Monday Bullets

• Did you see Carmelo Anthony D'ing up LeBron James? That, to me, had the chance to show up as a great example of weakness-on-weakness. Anthony's big flaw is getting around picks and being a team defender. James' big weakness is too often dribbling into a shot, while too rarely putting defenders like Anthony in jeopardy with movement and passing. That said, neither really lived up to stereotype. The Heat lost that Knick game with a scoring drought down the stretch, which occurred despite a lot of well-run plays.
• Should Dwyane Wade be the Heat's point guard?
• The All-Star game was just a week ago, and already the Spurs are just one win short of 50.
• Greg Oden is talking about losing a bunch of weight. For the record, David Thorpe has been arguing for that from afar since October 2008 (in a post that makes Thorpe look a little prophetic).
• A flagrant foul in stop-motion photography. The play is still unfolding as both players are already appealing to the nearest referee.
• "It scares me that this is humanly possible." CelticsHub's Brendan Jackson on the latest from Blake Griffin.
• Pau Gasol had good box score statistics but somehow hogged just about all of the Lakers bad plus/minus against the Thunder. One game plus/minus is not useful as a ranking of player quality (sometimes Erick Dampier is just on the floor at the right time), but it has subtler messages. Yesterday, as it happens, the good Laker runs came with Gasol on the bench. Could mean nothing -- and he did play some nice D.
• The trade deadline hangover, in mildly PG-13 cartoon.
• Steve from Clips Nation with a line that should trouble the Maloofs: "Every time the Clippers play Sacramento, the Kings are a mess, and this is no exception." That's a Clippers fan talking!
• Gerald Wallace earns his first standing ovation in Portland, just for taking his sweats off. How'd the game go? Dave from BlazersEdge: "Go to the store and get yourself one of those canned hams ... you know, the fake-ish pressed ham product that you buy in a huge tin when you don't want to bother with a real, bone-in ham? Carry it up to the roof of a ten-story building, unwrap it from the tin, and then drop it on the sidewalk below. That 'SPLAT!' is about the same sound the Blazers made in this game." Wayne Winston: "Portland got a steal in Gerald Wallace. He was playing at near All-Star level till recently. Charlotte got nothing to help them. If Roy stays healthy, watch out for Blazers in the playoffs."
• Can classy people like The Hangover? I'm linking to that because it's funny. But also because it points to something that comes up in how we perceive celebrities, including NBA players: Putting people into tidy little boxes just does not work. People are complex. All of them.
• On the day after the Oscars, insight into a whole mess of recent basketball movies you probably have not seen.
• A really rough, sortable list of players who have succeeded in the NBA at age 35 or older. Fun to play around with.
• The Jazz are living the coolest parts of small-town Montana, and "The Social Network." Or, at least, here's a good argument to that effect.
• The Magic aren't terrible.
• Tyson Chandler and JaVale McGee have plenty of similarities. Only when they face each other, Chandler always wins.
• Nancy Lieberman-Kline has coached the D-League's Texas Legends to a 17-20 record, and is still answering questions about whether or not women can coach men. Her attitude is perfect, telling Tulsa Word: "The public will judge me on wins and losses. I will judge myself on did I make my players better men." (Via D-League Digest)
• Stephen A. Smith is convincing that just about the last thing the public can get behind -- no matter who's right and who's wrong -- is the kind of player insubordination on display in Detroit.

Source: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/25551/monday-bullets-203

Jeff Green Glen Davis Tayshon Prince Mike Bliss Denver Nuggets Mattias Ekstrom