Gill Shuns Lakers for Nets, Money

With the chance to make more money overriding the chance to play for an NBA champion, Kendall Gill signed a one-year contract Friday to stay with the New Jersey Nets.

The 32-year-old swingman had said last week he would take a pay cut to play for the Lakers.

“In the end, my ego was telling me championship,” Gill said. “But in the end, I made a sound business decision.”

The contract was for $7 million, more than three times the $2.25 million the Lakers offered under their salary-cap exception, the Newark Star-Ledger and the New York Times reported Friday.

Gill denied flirting with the Lakers to get a better offer from the Nets.

“My full intention was to go to the Lakers,” said Gill, who thanked retiring executive Jerry West and center Shaquille O’Neal for recruiting him.

“It was not an easy decision. I was sitting in L.A., agonizing over what I was going to do. It doesn’t make me greedy.”

Gill has spent the last 4 1/2 of his 10 NBA seasons with the Nets. He was third on the Nets in scoring last season with a 13.1 average as a small forward.

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The Toronto Raptors traded shooting guard Doug Christie to the Sacramento Kings for power forward Corliss Williamson, Christie’s agent said.

“A trade has been consummated and Doug will be going to the Sacramento Kings,” agent Brad Marshall told the Fan 590, Toronto’s all-sports radio station. “In the end it was a mutual decision that trading Doug was best for everyone.”

The teams said they were talking, but no deal had been finalized.

“No trade has been consummated between the Kings and Raptors because of contractual issues with the players involved,” Sacramento General Manager Geoff Petrie said.

Meanwhile, point guard Mark Jackson officially joined the Raptors by signing a four-year, $14-million contract.

He left the Indiana Pacers despite saying earlier he wanted to end his career in Indianapolis.

Jackson said the Pacers never seriously pursued him.

“The bottom line is, deep down, the people with the power there didn’t want me back,” he said. “I think what they tried to do was make me walk away.”

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The dunking cousins might become the dueling cousins during the NBA season.

In the latest edition of ESPN magazine, the mother of Tracy McGrady, the former Raptor star who left Toronto for his hometown team in Orlando, criticizes former teammate and distant cousin Vince Carter.

“In Toronto, it was Vince this, Vince that,” the magazine quotes McGrady’s mother, Melanise Williford, as saying.

“I got sick of it.”

Carter didn’t hide his disappointment.

“It’s tough to swallow,” he said. “I guess when you think they feel one way and then they leave . . . and out comes the truth.”

In other news

Orlando signed forward Mike Miller, the fifth overall pick in the June draft, to a three-year contract worth about $6.25 million. . . . Denver forward Antonio McDyess was chosen to replace an injured Tim Duncan on the U.S. Olympic team. . . . Milwaukee signed forward Darvin Ham to a two-year contract worth about $1.7 million a season. . . . Forward Danny Manning, 34, accepted Utah’s $1.2-million salary-cap exception and agreed to a two-year contract. . . . Free-agent guard Jud Buechler and center Mikki Moore re-signed with Detroit, which also signed forward Torraye Braggs. . . . Center Jahidi White, point guard Chris Whitney and guard Laron Profit re-signed with Washington. . . . San Antonio signed center Shawnelle Scott and forward Ira Newble.