BC Khimki Moscow Region brought a familiar face back and announced a new player with the signing of Timofey Mozgov and Chris Quinn on Thursday.

Mozgov played four seasons with the club from 2006 through 2010. He averaged 6 points, 4.1 rebounds and 0.9 blocks in 16 Euroleague games as a reserve in his final season with the club, 2009-10.

Quinn averaged 2.1 points in 38 NBA games last season.

Matt Bonner has been unsuccessful in procuring his Canadian citizenship, despite getting the ball rolling back in 2008.

“It’s very frustrating,” Canada head coach Leo Rautins said on Tuesday, after a Team Canada practice at Ryerson University. “I see a lot of Canadians who are less Canadian than Matt Bonner. His daughter’s Canadian. His wife’s Canadian. His grandfather’s Canadian. He’s got a home here. When he’s not playing for the San Antonio Spurs, he’s here (in Toronto).”

The main stumbling block seems to be the fact that Bonner, a native of Concord, N.H., spends most of the year in the United States.

The French national team has obtained insurance for Spurs guard Tony Parker, Blazers forward Nicolas Batum, Bobcats forward Boris Diaw, and Knicks center Ronny Turiaf.

All of the players on the French squad were given medical examinations at the INSEP in Paris last week, including Bulls center Joakim Noah, who has dual U.S. and French citizenship.

Undisclosed questions arose during Noah’s exam. France's basketball federation did not disclose the nature or cause of the problem, but said the injury was suffered toward the end of last season.

Noah struggled to regain his form after suffering a sprained right ankle on March 28 against Philadelphia.

He is rehabilitating the injury in Chicago with the goal of rejoining the French team prior to Eurobasket on August 31.

Suns forward Mickael Pietrus was ruled medically ineligible to play for France because of a previous wrist injury.

In a radio interview earlier this week, Manu Ginobili was confident that the NBA players on Argentina's national team would be able to find insurance so that they could play in pre-Olympic qualifying in August.

"Insurances will be achieved," he said. "The question is at how much and at what conditions. There are many countries that have NBA players, but I don't doubt we will all be there."

In an interview with an Argentinian based website, two-time All-Star Manu Ginobili kept open the possibility of playing after his contract ends in two years but also admitted time wasn't on his side long-term.

"The truth is that I have set the date of my retirement, but I have two years left on this contract in San Antonio, and I will reach age 36. I think it may be an appropriate age to stop playing," Ginobili stated.

Ginobili will turn 34 later this month and has been an integral part of the Spurs' success since joining the club in 2003.

Tony Parker and the rest of France's NBA stars were on hand as the national team got together at the national sports institute in Paris on Tuesday to open their preparations for EuroBasket.

The one notable absentee from Vincent Collet's 15-man squad is Mickael Gelabale, who is in the Antilles following the death of his father. The swingman is expected to join his teammates in due time.

NBA stars Parker, along with Joakim Noah, Nicolas Batum, Boris Diaw, Mickael Pietrus and Ronny Turiaf are all on hand for the training camp.

If the NBA doesn't play next season, or at least if the lockout lasts into 2012, Spurs guard Tony Parker plans to give a big boost to ASVEL -- the team he part-owns and manages in France.

"If in January-February, the NBA says the lockout will last until the end of the season, I will come to France, but the NBA season can start anytime -- They will not say in October that the strike will last all year, it does not work like that," Parker said. "But if so, I'd head over to the ASVEL because I'm general manager and executive director."

ASVEL has already signed three players with names familiar to NCAA basketball fans in Jamie Skeen, Kim Tillie and former NBA player Hilton Armstrong.

Spurs assistant coach Don Newman passed on an offer by Phoenix Suns coach Alvin Gentry to be the Suns defensive coordinator next season.

Newman has worked under Spurs coach Gregg Poppovich as an assistant since 2004.

The time is quickly approaching for Argentina’s national team players to launch their preparations for the FIBA Americas Championship in Mar Del Plata.

It remains to be seen if stars Luis Scola, Manu Ginobili, Andres Nocioni and Carlos Delfino will be among them because of the insurance quandary caused by the NBA lockout.

"This has to be resolved in 15 days time because all the teams will soon begin training,” Argentina Basketball Confederation president German Vaccaro said to FIBA.com.

“Argentina will start training on July 29.

“In our case, I’m optimistic that Argentina will have all of their players to play in the tournament we are hosting."

The cost of the insurance?

"We know it´s a lot of money, but we are not sure exactly,” Vaccaro said.

“What we have heard is that a player who has a three-year contract and is not one of the highest earners but an average one, if we had to insure him for the three years, we would be talking about 300,000 US dollars.

“So we are talking about an amount that would be unreachable for any federation.”

Tiago Splitter will have his insurance paid by the Brazilian Basketball Confederation in order to participate in Olympic qualifying this summer in Argentina.

Brazilian teammates Anderson Varejao and Leandro Barbosa will be unavailable due to injury.