Mike Dunlap believes Michael Kidd-Gilchrist rates in the top one percent of players as a competitor.

Kidd-Gilchrist had a strong showing at the Las Vegas summer league.

"The little thing that showed up for us that wasn't highlighted is when the game's on the line, his uncanny ability to get offensive or defensive rebounds," Dunlap said.

Dunlap also noted Kidd-Gilchrist's ability to finish plays at the basket.

"Guys ricochet off him," Dunlap said. "He can finish against 7-footers."

LeBron James is likely to limit his minutes during the preseason, beginning with the possibility of skipping the opener on October 7th against the Hawks.

"I don't even know if I'll play much at all in that game," James said Sunday about the game in Atlanta.

The Heat are monitoring how much time James spends on the floor during drills.

James contends he is already in regular season shape.

"It does feel different," James said. "I'm in better shape right now than I've been, because I've played so much basketball. Usually, it takes me a week, a week-and-a-half of camp to kind of get back into it. But at the same time, I've still got to be cautious. I've played a lot of basketball and I've got to be cautious and not allow myself to be out there too much. We'll monitor that."

Rick Carlisle wants the Mavericks to operate out of the “flow” offense instead of set plays the majority of the time.

That means newly acquired point guard Darren Collison will have freedom to direct the team’s offense on the fly.

“My continuing goal, my ongoing goal is to call less or no plays if we can,” Carlisle said. “I think that that’s better. We want our guys to make plays, not call plays.”

Carlisle prefers to call plays only in specific situations, such as coming out of timeouts in crunch time.

“I want our system to be based on simplicity and counters and guys knowing which counters are there are how to react and respond appropriately, not having 75 plays that each have five options,” Carlisle said. “That’s too confusing.”

Doc Rivers is hoping to maximize the skills and abilities of Jeff Green this season.

"When he’s at the 3, I want him to be a power player, I want him to post more," Rivers explained. "That’s one of the things I thought I let him down when he was with us the first time, I didn’t think we posted him enough. I thought in the Miami series, if you remember, he had a little stretch in the post.

"I don’t have a big body of work to go with on Jeff. When he’s at the 4, I want him to be the fastest player in the gym. I want him to outrun [his defender and] one of the things we have been working on the last three weeks, is throwing the ball ahead to him on the break at the 4, and tell him to attack the basket. There’s a 4 guarding you that probably doesn’t want to guard you. We want him to be uptempo 4, power 3."

Green has spent the majority of his four-year career at small forward.

Chris Kaman suffered a back sprain during the Dallas Mavericks' first preseason practice.

Kaman has missed 69 games over the past two seasons.

“It was a really good practice,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “We had one casualty. Kaman went out with a sprained lower back. It’s not considered serious. So we’ll see how he’s doing for tonight and tomorrow and go from there. It’s not serious, but it was enough to keep him out of about half of what we did [in the morning].”

Elton Brand replaced Kaman at center in drills.

“I don’t know who’s going to start at center,” Carlisle said. “On paper, it looks like Kaman will be the starter, but we got a long way to go before we figure out what’s best for the team. Everything’s on the table.”

Chris Paul and Chauncey Billups are unable to scrimmage as they recover from injuries, but they still ran through a few offensive sets with the first team of the Los Angeles Clippers.

"It was real nice to see Chauncey out there," Paul said. "When Coach called the first team out so we could go over things, me and Chauncey went out there. And then when they started scrimmaging, me and Chauncey came to the side and shot some."

Paul is expected to be fully available to return sooner than Billups.

"Me and Chauncey had a chance to watch a lot. I found myself watching over there on the sideline and I was actually excited," Paul said. "I hate to watch basketball. Obviously I love to play. But it was kind of cool because I'm sitting there and I'm watching Jamal Crawford, Lamar Odom — all these great players out there on the court."

Rasheed Wallace has notified the New York Knicks that intends to sign with the team for the 12-13 season.

Wallace first worked out for the Knicks last Saturday and had been considering ending his retirement.

Wallace last played in the 2010 NBA Finals.

Wallace has not yet signed a deal, according to a team source. Wallace will join the team on Monday, according to the New York Post.

The Timberwolves used their amnesty designation to waive Darko Milicic, who had two years remaining on a four-year contract signed in the summer of 2010.

Milicic had $10 million remaining on his deal, but only $7 million was guaranteed.

Dwyane Wade has been slow to recover from knee surgery in early July.

Projected recovery time was four to six weeks, with the Saturday start of training camp marking 11 ½ weeks of rehabilitation.

Wade still isn’t 100 percent and will likely miss the team’s October preseason games.

“I understand that it’s a process and I’m going to take that process and be … I’ve been here before, guys, so I know what to do. I’ll be all right,” Wade said. “I went all the way around the block just to go next door.”

The Heat declined to put a timeline on Wade’s return to full strength.

“I’m just strictly looking at him big picture,” Erik Spoelstra said. “I don’t have a specific plan for him in training camp of how many days. We’re going to read and react to it.”

The Los Angeles Clippers hired shooting coach Bob Thate over the offseason.

Thate is working with all of the players, but Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan in particular.

"It's not one of those things where I'm going to be a great shooter overnight," said Griffin, who shot 52.1% from the free-throw line last season. "But I think I have the tools and I've got to keep working and keep practicing the right way."

Jordan, who shot 52.5% from the free-throw line last season, said that "it has improved" after working with Thate.

"I'm working with him every day," Jordan said. "I'm just going to continue to get better at it."