Before the Olympics, Dwyane Wade worked out with athletic trainer Tim Grover, whose Chicago facility draws a lot of NBA players. AP Marty Burns's Mailbag Marty Burns will periodically answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

The Olympics aren't the only place well-known NBA players can be found engaged in some fierce hoops competition these days.

At famed trainer Tim Grover's "Attack Athletics" facility in Chicago, a group of about 20 players has been going at it regularly in full-scale pickup games for the past month.

Corey Maggette, Devin Harris, Quentin Richardson, Michael Finley, Antoine Walker, Juwan Howard, Larry Hughes, Shaun Livingston and O.J. Mayo are just some of the regulars who have laced 'em up.

The games are full-court, with a time clock and scorekeeper, just like a regular NBA game. They are often officiated by real NBA refs.

"The idea is to simulate game situations as much as possible," said Grover, who gained fame as Michael Jordan's trainer and now oversees a stable of about 50 pro basketball clients. "This isn't just organized pickup ball. We call fouls and shoot free throws.

"And, yes, the games can get very competitive. There's a lot of trash talk. Guys don't want to lose. They want to have bragging rights for that day."

Similar pick-up games involving NBA players can be found all over the country, most notably in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Houston and Atlanta.

But Grover's games are different than most of those others in that his gleaming new facility, opened just last year, was truly built to cater to his clients. It features four full-length NBA courts, a huge weight room and a gated parking lot where they can leave their Bentleys and Escalades. The games are closed to the public and media.

Grover's pickup games first became famous, of course, back in 2001 when Jordan held his Camp Comeback at the previous facility. These days, according to Grover, when MJ stops by, it's only to say hello.

Revisionist history

Speaking of Jordan, he apparently has gotten a bad rap for that supposed push-off on Bryon Russell in the classic Game 6 of the 1998 Finals. At least that's the verdict from none other than the Deseret News in Salt Lake City.

In light of the Tim Donaghy scandal, and the long-held perception among some in Utah that the Jordan non-call was part of an NBA conspiracy to help the Bulls win the title, the News asked four college referees to review the film of Game 6 again. The refs, who were granted anonymity, looked at all the calls throughout the game. They unanimously agreed that there was no conspiracy evident, and that the overall officiating over the course of the game actually favored the Jazz with a few notable and highly publicized exceptions.

As for Jordan's supposed push-off, the refs agreed that it was incidental and consistent with the type of contact that had been allowed all game. Not one of the refs said he would have called it a foul.

Agent of change

The sports agent business, which saw several individual firms bought up by big companies in the 1990s, is seeing another wave of consolidations. Prominent agent Dan Fegan recently sold his practice, which features some 30 players, including Shawn Marion, Jason Richardson, Troy Murphy and Jason Terry, to Blue Entertainment Sports Television (BEST). He joins Bill Strickland (Rasheed Wallace, Corey Brewer, Joakim Noah) to make BEST the second-biggest basketball group, behind only Wasserman Media Group (which had previously bought the practice of Arn Tellem).

The rise of huge international agencies such as Wasserman and now BEST doesn't mean we've seen the end of the Jerry Maguires of the world. As was the case with the previous merger frenzy, it just means that the individual agents will be working together in some cases under the same corporate umbrella. The idea is that they will be able to use their company's size to leverage deals with marketers overseas or across various platforms for their clients.

"It's a reflection of the global nature of the game," said one veteran agent who wished to remain anonymous. "These big firms can offer a wider variety of services, and I think they are going to continue to be very aggressive. I wouldn't be surprised to see some other [prominent agents] do the same thing."