g out behavior than it is to acknowledge the offensiveness of the behavior itself. Asking the band not to spell out IX harkens back to th

Miami President Pat Riley is a big fan of the symbolic 12:01 a.m. phone call to his teams top targets. San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich says he would rather be sleeping at that moment. And more than $1 billion in deals will likely be hammered out in the next couple of days alone.Free agency has returned to the NBA, and this July 1 is unlike any other.Sure, theres the annual list of superstars who could take their talents elsewhere -- Kevin Durant will hear sales pitches designed to talk him into leaving Oklahoma City, Dwyane Wade is prepared to leave Miami if he doesnt get a deal to his liking, and it seems LeBron James will make the Cleveland Cavaliers dig even more deeply into their pockets to reward him for the citys first NBA title.All this comes with a backdrop of an enormous jump in the salary cap, going from $70 million this past season to likely somewhere close to $95 million when the league announces the actual number early next week.So the spending will be out of control. Thats for certain.Just about everything else is uncertain, starting with Durants status.My message to him is just try to get through this, dont make a decision based off anybody else, make your own decision, New York Knicks forward and Durants Olympic teammate Carmelo Anthony said. Because at the end of the day, youre the one that has to live with that.Durant, true to his nature, is tight-lipped about how his decision-making process will actually work.Ill factor in everything thats important to me, which is playing basketball at the end of the day, and well see what happens, Durant said.Durant plans on going to New York -- not to play, but to deliberate. Some teams have been granted invites to meet with Durant in the New York area this weekend, and Miami center Hassan Whiteside is planning to meet with teams there as well on Friday. Theres been no indication how quickly Durant will reveal if hes staying with the Thunder or moving on, but in Whitesides case the answer could come on Day 1.Im not calm. Look at me. Woooo! Whiteside shrieked earlier this week in Miami, when he talked about the looming decision that will take him from someone who made just under $1 million this past season -- pocket change by NBA standards -- to quite probably more than $20 million in each of the next four seasons. Im excited, man. Cmon, man. Free agency time.Whiteside will strike it rich without going to a single All-Star Game first. Bismack Biyombo (who made $2.8 million this season and is expected to at least quintuple that going forward) will probably do the same, and that comes with him not even having been a full-time starter in Toronto.This is the new NBA.And its not changing.The cap will take another giant leap next season, too. Basketball Hall of Famer Gary Payton stopped playing less than a decade ago; he made about as much in his entire career as Whiteside will likely make in the contract he can sign starting July 7.Payton equates free agency today to a lottery, with a lot of sweepstakes winners.Some of these players, they make decisions because of all of the money, he said. Youre going to get the money. I think you go to a place where youre going to be successful and have a chance to win ... always be in the competition to win a championship.Payton could have made so much more money now, but hes far from upset about it. He even says a player like James should be making about $50 million now, given what hes done and what he means to the league.I got on my mom about that the other day and asked her why she had me so early, Payton said. It is what it is. Its a different era. I was in the best era. I liked my era. We started all this.Because theres never been a market like this, given all the new cap room, it seems like no one really knows what to expect.That includes the Commissioner of the NBA.As Ive said, there will be unintended consequences from all this additional cap room this summer, Adam Silver said at the All-Star Game back in February. I just dont know what those consequences will be.Starting at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time Friday, when the shopping window officially opens, the league will begin finding out.Its not so much about the things you want, Thunder general manager Sam Presti said. Its about the things that are made available to you.---AP Basketball Writer Brian Mahoney in New York contributed to this report. Curry 2 Shoes Online . Thats not a comment on the suspension that banished the Portland Winterhawks general manager and coach from his Western Hockey League teams bench for most of the 2012-13 season. Curry 3 Outlet Store . They reached the 100-point plateau for the fourth time in five games, bested the visiting Trail Blazers by 34 in the paint and scored 19 of the final 25 points in regulation. http://www.outletunderarmourstore.com/cheap-under-armour-shoes-online.html . The next step is a better finish. Bae played bogey-free Friday on another gorgeous day at Riviera for a 5-under 66, giving him a one-shot lead over Aaron Baddeley and Robert Garrigus going into the weekend. Fake Curry 4 . The Lightning are 2-0 so far on a four-game road trip, giving the club five straight wins as the guest and improving Tampas away record this season to 11-8-2. Threadborne Shoes Online . But when it comes to determining if Raymond will find a place on the Leafs roster when training camp concludes in a week, well, that decision will ultimately fall to the head coach. This weekend, Tennessee commemorated the life of Pat Summitt at its football game. It was a moving halftime tribute to a coach who was tough, but whose tenure was cut short by illness. A gesture like that can be a powerful thing -- something to reinforce the ideals of a school and unite a college community.Sports can do that for us. It can be a prism to look at what we value and want to pass on to our children. And then there are moments when the games become more important than those values, and the pageantry makes a mockery of them.That happened twice this weekend as two college football programs opted to celebrate past football glory, even as that bygone success masked a corrosive culture and sexual abuse.Penn State went forward with its celebration of the 50th anniversary of former coach Joe Paternos first football game on Saturday, despite an outcry from those outside the community.Heres the problem. Paterno, before his death in 2012, might have known about former coach Jerry Sanduskys serial abuse of boys, allegedly at times on the Penn State campus. At least two witnesses have testified under oath that Paterno was told about the abuse.I dont want to hear about any of that kind of stuff. I have a football season to worry about, Paterno told the then 14-year-old boy. The boy later testified as an adult.What does it say about an administration and football culture that refuses to open the door, even now, to the possibility that victims of abuse could be telling the truth? Especially, when in this case, their claims have been repeatedly validated.Sandusky was convicted and is currently serving at least 30 years in prison. There is no argument that his crimes are real. Penn State does a disservice to the men and witnesses who live with the scars of that abuse by celebrating Paterno.The situation at Baylor is very different, but the independent Pepper Hamilton report details a culture that put football before character, and disregarded the experiences of women who came forward to report abuse. Two players were legally convicted, and head football coach Art Briles was fired.Yeet somehow, Briles was cheered as he attended an away game this weekend by the Baylor faithful.dddddddddddd. Yes, he could buy a ticket to a game on his own, but why didnt the Baylor administration ask him not to attend?Had Briles felt true culpability as expressed in an interview with Tom Rinaldi, he might not have felt entitled to show up as the lawsuits and investigations are still playing out. There are multiple women suing the school -- a suit the school is seeking to have dismissed.The Rice marching band spelled out IX during one formation during Saturdays halftime, referring to the Title IX violations that the school might incur with alleged violations of student rights. Some people considered this offensive, but really, its not nearly as offensive as the allegations in the Pepper Hamilton report -- or the legal findings in criminal cases involving Sam Ukwuachu and Tevin Elliott.But its more convenient to get offended by the act of pointing out behavior than it is to acknowledge the offensiveness of the behavior itself. Asking the band not to spell out IX harkens back to the days when off-the-field meant something wasnt fair game. But thats not the case anymore.ESPN broadcaster Adam Amin actually used the opportunity to discuss the situation at Baylor, including details, and was careful to say that none of the current players on the field are culpable for all the sins of the program. It was a particularly informed and well-done moment.Can you imagine what a game-changer it would be if each broadcast offered the potential for that discussion, when relevant? Schools might work harder to make sure that expectations were high and penalties were enforced, rather than business as usual.Baylor and Penn State, given the optics of the weekend, prefer the golden-hued past to this new reality. Support for Paterno and Briles shows just how stubbornly insulated a college community can be, and how easy it is to ignore the victims in the wake of the cheers. ' ' '