ESPN NBA

• Kyle Weidie of Truth About It offers up a multimedia presentation of how Deron Williams tied the Wizards in knots with ball screens.
• The Heat posted unsightly numbers against the Celtics' zone on Tuesday night but, as Zach Lowe of The Point Forward writes, the Heat had a coherent strategy to combat it: "A great example came with about 3:30 left in the game, when the Heat flashed a key potential zone antidote they used a lot: starting a possession with one of their wing stars (Dwyane Wade on this one) as the only person on one entire side of the floor (the left side in this case). That forced the Boston defense to tilt heavily to the right, where James handled the ball on the outside, near all his teammates except Wade. As LeBron dribbled, Chris Bosh flashed from the top of the three-point arc to below the foul line, drawing the man closest to Wade (Dooling) down into the paint, and forcing him to temporarily turn his back to Wade. At that exact moment, LeBron tossed a pass to Wade, who caught it on the move toward the middle of the floor, his momentum taking him the opposite direction as Boston’s defenders, including Dooling, now tilting madly from James’ side of the floor to Wade’s. Wade did not hestitate: With Dooling wrong-footed, Wade drove into the paint, where Dooling fouled him. Without a shot, the play almost vanishes from game logs everywhere, but it represents one key way the Heat can combat a zone; both James and Wade got layups against it out of action just like this."
• Historiographers have identified the origins of sports panic -- the phenomenon dates back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 17th Century. Is it time to panic in Boston?
• Tony Allen kindly asks that you set up your voicemail already.
• You should buy the full 2011-12 PDF from Basketball Prospectus, but if you want the crib notes from Kevin Pelton -- a single paragraph and projected record for each of the 30 teams -- click here.
• An interview with Clippers vice president of basketball operations Neil Olshey at Yahoo! Radio.
• Be Milwaukee!
• The Trail Blazers are 2-0 and when you take inventory of LaMarcus Aldridge's versatility as a big man and the smart pieces around them, they look primed for a pretty decent season. Tom Ziller of SB Nation: "[T]he way in which the Blazers have played, mixing the tough defense you know Gerald Wallace and Wesley Matthews will bring with the smooth scoring ability of LaMarcus Aldridge and deft shooting of Matthews and Nicolas Batum, mixed with able playmaking from Raymond Felton and Marcus Camby -- despite the caveats and despite the great misfortune of losing Brandon Roy forever and Greg Oden for a while longer, Portland looks like a real contender in the West."
• The Bucks led the Timberwolves 94-84 with under 4:00 remaining. Then Minnesota ripped off an 8-0 run to close the deficit to two points. The lineup on the floor for the Timberwolves? Ricky Rubio, Luke Ridnour, Michael Beasley, Kevin Love and Anthony Tolliver. Zach Harper describes the final play call of a frustrating night for Minnesota: "Finding themselves down three with seven seconds left, they devised a play without much action away from the ball to free up Kevin Love for the game-tying attempt. Love set a down screen for Luke which enabled Luke to catch the ball roughly 35 feet from the basket. Love then set a screen for Wes near the top of the arc and then ran to the other win. Luke took two dribbles passed it to Love and he took a contested 3-pointer with four seconds left. It was one of the most basic plays you would ever find coming out of a timeout and it resulted in Love taking a contested 26-footer to try to tie the game."
• Bret LaGree of Hoopinion on Joe Johnson: "Can still get anywhere he wants on the floor, presuming where he wants to get isn't within 15 feet of the basket."
• Want to talk Pacers-Raps after tonight's game? Visit with Jared Wade and Tim Donahue on Pacers Talk Live at Eight Points, Nine Seconds.
• Ricky Davis will start his NBA comeback as a Red Claw.
• NBA commentators put Google+ hangout to use.

Despite shooting just 40 percent from the field (10-25), Carmelo Anthony scored a game-high 27 points in his New York Knicks debut. In the first three quarters, Anthony was 0-for-6 on jump shots from five feet and beyond.

But in the final 12 minutes, Anthony scored 11 of his 27 points, and was 3-of-5 shooting from five feet and beyond.

Anthony’s 27 points tied for the third-most in a Knicks debut. Keith Van Horn holds the record, scoring 29 points in the 2003-04 season opener.

When both Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire were on the floor, the Knicks as a team shot almost 50 percent from the floor (23-48) and scored 58 percent of their points (66 of 114). But in terms of +/-, the team was even.

They were +4 and made 7-of-9 shots from the floor when Stoudemire was on the court and Anthony was on the bench, and +1 when Anthony was on the court and Stoudemire was sitting.

When it was Anthony and four other Knicks on the court, Anthony was just 6-for-16 from the floor.

Meanwhile, Chauncey Billups went 12-for-12 from the free-throw line in his Knicks debut. Billups has made 46 consecutive free throws over his last ten games. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it’s the longest current streak for any NBA player and the longest for Billups since he made 46 in a row in 2000–01.

Elsewhere in the NBA …

For the third game this season, the Toronto Raptors did not make a 3-pointer. (Toronto was 0-5 from the 3-point line Wednesday in their win over the Bulls.) Earlier this season, the Raptors’ record streak of 986 consecutive games with a made three-pointer came to an end.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Wednesday marked only the second time in franchise history that the Raptors won a game in which they did not make a 3-pointer. The other instance was on November 4, 1997, when they went 0-for-7 behind the arc in a 104-86 win over the Golden State Warriors. Three players on that Raptors team are still active: Billups, Tracy McGrady and Marcus Camby.

In a 111-105 home loss to the Sacramento Kings, Dwight Howard finished with 31 points and 17 rebounds. It’s his eighth straight game with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds, the second longest such streak this season. Rookie Blake Griffin had 14 straight 20-10 games earlier this season.

In a 23-point loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, John Wall had another double-digit assist game. The Washington Wizards rookie finished with 21 points and 12 assists, his 20th game this season with at least 10 assists. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, entering play on Wednesday all other rookies had combined for only two double-digit assists games this season: one apiece for Eric Bledsoe and Pooh Jeter.

Kevin Love now shares the second-longest single-season, consecutive double-double streak following his 15-point, 11-rebound game against the Memphis Grizzlies. He has 44 straight double-doubles, tying Moses Malone for the second-longest streak of its kind. He’s still six games shy of Malone’s single-season record of 50 (since the 1976-77 merger).

Dwight Howard finished with a season-high 39 points in a losing effort Thursday vs the Portland Trail Blazers. At the half, Howard had 26 points while his team combined for 20.

Howard started early with 18 first-quarter points, tying his career-high for points in a quarter (done twice before). The loss puts Orlando on its first three-game skid of the season.

The Dallas Mavericks, on the other hand, defeated the New Jersey Nets 102-89 and have now won 11 straight and 15 of 17 games overall. The Mavs have also won 11 straight HOME games vs the Nets, last losing in March 2000.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Mavericks extended the Nets' losing streak to six games with the win over their former coach, Avery Johnson. During Johnson's three-plus seasons as head coach of the Mavs, Dallas never lost more than four straight games.

• Kevin Garnett converted on a lob pass from Rajon Rondo with a little over a second remaining to give the Boston Celtics a one-point win over the Philadelphia 76ers. This is the second time in Kevin Garnett's Celtics career that he has made a field goal with under two seconds remaining with the Celtics trailing by one or tied to give Boston the win. The other came on Nov. 22, 2009 when he hit a jumper at the buzzer in OT to beat the Knicks 109-107.

• With 13 rebounds on Thursday, Marcus Camby is now averaging 10.6 rebounds per game. At his current pace, Camby would become just the fifth player ever to average 10 or more rebounds per game at the age of 36 years or older. The only others to do it? Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore, Robert Parish, and Dennis Rodman.

• I like Phoenix over Portland in a tough, 7-game series, but Michael Schwartz of Valley of the Suns aptly points to a huge concern for Phoenix: "I’m not sure if the Suns have a plan to keep Camby off the boards, but they sure need one. When the Suns win the rebounding battle, they often win the game, and believe it or not they out-rebound their opponents. Controlling Camby is one of Phoenix’s biggest keys to the series in my mind."
• Daryl Morey to Jason Friedman on elite free agency movement this summer: "I actually think they’ll all go sign-and-trade. Even the teams with room often will sign-and-trade into the room and get something back from the team. A free agent is picking where he wants to go more or less, so he eventually tells the team, 'I want to go there,' and the team doesn’t want to lose him for nothing, so they try to work out some sort of arrangement."
• For those who believe Shawn Marion lacks that killer instinct. (Hat Tip: Two Man Game)
• Orlando-Charlotte might be the series with the lowest Q Rating, but it's a chance to watch a chess match between two of the more cerebral coaches in basketball. Eddy Rivera of Magic Basketball talks with Queen City Hoops' Brett Hainline about what the Bobcats need to do to compete with the Magic. Kelly Dwyer of Ball Don't Lie makes a pointed argument that the Magic can't afford to have Rashard Lewis go M.I.A. if they want to be playing in June.
• Few teams have a less certain future than the Chicago Bulls, writes Matt McHale of By the Horns: "Rose and Noah are the foundation of the team. Beyond that, anything is possible. The Bulls are going to be rebuilt over the summer. In the end, this season has been about developing Derrick, Joakim, and even Taj. To that extent, the season was a success."
• At Basketball Prospectus, Kevin Pelton and Bradford Doolittle offer all kinds of great stuff headed into the first weekend of the postseason. In the Lakers-Thunder preview, Pelton touches on my biggest concern for Oklahoma City: "When Durant has the basketball and the starting lineup is on the floor, only Jeff Green (33.3 percent) is any kind of threat from beyond the arc, which will allow the Lakers to offer help to Artest." As vulnerable as the Lakers seem right now, their proficiency for overloading defensively in the half court is still very, very strong. A team like the Thunder which doesn't shoot well from the perimeter and has few ball-movers can have a lot of trouble against that kind of strong-side pressure.
• The 1st Annual Tarence Kinsey Award goes to ...
• Liberty Ballers itemize what's gone wrong in Philadelphia.
• Darius Soriano of Forum Blue & Gold jots down a playoff wish list that includes more insults from Ty Lawson and traffic paralysis in central Los Angeles sometime in mid-June. As someone who uses Figueroa Street as a primary north-south thoroughfare, I'll concur on the first and punt on the second.
• Bethlehem Shoals and Tom Ziller apply Bill James' log5 method to prognosticate the first-round playoff series. Bulls fans, look away.
• You'll need at least $200 for a seat in the lower bowl at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City next Thursday night for the Thunder's first home playoff game.
• How a New England transplant and die-hard Red Sox fan came to love the Thunder and started to warm to the NBA.
• Zaza Pachulia isn't impressed with Mo Evans' spring fashion.

To nobody's surprise, the Los Angeles Clippers relieved interim head coach Kim Hughes of his duties this afternoon. The Clippers were 21-28 when Hughes took over on February 4, and went 8-25 the rest of the way. That downward spiral can be attributed to any number of factors. Marcus Camby's departure decimated a defense that, at the time of Mike Dunleavy's firing, was a hair above the league average in efficiency. During his first hours on the job, Hughes vowed to toss out the bulk of the team's offensive playbook and run, despite that the composition of the roster wasn't equipped or sufficiently conditioned to succeed in a transition game. And, as is often the case with the Clippers, there was a spat of injuries that deprived Hughes of installing a rotation with any regularity.

The results -- both before and after the Camby deal -- were disastrous. The Clippers lost their first five games under Hughes by double-digits. In Hughes' 33 games, the Clippers held their opponents to fewer than 100 points per 100 possessions only three times. With or without Camby, that's a pattern of failure that makes the Toronto Raptors look like a Larry Brown squad.

Interim coaches are rarely successful, and Hughes' fortunes quickly conformed to history. How would Hughes fare as a head coach if given a legitimate opportunity to run a training camp and put his hand print on a team? It's hard to say. But here's one thing I can say with some degree of certainty:

I'd love to cover that team.

In the NBA, very little of substance is spoken on the record. Even when you're fishing for nothing more than a little education about the game, answers are often doled out in neatly wrapped platitudes. That's not the case with Hughes, whose flat midwestern accent conveyed things you rarely hear from NBA coaches -- like self-doubt, nuance and re-evaluation.

After the Clippers' horrendous 98-81 loss to San Antonio in Hughes' first game, I asked him whether the team had enough playmakers and ball handlers to truly execute the running game he pledged to orchestrate as coach.

“Perhaps not,” Hughes said. “That was somewhat exposed tonight.”

Here was a coach, who had hours earlier vocally expressed an imperative to run, confessing that his initial appraisal of his team might've been off.

Throughout his 10-week tenure as head coach, Hughes conveyed a combination of basketball truth-telling and gallows humor. Ask him what went wrong with a defensive game plan and he offered a litany of specifics: "It was a chronic situation of our bigs not showing up top on the pick and roll," or "We let George Hill gets loose on the weak side too many times." When you asked him prior to a game against Portland what it's like watching film of Camby as a Trail Blazer, Hughes delivered a one-word reply in deadpan fashion: "Sickening."

Prior to taking over as head coach, Hughes worked as the Clippers' big man whisperer. Among his primary tasks was the development of Chris Kaman and DeAndre Jordan, the two players he evaluated most critically in public. Prior to his first game, I asked Hughes if he'd spoken to Kaman about how the new running attack might impact the center's preference for a structured half-court game.

Hughes responded, "Let me preface this by saying that Chris is retarded, okay? He's really not, but he is emotionally handicapped."

Last night, Hughes bluntly stated that Jordan's work ethic wasn't diligent enough and that the Clippers are unlikely to be successful long-term with Kaman as a first option -- even as Hughes disclaimed that he loves Kaman.

In the closing moments of his final press conference, Hughes took emotional inventory of his stint as head coach. "I didn't know if I could do it," Hughes said. "I'm speaking from my heart. I really didn't know. I'd heard the horror stories about moving one seat over. George Karl told me at the All-Star Game that when you move those 18 inches over, it truly changes your life. He's right."

Last night at Staples Center, the Clippers lost their 20th game in 24 outings. There is no shortage of factors to explain just how miserable the Clippers have been over the past six weeks: The departure of Marcus Camby, nagging injuries to key players, an interim coach pacing the sidelines.

But one reason that players, coaches and management continue to cite is the unusual number of players on the roster with expiring contracts. After the Clippers' 117-94 loss to Dallas, interim head coach Kim Hughes tried to account for his team's careless play:

In late-season scenarios when you have as many free agents as we do, human nature takes effect sometimes. They look for points instead of the team first. That bothered me tonight. We had some guys looking for points too much. That should never occur, but it did occur. It's not right, but it did happen. It's not the way I like to play basketball, but when you have as many free agents as we do, I think it's going to happen at times.

I don't doubt the veracity of Hughes' comments. Anyone who's been unfortunate enough to spend a substantial portion of their life over the past two months watching Hughes' team can affirm what he's saying. There are a bunch of guys on the Clippers roster who, at times, have acted as personal mercenaries, throwing up shots without even pretending to survey the floor for other opportunities. The substance of what Hughes and others around the team are saying is correct, but the underlying premise is problematic. The implication here is that a guy should play a losing brand of basketball in order to advance his career.

Consider that for a second.

In an effort to secure more money in the free agency market, players are jacking up shots with impunity, presumably to tally more points, irrespective of how efficiently those points are scored. The Clippers, who resided comfortably among the Top 5 teams in assist rate for much of the season, have plummeted in that category over the past few weeks. Hughes says that human nature is driving players' motivation to score points at the expense of team-oriented play. But in a rational universe, shouldn't a team composed of players looking to get paid be more efficient? Shouldn't human nature intuitively drive a player in search of a fat contract to show off the full breadth of his game to potential buyers?

Unfortunately, NBA free agency isn't a very rational market. Points per game and scoring in general are still the gold standards when sizing up available players. With a few possible exceptions -- those teams have been enumerated here at TrueHoop -- those are the stats tossed out during negotiations between agents and management.

Until teams start utilizing smarter data to approximate a player's value in free agency -- things like efficiency stats, true shooting percentage, tools that measure defense -- expect more unwatchable basketball from teams whose players have paydays as their primary motivations.

The Blazers started the season with two centers, Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla. Usually two centers is enough for an NBA team.

Usually they don't both suffer devastating, likely season-ending, knee injuries.

Portland played without a center from December 22, when Przybilla went down, until last week, when they acquired Marcus Camby in a trade with the Clippers.

Tuesday night in New Jersey, about 70 minutes of playing time into Camby's Blazer career, the new Blazer center collapsed to the floor, much like Oden and Przybilla had. The referees called Blazer trainer Jay Jensen over.

Brandon Roy's facial muscles tightened, and he gripped his own chest as he wandered over to have a closer look.

Camby stayed on the floor, in pain, as replays showed the play. There was no obvious impact, but there hadn't been for Oden, either. Camby was on the move, and then collapsing to the floor awkwardly. Was it a knee, perhaps? An ankle?

Eventually, Camby rose, to a smattering of sympathetic applause. He walked under his own steam, but barely -- with a pronounced limp -- straight to the locker room.

Juwan Howard -- the Blazer forward who had been masquerading as a center for the last two months -- was summoned from the Blazer bench.

Everyone knows there is no such thing as curses.

Right?

As it happens, the report from the locker room came back tame: A sprained right ankle. X-rays were negative. There was a chance Camby would even return to the game.

Mike Dunleavy, the Clippers coach, recently lost his job. Luckily, he had a spare: general manager.

And in that role, he is being judged for trading arguably his best player -- Marcus Camby -- for a backup point guard in Steve Blake, and a small forward coming off a major injury in Travis Outlaw.

The Clippers' end of the trade has been praised as a solid and affordable way to get younger and more skilled; it has also been condemned as a cheap way to drum up some cash while dooming the season.

Dunleavy was a guest on the Fox Sports West broadcast of the Blazers vs. Clippers, and used the airtime to intimate that it's conceivable he just pulled off an amazingly lopsided trade -- because Camby could return to the Clippers as a free agent this summer.

In a phone interview from Los Angeles, Dunleavy spoke sparingly of his two new players. Instead he made clear how much he still likes Marcus Camby, and that it's a possibility the big man -- reportedly very happy in Los Angeles -- would return in the summer.

By moving Marcus we got a couple of young players that we'll have Bird rights for going into the future. We preserve our cap space as well, going into next summer. And, you know, Marcus Camby's a guy that we loved and appreciated and uh ... you know ... you never know how things are going to end up. But, uh, we're very excited about the players that we're adding to our team and what it does for us moving forward.

It's worth pointing out that it would be against League rules for a GM to have a handshake deal on a future contract, and I'm implying nothing of the sort here. But because of, for instance, the severe penalties Minnesota once paid for secret deals with Joe Smith, GMs go to trouble to avoid saying anything that might sound at all like this or that free agent has a particular destiny.

In the context of a total ban on such talk, however, Dunleavy was coy and suggestive. A Camby return is clearly on his mind, and something he encourages Clipper fans to consider. He added:

We love Marcus as a player. Everything about his game and what he does for this team. Like I said, we'll see how things go forward. Marcus is a free agent. We have a lot of cap space this summer -- and you never know how things work out.

This emphasis certainly does change a bit how the trade can be judged. Perhaps it's best to give it an incomplete for now. And if one or both of the new Clippers prove to be long term solutions at positions of need, and Camby returns, then there's no choice but to give Dunleavy an A+.

John Hollinger (Insider) gives the Clippers a B+ and the Blazers a B for trade in which Marcus Camby was exchanged for Steve Blake, Travis Outlaw and cash.

His point is that Camby is still on track to be a free agent next summer, and could absolutely return to the Clippers. Meanwhile, the Clippers also get Travis Outlaw's Bird rights, which could be useful to them or another team. And even before the summer the Clippers may well see good results.

The Clippers have several power forward candidates, including the uncelebrated but hugely productive Craig Smith, so Camby's loss might not be a huge blow. Meanwhile, Blake is a major upgrade on Sebastian Telfair at backup point guard and Outlaw, who should be back in a few weeks, offers similar improvement over Al Thornton and Rasual Butler at the small forward spot.

Wayne Winston, adjusted plus/minus expert who advised Mark Cuban and the Mavericks for nine years, e-mails some quick analysis

Outlaw hasn't played since mid-November, and therefore is not part of this analysis of who has been playing well lately:

This year both Blake and Camby are solid with plus-five Adjusted +/-.

Winston has his own measure of how a player's performance affects wins -- it rewards, for instance, crunch time performance. He calls it Impact.

In Impact rating Blake has been great: ninth in League. Camby is 80th. Past two years Blake averaged +3 adjusted plus/minus and Camby +2.

Outlaw averaged -1 adjusted plus/minus last two years.

I like this trade for both teams because Blake knows how to win games (good impact) and Clippers need that.

For Blazers Camby will take Howard's and Pendergraph's minutes. They each have poor adjusted plus/minus of -14 and very poor Impact, so Portland should greatly improve.

If Brandon Roy heals Portland should definitely be a contender in playoffs.

The Los Angeles Clippers are trading Marcus Camby to the Portland Trail Blazers for Travis Outlaw, Steve Blake and cash.

All the players have expiring contracts.

For the Blazers, Camby remedies an enormous basketball problem: The total lack of centers since injuries to Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla. It also puts a bounce in the step of a team that has also endured injuries to Brandon Roy, Nicolas Batum, Rudy Fernandez and, to a lesser extent, LaMarcus Aldridge.

On ClipperBlog Kevin Arnovitz once wrote the definitive story on Marcus Camby's defense. Arnovitz is a Clipperologist with an analytical mind. I'm a Blazer fan with a blog that needs some smart thinking about this trade. Here's the conversation we just had:

Abbott: OK, so big picture. When you first hear of this trade, as a Clipper fan and a hoops geek, what's your thought?

Arnovitz: The Clippers have officially surrendered the 2009-10 season. That's not to say that the deal is ill-advised, but I think anyone who has watched the Clippers closely this season knows that Marcus Camby has been essential to any success they've had on the court.

Abbott: That being said, why trade his expiring for other expirings?

Arnovitz: We'll know more about the specifics of the cash changing hands once the deal is official, but Portland's cash represents real savings for the Clippers. I also think we're learning that short-term rentals can get you one of two things (1) marginal players with expiring deals (2) impact players with longer deals. At the end of the day, the Clippers decided that they didn't want to compromise their cap space ... but the opportunity to net a couple of million dollars was attractive.

Abbott: Before we get to talking about Outlaw and Blake, tell me what I can expect, as a Blazer fan. We should be having a party, right?

Arnovitz: Camby is one of those guys who polarizes basketball junkies. Some think he's one of the game's best defenders. Others believe that he's completely overrated as a defender and point to his pick-and-roll defense as evidence. (He has a tendency to drop back on virtually every screen.) After watching him closely for a couple of seasons, I now fall into the first camp: He's tremendously effective. The Clippers were 7.7 points per 100 possessions better with Camby on the floor. He leads the league in rebounding rate. He's also a good facilitator in the high-low game, and leads power forwards (his nominal position as a Clipper alongside Chris Kaman) in assist rate. The kids in the locker room look up to him and the coaching staff thinks he hangs the moon.

Abbott: I noticed on Basketball Value that adjusted plus/minus suggests Camby's not only an elite defender, but also one of the Clippers' best offensive players.

Arnovitz: Yes. He knows how to move the ball from the top of the perimeter. And he is a master of the offensive tip.

Abbott: By the adjusted plus/minus metric, he's a top 30 NBA player.

Arnovitz: I think that's a fair assessment. My favorite Camby moment of the season: After his 25-rebound performance against Chicago last month, I asked him if rebounders can get into a "zone" the way scorers can. His response: "Sometimes you feel like the ball is like a magnet. But with me, it's not about just going out there and getting it. I study my opponents a lot. I study the projectile of the basketball, try to get myself in a good position to rebound shots." Henry ... I love a center who studies projectiles.

Abbott: You just like that he's a little geeky.

Arnovitz: Who wouldn't want a center who studies projectiles?

Abbott: Geeks win championships!

Arnovitz: Yes they do!

Abbott: OK, so we had talked about something like this a while ago, and you had your eyes on Martell Webster. Who is not in this deal. Is that a disappointment?

Arnovitz: Sigh. Absolutely. The Clippers are in a funny place, in that -- for a losing team -- they're rock solid at four positions. Small forward is the missing piece and there was an expectation that a deadline deal for Camby might allow them to fill that hole in the long-term. In my fantasy world, Webster (or Luol Deng) was that guy.

So tell me about Mr. Outlaw.

Abbott: I have thought about that player way too much, and will struggle to keep this concise. But some ideas: When he came into the NBA he could not shoot A LICK. Every time he started to, he'd coil and spring in the most bizarre fashion -- some guys lean right or left when they shoot. He would get his upper body going in both directions before he landed, which is really amazing.

It is to everlasting credit, however, that the guy has learned to become a very special kind of shooter. Few NBA players go from never being allowed to shoot to having repeated plays called for them with the game on the line. And every single player who ever makes that leap is, you can guarantee it, a hard worker. Which matters. Outlaw is frank that he really wants to be a star. That's his motivation, and I believe he'll keep working hard because of it. He's a real-deal long athlete, he has this ability to score. He's also everybody's best friend, and to my eyes an important part of why the Blazers have generally been a cheerful team.

However, he is not the most aware player. Some players are really quick thinking, but that's not him. The exact cluelessness that makes him impervious to crunch-time pressure also makes him a liability in complex defensive schemes. His defense has gotten much better, and the sky's the limit for his individual D. But you know how Boston so cleverly rotates to keep everyone covered with help? Hard to picture him thriving in that system. And, there was a game the Blazers lost when Brandon Roy was doubled in the corner on the big play, and he seemed to have no plan. Afterward, we learn that Outlaw was supposed to have cut down the lane, but for some reason didn't. Which was too bad.

Arnovitz: In your eyes, do the Blazers instantly become a potential Northwest Division champion now that they have a top-shelf center who can protect the basket?

Abbott: They're five games behind Denver, with intimidating Utah and Oklahoma City in between. This is an amazing division, now and for many years to come. At the season's outset, when the Blazers were all healthy and training camp was something to dream on, the team made news by rigorously refusing to admit to any goal beyond winning the division. It seemed so modest at the time. Now they have been so hurt -- Roy is the ballgame, and he hasn't played in weeks with a tricky hammy that could act up any time. Even with Camby, they still only have one real center -- it's easy to see that they could finish second or third in the division and still declare the season a success.

To me the more important accomplishment is they are now certainly once again a team with the potential to make things interesting in the playoffs.

Arnovitz: And the logjam at forward ... this clearly eases that?

Abbott: Right. For Portland, a big part of the analysis is that while one can love Outlaw, when healthy he was only going to play limited minutes, during which time a good player like Nicolas Batum, Martell Webster or Rudy Fernandez would be on the bench. Camby brings his production in place of Juwan Howard and Jeff Pendergraph. Both are total gamers who have been fun to watch, but are playing out of position and out of their primes.

Arnovitz: In that spirit, I’d tell disappointed Clippers fans something else: They’re going to see a lot more of DeAndre Jordan, and I think that’s a good thing. Jordan will take his lumps and occasionally embarrass himself, but his development is vital for the team’s future. The void left by Camby will potentially give Jordan an intensive two-month boot camp as a rotation NBA center. They’ll also see a bit more of the irrepressible Craig Smith, who can score 1-on-1 from the block in bunches.

Abbott: If you have a player who goes by "Rhino," you ought not cage him.

Arnovitz: Precisely.

Abbott: Now, let me play Steve Blake's agent for a second.

He has not been great this year. Andre Miller has been better, especially since his argument with Nate McMillan. Since then Miller has been remarkable, and I was telling people all All-Star Weekend that it did not ring true that Miller was done in Portland. However, coming off an injury Blake's shooting numbers are a little down. But over the last several years, Blake has been a very good shooter. He's that best of things: A player the other team will leave in the corner -- he's usually the fourth or fifth best offensive player -- but who will also stick the open 3 when the ball is swung. He's not done. But for a shooting slump, he'd still be everyone's darling. And to those who say he can't lead an up-tempo team, David Thorpe says hogwash: He ran one of the fastest offenses in NBA history in Denver in 2006.

He's an intense dude. A workout maniac. Sometimes in crunch time I feel like he goes into intensity overload. At the line, with the game on the line, his face does not portray cool confidence. However, I think you want a passionate worker like that. Everybody in the Blazer organization loves having him around, and it wouldn't shock me if he was a Blazer again some day.

Arnovitz: The Clippers are in an interesting spot with regards to their third guard. Sebastian Telfair has a player option of $2.7M next season. The Clippers would clearly like to move him -- and were reportedly hoping to do so in a package that included Camby. Telfair should be back from injury fairly soon. When he returns, would the Clippers banish him to the end of the bench in favor of Blake in an effort to induce Bassy to seek employment elsewhere next season?

Abbott: Battle of the former Blazer guards. Boy, oh, boy, if they did that, it would be a real condemnation of Telfair, to bench him at the exact moment they are apparently trying to be up-tempo.

Arnovitz: On the other hand, the Clippers don't have a lot of depth at guard, and it's likely that Blake could see some time at the 2 behind Eric Gordon. Final thought: Clippers fans are accustomed to finding faint silver linings and here's one that surfaced out of this transaction. Early reports had Marcus Camby very, very upset that he was being dealt from the Clippers -- who are 10 games under .500 -- to Portland, a potential playoff team with arguably the league's most supportive fan base. That's a far cry from "Get me outta here!" -- something players might have said in seasons past. Camby is regarded as the utmost professional and he was very comfortable as a Clipper.

Abbott: Couldn't it also be that he just liked Spago?

Arnovitz: Now he can go to Voodoo Doughnut!

• How do you manage only 64 points against Toronto? Detroit's effort last night was painfully familiar to Dan Feldman of PistonPowered. Instead of composing a fresh recap, all he had to do was dust off the one from the previous game against Charlotte: "A few small fixes, and last night’s works just fine."
• John Krolik of Cavs the Blog took some strong impressions away from watching Tyreke Evans last night. The Cavs couldn't find anyone the guard the Kings' rookie over the first three quarters. Then Cleveland remembered it has this very athletic, physically impressive, relatively young wing they can utilize in case of defensive emergency.
• The Kings were in position to win the game. The fact that they didn't wasn't a result of youthful inexperience, says Zach Harper of Cowbell Kingdom: "At a certain point, [the Kings] got caught up in trying to make Evans a star. If he beats LeBron one-on-one a couple of times, you might lead off SportsCenter and get every national blog linking to you for the fourth time in a week. You might convince people to keep coming to the games (great crowd at the game last night by the way). Take a lesson from what LeBron James did: find your teammates and make the smart play when the offense isn’t going your way."
• Wendell Maxey, writing for the Portland Sentinel, recounts a fun anecdote about how in 1986-87, then-rookie Nate McMillan earned the respect of his Portland teammates. The story involves Maurice Lucas, McMillan telling off a veteran and a Coke machine.
• Michael Schwartz of Valley of the Suns says that Phoenix lacks toughness. That's a general problem, of course, but particularly costly on the offensive glass: "For a team that thrives on playing with rhythm and speed, it is nearly impossible to win giving up 16 offensive rebounds. Not only is an offensive board and bucket a huge momentum-changer, it slows down the pace of the game, which is something the Suns obviously don’t want to do."
• It was a big win for the Thunder in Phoenix. Royce Young of Daily Thunder took note of a creative decision by Scott Brooks: "I found it interesting that Thabo [Sefolosha] guarded Steve Nash for most of the game. Maybe that’s because Nash likes to hide behind screeners and shoot or fall away and shoot and maybe Thabo’s length could bother him. Thabo didn’t have a point, but I thought he played Nash well, especially in the second half. After nine assists in the first half, Nash had just three in the second." That's another thing that Russell Westbrook gives you -- the ability to put your most physical perimeter defender, Sefolosha, on the ball at strategic moments. Because Westbrook is capable of cross-matching, Brooks has the luxury to experiment and switch things up defensively.
• The Clippers will have a decision to make with Marcus Camby who, at 35 years old, is having one of the most productive seasons on his career. Camby is on the final year of his current deal and the Clippers have Blake Griffin coming back at some point in late January. D.J. Foster debunks the idea that if you don't trade a player with an expiring contract before the deadline that you're "letting him walk for nothing." Cap relief is often far more valuable than whatever a team might acquire in return for such a deal.
• The Kamenetzky Brothers always deliver with their podcast. When the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Brian Windhorst is the featured guest, it's tremendous stuff.
• Clark Matthews of the Daily Thunder reviews some of Oklahoma City general manager Sam Presti's greatest hits.
• According to Jeremy Schmidt of Bucksketball, the Wizards deployed an "attack Brandon Jennings" strategy to beat the Bucks at the Bradley Center Wednesday night. Jennings gambles too frequently, gets taken out of plays by strong screens, and bigger guards have been backing him down effectively. But rookie point guards almost always confront steep learning curves defensively, and Jennings will improve.
• For teams like the Trail Blazers in need of a big body, Scott Schroeder of Ridiculous Upside runs down the list of front-court candidates the D-League has to offer. In the backcourt division, D-League Digest's Steve Weinman is a fan of four-year Memphis guard Antonio Anderson, who's playing for Rockets affiliate Rio Grande Valley. While we're on the topic of RGV's guard rotation, I still believe Garrett Temple will play meaningful minutes in the NBA at some point.

Posted by Kevin Arnovitz

The Los Angeles Clippers probably don't deserve the top pick in the upcoming draft, not after piling up 61 losses in disreputable fashion, but they need the pick just the same. It's not that the Clippers lack talent -- they don't. Nor do they have a hole at power forward, not with the immovable human millstone, Zach Randolph, entrenched for another two seasons and $33.3 million. The pick isn't about need.

People who don't follow the team haven't sensed the inertia Clippers fans and the organization felt in the years following 2001, but it was real. Ownership was spending money to retain talent, something that didn't happen during the Clippers' first 19 years in Los Angeles. They built a sleek, sexy training facility in Playa Vista, a gym Lakers' playoff opponents have raved about after practicing there this spring. The seasons immediately following the 47-35 campaign in 2005-06 were setbacks, but there was still an impression that the team's culture had turned a corner and that the Clippers were capable of respectability.  

Things deteriorated after Elton Brand jilted the Clippers for Philadelphia last summer. The team stumbled out of the gate 2-13, and Baron Davis seemed disinterested. Then Mike Dunleavy bet the farm and dealt for Randolph, and little by little, the franchise started to take on an entirely different complexion. Gone were the gritty competitors who, for their many failings, always put in the work. Corey Maggette wasn't the headiest forward to put on a Clippers' jersey, but he never dogged a single possession. Cuttino Mobley, aptly described by John Hollinger as "the Steve Trachsel of the NBA," still gave you 120 pitches a night and 220 innings a season. Shaun Livingston, before his injury, desperately wanted to fulfill expectations, even as he fell short of them. Elton Brand's persona before he slithered out in the middle of the night exuded professionalism and class.

By January, the 2008-09 Clippers were careless and obnoxious. The old bromides were released, as the Clippers again became a punch line -- only this time it wasn't just the losing that fueled the ridicule. The Clippers displayed incompetence off the floor, and laziness on it. Basic basketball tasks such as inbounding the ball beneath the opponent's basket after a made field goal couldn't be executed. Davis fell victim to a few injuries, and rather than compensate with extra effort and a determination to stay in top form, Davis sulked at the inconvenient reality that he couldn't perform the way he wanted to. Meanwhile, Randolph's behavior was predictable, with a series of distractions ranging from a sucker-punch to Lou Amundson's jaw, to being arrested for driving drunk. In March, owner Donald Sterling unleashed an ill-timed tirade in the locker room that quickly became a public embarrassment. 

Blake Griffin can't possibly rehabilitate the franchise on his own, and his addition presents some complications, given the money and bodies the Clippers have tied up in the frontcourt. In addition to Randolph's contract, the Clippers are carrying Chris Kaman for another three years and $33.9 million. They also have Marcus Camby returning for the final year of his deal. Moving Randolph is an impossibility. The organization would like to move Kaman, but Camby's reasonable expiring contract is far more attractive to suitors (as it is to the Clippers). 

I'm not entirely sold on Griffin's prospects as a superstar because there are too many holes in his game to offer any guarantees. The NBA is now a point guard's league, and idea of Ricky Rubio igniting the franchise is exciting. That he presents a greater risk than Griffin makes him even more alluring.

Even if Griffin has a ceiling, the Clippers took their first step back to respectability in nearly a year. Griffin is a charismatic, appealing jokester with a wide-ranging presence. The inside-out threat he and guard Eric Gordon could present could be devastating. Griffin, unlike the stoic Gordon, has the capacity to make the team his, a responsibility Baron came to realize he didn't want to endure. And someone -- anyone -- needs to translate capacity into desire for the Los Angeles Clippers.

Posted by Kevin Arnovitz

• Valley of the Suns says that Matt Barnes has been an unlikely, but very serviceable, replacement for Shawn Marion: "Although Barnes is no Matrix, he fills many of the voids left by Marion's trade to Miami, while lessening a burden on Hill. The decision to play Barnes with the starters seems to be a sound one through three games, as he's a perfect player to surround Nash with because of his floor-spacing shooting ability (with more range than Hill) and his proficiency at running the court."
  
• Will Kevin Johnson be the next mayor of Sacramento?  He's the favorite, but the race has turned ugly in recent days.
  
• Matt Moore is spending the season following the Grizz as his "pet team."  He offers some stellar insights on the ursine evolution over at Hardwood Paroxysm.  The early takeaway?: "I can't tell you how much better this team has been coached through four games than it was last year. Iavaroni's getting through to them. They're out in transition, abusing lanes to create confusion, and playing consistent defense. Even if they whif on a steal attempt, they're planning for it. This team is growing, and it's got pieces to compete. Good start for the year."
• Orlando's narrow victory over Chicago last night left Third Quarter Collapse unimpressed: "They beat the Chicago Bulls, 96-93, to pull their record to .500 last night, but they once again played poorly, owing their victory to Chicago's ineptitude more than anything else. Stan Van Gundy's team committed 7 turnovers in the final quarter, watching what had been a 17-point lead disappear against a team that, even with a brand-new coach, still doesn't play its best lineup enough."
• Can't bear to peek at your own portfolio these days?  Check out Celticsblog's "Stock Up, Stock Down" feature. While you're at it, short Brian Scalabrine.
  
• Matt Watson at Detroit Bad Boys takes issue with the notion that the Pistons underchieved by winning only one ring: "I've never bought the argument that the Pistons needed to win multiple titles to justify their place in the league - by that measure, the only team worthy of holding its head high for the greater part of the last decade is the Spurs. The Pistons are what the are: consistently good, sometimes great, a champion once. They're like the NBA's version of Martin Scorsese - a body of work that makes every director drool with only one Academy Award to show for it."
• Reacting to the Iverson-Billups deal, Marcus Camby takes a few more digs at the Nuggets' organization. 
• Why have the Lakers looked so strong defensively thus far?  Kurt from Forum Blue & Gold sums it up in three words: Strong Side Zone: "Simply put, whatever side of the court the opponents have the ball on, the Lakers do two things: 1) They pressure the ball with that players' defender; 2) They try to float another defender (usually Gasol or Odom at the four) over to the side the ball is on (or strong side). The team essentially plays a sort of zone behind the man pressuring the ball (although it can look like the Lakers are playing a soft man-to-man, it is more a matchup zone)."