NBA Voids Dudley’s Portland Deal

The NBA voided the contract of center Chris Dudley on Thursday and accused the Portland Trail Blazers of deliberately violating the league’s salary cap.

NBA Commissioner David Stern called the contract “a blatant and transparent attempt” to circumvent the cap.

If an arbitrator rules against the Trail Blazers, the team could be fined up to $1 million and forfeit draft choices.

Arbitration already had been set to hear arguments on two other deals with one-year escape clauses, signed by Toni Kukoc with the Chicago Bulls and Craig Ehlo with the Atlanta Hawks.

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Calvin Murphy, a recent Hall of Fame inductee and one of the most popular players in Houston history, has been fired from the Rockets by the team’s new owner.

Murphy had been the team’s community relations liaison and special assignments coach.

Jurisprudence

A federal judge in Philadelphia has rejected Major League Baseball’s 71-year exemption from antitrust laws, challenging the system that has allowed team owners’ complete control over the sport.

The ruling was made in a case brought by two Pennsylvania businessmen whose deal to buy the San Francisco Giants and move the team to St. Petersburg, Fla., was rejected by Major League Baseball last year.

The businessmen, Vincent Piazza and Vincent Tirendi, sued baseball on the grounds that rejection of their $115-million deal was illegal after owners awarded the Giants to a group that made a lower bid but promised to keep the club in San Francisco.

U.S. District Judge John Padova said baseball’s antitrust exemption applied only to player contracts.

Boxing

Oscar De La Hoya (8-0), who fights Renaldo Carter Saturday at Bay St. Louis, Miss., is scheduled for a 10-round fight against Mexico’s Narcisco Valenzuela (35-12-2) at Phoenix on Oct. 30, promoter Bob Arum said.

Heading the card will be Michael Carbajal (29-0), returning to his hometown to defend his International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Council light flyweight titles against Domingo Sosa (27-1) of the Dominican Republic in a scheduled 12-rounder.

Miscellany

Inessa Kravets of Ukraine, the 1992 Olympic silver medalist in the women’s long jump, failed a drug test and faces a suspension of up to three months, a Swiss newspaper reported.

Kravets tested positive for the banned stimulant ephedrine at a July 7 meet at Lausanne, Switzerland, the Zurich daily Tages-Anzeiger said.

Franziska van Almsick won her fourth gold medal, and Vladimir Selkov upset world and Olympic champion Martin Lopez-Zubero in the 200-meter backstroke in the European Swimming Championships at Sheffield, England.

Van Almsick, already winner of the 100- and 200-meter freestyle gold medals and a member of the winning German 800-meter relay team, led the 400-meter relay team to victory with a first-leg performance that left the others trailing by two meters.

Michelle Davison from Columbia, S.C., won the gold medal in the 14-15-year-old girls one-meter springboard event at the Junior Olympic Diving Championships at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl Aquatics Center. Troy Dumais, from Ventura, won gold in the 13-and-under boys three-meter springboard.

Names in the News

Hall of Fame bowler Hank Lawman, 77, died Sunday of complications after a stroke in a convalescent hospital in Chatsworth. . . . Mark Coleman, who won an NCAA wrestling championship for Ohio State in 1988, was arrested after police confiscated 371 marijuana plants from his campus apartment. . . . Mark Benedetto, California Baptist College athletic director, will add the duties of baseball coach. . . . Former high school quarterback Ike Wilson, whose collegiate career was sidetracked by a cocaine conviction, was shot to death on a street corner in New Orleans.