• Mark Cuban previews his legal defense, posting some evidence on his blog that he did not make any kind of confidentiality agreement with the CEO of Mamma.com.
• Mark Cuban's brother pipes up, says Mark will prove in court that he is not Martha Stewart. I'll stipulate to that right now -- for crying out loud, they don't look anything like each other, and I suspect Cuban doesn't even own a glue gun.
  
• A few days ago, I blogged about a fundraiser for St. Jude's Children's Hospital. Here's a video from a few years ago about some work the Grizzlies have done with the hospital. Then-coach Hubie Brown is fantastic on the topic. "Jude is my middle name," he writes, "so we go way back."
• As TrueHoop reader Kyle points out, check out the basketball on the shelf behind the president elect. Can anyone figure out who signed that?
• There was some high comedy gay pride dodgeball -- I'm not certain the name of the winning team is really printable here -- after the Clipper game last night. Clipperblog describes at the end of this post.
• Trees don't usually bite men, but most trees are Tree Rollins, and most men aren't Danny Ainge.
• John Moe of public radio's Weekend America is a lifelong Sonics fan, is thus now a fan free agent. He spent some time being wooed by the Timberwolves, Bucks, Suns, and Grizzlies. Andrew Bogut handled the pitch for the Bucks: "'First of all we got an Australian playing for Milwaukee Bucks. That's the best reason -- multicultural theme. We also got a prince from Africa. If you ever want to go to Africa and be looked after, we got your back there as well. Luc Mbah A Moute is a prince of his village in Cameroon so if you ever head to Cameroon you can get the five star treatment,' said Bogut. 'I can just flash some Bucks gear?' I asked. 'Oh you'll be good, yeah. Probably get a crown,' he said."
• You get the feeling Allen Iverson is on his team-centric best behavior in Detroit? Against the Lakers he played 41 minutes, but took only 12 shots, and missed only five, while he had four assists. Two Pistons shot more. He had the best plus/minus of any player in the game. UPDATE: I am happily surprised by this: Iverson had killer plus/minus numbers in Denver.
• Identify the player by their silhouette. Not easy with hints, even tougher without.
• Basketbawful is distraught that Yao Ming has gone two games without having his shot blocked.
• Gary Payton tells Gregory Dole, writing for SLAM, about leading Team USA to two Olympic golds: "I was surprised by how cocky the foreign teams had become by 1998. They were telling everyone how the had gotten better and how the US team was not as good as 1992, without stars like Jordan and Barkley and all them. In my mind, I had to make sure the USA won and nothing else was going to be acceptable. In 1999, we had to play ten games in a row to qualify. I told the team at the time that we have to jump on and beat up on every team in the tournament so that the Spanish, Argentines and everyone else would realize that they didn't have a chance. In my mind, that was the difference with the 2004 team. They didn't take the other teams seriously enough. You have to understand that in international basketball, there are no star calls. We don't even get the types of calls that we get in the NBA. International basketball is a much rougher game and the refs let so much slide. The other national teams know this and just play. They don't pout when they don't get calls that they might get from NBA refs. Instead, the other national teams come right back down the floor after a questionable play and treat their opponent even rougher."
• Steve Aschburner of Sports Illustrated quotes Greg Oden on Rudy Fernandez: "'You see him start to do something and you think, Oh, no!' said Oden, seemingly happy to be discussing a Blazers newbie besides himself. 'Then you stop and say, 'Oh. Good shot, Rudy.' He's been doing that sort of stuff for years.'"
• USC freshman DeMar DeRozan reminds Eric Musselman of Vince Carter.
• Michael Grange of the Globe and Mail has noticed that Jermaine O'Neal gets his shot blocked a lot -- a dozen times already in this young season: "The question of course, is does getting your shot blocked matter? It's not ideal, but it's not automatically bad. It stands to reason it's going to happen if you go hard to the basket and defences collapse on you. It means you're creating a reaction. Blocks themselves are a bit bogus as a stat. A drawn charge creates a turnover and adds a foul to the other team this is inarguable good. A blocked shot might get your team the ball and maybe even start a fastbreak -- but seriously, how often has anyone seen that happen. More likely the ball gets knocked out of bounds and the offence gets another shot. Sometimes the ball ends up in the offence's hands and they get a wide open look off a broken play. Sometimes the blocker gets called for a foul. Sometimes he goes for the block and allows an easy lay-up because he left his own man; or the offence moves into the space and gets an easy put back on a missed shot. You might 'change' some shots and teams might shoot a lower percentage as a result, but who really knows. So getting your shot blocked is not the end of the world. What I notice with O'Neal is who blocks his shot, it's often little guys tapping him from behind after he bails out of his move, or has to add another twist or pause because he can't beat the opposing big the first time. If that goes on for a long time, you got problems."
• Positivity hard to come by in Thunderland.
• On his NBA.com blog, Tyson Chandler has some pointers about playing DJ while your wife is delivering a child. He's about to have his second, and has learned from the first time around: "With Sacha, my wife had me make a CD with all these calming songs on it. It had this song 'Closer to My Dreams' on it and she wanted that on replay, because she had always dreamed of her baby coming. That song was her motivation, but it just kept playing over and over and over. I had my iPod and my iPod dock there and I started switching to some other slow songs, a little India Arie, a little Maxwell, some Jill Scott, just soft stuff. But I guess I had it on shuffle and somehow, it clicked to some sex song by R. Kelly! I clicked it again, but it went to another R. Kelly song, 'Half on a Baby!' And my wife was screaming, 'Turn that off!' She was screaming at me to get out. She started going crazy because the song was absolutely ridiculous. She almost kicked me out of the delivery room, but she saw that I was about to cry. My mom was consoling me, my wife was kind of looking at me from the corner of her eye and I worked my way back to the top of the bed. But afterwards, we were dying laughing."
• UPDATE: The idea that the League gives Shaquille O'Neal a wide berth in everything from flagrant fouls to racist commentary. And video evidence that whatever justice Stu Jackson won't dispense, the Utah Jazz will.

As I'm sure you know, Pete Newell died yesterday. He was 93, and even though he hadn't been a head coach anywhere since 1960, he was one of the biggest names in basketball coaching history.

With good reason.

There is a lot of acrimony in basketball -- it's a cutthroat and macho business in many ways -- but Newell was a rare figure who transcended all that. When Pete Newell comes up, everyone in basketball speaks with tone somewhere between admiration and reverence. 

And it's not that he was some kind of saint. He was a hard charger, fueled by cigarettes and coffee. He stayed up late. He was scrappy. But he was loved and respected like few others, and he was effective. The things he taught weren't things everybody else taught. And they worked -- he was the first coach ever to win the NIT, NCAA, and Olympic tournaments.

A big part of his success had to do with his commitment to teaching, which is not necessarily the same as coaching.

A tale from Dr. Jack Ramsay, as told to ESPN.com editor Andrew Ayres yesterday, illustrates Newell's obsession with the kinds of details that many coaches overlook:

Earlier in his coaching career, Ramsay recalls a phone call he got from Newell during the summer. It had to do with the right way of receiving an entry pass from the side court.

"What foot should the man establish as his pivot foot?"

Ramsay, who had already enjoyed success at the college level, thought a minute.

"Frankly, Pete, I don't think it really matters."

Pause.

"You may want to think about the inside foot."

The gentle suggestion took.

"The more I thought about it, you know, he's right. I went back to my summer league team and started teaching it right away. A great tactic, and it couldn't get more fundamental than that."

When Ramsay visited his son-in-law Jim O'Brien's Indiana Pacers team this summer, he said that Newell pointer from long ago is one he noticed and pointed out to the players how to get on the right (or left) foot.

That kind of perception inspired many of the figures who are central to basketball today. From Bobby Knight and Kiki Vandeweghe to Shaquille O'Neal and Andrew Bynum, Newell touched hundreds, if not thousands. (Listen to ESPN's Neil Everett talking about the cast that surrounded and adored Newell.)

The San Francisco Chronicle's Bruce Jenkins wrote a book with Newell, and wrote a must-read remembrance: 

There are those who feel Newell was the greatest basketball coach of all time, and to them, the issue isn't even debatable. He built empires out of sawdust, all the while molding impressionable youngsters into the men they would become.

As long as I pursue the business of sportswriting, I'll never have a more satisfying project than assembling Newell's biography in the 1990s. An autobiography was the quick and easy way out, but it wouldn't have been worth a damn; Newell wasn't terribly fond of noting his own accomplishments. Through the words of others, the complete Newell came forth: the style, the substance, the quirks.

Bill Russell, seldom inclined to accommodate the media, stopped in his tracks at the mention of Newell's name. Jerry West and Oscar Robertson revealed their frustration, to this day, over losing to Newell's pack of Cal plowhorses. His former players talked reverentially for hours, wishing it could have been days.

And Wooden? He'd just as soon change the subject. He wouldn't admit to me that Newell had his number, even though the evidence was plain for all to see.

There was a landmark Cal-UCLA game, unencumbered by television interests, in which neither Wooden nor Newell had called a timeout. It was a source of pride for both men; forget the flash cards, the meetings or even an assistant coach. Their players knew what to do - any time, any situation - and they were in shape. Timeouts were a blatant sign of weakness.

With about four minutes left, Wooden had no choice; one of his players was noticeably dragging. He called time, and Cal went on to win. That was the spring of 1957, and the streak was born. "Do you know that they never beat us again?" said Newell, who retired three years later with eight straight wins against Wooden. "And they never played timeouts again with us. Psychologically, that had so much to do with our confidence every time we played them. Our guys just figured, 'We never called timeout. They did.'"

In his legendary book The Breaks of the Game, David Halberstam describes Kermit Washington's role in the beginnings of the Big Man Camp that became the hallmark of Newell's later years. Halberstam here is in italics, as excerpted and described by David Friedman on his blog 20 Second Timeout:

He had left college coaching (where his teams, with less material, had regularly beaten John Wooden's UCLA teams) because he did not like the direction the game was taking--too much emphasis on recruiting, too little on coaching, too much on selling the school to the young men and too little on the young men selling themselves to the school. He did not like his job at the Lakers; when he talked basketball to Jack Kent Cooke, the owner, he was always being challenged by one of Cooke's cronies who knew nothing about basketball..."Why do you want to take lessons?" he had asked Washington. "Because I want to play like Paul Silas," Washington had answered, which was good enough; Paul Silas was an example of the best of the NBA players, a triumph of character and intelligence over pure athletic skill.

The individual big man skills tutoring that Newell did with Washington eventually evolved into an annual "Big Man" camp that attracted more and more players each summer until it got to the point that virtually every promising post player in the country received coaching from Newell.

When Washington's NBA career was in limbo in the aftermath of Washington's devastating punch that seriously injured Tomjanovich, Newell was one of the few people in the basketball world who maintained contact with him. Halberstam wrote ("Breaks," p. 275):

One day Washington showed up at Newell's door with a huge color television set. With it was a small plaque that said, FOR COACH PETE NEWELL, THANK YOU FOR MAKING ME A BETTER BASKETBALL PLAYER, KERMIT WASHINGTON. Pete Newell tried to turn down the gift but Washington insisted he keep it. He eventually relented and accepted it, partially because Washington seemed the loneliest young man he had seen in a long time.

ESPN's Ric Bucher wrote a great piece about Newell's camp in Hawaii a few years ago, which includes this:

As Newell stands between a podium and a white trellis backdrop in a Hawaii Prince Hotel -- TV and newspaper reporters recording this year's introduction of 17 pros and 40 college players -- [Kiki] Vandeweghe listens from the back, near tables loaded with shrimp, crabmeat and chicken wings.

"You have no idea how hysterical this is," says Kiki, Denver's new GM and a longtime instructor. "I remember the three of us -- Kermit, Pete and myself -- standing outside a little gym in Rogers Park, banging on the door because we couldn't get in. One time we all showed up and nobody brought a ball. Another time there was a tarp and a piano on the floor from a dance the night before. As we pushed the piano off to the side, I told Pete I thought we were here to play basketball. He told me this was our strength program." 

Coach Bobby Knight remembers, in this video, the the man he called his second father, who was also something of a father to modern basketball:

(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

On Pro Basketball News, David Friedman had a very interesting conversation with Sam Cassell.

Here's Cassell on learning, as a veteran, to not compete with your teammates:

"... if Rajon (Rondo) is playing well and it is my opportunity to play and (Coach) Doc (Rivers) tells me to go sub in for Rajon, I'll tell Doc, 'Let him play. Just let him play.' Like in game six (of the 2008 NBA Finals). I could have subbed for him but I said to Doc, 'He's playing well. Let him play.' That's what players on good teams do: sacrifice for each other for the betterment of the team. The team is the most important thing. On our team we have great individual ball players but they understand the team concept and that makes us even better."

"I worked on it, first and foremost. It's about making the game easier for me. That made the game easier. The closer you get to the basket, the higher your shooting percentages are; the farther away you get from the basket, the lower your percentages are. So, I learned that and I worked on it. I understood the concept of it. ... When I have the ball, I'm going to take the shot I want to take; I'm not going to take the shot that the defender wants me to take -- then I'm playing into his hands. When I have the ball, I'm controlling the situation right now. If I want to take two dribbles, turn to the baseline, pump fake, pump fake again and then shoot it, that's what I'm going to do. He's not going to dictate what I'm going to do when I have the ball. ... When you're young you think that you can jump over the world. The name of this game is putting the ball in the basket. That's the name of this game -- and how frequently and at what rate you can do it. It took me three years to understand how to do that. It took me three good years in this league to learn how to score, how to get a basket when I need to score."

One aspect of new-breed basketball metrics is that many people have different ways to add up the quality of the players on the floor, which can then give you a way to guess at which team might win.

But ... what's missing from those equations? 

Coaches.

Do coaches matter? 

My knee jerk reaction is: Of course they do.

The best way to prove that would be to have coaching staffs swap rosters again and again in some kind of grand long-term experiment. If I'm right, you could give every NBA coach essentially the same players over time, but some would win significantly more than others. 

But that experiment is imperfect (it ignores long-term development, for instance -- Coach A might get you practicing your free throws, and you might show results when you're playing for Coach B) and more importantly, will never happen.

So we're left with small sample sizes, and fancy guesswork, none of which seems to prove that your coach makes all that much difference.

On Slate.com, Ryan McCarthy investigates:

According to a new study co-authored David Berri, an economist who runs the sports blog Wages of Wins, most NBA coaches are similar to company managers. In the study, Berri and his colleagues sought to investigate whether Adam Smith's theory that workers make up the value of an organization -- and that managers are nothing more than "principal clerks" -- applies to the NBA. The economists looked at a group of 19 longtime NBA coaches that had helmed multiple teams, using a Bill Jamesian statistic called Win Score to evaluate how players performed under their tutelage. Only eight of the 19 coaches had any statistically discernible effect on team performance. Seven had a positive impact, with Phil Jackson topping the chart. Next on the list: Rick Adelman, Rudy Tomjanovich, Rick Carlisle, Don Nelson, Flip Saunders, and Gregg Popovich. The only coach who had a demonstrably negative impact on his players: the historically inept Tim Floyd. (For what it's worth, Berri didn't study Isiah Thomas. The NBA coaches study hasn't been published yet; a version of it will be included in the 2009 book Stumbling on Wins, by Berri and Martin Schmidt.)

More interesting than the names on Berri's list is his finding that the influence of even the best coaches was statistically very small and was distinguishable only from the worst-rated coaches, like Floyd. Even title-winning, Hall of Fame coaches like Pat Riley and Larry Brown were shown to have almost no impact on their teams. Players leaving Riley-led teams actually got better (except, it seems, for Antoine Walker).

McCarthy acknowledges that there are plenty of dissenters, including Dean Oliver, who think coaches have more value. 

But think about it. What a miserable article to read if you're a coach. All those late nights of film study. All that competition for your job. All those tricks learned at conferences. All those books by the masters you have internalized.

And now there is evidence to support the notion you could be replaced by a deck chair.

• Jonathan Abrams of The New York Times: "The Nets were once considered the odds-on favorite to get James, possibly the game's most transcending player. He is a close friend to the rapper Jay-Z, a part-owner of the Nets. But the team's planned move to Brooklyn is at a standstill, which could significantly lessen the chances of James becoming a Net. That is the view of Sonny Vaccaro, the former shoe executive who keeps tabs on his former ABCD campers, James included. Vaccaro said he thought James would end up with the Knicks. 'LeBron's relationship with Jay-Z will go on regardless,' Vaccaro said. 'He'll be an international celebrity in New York. If the Nets aren't in Brooklyn, he's not going over there for even $200 million. They're putting pieces together. They're doing the right things. They're just living in the wrong building.' ... No matter the Cavaliers' efforts, Vaccaro said he thought James was destined to leave Cleveland. 'LeBron is this generation's personality,' said Vaccaro, not one to shy away from hyperbole. 'Even though Cleveland has done everything right, you don't get to Mount Rushmore from Cleveland. He has to go to New York or Los Angeles. There's no question. The money will be available anywhere. But this is about his persona.'"
• Aaron J. Lopez of the Rocky Mountain News: So far, it's a second-marriage made in heaven. Chauncey Billups just hopes the honeymoon continues through the spring. Billups on Monday was chosen the Western Conference Player of the Week after leading the Nuggets to a 3-1 record, including a road win against the defending champion Boston Celtics. ... Because of the individual and team success, playing in his hometown has been everything Billups thought it would be -- and more. 'It's been awesome. Everywhere I go, people welcome me home,' he said. 'Winning games is the ice cream on the top of the cake. Hopefully I can keep living this dream because it's been awesome.'"
• Peter Vecsey of the New York Post: "Any reasonable person who has viewed the tape of Rodney Stuckey getting blasted from mid-air by Shaq has identified it as a merciless foul, far beyond 'excessive,' the NBA's code word that automatically leads to ejection and, in many cases, suspension for a game or more. League VP of Violence Stu Jackson judged otherwise, fining O'Neal 25G for abusing the refs and not leaving the court in a timely manner. I used to pretend I got it but I don't even pretend to get it anymore. Unreasonable decisions like that does David Stern's unceasing crackdown on beastly brutality a disservice, as does describing such cold-blooded force as merely excessive. While football glorifies violent tackles of unprotected targets -- somehow managing to shrug off a perpetual procession of paralyzed pass catchers -- it is not part of the NBA's game." Video of the flagrant foul.
  
• Elliott Teaford of the Los Angeles Daily News: "Kobe Bryant went the Tiger Woods route Monday afternoon. 'You're not getting anything out of me but plain vanilla,' Bryant said after the Lakers practiced at their training facility. 'I'm not saying anything. I learned from my man Tiger. My mouth is locked.' Derek Fisher threw back his head and laughed long and hard. 'That's my response,' Fisher said. Phil Jackson was far more expansive. After all, he was the man Shaquille O'Neal blamed for the creative tension that inspired a rather public feud between O'Neal and Bryant when they played with the Lakers earlier this decade. When someone asked about O'Neal's comments, which pinned the blame for 'everything' on Jackson, the Lakers' Hall of Fame coach smiled his wry smile and said, 'Even his (notoriously poor) free-throw shooting?'"
• Patrick Reusse of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "This woebegone operation needs credibility. Firing Randy Wittman and replacing him with Fred Hoiberg as coach offers none. Firing Wittman and continuing to cede all personnel power to McHale offers none. It's time for Glen Taylor to call Medina and make this offer to a coach with a .597 winning percentage in the NBA: Flip Saunders, you come back as coach, Hoiberg gets the GM title but you make the roster decisions, and we let McHale save some face as a 'special adviser' -- with no advice needed. What do you say, Glen? Bury the hatchet and put a breath of life back in your franchise."
• Phil Jasner of the Philadelphia Daily News: "Thaddeus Young is savvy enough to understand this won't last, but through the first 10 games of the season he is the Sixers' leading scorer, putting together averages of 16.3 points and 5.5 rebounds, shooting 51.5 percent from the floor and 39.4 from three-point distance. 'Well, that's shocking [that he's the leading scorer],' Sixers coach Maurice Cheeks said yesterday. 'But I think if he had two points he would still have an impact on the game. It's not like he's got to score 20 points to have an impact. His impact is just based on the things that he does. No flash -- offensive rebounds, runs the floor, beating people down the floor.'"
• K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune: "Derrick Rose's teammates talk to him about everything from knowing opposing personnel to getting his rest to performing rookie tasks like carrying bags. But they've been suspiciously silent on one subject: the annual extended November trip to make way for the circus at the United Center. 'If it was good, people would've been telling me,' Rose said. 'But nobody has been talking, so I don't even want to know.' The Bulls are quiet because talking about a 6-52 mark since Michael Jordan left town is painful. And this season's task is no easier with a brutal schedule that begins with back-to-back games against the defending Western Conference champion Lakers on Tuesday and up-and-coming Portland the next night." 
  
• John Canzano of The Oregonian: "Pete Newell died Monday. And so I began to type a text message on my cell phone to his son, Pete Jr., whom I've known for a decade. I typed. And erased. And typed. And erased. Because what do you text when someone's father dies? In the end, I sent this: 'I heard about your dad. Great man.' It wasn't enough. Newell was a Hall of Fame basketball coach. He won an NCAA championship at California in 1959. And he won an Olympic gold medal in 1960, coaching Oscar Robertson and Jerry West. His obituary will tell you that he coached 14 seasons at San Francisco, Michigan State and Cal before doctors convinced him that the stress of coaching would kill him if he didn't give it up. He gave up coaching. But he never stopped teaching."
• John Reid of The Times-Picayune: "Near the end of an extended full scrimmage, forward/guard Rasual Butler and guard Morris Peterson exchanged words and eventually had to be separated. When practice ended, forward David West and point guard Chris Paul left without speaking to anyone. And forward Peja Stojakovic still appeared to be flustered from his 1-for-5 shooting performance for three points in Saturday's 91-82 loss to the Houston Rockets at the Toyota Center. 'None of us enjoy losing,' Peterson said. 'Once you get used to winning, you just want for it to continue. We're not in a state of emergency, but we are on the edge and went at each other hard in practice.'"
• Frank Dell'Apa of The Boston Globe: "To Celtics teammates, Sam Cassell is like a guru emerging from the mists of a time before cellular phones and Jumbotrons. They have seen him impose his will on a game, conjure up shots, cast a spell on the ball and opponents, his good-natured trash talking in practice the chanting of a high priest of point guards. But Cassell hasn't always been the elder statesman. Nobody reaches the NBA level without having world-class athletic ability, and younger Celtics might be surprised to know he was once known as 'Slam' Cassell because of his dunking ability. As Cassell reaches a milestone -- he turns 39 today -- there is symmetry in the fact that he is concluding his career on the banks of the Charles, 20 years after first arriving in New England, a homesick teenager taking the first major step on the road to becoming a professional athlete."
• Gwen Knapp of the San Francisco Chronicle: "In his first NBA start, Anthony Morrow scored 37 points, more than any other player making his inaugural since the 1971-72 season, as far back the Elias Sports Bureau tracks such stats. Not just more points than any other rookie or any player bypassed in the draft. More than any No. 1 draft pick. More than any ABA defector. More than any sterling sixth man who finally got his name written into the starting lineup. Saturday's performance doesn't guarantee that he'll be in Golden State for years. Just look at what happened to DeMarcus Nelson, a starter for Don Nelson's team in its first five games and a development-league player as of Friday. But Morrow has definitely proven that, despite the draft-day snub, he is eminently employable and probably won't be skipping off to Ukraine without paying off his lease or car loans."
• Bob Young of The Arizona Republic: "Today, the Glendale City Council is expected to approve a new training center and administrative headquarters for USA Basketball, the organization led by Jerry Colangelo that assembles our national teams, including the U.S. men's and women's Olympic squads. The center would include a training complex; office space; sports-medicine facilities; and fitness, education and entertainment components. It means we're likely to see guys such as LeBron James and Chris Paul hanging around the Valley a lot more, too."
  
• Kyle Hightower of the Orlando Sentinel: "Who said Polish guys can't jump? In a discussion with fellow Magic European-import Mickael Pietrus (originally from French Guadeloupe), Polish-born Marcin Gortat boasted after a recent practice his ability to dunk from the free-throw line -- like Julius Erving. Doubtful of his skills, Pietrus bet Gortat an unspecified sum that he could, drawing a full post-practice audience that included several barefoot players and even Coach Stan Van Gundy. With a full-court run-up, the 6-11 Gortat successfully pulled off the dunk twice after the first one was disputed by Pietrus, who questioned his takeoff point. Said Gortat, as he walked into the locker room mobbed by teammates: 'I'll take my payment in Euros.'"

• A leaked e-mail as evidence that Mark Cuban's extraordinary ability to annoy people may have extended to some powerful people in Washington, with the suggestion that maybe he's getting some retribution for financing a documentary that was wildly critical of the Bush administration.
• A lawyer gets pretty intense examining the issues at hand, and questions a key aspect of the governments' case.
• And Cuban vows to fight.
  

• Malcolm Gladwell has a new book about "Outliers," as in, people who are extraordinarily successful. The lessons apply to sports as much as anything. He explains the lesson of the book on his website: "My wish with Outliers is that it makes us understand how much of a group project success is. When outliers become outliers it is not just because of their own efforts. It's because of the contributions of lots of different people and lots of different circumstances -- and that means that we, as a society, have more control about who succeeds --and how many of us succeed-than we think. That's an amazingly hopeful and uplifting idea."
• ESPN's John Hollinger points out that in an age of alleged smallball, teams like Sacramento and Toronto have been playing some huge lineups, and New Jersey and some other teams (I'd add Portland to the list) have the potential to follow suit.
• Kwame Brown with a pretty good game. There's something about the water in Detroit.
• DraftExpress has a very thoughtful analysis of Brandon Jennings' progress evading American college while making big dollars in Europe. (In a nutshell, he's doing quite well, all things considered.) The article also has this memorable note about Jennings' teammate in Rome: "The most important backcourt player is clearly Slovenian Sani Becirovic, though, a very aggressive and extremely skilled combo guard who is having easily his best season ever as a pro. Becirovic is averaging 15.5 points per game in just 23 minutes per, shooting outrageous percentages, getting to the line at an amazing rate, playing almost no defense (as usual), and doing a fair amount of ball-handling in most minutes he's on the floor. He has the green light to do basically whatever he pleases on this team, and he can seemingly do no wrong this season thus far."
• Everyone in the next couple of bullets is fired up. Blazer fans are fired up about a couple of good games from Greg Oden. I'm thrilled to see it, but this is nothing compared to what I believe is coming. Dwight Jaynes is fired up: "If you want to make a case that Greg Oden is injury prone and is never going to be healthy enough to help the Trail Blazers win a championship, I can't argue with that. There's not enough evidence at this point to prove you right or wrong. Who knows? But if you're going to try to make the case that he's not going to be a very good player or that he's not talented enough or big enough to be a big factor on the floor, well, I'm going to have to fight you on that. Man, he's starting to come out of his shell now -- and he's showing enough that you can see what a major influence he can have on a game."
• BrewHoop's Frank Madden is fired up about one particular Buck: "As for [Luc Richard] Mbah a Moute, let the record show that he actually became the starter before Villanueva hurt his hamstring, and at the moment it's difficult to see why Skiles would change things up once Villanueva returns. Mbah a Moute is simply a baller: just put him on the court and he'll find a way to help you. While he's undersized for a 4, his boundless energy and athleticism allow him to be productive guarding either forward spot. And though scouts were adamant that he could neither dribble nor shoot, he's shown a decent ability to put it on the floor along with a rather smooth 18-footer. It's a bit strange that he never showed much improvement during his three years at UCLA, but Bucks fans can count their blessings that John Hammond, Dave Babcock and Scott Skiles were one step ahead of everyone else when they picked him 37th overall. His finishing around the hoop could definitely use some work--21% of his inside shots have been blocked--but it's difficult to complain about a second rounder putting up 10.6 ppg and 7.5 rpg along with excellent defense." Basketbawful is fired up about PG-13 anagrams for Mbah a Moute's name.
• The sweatiest players in the NBA, according to a very sweaty player, Channing Frye. I challenge the guy at the top of the list, Nick Collison, to a sweat off. Ask anyone who was at Training Like a Pro: I can sweat.
• Kevin Arnovitz of ClipperBlog is not loving Baron Davis' defense.
• The Thunder's offense is not good.
• A rare instance of a referee explaining a call to the media. A less rare instance of Phoenix fans thinking referees are full of it.
• Very interesting analysis of the Lakers' offense thus far, complete with the case for finding Pau Gasol open in the corner to shoot a 3.
• Gilbert Arenas reacting to shady political practices: "... if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying."
• Once upon a time the NBA blogosphere was all proud of our local resident who made motion pictures. Then he made so many motion pictures, he stopped being a basketball blogger. Now Brian, formerly of YAYSports! is kind of blogging again, and he has a trailer of his latest movie project.
• Both Donnie Walsh and Stephon Marbury have signed the same piece of paper. It's just not the right piece of paper.
• UPDATE: The Anthony Morrow highlight reel. 15-20 for 37 points in his first NBA start. He plays for the Warriors, by the way. (Courtesty of Kaifa in the FreeDarko comments.)

As ESPN.com news services report, Mark Cuban has been charged with insider trading that netted him roughly $750,000 he allegedly should not have earned.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Cuban on Monday in federal court in Dallas. The agency says that in June 2004, Cuban was invited to get in on the coming stock offering by Mamma.com Inc. after he agreed to keep the information private.

The SEC says Cuban knew the shares would be sold below the current market price, and a few hours after receiving the information, told his broker to sell all shares in the search-engine company.

"As we allege in the complaint, Mamma.com entrusted Mr. Cuban with nonpublic information after he promised to keep the information confidential. Less than four hours later, Mr. Cuban betrayed that trust by placing an order to sell all of his shares," Scott W. Friestad, deputy director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, said in a statement. "It is fundamentally unfair for someone to use access to nonpublic information to improperly gain an edge on the market."

Long before he was charged with any wrongdoing, Mark Cuban described the transaction on his blog, BlogMaverick (in 2005).

I had purchased stock in Mamma.com in hope that it could be an up and coming search engine. I thought I had done some level of due diligence. Talked to the company management. Talked to some employees who worked in sales. Read the SEC Filings.

I knew that they had a checkered past and had been linked to stock promoter Irving Kott, and that their law firm still handled some of Kotts business, but the CEO, Chairman, lawyers all said that things were reformed and the company was focused on its business.

Then the company did a PIPE financing. Im not going to discuss the good or bad of PIPE financing other than to say that to me its a huge red flag and I dont want to own stock in companies that use this method of financing. Why?

Because I don't like the idea of selling in a private placement stock for less than the market price, and then to make matters worse, pushing the price lower with the issuance of warrants. So I sold the stock. 

Randy Shain is a Vice President of First Advantage Investigative Services and the author of a book and several articles and book chapters on Wall Street investigations. 

He has read the SEC's complaint, and agreed to comment on it:

What is Mark Cuban being accused of here?
These are all allegations. Mark Cuban may very well have a defense that we don't know about.

But the SEC is saying that an investment bank recommended to the head of Mamma.com that they invite Mark Cuban to be a private investor in their PIPE investment vehicle.

A PIPE is a Private Investment in a Public Entity. It's a way for a public company to raise money -- fair or not, the view is that a lot of them are done when a company is getting a little desperate for cash, which tends to make the market a little nervous.

The CEO allegedly reached Cuban, told him the call was confidential, and then told him about the PIPE. Cuban didn't like it, and allegedly told the CEO that he was screwed, and now would not be allowed to sell. And, according to the rules of stock trading, that was exactly right. He had insider information and could not sell. But then the record shows he did sell.

It's not hard to sympathize with Cuban's desire to sell. I agree with him, about PIPEs. He must have felt screwed, having bought the stock, and then learning that the price was likely to go down.

But it's too bad. If you don't own the majority of the company, they might make decisions you don't like. It's a risk.

Do we know if Cuban knew he wasn't allowed to use that information to trade? Did he know he was breaking the rules?
The company is alleging that they told him on that call -- that the CEO said this information is confidential and we're trusting you to keep it confidential. 

He may dispute that. But that's probably not going to cut it. That's a bit like the Martha Stewart case -- you can say you didn't know it wasn't allowed, but you sort of have to know. He's pretty sophisticated. It's hard to make clear you're smart, for so long, then suddenly pretend you're dumb.

So what is the penalty likely to be?
Mark Cuban's going to have to write a big check. The complaint calls for "disgorgement of profits" which is government talk for giving back the money that you should not have made. With the $750,000 he reportedly made, plus some fines, my guess is that might be a million dollars.

And then this could be all done. It's a civil filing at this point. I can't imagine there will be a criminal filing, like what happened in the Martha Stewart case. That tends to only happen if there is a cover-up, which there isn't any suggestion of here.

She went to jail. He's going to be angry, and is likely going to have to pay a million dollars. But at the end of the day: So what?

What's wrong about doing what he did?
In the big picture, there's nothing wrong, of course, with selling a stock that is going down.

But what the SEC, the regulators, are trying to prevent is someone making a trade that benefits them unfairly. In the NBA, you can make a trade sometimes that benefits both parties. In stocks, it's a zero sum game. If I make money on a stock transaction, somebody else loses. 

When Mark Cuban found out about the PIPE financing, he apparently believed the stock would go down, and sold his stock. That didn't screw Mamma.com, and it didn't screw the SEC. It screwed the poor schlub who bought that stock from him and presumably didn't know about the PIPE. The SEC's job is to make it so that both parties at least have a shot at knowing the same things before they trade, and if the allegations are true, that's what didn't happen here.

(Photograph by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

If you want to win an NBA title any time in the next decade, there are certain realities that can not be ignored. Beating the Lakers and/or the Celtics, for instance, is something you'll have to figure out this season.

And in years to come, you'll certainly have to have schemes for the likes of Chris Paul, LeBron James, and Dwight Howard.

Which means that virtually every NBA coach out there is hoping to learn what they might have that would be kryptonite for Paul, James, and Howard.

On Sunday, Larry Brown's Bobcats lost, again. This time it was against Howard's Magic. But they apparently did something right: They turned 21 point and 14 rebound behemoth Dwight Howard into a four point and seven rebound non-factor. Despite chipping in five blocks, two steals, and three assists, Howard was the least effective Magic starter yesterday.

Dwight Howard has the most impressive body in the NBA. When he is determined to get near the hoop, there not much of anyone stops him with any regularity. His almost comical Mr. Atlas muscles make him a top ten pusher and shover, but that's just the start. He is also quick on his feet, nimble, coordinated, and can launch himself skyward like a bottle rocket. Just the other day he had 30 points, 19 rebounds, and ten blocks against the Thunder.

ESPN's John Hollinger analyzed Howard's game this off-season (Insider) and pointed to some serious strengths, as well as a couple of weaknesses:

Howard shot 64.6 percent on shots in the immediate basket area and earned more than 10 attempts a game from that distance. Push him out and he isn't nearly as effective: He only made 31.6 percent of his non-layup 2-pointers, the ninth-worst mark in the league. Alas, pushing him away from the basket is much easier said than done with a physical specimen like this. ...

Offensively, Howard likes to get deep post position for a high-post entry or to be hit on the move on alley-oops and rolls to the basket. His post game lacks refinement, but he does have an excellent left hand from short range; in fact he's probably better with the left than the right on short hook shots. He needs to develop more of a face-up game so he's not so reliant on deep post entries -- a play the Pistons largely denied him in the Magic's second-round playoff defeat.

So, what did the Bobcats do that was so special? What diabolical scheme did they cook up to neutralize superman? Did Emeka Okafor finally get some revenge for being second behind Howard in 2004? Did that wily old veteran Larry Brown discover something he could exploit in Howard's game?

I used Synergy to watch almost every Orlando possession, and what's shocking is how little of anything special really happened. 

First of all, Howard only played 26 minutes before fouling out. The fouls were nothing special -- Howard tagged Okafor, Ryan Hollins, Raymond Felton, and Jared Dudley while they were shooting. Okafor drew an offensive foul, and Felton coaxed Howard into his sixth and final foul.

Okafor fought just enough to keep Howard from getting deep position -- which as Hollinger points out keeps Howard from getting high percentage shots. On the rare occasions when he did get decent position, he simply missed, or went to the line where he was always been mediocre. It worked: Howard didn't score a single field goal.

But the most striking thing about the video is how many times Howard was content to set a screen near the three-point line ... and then float. He was simply not at all in kill mode. For the vast majority of the time Orlando had the ball, Howard simply was not in the paint, which is where his advantages lie.

Maybe he just wasn't in the mood. Maybe he's tired after a pretty intense chunk of the schedule. Maybe he needs a strong cup of coffee. Maybe he's banged up.

But if you're a coach, scouting this game, trying to figure out how to get Howard to play this poorly against your team ... I see no lessons for you here, other than perhaps to hire a hypnotist to keep Howard from what he does best. Against this same defense, with a different mentality, on a different night, Howard is the same 21 and 14 guy he has been all season.

(Photo by Brock Williams-Smith/NBAE via Getty Images)

• Brian Windhorst of The Plain Dealer: "His future when his contract expires in 2010. It figures to be a common inquiry this week when the Cavaliers make a trip to New Jersey and Detroit. Research and projections done by The Plain Dealer reveal that currently there are 18 teams in position to offer Lebron James, or just about anyone else for that matter, a maximum contract in July 2010. It is a fluid list that could change dramatically and will likely shrink because teams will be drafting and signing players to new contracts between now and then. The Nets and Pistons are two teams that have made moves to clear salary-cap space for 2010, which is shaping up to be the most prolific free-agent season in NBA history. James, as it is well-known, is the centerpiece of that market. Which is why likely this week and probably for the next two seasons, James will constantly be asked about his future. Especially when visiting places that have made it a priority to clear that valuable cap space. "
• Kevin Ding of The Orange County Register: "Lamar Odom is a great guy. I've said this many times here. He is wonderful with the media but far beyond that he is simply a nice person ... and actually a very unique sort of team leader. It is my opinion that he lacks focus at times on the court, detracting from his tremendously versatile game, and my latest column was intended to be a reflection of that and also straight reporting of Phil Jackson's displeasure with Odom (and Odom's overall displeasure with what happened to him in the game). Given how much attention was generated by Odom's initial negative attitude about coming off the bench, I thought it was hugely relevant to the team's future to discuss Odom's problems with this game, even though this game certainly (as I said in the column) wasn't lost by him more than others."
• Dave D'Alessandro of The Star-Ledger: "This is his first opportunity to issue a sardonic told-ya-so, but Lawrence Frank will resist the temptation and shrug his way out of the discussion. There are two reasons for this. This guy doesn't do snark, and being an NBA head coach, he knows things go from good to bad in an eye-blink. He'll go only this far: 'Going into the year, everyone said, 'Where are the points coming from? You're going to average 70 a game,' ' the Nets coach recalled. 'And yeah, I get it: Vince (Carter) is a 25-point scorer, Devin (Harris) is 10 a game, Bobby (Simmons) is 10 for his career, and everyone else is in single digits. So looking at that, we said we've got to be different. Our margin for error is small, but if we continue to attack, the points will come.' Or, if the last three games involving Harris are any indication, the points could proliferate in a way this franchise has never seen."
• Benjamin Hochman of The Denver Post: "Unquestionably, the Allen Iverson experiment produced some scintillating moments for the Nuggets and their fans. But the more coach George Karl watches Chauncey Billups run his offense -- and watches Iverson lead the Pistons -- it has become clearer that Iverson, well, wasn't the answer. 'There are less bad plays, more solid plays,' Karl said. 'I think the wasteful, cheap possessions that we used to have 10 to 15 a game, they don't exist very much anymore.' What always irked Karl was Iverson's inability to run the offense like a general. Arguably, Iverson shot too much, and like Karl said, Denver could outscore about half the teams in the NBA. But when it came to beating the elite teams, the Nuggets had too many questions with 'The Answer' -- about his shot selection, his dedication to defense and his ability/inability to trust his teammates."
• Mike Jones of The Washington Times: "When Juan Dixon returned to the District in September, he said he was a different player from the undersized shooting guard who spent his first three NBA seasons with Washington. Three rocky seasons -- he first signed with Portland, got traded to Toronto and then dealt to Detroit -- improved Dixon's appreciation for playing close to his native Baltimore. More importantly, lessons learned in that time helped the former Maryland star grow into a more complete player. ... 'He talks. He gets us into our defense and keeps us organized,' Eddie Jordan said. 'He's a very smart player. He's going to be a very good coach one day.' ... 'He's more under control. He's more mature. He's smarter as an NBA player,' Jordan said. 'He's not looking to make a name for himself but [is] helping his teammates get better -- and that's a great thing.'"
• Don Seeholzer of The Pioneer Press: "Randy Wittman might feel like he's reliving Groundhog Day, but unlike Bill Murray in the movie version, the Wolves' embattled coach said he didn't wake up to the radio playing 'I Got You, Babe' Sunday morning. 'No, I didn't. Nope,' a relaxed Wittman said before the game. 'Woke up different time, new city, new day.' Despite seven straight losses, also unlike Murray, Wittman added that there was no need to put him on suicide watch. 'Nope. Definitely not,' he said. 'We've just got to continue to work, and we've got to make the plays at the end.'"
• Jerry Brown of the East Valley Tribune: "Terry Porter, who spent the last two years with Rasheed Wallace, after being told that Wallace plans to go into coaching when his successful and colorful NBA career is complete: 'I could never see him being a coach. I don't care if it was peewee ... OK, maybe peewee,' he said, laughing. 'I don't know about college or NBA. Maybe high school, but there is still one or two media hanging around, and I don't know how he's going to handle the referee situation. Some of those school districts might not embrace a guy who likes to use the F-bombs as much as he does.'"
• Howard Beck of The New York Times: "Jerome James missed the game for personal reasons, leaving the Knicks with 10 healthy players in uniform. But Coach Mike D'Antoni had James and Danilo Gallinari (sore back) on the active roster and Stephon Marbury on the inactive list, prompting the inevitable question about Marbury's continued exile. 'Hey, we can talk about it until I'm sure you guys are sick of it, too,' D'Antoni said, chuckling. 'It is what it is.' Marbury, who has softened his opposition to a buyout, met last week met with Donnie Walsh, the team president. D'Antoni said he was content to let Marbury and Walsh 'work something out.'"
• Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel: "Dwight Howard says he hopes to unveil his new Web site this week -- and he's approaching it like the all-star dunk contest. 'I'm telling you, it's going to blow your mind,' Howard said. 'I got some surprises, some big surprises.' He says he is creating the site on his own. With the Magic returning home for a few days this week, facing the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday, Howard hopes to have it up and running soon for fans to visit. He already has talked about holding some sort of contest for fans on the site. They can suggest or vote for different dunks he can perform at all-star weekend Feb. 13-15 in Phoenix."
• Fran Blinebury of the Houston Chronicle: "Ron Artest says the rest of the Rockets will look to Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady to avoid repeats of Friday's collapse in San Antonio. 'We probably slacked off,' Artest said. 'It's going to be important definitely for Yao and Mac, the leaders, that when times like that come, when we're up against good teams on the road, we've got to find a way. ... And everybody else has to follow, and everybody else is not going to have an excuse to blow big leads like that.' As for being a leader himself? 'Everybody has input,' Artest said. 'Chuck (Hayes) has input, Rafer (Alston) has input. But obviously, (players) follow Michael Jordan, they follow Shaquille O'Neal, they follow Tim Duncan. They didn't really follow Steve Kerr.'"
• Brian Hanley of the Chicago Sun-Times: "As impressive as Derrick Rose's game-high 23 points, 56 percent shooting and eight assists were in the Bulls' 104-91 win Saturday over Indiana, there was perhaps a more-telling statistic: Rose's plus-20. 'The plus/minus stat in basketball is the single-best number to indicate a player's performance,' John Dewan, former CEO of STATS Inc., and current owner of Baseball Info Solutions, said via e-mail. 'It measures what really counts: how many points are scored and allowed when the player is on the court. It's more important than scoring averages, rebounds, assists, etc., because it measures defense. Defense is 50 percent of the game and most stats [except for steals and rebounds, for the most part] are about offense. Last year, the plus/minus leader in the NBA was Kevin Garnett, well known for his defense.'"
• Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News: "The initial reaction to seeing Jerry Stackhouse in street clothes when he's healthy is that it doesn't pass the smell test. Something's not right. But despite appearances, the Mavericks insist there is no controversy with the veteran swingman. Sunday's game against New York was simply a bad matchup for Stackhouse to get minutes. So he was put on the inactive list. Stackhouse didn't want to talk about it after the game, but team president Donnie Nelson said the coaching staff informed Stackhouse on Sunday morning about the decision. Nelson said there is no internal problem with Stackhouse, who is shooting 29 percent for the season. ... It's tough watching a player who has been one of the best scorers in the league go through such a situation. He understands the younger players such as James Singleton and Brandon Bass, who were huge Sunday, must get their chances. It's to Stackhouse's credit that he's being professional about it. Anything less could pose problems down the road."
• Melody Gutierrez of the Sacramento Bee: "While the Kings' national presence has gone from visible to nonexistent in the last few years, the Maloofs might have found a way to garner attention by turning a spotlight on the organization. Maloof Productions is partnering with reality icon Mark Burnett for a behind-the-scenes series called 'Rebuilding the Kingdom' on all things Kings. Burnett, the man behind 'Survivor' and 'The Apprentice,' told the Hollywood Reporter the show would be 'committed to creating fun and innovative programming.' The show is in the early stages and does not currently have a network partner."
• Marcus Thompson II of the Contra Costa Times: "This performance was basic basketball. Sure, it was a perfect storm of the Clippers poor defense, his feeling it and Nellie giving him the opportunity. And defenses will certainly be paying attention to him at some point. But him getting 10-15 points on a regular basis is not that far-fetched. Anthony Morrow can manufacture points because he is an outstanding shooter, he understands how to get his shot off and he is not one dimensional. If Nellie can factor him into the offense (they had a couple double screens he came off of) and not have a quick hook, and if his teammates look for him when he's in the game, he can get you a nice bunch of points off the bench. Two 3-pointers, a couple mid-range jumpers, a few free throws and a lay-up, you got 15 points. ... This sucks for Marco Belinelli, though. His just became expendable. Morrow is a purer shooter, he's bigger, he's more athletic, he's tougher, he's more aggressive, he's fundamentally more sound, and he's cheaper. I would not be surprised if Chris Mullin/Larry Riley has already linked Marco with Al Harrington and Marcus Williams in trade offers."
• Chris McGann of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "The latest plan to bring pro basketball back to Seattle now that its team has been sold and moved to Oklahoma City faces enormous challenges as it heads to the 2009 legislative session. The city of Seattle proposal for financing a major remodel of KeyArena -- a prerequisite for getting a new NBA team -- would raise $75 million with a 1 percent Seattle hotel tax currently collected to pay debt on the Washington State Convention and Trade Center. The city would provide another $75 million with revenue and admissions taxes from KeyArena. A group of investors, including Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer and Seattle developer Matt Griffin, is seeking to buy a new NBA team to play in Seattle and has agreed to contribute $150 million to the arena upgrade. But all of that depends on persuading state lawmakers to allow the city to keep that 1 percent hotel tax."

There was that fight on Wednesday night, which didn't get all that much attention even though it involved names like Shaquille O'Neal, Tracy McGrady, and Steve Nash.

Now that the suspensions have been handed out, though, my inbox is lighting up big-time.

No one is too surprised to see that Matt Barnes and Rafer Alston will be sitting out two games apiece. Barnes clearly started the whole thing with a cheap shot, and Alston was the gasoline that fueled the fight as it chugged along.

But Nash ...

People in Phoenix will forever feel stung by the NBA after those suspensions in the 2007 playoffs. Their victim complex is ripe. And the Nash suspension predictably has them all angry. (An overly aggressive Canadian? They seem to be saying. Really?)

Me? I love me some Suns, but I'm tired of the whining. Not only were the 2007 suspensions fair -- the rules were clear and the players knew they should have stayed by the bench -- but I'm not at all convinced that Steve Nash's intentions in this current scuffle were above board.

I'm totally convinced, in fact, that he was really pissed off. That much is obvious. It's also clear there was a fight, and he was running Mach 6 into the middle of it. Why? To hurt somebody? To break things up? I'm not at all sure, but it sure reminds me of his reaction after getting knocked down by Robert Horry. He charged that dude big-time, and either his smallness, his Canadianness, or victimness kept him from getting in any real trouble for that.

In any case, if you're Stu Jackson, handing out punishments from the league office, human missiles aren't helping in your critical mission to prevent the big brawls that make America think the NBA is a bunch of young men rum amok.

Watch it yourself. There are a zillion views, none of which make clear to me what Steve Nash was doing. You'll notice that after it's all done, Nash has a scuffed neck. A few e-mailers have advanced the theory that the neck thing came first, and that Barnes' cheap shot was payback for something that happened to Nash a few plays before. None of the video shows that, but it would explain a very agitated Nash.

So, this morning's bullets were a little short, and a little early, because of some stuff talking I had to do in the middle of the day. So, here's making up for some lost time:

• Heavens forbid but I know some of you are too young, or too old, to know 1994's Hoop Dreams. (If you haven't seen it, that's what Netflix/Blockbuster/Hulu is for.) But it was an instant classic, and remains the class of the basketball documentary genre. The two players involved were Arthur Agee and William Gates. They are still in touch, and the Chicago Tribune's Sara Olkon got to witness a recent reunion. Gates is a minister with a degree, a wife, and four children. Agee got a little further in his basketball career, but is more or less broke as a result of the child support associated with having five children by five different women, and no real income. Both have had close relatives murdered. A sobering tale.
• On Rockets.com, Jason Friedman quotes Dostoevsky, and talks about brotherhood, and NBA players punching each other the other night against the Suns: "Suddenly, the emotions of the evening boiled over, the crowd around them was whipped into a frenzy and the Rockets were forced to respond. They did not go overboard, mind you, but neither did they back down. This team which, in the past, has been erroneously characterized as "soft, came to the defense of one another and stood together as one. I'm wary of overstating the importance of a singular event, but the seeds of brotherhood are often sewn during moments such as these. Yao Ming himself admitted as much after the game, saying 'That really can help us because we [stood] together face-to-face against Phoenix as a team.' Further reflecting upon the last ten days, I now begin to recall plenty of other examples of this team's still-developing off-court chemistry. There is Joey Dorsey jokingly telling Yao he's going to teach Houston's All-Star center kung fu so he can better avoid falling to the floor in future fracases. There's Tracy McGrady commandeering the intercom on the team flight so he can wish Ron Artest happy birthday, and subsequently making the aforementioned Dorsey serenade Ron for all to hear -- twice. And then there's Brent Barry and Shane Battier studiously teaming up to tackle a crossword puzzle on the bus back to the hotel after practice. I relay these things not to imply the Rockets are the only team in the NBA who share such moments, but merely to illustrate this team's place on the path toward brotherhood. And though they will undoubtedly face increasingly difficult tests -- as all brothers do -- of their camaraderie in the days and months to come, there is comfort to be found in knowing that they're on the right track."
  
• Not to be outdone, on Hornets247 Ryan Schwan quotes some serious Shakespeare in a preview of tonight's Hornets vs. Blazers game: "For about six months I've had an urge to put together a post about Portland's Kevin Pritchard -- a man who is celebrated as "teh best GM evah" by many. I'm not actually sure he is, considering the starting line-up I just went through. Is that really that good of a team? Even with Oden? I've not written anything yet because he definitely needs to be given more time to see how his stockpile of young players pan out, but so far Pritchard's hallmark has been skill with the press, a willingness to spend millions of his owner's money on typically low-reward draft picks, and extreme activity. His draft night binges remind me of that line from MacBeth. No, not 'I dare do all that may become a man', I was thinking 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'. Now, with that out of the way -- let's go on to the actual bench -- which is where Pritchard can stake his claim to excellence. The Hornets roll out two competent players in James Posey and Rasual Butler. The Blazers roll out shotblocking Greg Oden, clever scorer Rudy Fernandez, Athletic shooter Travis Outlaw, Channing Frye(he's Aldridge Lite, so does that make him David West Lite Lite?), speedster Jerryd Bayless, and a fast, clever ball-handler in Sergio Rodriguez. Two of them, Fernandez and Outlaw, play nearly starters minutes, and all are fairly effective in their way. That is a bench to be proud of."
• On Yahoo, Rod Benson has tales of his first season in Europe: "The Euroleague has opened my eyes to a whole new kind of human being. I never imagined seeing actual living people the size of Monstars. I mean, I guess there's Shaquille O'Neal, who is one of the largest people ever, but there are others out there roaming the planet, being signed to European teams, lurching, lumbering from one end of the court to the other. There was one guy from Zalgiris who was about 7'3", and close to 400lbs. I'm pretty certain that the people watching on TV thought that there were only three and a half players from my team on the court when really, he was eclipsing nearly half of the guys."

Shaquille O'Neal had a conversation with the Sacramento Bee's Scott Howard-Cooper, which included some amazing insight about all that bickering with Kobe Bryant back in his Laker days:

I think it was all designed by Phil (Jackson). Because if you think about it, Phil never called us into the office and said, ''Both of you all, shut the (heck) up.'' Never did that in four years. He knew that when I read something, I was going to get upset. And he knew Kobe was going to always come out and play hard. So I think it was all done by design.

You think he just wanted to light a fire under you guys?
Yeah. I think that's exactly what it was. I think it was all done by design. Really. He never called us in a meeting and said, ''Shut up.'' And basically, it was never a face-to-face ... thing. It was always, he'd say something to you, I'd say something to another guy, I'd say something to you. That's all it was.

Now that I look back on it, that (stuff) was kind of fun. It really was. It was kind of fun. ''What did he say, what did he say?'' I tell people if we would have had a reality show, we'd have had the No. 1 reality show in the world. It was fun. It was actually fun. (Brian) Shaw would be, ''Oh, man, why did you say that?'' And then Karl (Malone) would be like, ''Yo, that was (messed) up what you said.'' Then we'd try to out-do each other in the game.

But while we were trying to out-do each other, the two best players in the game, we're out-doing everyone by far.

Writer Roland Lazenby, who has followed just about the entirety of Phil Jackson's coaching career, has been saying for ages that one must not undersell the notion that Phil Jackson plays a lot of psychological games. 

I learned about this interview from Sactown Royalty, which highlighted a different amazing part of the talk, wherein Shaquille O'Neal has no idea who Spencer Hawes is.

Maybe he's kidding. But I don't think so.

Hawes is not even a rookie. He was a lottery pick. And he plays O'Neal's position. I don't think Hawes and O'Neal have played against each other, however -- owing to the schedule, O'Neal's trade last season, and the two players' various injuries.

• Leandro Barbosa has been preoccupied for some time with the poor health