NBA Basketball

SALT LAKE CITY – Goodbye, Raja Bell.

Hello, Travis Leslie.

DEERFIELD, Ill. — Injured Chicago Bulls superstar Derrick Rose is “not quite” ready to return from his knee injury, coach Tom Thibodeau said Friday.

The former MVP point guard continues to practice without restrictions, but his return from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee remains up in the air.

“We’ll see when he’s ready,” Thibodeau said. “He’s getting there. He’s not quite there yet.”

ESPNChicago.com reported Friday that Rose’s doctor has cleared him to play, but he has told the team he won’t until he can dunk with confidence off his left foot. Thibodeau said a decision “hasn’t been finalized yet.”

This weekend, many of the NBA’s sharpest minds will gather at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, an increasingly splashy affair held each year by MIT, and now sponsored by ESPN. They’ve come a long way. Just over a decade ago, several of the most prominent among them first gathered in a much humbler spot: a Yahoo Groups message board called “APBR Analysis,” for the Association of Professional Basketball Researchers.

SALT LAKE CITY — Enes Kanter isn’t a clown.

LOS ANGELES — Well that was a wasted trip.

MOSCOW — Minnesota Timberwolves forward Andrei Kirilenko is taking time off from the Russian national team for family reasons, according to media reports in Russia.

The 32-year-old Kirilenko told the daily Sport-Express that he had informed the Russian basketball federation president, Alexander Krasnenkov, of his decision by phone.