toronto last season and averaged 11.3 points, 7.4 rebounds and a team-leading 1.5 blocked shots in just 27 minutes per game. He made 49 percent of his field-goal attempts and 67.4 percent of his free-throw attempts.

Clark has had some trouble off the court. He was ticketed in late July for possessing approximately a gram of marijuana in his hometown of Danville, Ill. He was cited two years ago for a similar offense. Clark, who was not arrested, has an Aug. 22 court appearance and if found guilty could be fined from $250 to $1,500.

"Everbody makes mistakes," Clark said of his recent troubles. "I'm a small town guy and things happen in a small town when you do big things and it was pretty much blown out of proportion."

Martin McNeal of the Sacramento Bee reports that Keon Clark is close to signing with the Kings. Clark and his agent, Jim Mourer, plan to visit Sacramento this week and hope to sign a contract.

"We're coming out this week, and I would anticipate getting something done right then," Mourer said Saturday afternoon. "I wouldn't say that's for sure, but we're excited about it."

Mourer and Clark met with the Kings in Las Vegas a few weeks ago and likely wouldn't be coming back to the West Coast unless there was more business to handle. Geoff Petrie, the Kings' president of basketball operations, said Friday the team was continuing to talk to free agents but would not comment further.

The Kings have seen the 27-year-old Clark dominate them in rebounding and shot-blocking, two of their weak points. Clark has produced more than a few huge performances, posting career highs of 12 blocks and 22 rebounds.

"They have a good core group of players, and their leadership of Geoff and (Wayne Cooper) and (coach) Rick Adelman is impressive," Mourer said. "They are on their way, and that's definitely something we want to be a part of."

Clark's length, quickness and jumping ability make him a more-than-capable finisher around the basket. Where Adelman finds playing time for him will be a question. At first glance, though, Clark would figure to play in conjunction with starters Vlade Divac and Chris Webber and backup Scot Pollard.

Frank Hughes of ESPN reports that contract negotiations between Mike Bibby and the Sacramento Kings are going slowly.

Hughes says that after his ?wonderful performance? in the playoffs, there was talk of Bibby getting a maximum contract.  Instead, Bibby might just re-sign for the coming season, then test the free agent market next season.

We?ve got to ask a couple of questions.

Now, Bibby?s clearly worth a big contract.  Probably about $7 or $8 million a year.  But ? other than having David Falk for an agent ? why is anyone thinking of him as a maximum contract player?  This is the same player who couldn?t lead the Grizzlies (including max contract Shareef Abdur-Rahim) to better than 23 wins.

And why would the Kings sign a new one-year contract?  Unless they agree on something long-term, the Kings can sit on his current 2002/03 contract.  After all, a $2 million increase on his $5.45M contract costs the Kings $4M.

David Shepardson of the Detroit News reports that Chris Webber may be in trouble with the law. The U.S. Attorney's Office is expected to seek an indictment as early as Wednesday of NBA star Chris Webber for allegedly lying to a federal grand jury about his dealings with banned University of Michigan basketball booster Eddie Martin.

Sources familiar with the investigation told The Detroit News that a grand jury would be asked to indict Webber, the former U-M and Detroit Country Day star, on making a false declaration before a grand jury on Aug. 2, 2000. Conviction on a single charge could bring a maximum prison sentence of five years and a $250,000 fine.
 
The grand jury that will consider the Webber indictment is the grand jury that indicted Martin in May on charges he ran an illegal lottery at Ford Motor Co. plants in Metro Detroit. He admits using some of the proceeds to loan, between 1988 and 1999, a total of $616,000 to four former U-M basketball players -- including $280,000 to Chris Webber and his family.

Mark Kreidler of the Sacramento Bee writes that the Kings and free agent Mike Bibby are right on track. There may not be a lot of action currently in the negotiations, but everyone knows that once the season starts, the Kings will have Bibby as their point guard and Bibby will be a rich man.

Kreidler writes ?The absence of visible progress on the Bibby deal tends to make people nervous, albeit for the wrong reasons. Fans interpret the thundering silence from both Kings president Geoff Petrie and Bibby agent David Falk as an indication that something may be wrong, that discussions have taken a rancorous or abortive turn and that some unseen disaster is just around the next bounce pass.

In fact, the Bibby negotiation is on schedule, which is to say, absolutely nothing's going on. Both parties are in the predictable mid-summer holding pattern. Less than a month from now, you can expect to see Bibby's name on a new long-term contract, most likely in the $75 million range, and we can all forget that this slight pinch in the collective gut ever happened.

Sources in the Kings' organization said last week that the team has had a seven-year offer to Bibby for roughly $70 million on the table for a few weeks.