Was fortunate enough to play with Randy for seven years and the way he took the league by storm was unbelievable, Birk said. Be a part of that and to be his teammate for seven years, we had a lot of fun in the locker room and obviously won a lot of games in large part to him. I haven kept in touch with him or anything like that, but obviously I happy for him and that he still playing..There are going to be several terrible teams in the NBA this season, because of the loaded draft and freeagent class next year, but Philadelphia has the potential to be absolutely horrifying. Jason Richardson is a key part of the roster. Kwame Brown might get significant minutes.

In Baton Rougewhere Russell starred and, with his cartoonishly strong right arm, led the Tigers to a Sugar Bowl win as a junioran athletic department official tweeted over the summer that he was returning to school to finish his degree. That turned out to be a false lead. A cousin asserted that Russell was opening a