He has run on carbon-fiber blades and was originally banned

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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- With the prospect of a trade for Dwight Howard fading and the season opener less than a week away, New Jersey Nets coach Avery Johnson was getting a feel for his team. That all changed Thursday when centre Brook Lopez broke his right foot, an injury that left Johnson shaking his head and considering his options. Lopez, the Nets leading scorer, had surgery Friday for a nondisplaced fracture. He was hurt in a pre-season game against the Knicks on Wednesday and will be sidelined at least six weeks and probably more. In the meantime, general manager Billy King acquired former all-star centre Mehmet Okur from Utah for a second-round draft pick, signed free agent guard DeShawn Stevenson and waived forward Ime Udoka. With the additions of Okur and Stevenson, the Nets have hit the salary cap, so their revamped team is set. It has one star, point guard Deron Williams, and a lot of new faces -- Okur, Stevenson, free agent forwards Shawne Williams and Sheldon Williams, rookies Marshon Brooks and forward Jordan Williams and holdovers Jordan Farmar, Anthony Morrow, Damion James and Kris Humphries. "Every day is a new day I tell our players," Johnson said Friday. "When you get up in the morning you think about being a difference maker. You think about positive energy. Everybody is undefeated now." The Nets (24-5 probably arent going to stay that way long. They open on Monday at Washington and play 10 of their first 14 games on the road. The home opener is Tuesday against Atlanta. "There is no surrender in how we react as coaches, how we approach practice," Johnson said. "Its not necessarily the situation we diagrammed going in, so we adjust. So if plan A doesnt work, you have to go to plan B and C and thats what we are doing." The big question is Okur, who is to practice with the team Saturday. "We needed another guy to fill in, but hes just not filling in," Johnson said. "Hes a veteran player. Hes had a solid career so far. He knows how to play and how to pass. Hes still shooting the ball pretty good." Okur played in 13 games last season while recovering from Achilles and back injuries. The 32-year-old Turk has averaged 13.7 points and 7.1 rebounds in 617 career games with Detroit and Utah. Deron Williams played with Okur in Utah, and the two spoke Thursday. "He was shocked a little bit at first, probably my reaction, but hes warming up to it and excited coming over, excited to play with me again," Deron Williams said. "Ill try to make the transition as easy as possible." Deron Williams said the Nets would not have to revamp their offence because Lopez played more on the outside than in the paint. "Its our team," Deron Williams said. "Whether I am comfortable or not, its our team. Weve got good guys, guys who know how to play basketball and make plays. Thats all we need as long as our defence is locked in. Guys can hit shots, hit big shots, and I think we do. I like we added DeShawne. He can hit shots but he also brings that toughness and can guard people." Johnson also is comfortable with his team, for now. "I know they will play hard," Johnson said. "When you have a team with Deron Williams as the point guard he will do a good job of quarterbacking the team." King expects Lopez to play in a game in six-to-eight weeks. Dr. Martin OMalley, a foot specialist, and team orthopedist Dr. Riley Williams III inserted a screw into the fifth metatarsal of Lopezs foot at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan. OMalley said rehabilitation will start in two weeks. Lopez averaged 20.4 points and 6.0 rebounds in 82 games last season. "We go to him a lot late in games and stuff," Humphries said. "We wont have that. Well probably have to play at a little different pace and be sharper with the shooting and be more up and down and precise in executing on the break. Depending on who plays his minutes, well be more of an up-tempo team." Stevenson averaged 5.3 points and 1.2 assists in helping the Mavericks win their first title last season. He was used mostly in a defensive role and can score more if needed. "It probably will be tough coming from the team where I came from, but at the same time its a challenge," Stevenson said after his first practice with the Nets. "We were challenged to win a championship and this is a different type of challenge." wholesale jerseys .S. market to cash in on its global appeal. The record 19-time English champions will open an office on the East Coast to maximize commercial opportunities in the United States, where the club is now listed on the New York Stock Exchange. cheap jerseys . Djukic says "I dont share but I respect the decision." Djukic, who played for Valencia for six years, took over the team this off-season after two impressive seasons at Valladolid. http://www.wholesalechinatmall.com/. Not so for Ryan Lochte, who finished out of a medal for the first time in his Olympic swimming career. cheap nfl jerseys . After a 99-97 loss to the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday night, his Celtics coaches and teammates have only positive things to say about the Toronto-born rookie. wholesale nfl jerseys .A. Happ capped a challenging season with one of his best efforts of the year.PRETORIA, South Africa -- For two days, the witness in the murder trial of Oscar Pistorius kept her composure. Then, just as her testimony was about to finish, she broke down in tears at what she said was the memory of the screams she heard on the night that the double-amputee athlete fatally shot his girlfriend in his South African home. Michelle Burger, a neighbour of Pistorius who took the stand on the second day of a trial watched around the world, remained calm through intense questioning by the chief defence lawyer. In a final exchange with the lead prosecutor on Tuesday, however, emotion washed over her as she recalled what she described as the terrified screams of a woman early on Valentines Day last year. "When Im in the shower, I relive her shouts," Burger said in an apparent reference to her trauma just after the shooting, when a police captain took her statement. When Gerrie Nel, the prosecutor, asked her about her emotions at the time, she said the experience was "quite raw" and her voice broke. Nel asked her how she was coping now. "Im coping fine," Burger insisted. "Its been a year." Burger, a university lecturer, lives 177 metres (193 yards) from Pistorius house, where his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, died in what the runner said was an accident. Burger testified that she heard a man and a woman shouting, then the sound of four gunshots. She said the womans screams continued during the gunshots and quickly faded away after the final one. She was the first witness called by the prosecution, which contends that Pistorius intentionally killed Steenkamp after a loud argument. Her testimony contradicts Pistorius account. He says he fired four times through the toilet cubicle door, hitting Steenkamp three times in the head, arm and hip or side area after thinking she was a dangerous intruder. He has pleaded not guilty. The defence contends that Burger may have been asleep when the gunshots were fired, and then mistakenly thought she was hearing gunfire when in fact it was the sound of Pistorius breaking the toilet cubicle door with a cricket bat after realizing he had shot his girlfriend. During cross-examination of Burger, chief defence lawyer Barry Roux suggested that she was mistaken in saying that she heard a woman screaming and that it was actually Pistorius shouting for help in a high voice after accidentally shooting Steenkamp. Giving sometimes grisly details of the killing of the 29-year-old model, Roux said Steenkamp was shot in the head, which would have resulted in brain damage and "no cognitive function" and so she wouldnt have been able too scream just after the last bullet struck, as Burger testified.dddddddddddd Roux said that an expert would later testify in the trial that "with the head shot, she (Steenkamp) would have dropped down immediately." Burger disagreed. "I heard her voice just after the last shot," she said. "It faded away." Her husband, Charl Johnson, also testified that "the last scream faded moments after the last gunshot was fired." Burger also said that the man she heard -- before the sound of the gunfire -- was calling for help, a piece of testimony that muddied the prosecutions narrative that Pistorius was the aggressor. Challenged by Roux, Burger speculated that perhaps the voice was that of Pistorius ridiculing Steenkamps calls for help. "Was it a mockery? I dont know. Im not Mr. Pistorius," she said. Pistorius, who faces a minimum of 25 years in prison without parole if convicted of premeditated murder, took notes during testimony and huddled with lawyers during adjournments. His collected demeanour contrasted with his sometimes distraught behaviour during a bail hearing last year, when he sobbed in court. At one point on Tuesday he covered his ears, but it wasnt clear why. Pistorius, 27, was born without fibula bones because of a congenital defect and his legs were amputated when he was 11 months old. He has run on carbon-fiber blades and was originally banned from competing against able-bodied peers because many argued that his blades gave him an unfair advantage. He was later cleared to compete. He is a multiple Paralympic medallist but he failed to win a medal at the 2012 London Olympics. Steenkamps mother, June, said in a television interview that she did not want to live with bitterness. "Ive lost everything thats important to me, and still, I can forgive. I can forgive," she told NBCs "Today" show. "One must forgive." June Steenkamp was in court Monday, hoping to look Pistorius in the eye. But, she said, Pistorius "never looked my way, or he didnt have an opportunity to do that." Judge Thokozile Masipa will ultimately deliver the verdict and decide on any sentence. South Africa has no trial by jury. Tuesdays proceedings were interrupted when Masipa ordered an investigation into allegations that a South African television channel was broadcasting a photograph of Burger during her testimony -- against a court order guaranteeing privacy to witnesses who request it. "I am warning the media," the judge said, "if you do not behave, you are not going to be treated with soft gloves by this court." ' ' '