The Denver Nuggets continued their massive rebuilding...

The Denver Nuggets continued their massive rebuilding project by releasing Tom Hammonds and signing free-agent center Dean Garrett, who had been with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Hockey

Buffalo Sabre captain Pat LaFontaine, who missed last season because of a concussion, has been cleared by his doctors to play. He must be cleared by team doctors before he’s allowed to play.

LaFontaine has not played since Nov. 7, when he was elbowed in the head by Francis Leroux of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Goalie Frederic Chabot, the International Hockey League’s most valuable player with the Houston Aeros last season, signed a two-year contract with the Kings.

The Florida Panthers signed free-agent forward Esa Tikkanen to a four-year contract that calls for him to make $1.5 million this season.

Jurisprudence

A second round of genetic tests on the underwear of a woman who accused NBC sportscaster Marv Albert of sexual assault again showed traces of his sperm.

The analysis, filed in an Arlington, Va. court, concluded that there was a one-in-8.8 million chance that semen found in the woman’s underwear could have come from anyone other than Albert.

Previous genetic tests showed a one-in-2.6 billion chance that the DNA came from someone other than Albert.

Albert is charged with forcible sodomy and assault of a woman in his Arlington, Va., hotel room and could face up to life in prison if convicted at his trial Sept. 22.

Former Dodger pitcher Steve Howe pleaded not guilty to drunk driving in Kalispell, Mont.

Howe, 39, suffered a ruptured trachea and collapsed lungs in a motorcycle crash on Aug. 19.

A federal judge in Buenos Aires dismissed charges of drug use brought against former soccer star Diego Maradona by the Argentine Football Assn.

Maradona tested positive for undisclosed substances after a game Aug. 24.

Judge Carlos Liporace ruled that Maradona should not be tried because Argentine law calls for penalties for the drug dealer, not for the user.

However, the AFA disciplinary committee reportedly is set to suspend Maradona, an admitted cocaine addict who has twice been banned for 15 months for failing drug tests, for up to two years.

Two former Virginia Tech football players accused of raping a student in their apartment last December pleaded no contest to a reduced charge and were given one-year suspended sentences and fined $500 apiece.

Brian Edmonds, 22, and James Crawford, 20, indicted on rape and attempted sodomy charges, pleaded no contest to attempted aggravated sexual battery.

Two players for Major League Soccer’s D.C. United pleaded not guilty to rape and kidnapping charges in Columbus, Ohio.

Defender Mario Gori, 24, of Argentina, and forward Raul Diaz Arce, 27, of El Salvador, are accused of assaulting a woman they met in a bar after a game against the Crew on Aug. 17.

Motor Racing

Doctors failed to find anything wrong with NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt in four days of intensive examination, so they cleared him to return to his race car, with no guarantee his sleepiness wouldn’t return. And Earnhardt qualified 22nd, with a lap of 123.570 mph, for tonight’s Exide Select Batteries 400 at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway.

Neurosurgeon Charles Branch Jr., of the Bowman-Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University, said that even though tests turned up nothing, he suspects one of two things happened to Earnhardt: A small blood vessel feeding the base of the brain temporarily went into spasm, contracted and restricted blood flow to part of Earnhardt’s brain stem long enough to cause a blackout, or there was a “short circuit” caused by aggravation to an old injury.

Bill Elliott won the pole with a lap at 124.723 mph.

Rookie Steve Park overtook Jeff Burton with 42 laps to go and repeatedly showed he had the strongest car on several late restarts to win the Autolite Platinum 250 Busch Grand National race at Richmond.

Gymnastics

Ivan Ivankov of Belarus, who missed the 1996 Olympics because of an Achilles’ tendon injury, won his second world all-around title in the World Gymnastics Championships at Lausanne, Switzerland.

Olympic uneven bars champion Svetlana Chorkina of Russia won the women’s all-around title.