Different people fall in different places on the green spectrum.

You might visit one house where it would be totally normal to turn your car off so as not to idle and waste gas, or to spend some serious time sorting recyclables. Other times you'll find yourself at some kind of event where buses are idling all day, and there is only one kind of garbage for everything to be taken to the landfill together.

There are some food spreads where things have been bought locally, and seasonally, with an eye on fuel consumption. Other times you'll see a whole buffet where everything has clearly been trucked in from Chile or China or wherever it was cheapest of most convenient.

In some places, people bring their own coffee cup into the store to get a refill. In others, you get a different, new plastic cup every time you need a cop of joe.

In every one of these examples, the NBA has been, in my experience, just about as un-green as any organization I have exposure to.

I care deeply about the environment, but this reality does not bother me all that much. I suspect that a lot of companies do a lot of flag-waving on this topic, but aren't any better. In a way, the NBA's honest old-school approach at least makes clear they haven't gotten to this yet.

And I understand that a lot of the NBA's consumption has to do with the hard facts of the business. When you're flying large numbers of rich people around the country to perform in enormous climate-controlled arenas before tens of thousands of other rich people, you're going to use fossil fuels like they're going out of style.

But even beyond the hard realities, even in the style, message, and corporate posture of the NBA ... to me it has always been well behind the curve. (Behold the many discarded plastic plates in the media room!)

Over the last decade, practically every major organization has had some kind of internal and/or external green movement. I'm not saying it didn't happen at the NBA, but if it did I am certainly not aware of it.

David Stern's stated concerns about global warming notwithstanding, can you ever remember seeing any mention of the environment in anything the NBA has ever done publicly? This is the last refuge of the Escalade! The NBA has always been all about encouraging people to drive more miles to more stadiums in more opulence while buying more TVs, wearing more sneakers, and drinking more pre-packaged beverages ... 

It wasn't anti-environment, so much as pre-environmental worries. Remember back when you would buy a car and not even consider it might have some effect on the polar ice cap? The NBA can ...

All of which is pretty meaningless, except for a throwaway line in an article about realignment. One unnamed GM said something that surprised me: the NBA is, he says, now trying to "go green."

The bad news is that I'm not sure most of the people in power at the moment have passion on this topic (other than a character here or there). But the good news is, there are probably a lot of easy changes to be made, because it's certainly a new approach.

Kevin Arnovitz watched Derrick Rose very closely last night, and here's what he noticed.

Two of my favorite recent pieces of basketball writing come by way of Basketball Prospectus. The first is Kevin Pelton's examination of the Lakers' pressure defense; the second is Anthony Macri's profile of Derrick Rose. The Bulls and Lakers faced off last night in Los Angeles, which gave us a nice opportunity to look at Rose's tool box against that nasty early-season Lakers' defense. How did Rose respond to the Lakers' stifling pressure? What kind of shots was he able to work for himself and his teammates?

Let's take a look at Rose's weaponry:

The Triple Threat [1st, 11:15] On the Bulls' first possession of the game, they run a high screen and roll for Rose and Drew Gooden. Gooden forces the action with a dribble-drive from the top of the circle against a recovering Pau Gasol, then kicks the ball out to Rose on the right wing.

Rose catches and sees Fisher cheating. Faced up against Fisher, Rose sizes up his options: Does he hit Luol Deng at the top of the arc? (The Lakers have collapsed in the paint on Gooden) Does he shoot over Fisher? Or does he put it on the floor?

Rose elevates his right shoulder for the faintest of pump-fakes -- but it's just enough to get a recovering Fisher to bite. Rose takes a hard dribble driving right. Gasol cuts off the lane, so Rose throws up a running right-handed floater that falls in.

The Drive and Kick [1st, 9:03] As Rose drives down the left sideline past Fisher, the entire Lakers defense shifts low and strong. This leaves the perimeter vulnerable, and Gooden has set up shop at a spot just behind Rose on the arc. Even though the Lakers now have Rose trapped in the corner, he manages to leave his feet to heave an overhead two-handed pass back out to Gooden, who's alone at 18 feet.

Few point guards have been able to maintain control of the court against the Lakers' strong-side pressure this season, but Rose beats it with his court vision. Gooden nails the shot.

The Bulls like this set enough to run it again on the right side a couple of possessions later to the same effect: An open Drew Gooden face-up jumper.

Rose has four assists before the eight-minute mark of the first quarter, three of them to Gooden.

The Stutter-Step [1st, 5:34] The Bulls have seven seconds on the inbounds. The ball comes into Rose in the backcourt against Fisher. He takes a hard dribble with his left, then glides by a solid screen from Gooden that stunts Fisher. Here comes the traffic -- Bynum off the switch coupled with Vladimir Radmanovic, who has left Deng to help. Rose momentarily hesitates with a little stutter-step that destabilizes Bynum. But there's still work to be done. He then lowers his head, splits the two big men, launches off his left foot as he brings the ball up for an acrobatic finish with his left hand. It's good, and it's beautiful.

The Pace Car [1st, 2:58] Ben Gordon strips Lamar Odom. Rose picks up the ball at the Lakers' foul line at 3:01. In three seconds, he weaves his way through the entirety of the Lakers' transition defense, splitting Radmanovic and Fisher at the arc, to reach the rim before Kobe Bryant can contest the shot.

The Rookie [2nd, 9:48] Rose has tremendous strength, speed, and awareness ... but guys like Kobe Bryant still have instinct. Dribbling the ball in the backcourt, Rose telegraphs a pass to Ben Gordon. Bryant needs only the teensiest of signals and Rose has given it to him. Kobe effortlessly steps in front of the pass, get it into the open floor, and converts the break against Rose on the other end.

The Freelancer [2nd, 3:03]: This is the most telling Rose sequence of the half, albeit one that's less visually spectacular than some of his other flourishes.

Drew Gooden comes high to set a screen for Rose along the left sideline. But before Gooden sets up, Rose realizes he already has what he needs -- an off-balance Pau Gasol anticipating the screen, then a whole lot of open court on the strong side. Rose doesn't wait. He takes a hard dribble with his left as he hums past Gasol along the left sideline in front of the Bulls' bench. With Ben Gordon safely off in the far corner, Kobe Bryant steps out to contest Rose. As Bryant emerges, Rose accelerates into sixth gear. He's at the glass before Bryant can challenge the shot.

Even with a prospect as talented as Derrick Rose, there are still persistent questions: Can running John Calipari's Dribble Drive Motion against Conference USA defenses really prepare a 19-year-old for the length and speed he'll encounter against a defense like the Lakers? By most measures, the early answer is yes.

Rose's poise and instincts have translated into some startling results -- including a .483 field goal percentage, and a turnover/48 minute number that's remarkably low for a rookie with the ball. The trick for Rose will be mastering the less elemental tasks of the gig -- getting to the line more than once in a road game against an elite team and cultivating the kind of trust with teammates so that you can manufacture easy buckets. Rose and Gooden had that two-man game working early, but once the Lakers adjusted by anticipating the action earlier and more aggressively, the Bulls' offense struggled to counter with much more than long jump shots off desperate kickouts and skip passes.

What Rose seems to have, though, is the ability to improvise with purpose. It's a rare gift, even among pro ballers. The league is littered with open-court players, but how many of them make good tactical decisions on the spot -- not just in terms of how to use their body, but how to use the court?

(Photograph: Stephen Dunn/Getty Images) 

• One of Mark Cuban's lawyers talks, explains that anyone can be told valuable information. Acting on it is only insider trading under special circumstances that may or may not have been met in this incident.
• When NBA players drive to the hole, they often yell. Sometimes it is an effort to make the referees think they got fouled, when in fact they did not. That's the basis of a story that is on the front page of The New York Times. Not the first sports page, but page A1, nestled in there with appointments to the new administration and talk of bailing out GM.
• Not often you hear NBA coaches talk about "truth." I like that.
• Watch Donovan McNabb playing basketball then (lively legs!) and now (lively mouth!).
• When this referee calls a game this season, home teams are 9-0. I really doubt that means anything, but I'm kind of glad that people are our there are using public information to mind the store.
• Jay-Z says LeBron James will come to the Nets only if they put the best offer forward, not because of a personal relationship. 
• Greg Oden caught in the crossfire of some kind of rapper fashion shootout.
• TrueHoop reader Chad: "Imagine (and it's a stretch) that the NBA decided to completely 'reshuffle the deck' with its teams rosters. The caveat is that each team gets to retain one player from their current roster. Now with some teams, it's obvious who they would keep (i.e. Cavs and Lebron, Magic and Dwight, and Hornets and CP3). But who would a team like the Knicks keep? The Hawks have a few up and coming players and that would make it tough to choose. Who on earth would the Knicks keep (I say Gallinari b/c young and low salary)? Assume every player kept by their team gets locked in to a five year deal starting that day. Pretty interesting to tangle with, no?" I'd say the Hawks keep Al Horford, and the Knicks, wow, they'd have to at least consider Wilson Chandler.
• In a post yesterday, I summarized some recent research showing there is little difference between NBA coaches by saying that it must suck to be a coach and know that you could be replaced by a deck chair. All kinds of people thought I, and the researcher, had clearly not realized the key point: that if there is little difference between coaches, that could mean they are all really good. I assure you that both the researcher and I get that. I was being cheeky. He is David Berri, who addresses this in more detail on his blog at the Wages of Wins: "Certainly I suspect the coaches in the NBA know much more than the 'idiots' -- or deck chairs -- in the stands. Our study, though, did not explore these differences. What we did try and do is explore the differences in NBA coaches. And our study found that in many cases, there were not any substantial differences. In sum, although one has to acquire substantial knowledge to be an NBA coach, there isn't much one of these coaches is able to do to differentiate himself from his peers. Consequently, players perform in a similar fashion for most NBA coaches."
• Yesterday I also wondered who might have signed that ball on the shelf behind Barack Obama. With evidence that is unclear, all kinds of people seem to think it's from Lenny Wilkens. 
• If the Spanish basketball federation urges Spaniards to vote for Spanish players in the All-Star game, is that a travesty? Or what about a joke campaign to get Stephon Marbury there? I can't see policing it -- it's the NBA's annual invitation to every freak out there to have a say. And unless they have a huge say, and get someone voted a starter, none of it matters.
• Slovenia, where basketball is alive.
• BlogaBull after watching his team lose to the Lakers: "Pau Gasol sure looked like someone worth trading for."
• The Sun-Sentinel's Ira Winderman: "It hardly was an overwhelming homecoming for Michael Beasley, who had just two points at the intermission and then was called for his fourth foul with 7:35 to play in the third quarter. He spent most of the fourth quarter on the bench for the third time in four games. Just thinking out loud: If you could have Caron Butler straight up, right now, for Michael Beasley, would you do it? Judging by the extremely empty and quiet building Tuesday, the Wizards have to do something to pump up their crowd."
• Americans investing in European basketball.
• Things are not funny right now for the Wizards.
• Stephen Jackson discusses his rules of engagement with Matt Steinmetz on Examiner.com: "The biggest thing for me was that I understood my intentions in both incidents. As far as the Detroit incident, I wasn't the one who went into the stands first. I didn't start the fight. My whole intention was to go up there and help my teammates, not to punch somebody. Now, it that happened that way because as soon as I got in the stands, my teammate was getting grabbed by a fan and getting a beer thrown in his face. So I just retaliated. OK, I was wrong. I deserved to be punished. Cool. At the same time when you're part of a team, part of a family, when you're in an arena with 15 thousand people and there are only 15 of you, that's how I was raised. I wasn't raised to run out and protect myself because at the end of the day you go home and protect yourself you've still got to live with something that happened to someone else that you call your family or your brother. Every situation I've been in I was trying to help somebody. It wasn't me being a thug. Wasn't me trying to be an a--hole. Wasn't me trying to be somebody I'm not. It was me coming to the aid of my brother, someone I call my brother. Now, with the strip club, obviously I handled it wrong, but I had my gun in the right way. I had a gun license. I didn't attempt to shoot anybody until I got hit by a car. The situation was always me being at the aid of somebody else. And it's the same way on the court. What upset me was how people perceived me as being a troublemaker. Before those two incidents I had never been in any trouble."

There you go, America.

Greg Oden -- the man who was projected as a top overall draft pick since he was a junior in high school -- has arrived. Took just 12 shots, but managed 22 points and 10 rebounds.

It's in all kinds of stories as his coming out party; his big night, or his arrival.

If you look only at the box score, Oden has arrived and the rest of the Blazers somehow let him down against a lesser Golden State team.

But I watched that game, and I can tell you that the thing that's letting everyone down is the box score.

Even as a Blazer fan who is steadfastly over the moon about this young man (he will crush you) it is flat wrong to say that the Blazers held him back last night. The opposite is true.

Here's what I saw: After a slow start, the Blazers were rolling. Honestly, it was just so obviously Portland's night. They had better players at nearly every position, and they were hunting turnovers on defense, while putting the right pieces in place on offense. 

Then Greg Oden checked in.

Big, strong, and moving awkwardly. (Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

At this early stage of his career, he might move more awkwardly than any professional athlete I have ever seen. I don't expect that to last. In college he was generally graceful and athletic, and he still is that while moving in a straight line. But get him moving laterally, or heavens forbid, rotating, and he is like a new doe in the spring, skittering around trying to remember what his feet are for. 

I don't know if the weird movements make his decision making tough (it's evident at times he doesn't know where he is, let alone his teammates or the defense) or, more likely, if both the decision making and the weird movements are products of being in a new environment. Remember, he's not just back on the basketball court after a layoff, but on the NBA court for the first time ever. And he's all fired up to impress everybody, trying to move hard, even when he's not all that sure where to go.

His presence got Portland jammed up all kinds of ways. Somebody should keep track of how many times he fell down. I bet it was at least five. He turned the ball over five times. He also fouled five times. And by having his weight distributed strangely he was often not ready to jump quickly to protect the rim when the C.J. Watsons of the world came driving in. Then there were the many times he didn't see an open teammate, or turned a high energy pass into an energy-sapping difficult catch. I watched a couple of plays in slow-motion where Oden's large newness inpsired his teammates to make turnovers, and Portland's turnovers were the story of the game. (Someone, please tally the team's turnover rate with Oden on the floor compared to Joel Przybilla. UPDATE: Hats off to Brett from Queen City Hoops, who tells us that Portland's turnover rate with Przybilla was 12.3%, and 14.7% with Oden. Spinning those numbers the best possible way to reinforce my point, and using my sketchy math skills, I assert that means Portland was nearly 20% more likely to turn the ball over with the rookie on the floor. UPDATE: Turns out the difference was much more stark last night. Those were the total season numbers. Last night, with Oden Portland turned the ball over 20.1% of the time, and with Przybilla it was 14.2. Neither number is good, but that's 49% more turnovers last night with Oden on the floor.)

Oden was effective in the post -- he hits his free throws, which is essential for someone who falls down so much -- but there's also a certain cost to having Brandon Roy, Rudy Fernandez, Travis Outlaw and the like cool off while standing and watching.

It's all stuff Oden can and will fix. One less cup of coffee. Maybe some meditation. Or, just some growing up. With comfort on the court, and poise, this all melts away and we'll get to say that Greg Oden has really arrived. It will happen, and when it does it will be obvious.

But last night?

Forget the points and rebounds totals for a second. After the game I e-mailed some friends to say I was thrilled to see Brandon Roy and Greg Oden developing a version of the Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire routine, but that I bet the Blazers could have won by benching Oden more. The team just didn't click when he was out there.

This morning I checked and found that Greg Oden had the worst plus/minus of any player on the court. In his 30 minutes, Golden State outscored Portland by 11 points. It's rare that a player on the losing team has the best plus/minus in the game, but the guy Oden came in for, Joel Przybilla, tied two Warriors for that title. Portland was ten points better than Golden State in Przybilla's 17 minutes.

So, no, Portland didn't hold back Oden last night, and he didn't arrive.

He is enormous. He is strong. He is talented. He got a lot of minutes and touches, and turned them into some nice numbers. But the player who is going to anchor Portland's next title team? I'm still patiently waiting to see Greg Oden evolve into that guy.

In the meantime, I'm thrilled at Nate McMillan's conviction to spend time on Oden, and to keep featuring him even if it costs the team games. Even if the costs are non-trivial, getting Greg Oden confident is one of the best investments a coach can make, because he's only showing us a fraction of what's to come.

• Marcus Thompson II of the Contra Costa Times: "OK, so undrafted rookie guard Anthony Morrow is no fluke. Not because he followed Saturday's record-breaking 37-point performance with a game-high 25 points on Tuesday in the Warriors' 111-106 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers at Oracle Arena. But because he is changing the way the Warriors play basketball. Morrow was a game-changer in leading the Warriors (5-6) to their first winning streak of the season. But he also convinced his coach and his teammates that the Warriors are simply better when he is on the floor, when he is getting the ball. 'I told the squad in practice yesterday that I think this is the way that we're going to have to play to max out what we have,' Warriors coach Don Nelson said. 'To be the best team we can be, the smaller lineup seems the way to go, and Anthony Morrow kind of made that happen. I gave him an opportunity to fit in with a small team and he made the whole thing work.'"
• Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News: '"He's the real deal,' Don Nelson said after Morrow made 8 of 12 shots, 4 of 5 from three, and scored his 25 points very, very efficiently in 36 huge minutes. ... Here's what's happening: Morrow is now the main man at the 2, which has totally energized the Warriors offensive flow. That allows Nelson to play Corey Maggette at the 4, where Maggette is a very tough cookie (ask LaMarcus Aldridge, who looked befuddled against the smaller man for all 19 of Aldridge's terrible minutes tonight)."
• Frank Isola of the New York Daily News: "The days of being pushed around and embarrassed by their arch rivals are coming to an end. No, the Knicks still can't beat the Boston Celtics, even with Kevin Garnett serving a one-game suspension. But at least they showed a willingness to fight back and not be bullied by the defending NBA champs. 'I don't really care if we got respect,' Quentin Richardson said. 'They respect us, whether they said it or not. Some guys don't like other guys. As long as they are in the league and we are in the league, it's going to be that way.'"
• Barbara Matson of The Boston Globe: "The fans have been calling out his name for three seasons, and Brian Scalabrine usually ignores them, or turns away, or buries his head in a towel. When the crowd chants, 'Scal-a-bri-ne,' it's because they want to see one of the last men on the Celtics bench get in the action; Scalabrine, though, doesn't want to be singled out. But when coach Doc Rivers called his name yesterday, Scalabrine was thrilled. 'when Doc said, 'You're going to start,' I was excited,' said Scalabrine, who took the place of the suspended Kevin Garnett against the Knicks. 'It's been a while, and you don't always get those opportunities. On the other hand, with Kevin getting the suspension, that was going to be big shoes to fill. I didn't get a good nap today. I was anxious to get out there.' The 6-foot-9-inch redhead played 20 minutes 54 seconds and scored 8 points, including a pair of 3-pointers late in the game that brought some roars from the sellout crowd at TD Banknorth Garden."
• Martin Frank of The Journal News: "When the 76ers play the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight, they'll see Rodney Carney and Calvin Booth on the other bench. They'll know that Minnesota also has one of their future first-round draft picks. The Sixers only have a conditional second-round pick to show for that July trade. Yet Sixers president and general manager Ed Stefanski loves the deal because it enabled him to clear enough salary cap space to sign free agent Elton Brand from the Clippers. A few hours after the trade with the Timberwolves was completed, Brand agreed to a five-year, $82 million contract. 'Minnesota got what they wanted from us, and we got what we wanted,' Stefanski said. 'I'm happy for them, and I'm happy for us. Because of the cap situation, you have to make trades like that. For Minnesota, it was a very lucrative deal for them, but we had other issues.'"
• Jimmy Smith of The Times-Picayune: "Hornets All-Star guard Chris Paul has been surpassing records and milestones as fast as autumnal leaves fall, and each time he collects a steal in the next 12 games, he draws closer to the NBA mark for thefts in consecutive games. The record is held by former San Antonio Spurs guard Alvin Robertson, who had 105 consecutive games with a steal from Nov. 6, 1985, to Dec. 29, 1986. Paul ranks second with at least one steal in 93 games in a row. He passed Michael Jordan (77) in the final weeks of last season, and looks to build on the streak in tonight's game against the Sacramento Kings at the New Orleans Arena. Through nine games this season, Paul has 27 steals -- an average of three per game -- both best in the NBA. ... 'I hear people talk about it every now and then,' Paul said of his defensive prowess. 'But that's one thing I've always done since high school, just knowing the game, knowing what teams are running and understanding where guys are trying to pass the ball. I really pride myself on when I get a deflection not to let the other team come up with it. I like to steal the ball.'"
• Chris McCosky of The Detroit News: "All the talk about Orlando residents Shaquille O'Neal and Grant Hill someday owning an NBA franchise -- Orlando's on top of that list -- didn't sit too well with current Magic ownership. 'While we certainly appreciate Shaq and Grant and they will always hold a special place in our heart, our family is looking forward with great anticipation to owning the Magic in the future,' said Magic president and chief executive officer Bob Vander Weide . 'Without doubt our team is not for sale.'"
• Don Seeholzer of The Pioneer Press: "When it comes to shooting the ball, Mike Miller has a green light. More often than not this season, though, he has decided to proceed with caution. Timberwolves coach Randy Wittman would like to see that change, even if it means being a little less unselfish. After watching Miller take a season-low four shots, and make three, Sunday night in the Wolves' 90-84 loss at Denver, Wittman said he would like his shooting guard to start pulling the trigger more often. 'Sometimes you get into turning down shots to make the extra pass,' Wittman said Tuesday. 'Mike does all the right things, but at times he's got to be a little selfish, too, when he's got an open shot. I wouldn't want anybody else taking an open shot. Every time he shoots it, I think it's going in.'"
• Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times: "The Lakers had their players' association meeting Monday at the team training facility in El Segundo, much of it about planning for the future -- finances, taxes and 401(k) plans. As the players listened intently, they also wondered when they would receive licensing checks, which are expected soon. They will each get about $25,000, no matter if it's a star like Kobe Bryant or a role player like Mark Madsen. 'Thanks, Kobe Bryant. Thanks, LeBron James,' Luke Walton said, laughing. 'You open the mail and have a check you don't even count on, that's beautiful.' Derek Fisher, the president of the players' association, said dues were raised from $5,000 to $10,000 per player. Fisher said the idea was to share equally."

• 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 mon