- Krista Jahnke of the Detroit Free Press: "Pistons point guard Chauncey Billups has had at least one shooting slump every season. This season, he hasn't had a poor stretch that lasted more than two games. Why? Asked that Tuesday, his first response was to groan. 'Great -- talk it up, man,' Billups said. It's not a trend he wants jinxed, not with 19 games left and the playoffs around the corner. Because he knows that his consistency this season has been something special. 'Usually I go through two of them a season,' Billups said. 'But this year, I don't know how I've been able to avoid it. I think a lot of times in games you see I only take eight, nine shots. I'm looking more to take good shots instead of just volume shots sometimes. Maybe that has something to do with it.'"
- Robyn Norwood of the Los Angeles Times: "Welcome to the Pacific 10 Conference tournament, also known as one-stop shopping for NBA scouts. With a mother lode of prospects who might give the league a record showing at the NBA draft in June on display, 42 scouts representing 26 of the 30 NBA teams are expected to be on hand. 'The Pac-10 this year is deep and rich in talent,' Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak said. Jerry Reynolds, director of player personnel for the Sacramento Kings, didn't hesitate to assess it. 'The Pac-10 in my opinion is stronger than any league in the country, and most people, I think, agree,' he said."
- Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer: "Gerald Wallace gets it. Central as he's been to the Charlotte Bobcats this season -- he'd be my team most valuable player -- it's been more than two weeks since he last played, after suffering a concussion Feb. 22. In Wallace's absence, the Bobcats are at five-and-counting on the longest winning streak in franchise history. No reasonable person would suggest the Bobcats are better without Wallace. However, this team is in a groove that Wallace respects. 'They don't have to adjust to me,' Wallace said of his expected return tonight against the Dallas Mavericks. 'I have to adjust to them.'"
- Kevin Ding of the Orange County Register: "At the start of this NBA season, who could've imagined Vujacic, stuck behind Maurice Evans on the depth chart as Bryant's backup, and Gasol, stuck in Memphis, as two of the Lakers' best players? Yet as the Americans found out in finishing third in that 2006 FIBA World Championship -- with only Carmelo Anthony making the all-tournament team -- the Europeans can move fast. The whole world is moving fast, which is why Bryant and Phil Jackson found themselves at the same time separately reading Thomas Friedman's best-selling globalization book, 'The World is Flat,' last season. This season, Bryant and Jackson are seeing theory become reality with the arrival of one scraggily bearded Spaniard. For his part, Gasol is probably among the most well-read players in league history, which is why he and Jackson have already enjoyed book-club-style banter about Ernest Hemingway's writings on the Spanish Civil War. It's an appropriately outdated topic. Basketball will never be about civil wars again."
- Dave D'Alessandro of The Star-Ledger: "The season has a play-out-the-string feel to it now, though they only have to nod toward the standings to tell you it isn't so. As long as they aren't eliminated by arithmetic, the Nets claim that they are playing to win, which is what they have to say. But their performance of late is that of a team that is trying to get out of the season as quickly and painlessly as possible. ... By most objective measures, it would appear that Jefferson's team has become unhinged -- not in the locker room, where the players genuinely get on well -- but in every aspect of their performance."
- Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News: "Tonight in New Orleans, Bruce Bowen -- in his seventh season with the Spurs -- will celebrate a milestone of longevity that would have been but a pipe dream to that 28-year-old fighting for his basketball life in Las Vegas. Bowen will play in and start his 500th consecutive game, extending on both counts the longest active streaks in the NBA. ... Detroit's Tayshaun Prince ranks No. 2 on the games-started list, a scant 163 behind Bowen."
- Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic: "When point guard Tyronn Lue chose to sign with Dallas over Phoenix recently, he disappointed Shaquille O'Neal more than any Suns player. 'Shaq called me like 12 times one day,' Lue told the Mavericks' Web site. 'He was like, 'You've got to come out. I need ya, I need ya. Man, I can't do it.' He's pretty mad at me. He called me all kinds of names.' It was likely playful, because O'Neal's friendship with Lue was a big part of the reason the Suns pursued him."
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