Photo. Jonathan Mannion

Pat Riley told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel he’s going to remain on the Heat bench for another three years. And get this: that just happens to be the same amount of years D-Wade has left on his contract before a player-option heading into 2010-11, and that’s when Shaq’s contract runs out. That’s gotta be a coincidence, right? One thing you have to admire about Riley; he never lets himself get stuck in a bad position. Leave that kinda stuff for a Van Gundy brother to sort out … Be sure to come back to the Dime home page around lunch time today, because we’re gonna be posting the behind-the-scene video from the shoot with our newest cover guy. We can’t tell you who it is right now, but here’s a hint: He plays in the West … One of the Sonics’ owners ran off at the mouth in an Oklahoma City business paper: “We didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle; we hope to come here (to OKC),” Aubrey McClendon said. “We know it’s a little more difficult financially here in Oklahoma City, but we think it’s great for the community and if we could break even we’d be thrilled.” From that, it sounds like Kevin Durant is definitely gonna be back in Big 12 country before long. But later in the day, Sonics majority owner Clay Bennett and McClendon played damage-control in the Seattle newspapers. Who really knows with this anymore … Who knew Al Jefferson had so much personality? In a Q&A with the St. Paul Pioneer Press, he dropped a couple funny lines: “Who would I want to trade places with for a day? You want the truth? I’d want to trade places with the guy from the Playboy Mansion. Hugh Hefner. I’d like to be him for 24 hours.” And asked what was the worst thing he did as a kid, Jefferson said, “I was in a store with my aunt when I was 6, and I took a Ninja Turtle. I got out the door and my aunt saw it, and she threw me back in the store. She embarrassed me. She made me give it back. I never did it again. It was the blue Ninja Turtle.” Leonardo was our favorite, too … Reggie Miller update: He’s working out twice a day to see if his body still in shape to play in the League … LaMarcus Aldridge is out for the Team USA scrimmage with a sore heel. Might as well get his inevitable annual injury out of the way now, right? And if Aldridge is sidelined for who-knows-how-long, who is Greg Oden getting reps in against while he’s getting ready for the season? … The Cavs are blocking Anderson Varejao from playing for Team Brazil in the Olympic qualifying tourney for the same insurance-form reason the Suns are blocking Boris Diaw from playing for France. Might be a good thing for AV anyway: remember last summer when he played bad in the World Championships and was complaining about having “heavy legs”? Team Brazil is still gonna have Nene, though … James Gandolfini is gonna play grassroots basketball don Sonny Vaccaro in an upcoming HBO movie called “ABCD Camp,” according to Variety. Sounds cool, but coming so soon after “The Sopranos,” we fear it could get overshadowed by everyone typecasting Gandolfini and wanting to see him play another Tony Soprano-ish character … Lee Humphrey signed with a pro team in Greece, while Julius Hodge signed with a team in Italy … Caught some of the Monday Night preseason game, Broncos vs. Niners, where we were reminded that Champ Bailey is The Man. During a sideline interview they were talking about how Champ was thrown at 35 times last year and made 10 picks. Champ was like, “Yeah, well I could do better. They caught like 5 or 6 on me.” Oh, and Travis Henry looked like a beast. And Ron Jaworski has more hair combined than Tony K. and Mike Tirico … Also caught some of Monday Night Raw; enough to see Booker T wearing a king’s robe and screaming “I’m the king of the world!” while Jim Ross was screaming “You’re repugnant!” back at him over and over again … We’re out like challenging Champ …

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