The official negotiations over the new NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement are over, but the shouting has just begun.

	Related Links: First-round draft pick signing status Sizzlin' & Fizzlin' Archive One On One with Tracy Murray 1999 NBA Free Agents 1999 Season Wrapup Forum: Should players be tested for marijuana?
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The possibility of an addendum to the seven-year agreement lingers, with commissioner David Stern throwing out the potential of a minimum age limit of 20, much to the dismay of the players association. Don't expect it to be approved. The same goes for a one-for-one team matchup with the Continental Basketball Association to make a developmental league like Major League Baseball has had for generations. The union will fight both of those because it limits opportunities.

The bigger news is what will happen during training camp.

For the first time in NBA history, the players will be tested for marijuana and steroids. Steroids, for 99 percent of the NBA, are irrelevant.

But if you don't think testing for marijuana is a big deal, you haven't been paying attention. While many considered it a throw-in as the average salaries crept higher than the owners would have liked in the new agreement, the proof will be in the, uh, punchbowl, so to speak.

A story by The New York Times last year contended nearly 70 percent of the NBA players smoked marijuana on a semi-regular basis.

BILLY HUNTER, THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of the players union, scoffed at the numbers.

"That's ridiculous," he said. "I don't know how they can even print something like that without any corroboration."

Different levels of corroboration are inevitable in these situations. Nonetheless, the training camp analysis (or should we say urinalysis?) is likely to cause tremors for all 29 teams. Camps begin Oct. 5. The tests will occur during that first week, and the bigger problem isn't so much the date as how long the remnants of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, linger in the system.

Some reports say 30 days; others say as long as three months (which is really hard to believe). The key here is in the numbers. One Eastern Conference coach, who begged anonymity, said "at least half" of the players smoke marijuana.

"If you look at a player and think he might be high, more often than not he is," the coach told SportsLine.

"I can't imagine how many players smoke pot during the off-season, and if it stays in their system as long as some reports say, a huge number will test positive."

THE GOOD NEWS IS THE RULES for marijuana are different than for other narcotics like cocaine or heroin, which call for banishment from the league. The first positive test for marijuana requires mandatory counseling; for the second, a $15,000 fine will be levied; and a third positive test will result in a five-game suspension.

This was inevitable. Unlike the 1970s, when cocaine was the drug of choice and the league had become immensely unpopular, the widespread usage of marijuana came during the apex of success for the NBA. Some believe it continued to be pervasive because it was essentially legal under the umbrella of a permissive league.

Therein lies the rub. There is no absolute explanation over why it had become essentially legal. The joke was Stern could walk into a locker room at halftime where everybody -- including the coach -- was getting high and couldn't (or wouldn't) do anything about it. The NBA continued to be on the cutting edge.

Now the party is over, literally. One positive test during training camp leads to a random test during the regular season.

THE WORD WILL SPREAD SOON after the first positive tests are revealed. Players like Isaiah Rider and Vernon Maxwell have had repeated problems. Sacramento Kings point guard Jason Williams was kicked off the team at the University of Florida for continual positive marijuana tests.

These are not isolated incidents. We're only talking about the players who got caught, and the other guys know who they are.

"We've gone on for a long time believing that smoking pot is no big deal because everybody does it," said one Western Conference player. "Now they're telling us it is a big deal. I guess we'll find out how big a deal it really is."

Team USA Part IV

First there was the Dream Team ... a basketball team that featured the likes of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, David Robinson, Karl Malone and Charles Barkley ... among others.

The first USA basketball team to include NBA players won the gold medal in 1992 and changed Olympic basketball forever.

But when the second team was put together for the World Games in Toronto, Larry Johnson, Alonzo Mourning and Shawn Kemp proved to be far less gracious and effective than their predecessors, thus causing Dream Team II to be an oxymoron. Their taunting and rude behavior throughout the games was an embarrassment to USA Basketball and the NBA.

So when the 1996 Olympic squad was assembled, the group from Dream Team II was virtually overhauled, and the third group was cool, calm and collected a gold medal.

THESE DAYS, A FOURTH GROUP is readying itself for the Tournament of the Americas to qualify for the Olympic Games next year in Sydney. Only Gary Payton remains from the 1996 group, with young stars like Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Jason Kidd at the top of the roster.

Also on board are three players who have yet to play an NBA game but were in the top seven of the NBA Draft held two weeks ago. Elton Brand, first pick overall in the draft by the Chicago Bulls, is joined by Wally Szczerbiak (selected sixth by Minnesota) and Richard Hamilton (taken seventh by Washington).

Filling out the team are Steve Smith, Allan Houston and Tom Gugliotta. Questionable picks were Tim Hardaway, whose knee problems caused him to have a rotten 1999 season for the Heat, and Vin Baker, with a weight problem that made him the lightning rod for the Sonics. Seattle didn't make the playoffs for the first time since 1990.

AND IF YOU DON'T THINK there is stress involved, think again. Coach Rudy Tomjanovich was yanked from the Tournament of the Americas because of stress and exhaustion following the draft. Rudy T. and the Rockets were said to be close to dealing Hakeem Olajuwon to Toronto before Rudy T. backed out. Now there are rumblings of him sending Scottie Pippen to the Lakers for Glen Rice and Robert Horry.

No pressure? Just imagine what it would be like to be the first coach to have his team actually lose a game. Now it's up to Larry Brown to qualify the team for Sydney.

"This is a coach's dream to represent the country just as much as it is a player's," Brown said. "We'll be prepared."

With a 28-point victory over Canada in their first exhibition game, they're likely to make a shambles of the qualifying tourney in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the end of the month.

Free Agency Hit List

In the event you believed the NBA front office had July off because there is a moratorium on transactions, think again.

A list of 160 free agents is spread across the 29 NBA teams, who may begin negotiations now. Nobody can be signed nor traded until Aug. 1, when the new salary cap will officially be announced.

Will Barkley return to the Rockets for another year on a squad that is filled with both the too young and the too old? Or will one of his aging teammates, Pippen, be dealt for youth?

A bigger question lies in Seattle, where Baker reportedly still is in bad shape as he begins play for Team USA. It's the same problem he had in February. The Sonics don't really have any choice but to sign him to the maximum of nearly $80 million for fear of losing his talent in exchange for nothing.

After much contemplation to the contrary, it looks like point guard Terrell Brandon will stay put, which is great news for the Timberwolves.

"We wanted players more often than not to be with the same teams for extended periods of time," NBA deputy commissioner Russ Granik said. "Veteran players still have the option to go wherever they'd like when their contracts end, but we were hoping that the new deal would encourage staying with their teams."

So far, so good. Guys like Penny Hardaway and Mitch Richmond are most likely expected to be signed and traded ... which is one way to avoid leaving and losing money.

Shots from the perimeter

• Spurs GM/coach Gregg Popovich reaped the benefit of his team winning the title with a multi-year extension, but there are concerns in San Antonio of the way they blew through other teams with only nine of their 17 playoff games at home ... the financial benefits were limited. One report had them expecting no more than the $9.5 million they earned during the 1994-95 season when they lost in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals to the Rockets. Much of this should be extended with a larger season-ticket base and more sponsorship. But they are hardly out of the woods yet with the demand for a new arena. The Spurs may still be the first NBA franchise to move since the Kings went from Kansas City to Sacramento in 1985.
• Rumblings out of Laker camp have coach Phil Jackson frustrated early on by the early questions about the triple-post offense. Expect aging assistant Tex Winter to join the staff -- since Winter remains the pre-eminent teacher of the offense.
• One reason young players are likely to have a great impact on teams next season than they did in the truncated 1999 version is summer leagues. The developmental leagues will begin next week in the Los Angeles area, Boston and Atlanta. Also expected will be experimentation with the rule changes that include a five-second rule for backing players down, clarification of illegal defenses and less physical play. The final change will be the 14-second rule, which means following a violation, the offense will either get the face value of the shot clock unless it is less than 14 seconds. Then it will go to that number. No longer will it automatically go back up to 24 seconds.

The Cavs made the right move naming Randy Wittman their new coach and not Dave Cowens.(AP)

• Cheers to the Cleveland Cavs for picking Randy Wittman as coach instead of Dave Cowens. Cowens walked out on the Charlotte Hornets this season because he didn't like his contract and the problems of the organization. Regardless of his status in the good ol' boy network, Cowens must pay for walking out on his team. Remember, he quit the Boston Celtics as a player years ago to drive a cab temporarily, so this is nothing new. In Wittman, the Cavs got an energetic and bright young assistant coach. They just should have hired him sooner, so he quite possibly could have prevented them from drafting Trajan Langdon with the 12th pick overall.
• As if people weren't upset enough about the Knicks taking French center Frederic Weis with the 15th pick despite back problems, he already has said he won't play in this country next season. Once again, it seems deposed team president Ernie Grunfeld is getting the last laugh. It could require a full year, but Grunfeld will land on his feet someplace soon after taking the fall for the Knicks with eight games left in the 1999 regular season. His departure could hardly be cited as a reason for the team's dramatic turnaround.