Kidd, Gortat hot items in free agency market

NEW YORK – The Detroit Pistons acted quickly to remake the former championship contender by agreeing to five-year contracts with Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva on Wednesday, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press.

Those were the first big moves of the NBA’s free agency period, which began just after midnight. Detroit, thanks to the Chauncey Billups-Allen Iverson trade, is one of the few teams with significant salary cap space this summer.

Gordon and Villanueva are former University of Connecticut teammates who will remain in the Central Division. Gordon was Chicago’s leading scorer and Villanueva played for Milwaukee.

Jason Kidd also seems in high demand, meeting with two suitors. So does Polish center Marcin Gortat, who could land an offer to be Kidd’s teammate.

And Ron Artest might be able to swap Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady for LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal.

Cleveland was believed to be interested in Villanueva, in need of another forward who can defend on the perimeter. Perhaps James has a different one in mind, with the Plain Dealer of Cleveland, citing anonymous sources, reporting on Wednesday that James and Artest met on Tuesday in Los Angeles.

Artest’s agent, David Bauman, said his client would like to remain in Houston, but also will consider a team’s championship potential. Artest is the only healthy member of the Rockets’ trio of stars, with Yao and McGrady both injured and perhaps out for at least the early part of next season.

In that case, he may be willing to listen to a pitch from another title hopeful.

“All the superstars are very savvy and great recruiters,” Bauman said. “The superstars are sometimes even better recruiters than the general managers or their staffs. Between Kobe (Bryant) and Ron or LeBron and Ron, there are always conversations that occur. I think I’ll just leave it at that at this point.”

Kidd listened to pitches from the Dallas Mavericks and New York Knicks on Wednesday. The Mavericks can offer significantly more money to their point guard, and owner Mark Cuban showed his interest by flying to New York to meet with Kidd before the Knicks did.

Later, Cuban wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press that the get-together “went well, I was really happy how it turned out.”  (AP)