<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post"> The extraordinary events surrounding the Bulls' contract negotiations with center Eddy Curry are fast-breaking to what figures to be an ugly standoff within the next week, one that now seems almost certain to end the Bulls' career of the Thornwood High product. It's a scenario perhaps unprecedented in the NBA: an arbitration ruling in favor of Curry may be the only way he will play again for the Bulls and even then it would be just for this season and at the discretion of a team Curry says he doesn't care to play for anymore. A peaceful resolution, considering recent comments from both sides, seems unlikely. Instead, here are the most likely scenarios: Curry is traded in the next week, he is barred from playing this season or he is sitting restively on the Bulls' bench. Yes, welcome to the opening of the 2005-06 NBA season in Chicago. It should be a competitive one, not unlike the Bulls' spunky effort of 2004-05. But hanging over the team once again, as it seems to have been for the last four years and with darker consequences now, is the fate of Curry. As the so-called Baby Bulls, Curry and Tyson Chandler were once the foundation for the team's future, a pair of 7-footers who arrived in 2001 to be a rare inside-outside combination. Now having signed a long-term contract extension with the Bulls, Chandler appears to be the key ingredient of a different kind of team?hustling, opportunistic and heady.</div> <div align="center">Source</div>
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">As one who has studied heart diseases in athletes for four decades, Dr. Barry Maron doesn't feel the need to defend himself from NBA players or even peers whose judgments may differ from his own. So in wake of his recommendation that Eddy Curry undergo a genetic heart test to rule out a potentially fatal condition ? a decision that touched off the ongoing dispute between the Bulls and the 6-foot-11-inch center ? Maron offered no apologies Tuesday. "I could care less what anyone has to say about my medical opinions," said Maron, director of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation. "I'm not in this profession for ego gratification. This is not a competition. This is not a game. This is very serious business." While Maron declined to discuss the specifics of the Curry case, he stood behind his decision of two months ago. "Someone asked me for my opinion and I gave it to them," said Maron, who hasn't spoken with team physicians in weeks. "I really haven't thought about it since then."</div> <div align="center">Source</div>
