NBA

Ex-NBA player Bonzi Wells underwent surgery in an Indiana hospital after suffering a heart attack -- but the 41-year-old says he's okay now.

Unclear when Wells was admitted to St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis -- but Wells says he's back home now and "feeling good."

Wells told the Star Press the heart attack was "minor" -- explaining, "Small clot hit bottom part of the heart. Had surgery so I'm back to 100% no restrictions."

Wells posted a photo with one of the nurses at the hospital and wrote, "I wanna thank these ladies for saving my life."

"They went above and beyond to make sure I would be ok."

Bonzi played 10 seasons in the NBA for teams including the Sacramento Kings, Memphis Grizzlies and Houston Rockets.

Matt Barnes says pro athletes aren't "dumbasses" -- despite what Donald Trump thinks -- and says the biggest sports stars in the world are ready to unite to rise up against POTUS.

TMZ Sports spoke with the hoops star about the open letter he penned to Trump ... and if he's concerned that Donald could turn his ire from the NFL to the NBA.

Barnes says he would definitely consider taking a knee during the anthem when the NBA season begins -- but only if ALL of his teammates are down.

The twist ... the NBA has a rule against kneeling during the national anthem. Gonna be interesting to see how the league responds if/when guys like LeBron James decide to make a Kaepernick-esque statement.

Hey, NCAA -- here's a simple solution to all your corruption problems ... PAY YOUR DAMN PLAYERS -- so says former NBA star Stephen Jackson.

Stack wasn't too in the know on college basketball's recruiting scandal when we got him at LAX ... but he told TMZ Sports he was 100% behind the idea of NCAA hoops stars makin' bank.

"If you can go to war at 18 and kill yourself, why you can't get paid for basketball?"

Ohio Gov. John Kasich says OKC adding Carmelo Anthony ain't enough to win a title ... saying the Thunder needs to make one more acquisition to compete, another basketball.

FYI -- 'Melo shoots a lot.

We got Kasich -- a huge hoops fan -- out in NYC and asked him what he thought about the Thunder adding Anthony to a team that already has Russell Westbrook and Paul George.

Turns out he doesn't think much of it, telling our guy there's just not gonna be enough Spalding available to make everyone on that stacked team happy.

It wasn't all doom & gloom with Kasich though, the Cavs fanatic did something most Cleveland fans aren't doing right now ... said some really nice things about Kyrie Irving.

Zach Randolph says he feels he was "wrongfully arrested" during an August 9 incident in Los Angeles -- in which cops initially said the NBA star was in possession of a TON of weed.

TMZ Sports broke the story ... Randolph was initially arrested for possession with intent to sell because of the large quantity of weed cops say he had. He eventually pled no contest to resisting arrest and the weed charge was dismissed completely.

Randolph finally broke his silence about the situation on Monday telling reporters, "I'm not speaking a lot about it but I felt that I was wrongfully arrested."

"Things that was put out there wasn't true. But I don't want to be a distraction to my team, my organization, so I'm just going to move forward and play basketball."

Randolph was sentenced to 150 hours of community service and was ordered to stay away from drug dealers. He's due back in court in December.

LeBron James says people who voted for Donald Trump made a mistake -- but it's okay, because even LeBron makes mistakes.

The NBA superstar spoke with reporters at Cavs media day and refused to say Trump's name -- or even call him the President. Bron repeatedly referred to him as "that guy."

James accused "that guy" of using sports to try and divide the country -- and he says he'll do everything in his power to fight back.

Then he dropped this ...

"If you voted for him or not, you may have made a mistake, and that's okay."

"If you voted for him, it's okay. I mean I've done things for my kids and realized I shouldn't have given my daughter that many damn Skittles. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. She won't go to sleep now."

Wizards star Bradley Beal just went off on Donald Trump ... trashing POTUS in a big way ... and essentially teasing more protests when the NBA season starts.

Beal used the mic at Wizards media day to call Trump a "clown" and voice his displeasure with everything the President is doing ... from race issues to Puerto Rico to Twitter.

"I disagree with what he's doing. I disagree with his thoughts. Hopefully as a nation we can come together better and really see things through the perspective of the people really going through it."

The NBA season begins on Oct. 17 -- and with several prominent NBA players from LeBron to KD to Steph to Beal speaking out against Trump, it'll be interesting to see if they demonstrate against him during games.

Lonzo Ball's rap career just got real 'cause DJ Mustard, one of the greatest rap producers on planet Earth, just told TMZ Sports he's down to work with the Big Baller prince, for a big baller price.

If you don't know who Mustard is (you don't listen to music), he's made beats for peeps like YG, Rihanna, 2 Chainz, Travis Scott, Nicki Minaj, T.I., Big Sean, and Fergie.

He told us he'd be down to add Lonzo -- who just kicked off his rap career -- to that list when we got him out in Beverly Hills (shutting down Balenciaga), as long as the price is right.

Get your checkbook, LaVar.

Ex-Lakers player Jordan Hill is getting called out by one of the most famous booty models on the 'Gram -- with Ghetto Barbie claiming Hill tried to fly her out to smash, but she burned him good instead.

Here's the deal ... Ghetto Barbie and 'Love and Hip Hop' star Jhonni Blaze appeared on "Raq Rants" where they talked about some of their NBA crushes.

Blaze shouted out Hill as her crush -- and that's when Ghetto Barbie revealed that he once slid into her DMs and bought her a ticket to fly.

Why, you ask?

Barbie says she wanted to teach Hill a lesson -- don't think a free airplane ticket means you automatically get the booty.

Lesson learned.

Draymond Green finally got his payback for Kevin Durant making fun of his penis pic ... saying he laughed STRAIGHT IN KD's FACE when he found out about his Twitter mishap.

Draymond broke down the glorious moment at Warriors practice Friday ... when a reporter asked him how he reacted to news of KD not-so-secretly bashing the OKC Thunder.

"I saw him in person and I laughed in his face. I got a good laugh out of it – it’s pretty funny to me."

Dray says it's only right ... cause when his weiner got exposed to the world last summer, Durant and all his Team USA teammates did the exact same thing.

FYI, we got Green laughing his ass off at KD's expense when he was out with DeAndre Jordan ... so at least he's keepin' it real.

J.R. Smith was asked about LeBron James ditching the Cavs ... and went COMPLETELY NUCLEAR -- telling the guy who brought it up to get the "f*ck outta here!"

It all went down outside Poppy in L.A. -- one of the hottest new restaurants in West Hollywood -- when a photog hit a nerve by asking if LeBron was gonna leave Cleveland (again) after this season.

Smith, one of Bron's Cavs BFFs, wasn't havin' it -- ripping the dude (not our guy) to shreds ... before blowing up over a question on The King joining the Lakers, specifically.

Photog: "LeBron's gone man. Deal with it."

J.R.: "LeBron's still here. He's still here."

Photog: "You think LeBron's gonna come to L.A.?

J.R.: "I think LeBron's gonna be wherever the f**k he wanna be at!"

LaVar Ball is getting serious props from Chad Ochocinco -- who says the remixed $495-per-pair ZO2 shoes are "f*cking dope," and he can't wait to get his.

LaVar officially 86'd the original design for Lonzo Ball's signature Big Baller Brand shoe -- saying the design team went "back to the lab" and came up with a better design.

People who ordered the original shoe will NOT get the old shoe when the merchandise finally ships -- they'll get the new one. LaVar says he'll work something out with people who don't want the new shoe.

The new shoe is a completely different look -- it's lighter and more sporty than the original ... but some people are upset they're not getting what they were originally promised.

Not Chad ... who tells TMZ Sports, "[The new ZO2's] are f*cking dope. The new design is FIRE! I was happy with the first design but the 2nd is what I'd consider 'caught up with the times.'"

Here's Lakers rookie Kyle Kuzma serving notice to the rest of the NBA not to try him ... getting a lesson in the pugilistic arts from one of the most famous boxing trainers in the country.

Kuzma -- one of the Lakers summer league standouts -- headed over to the Team Watson Boxing Club in L.A., the city's new boxing hub, where champions like Leo Santa Cruz work out.

The lesson looks pretty intense (kid's got power) ... and it's definitely legit training 'cause the guy holding the mitts is Phil Paolina, an ex-fighter whose worked with celebs like J.Lo and even Bob Dylan.

LeBron James has a message to the most powerful people on the planet -- the time is now to "step up" ... and lead the charge to make the world a better place.

LeBron delivered his statement in a video introducing the first ever Bloomberg Global Business Forum in NYC ... which featured talks with HUGE names like Bill Clinton, Justin Trudeau, Bill Gates and Tim Cook.

"We all know what’s happening right now ... how hard it is suddenly to understand so much in this world," James said.

"You’re in this room for a reason ... we’re leaders. We all know the world needs us to step up."

Enes Kanter is standing up for the OKC Thunder after his former teammate Kevin Durant ripped the organization on Twitter ... saying K.D. is dead wrong.

As we previously reported, Durant tweeted that he hated playing in OKC because he didn't like his coach and former teammates (aside from Russell Westbrook.)

Kanter fired back with a tweet of his own ... saying "I don't care what anyone says. Oklahoma City Thunder is the best and most professional organization in the NBA and got the craziest fans."

"We win-We lose but the most important thing we stick together because we are one."

Kanter added ... "and those cats, I call them FAMILY."

Kevin Durant says it was "childish" and "idiotic" to slam his former OKC Thunder coach and teammates on Twitter this week ... but insists he was NOT trying to do it from a secret 2nd account.

KD just addressed the situation at TechCrunch Disrupt -- where he was asked straight-up if he intended to post the anti-OKC tweets from an anonymous account so nobody would know it was him.

Durant denied the allegation ... only admitting to another Instagram account -- "but that's just for my friends and family so I wouldn't say I was using that to clap back at anybody."

KD says he enjoys engaging with basketball fans on Twitter but, "I happened to take it a little too far" when he told 1 fan that he left OKC because he "didn't like the organization or playing for Billy Donovan."

"I don't regret clapping back at anybody or talking to my fans on Twitter," Durant said at TechCrunch ... "I do regret using my former coach's name and the former organization that I played for."

"That was childish. That was idiotic. All those type of words ... I regret doing that and I apologize to him for doing that."

KD says he felt bad about it ... but will continue to use Twitter.