Bright lights of worlds could wear down OKC this season

• This may not be such celebratory news, OKC. Yes, three players vying for world championship spots is the latest credibility boost and, yes, two making the United States roster is another positive light to shine on the city. But the Thunder will have the challenge of playing with a target on their back for the first time -- as well as having Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook (U.S. men's team) and Nenad Krstic (Serbia) reporting to camp about two weeks after a hard tournament.

That's 60 percent of the starting lineup, after Jeff Green was also in the U.S. camp. The pressure/experience will be good for Durant and Westbrook in particular and youth will obviously help them bounce back, but there's a reason a lot of coaches go easy for a while on players returning from national team duty.

• It's also why the Celtics can't be disappointed Rajon Rondo "withdrew" from the American squad, which came as Rondo himself was conceding bosses Jerry Colangelo and Mike Krzyzewski were close to doing it for him. The U.S. team let him take the high road. Either way, it reduces the risk of injury in a situation when Rondo wouldn't have benefitted from the world-championship experience the same way Durant, Westbrook and other kids would have.

• Someone at ESPN.com has to step forward. Not according to the rules, because it's their world and they can run it however they want, but in the best interest of all that is sane. One of "our crew of 93 NBA experts," as the story says, predicts Greg Oden will be named MVP. This season. It just doesn't say who voted for Oden. If the panelist believes it, fine. But put your name to it and make a case. It's bizarre enough to think an explanation may be in order.

• Prediction time: Spain. The defending world champions have a great mix of size and backcourt depth, even with the hamstring injury that turned Jose Calderon into a late scratch. More importantly, Spain has the kind of roster stability the U.S. can't come close to matching. The Spanish club has years of playing together in pressure moments while the Americans are a first-time unit, the very situation USA Basketball officials had wanted to avoid. Plus, this isn't the NBA game. Play will be more physical, with hand-checking on the perimeter, and Team USA will need to defend the pick-and-roll a lot better than most do here.

• The players' union turned the are-you-serious? comments from Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley -- "I've never read the Collective Bargaining Agreement," he told host Chris Vernon on 730 AM Fox Sports Memphis -- into a mocking moment by forwarding transcripts to the world via Twitter. Of course it did. That has been part of the PR plan for a while and will continue to be part of the plan as negotiations with the league continue to heat up. It makes one of the owners look bad, but the premise of a couple weeks ago still stands: this has been a good actual summer for David Stern even if it hasn't been a good perception summer.

• Re: Shaun Powell wondering if the Lakers should or will retire No. 34 in honor of Shaquille O'Neal, despite bad feelings that still linger: Yes and yes. And it's not even a question. Shaq absolutely gets hoisted to the rafters, even if some still with the team don't get their wish of having him still in the jersey when it happens. It's not a popularity contest with that franchise. If it was, Michael Cooper, Kurt Rambis and Derek Fisher would go on the wall, and that's not going to happen barring unexpected developments. It's about greatness, and the best years of a Hall-of-Fame career were in L.A.

Scott Howard-Cooper has covered the NBA since 1988. You can e-mail him here and follow him on twitter.

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