John Paxson: What I Didn't Do This Summer

While Paul Ladewski was clearly making shit up, Brian Hanley sent in a much appreciated Deng/Gordon extension update straight from John Paxson's mouth.

"If we sign these guys to an extension, and this season they go out and have some catastrophic injury, they're still getting the money,'' Paxson said. ''I try to make it sound logical, but I don't know if it comes across that way. It's an extension; we feel like it's the one time in a contract negotiation that, for the security that they're going to get, we should get something in return. That doesn't mean that we're not going to talk about a great contract, because we are. But what I've found and learned through Kirk's deal last year is that we still have a month, which is a long time. When that deadline starts approaching, maybe something gets done.

''It's very easy for fans to sit back, even players, and say, 'Well, they should just do this.' I was a player. But I have great appreciation for this now being in this chair that it's a business.''

Gah! Sign them already. Oh, and Hanley sez a headband could possibly squeeze Ben Wallace's cranium in 2007-08, but that's "Scott's call" according to Pax. Keep 'em above your ears, gentlemen.