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It wasn’t the best of days as far as shooting the basketball, but it was a milestone effort for Boston Celtics forward Paul Pierce.

On a night in which he went 6-for-18 from the field and 2-for-10 from 3-point range, Pierce passed Larry Bird into second place on the Celtics' all-time scoring list in a win over the Charlotte Bobcats. Pierce now has 21,797 career points, trailing only John Havlicek on the team's all-time scoring list.

The best thing Pierce could say about his individual performance was that when he was on the floor, the Celtics outscored the Bobcats by 26 points in his 37 minutes.

That was due partly to his nine assists and eight rebounds, a plateau combination he hit for the second time this season.

Pierce is in a little bit of a shooting funk, but he's made up for it with his ballhandling and his ability to get to the free throw line. He has 34 assists and nine turnovers in his last five games.

Take the Timberwolves Seriously
The Minnesota Timberwolves are emerging as one of the surprise stories in the NBA this season. Recently, the player to emerge with Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio has been center Nikola Pekovic.
The Timberwolves improved to 13-12 with a win over the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday. It's the first time they've surpassed the .500 mark at least 25 games into a season since 2006-07. No players on that team are on this one.

Rubio, who tied a career high with 14 assists in this win, has gotten most of the headlines, with the Timberwolves now 10-5 when he starts.

But Pekovic, who scored 23 points and had 10 rebounds in 37 minutes in Tuesday’s victory, is averaging 18.5 points and 10.5 rebounds in his last four games, three of which are Timberwolves wins.

Pekovic was able to use his post-up game to his advantage on Tuesday, scoring six of his nine hoops on post-up plays. He entered the day averaging only one post-up basket per 26 minutes this season.

Rubio now has 13 games with at least 10 assists this season. That ties Steve Nash for the most 10-assist games in the NBA this season.

The Timberwolves won despite matching their season low for points in a game, with 86. They were averaging 105.6 points in their previous five games.

Wading Through
Dwyane Wade was 7-for-10 from inside five feet in the Miami Heat’s win Tuesday night, scoring 14 of his game-high 26 points on those shots.

Wade had struggled in his six games since returning from an ankle injury, making 55 percent of his shots inside five feet, averaging four baskets per game. Prior to the injury, he was a 67 percent shooter from in-close.

Statistical Feats of the Night
Three players put up impressive statistical tallies in defeat.

Monta Ellis scored a career-high 48 points for the Golden State Warriors in a loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Had he scored two more points, he would have had the 131st game of at least 50 points in franchise history. Of those, 105 were by Wilt Chamberlain.

Ellis’ teammate, David Lee, recorded his second career triple-double (the first came against the Warriors). Lee was the fifth player to record a triple-double this season. The others are Kemba Walker, Rajon Rondo, Kyle Lowry, and Andre Iguodala

Also, Derrick Brown of the Charlotte Bobcats went 10-for-10 from the field in the loss to the Celtics.
That's the most field goals made without a miss in a single game by a Bobcats player in franchise history.

Jake Voskuhl held the previous Bobcats record for most field goals made without a miss in a single game. He was 6-for-6 against the Washington Wizards on April 3, 2007.

The last player in the NBA to go at least 10-for-10 from the field was Pau Gasol on November 21, 2010, when he went 10-for-10 in a win against the Warriors.

Plus-Minus Note of the Night
Udonis Haslem tied a career-high by finishing with a plus-27 in the Miami Heat’s win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.

All four Heat reserves finished with a positive plus-minus in a game in which Miami didn’t pull away until the fourth quarter, when it outscored the Cavaliers by 10. Haslem played 11 minutes in the final period. Mike Miller (plus-25) played all 12.

• Ben Swanson of Rufus on Fire writes that, given all we know about Michael Jordan's competitiveness, it's not surprising he'd be leading a charge of hard-line owners to secure as much revenue as possible.
• Kate Fagan covers the Sixers for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She also played basketball at the University of Colorado while the school was confronting a recruiting scandal and understands the complicated culture of big-time college sports: "Big-time athletic programs are not entirely unlike nation-states. Everyone wears the colors, says the pledge, and sings the school anthem. Everyone worships the logo, recites the fight song, and reports up the chain of command. Everyone's committed to defeating a common enemy: Ohio State or Nebraska or Michigan. This is what makes college athletics galvanizing and wonderful. And also, for anyone who has been inside it, it's what can make college athletics frightening. When you're inside, you're often a rah-rah believer. Blind acceptance exists that coaches and administrators, those who have established the institution's culture, possess absolute authority."
• On Friday night, the University of North Carolina will play Michigan State on the USS Carl Vinson, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that hauled the body of Osama bin Laden to his burial at sea. Tarheel alma mater Danny Nowell is excited for the game. At HoopSpeak U, Nowell explores many of the same contradictions and mixed feelings Fagan has about the fervor of college sports in places like Chapel Hill and State College.
• A French parody of MTV Cribs featuring a muppet Tony Parker, which concludes with some curious plant life.
• I've received a number of emails from Canadians who maintain the NBA lockout is illegal under Ontario law, even though the NBA has a labor exemption under antitrust law in the United States (which allows it to impose things like a salary cap which would be illegal in other commercial sectors). Law professor David Doorey of York University looks at Ontario's Labor Relations Act and asks some interesting questions.
• Noam Schiller of Hardwood Paroxysm has a memo for new Warriors head coach Mark Jackson: "According to BasketballValue.com, Stephen Curry, Monta Ellis, Dorell Wright, David Lee, and Andris Biedrins played almost 687 minutes together last season. in that time, they were outscored 1553 to 1484, for a net efficiency rating of -4.60."
• ClipperBlog's Jovan Buha writes that Los Angeles native Tayshaun Prince could be an interesting fit for a Clippers team that's been looking for a solution at the small forward spot since the Taft Administration.
• Tom Haberstroh has a conversation about the lockout with the hilarious, insightful, sometimes goofy and always thought-provoking behavioral economist Dan Ariely.
• Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire occupy Sesame Street.
• Several weeks ago, Knickerblogger's Robert Silverman observed Chris Bosh's charity fashion event at Saks Fifth Avenue: "All I could think about while staring at the huddled masses was the original (and awesome) 1978 Dawn of the Dead -- where zombies have overtaken a mall and are riding the escalators, numbly staring at stuff they couldn’t afford in some half-remembered haze, doomed for all eternity to repeat the pointless, boring, soul-deadening rituals of their former so-called life." Silverman goes on to explain, in further detail, how sports are like zombie movies.
• Clippers head coach Vinny Del Negro speaks about the influence the late Jim Valvano, who was fond of reciting poems to his players at N.C. State.
• Seattleites take note: Metta World Peace feels for you. Among the other things he misses: "I miss the refs running down the court like they have hot tomales in their pants. I miss Charles Barkley commentating."
• On his Twitter feed, Larry Sanders offers relationship/break-up advice: "When a good thing goes bad it's not the end of the world, it's the end of a world that you had with one girl."

For the first time in four tries this season, the Miami Heat figured out the Boston Celtics coming away with a 100-77 win Sunday. It was Boston's worst loss this season who fell to 9-10 in their last 19 games. The win moved Miami a game up on the Celtics for the second seed in the Eastern Conference with two games left to play.

LeBron James scored 27 points while Dwyane Wade scored 14 points and Chris Bosh contributed 13. The Heat's "Big Three" have played 71 games together this season and Sunday's contest was just the third in which only one of them scored as many as 15 points. The two previous games of that kind were both on the road: a loss at Boston on October 26 and a win at Orlando on February 3.

Elsewhere, the Oklahoma City Thunder handed the Los Angeles Lakers their fifth straight loss Sunday 120-106. It's the longest losing streak for the Lakers since they lost seven straight in March 2007. That was prior to obtaining Pau Gasol. It was the most points the Lakers have allowed in a non-overtime game since they allowed 121 to the Suns on November 14.

Meanwhile, Carmelo Anthony's 19-foot jumper with four seconds remaining in the game lifted the New York Knicks to a 110-109 win at Indiana. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Anthony has made five go-ahead or game-tying field goals in the final ten seconds of either the fourth quarter or overtime this season (two for Denver and three for New York), the most for any NBA player. Monta Ellis, Rudy Gay and Deron Williams have each made four such field goals this season.

Finally, Chris Paul was 0-for-6 from the floor and 0-for-2 from the line while handing out ten assists in the New Orleans Hornets’ loss at Memphis. The Elias Sports Bureau tells us it was the fifth NBA game this season in which a player had double-digit assists despite posting a “goose egg” in the point column. Jason Kidd has done it three times and Jose Calderon once.

Editor's note: Updated late Friday to reflect David Stern's choice of Kevin Love as Yao Ming's injury replacement.

The 2010-11 West All-Stars

Starters
Kevin Durant
Carmelo Anthony
Kobe Bryant
Chris Paul
Yao Ming* (injured)

Reserves
Tim Duncan
Pau Gasol
Manu Ginobili
Blake Griffin
Kevin Love*
Dirk Nowitzki
Russell Westbrook
Deron Williams

(* Love replaces injured Yao)

So, who is missing from that list? Let's look at some of the players who will be most chapped to learn they won't be headed to Los Angeles to strut their stuff on Presidents Day weekend.

Kevin Martin
If Yao Ming were healthy and productive, there's a chance the Chinese audience would have voted this guy a starter like it did in the past for Tracy McGrady. To say he scores efficiently is a vast understatement. He shoots 3s as well as any heavy-volume shooter and leads the league in free throws made. And while he has the reputation of a standstill shooter, his game winner last night -- an athletic and-1 over Al Jefferson -- is an integral part of his game, too. Were he more selfish, his scoring totals would make him an obvious pick, but he wouldn't be as helpful to his team.

LaMarcus Aldridge
How amazing is ex-Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard? The team's two best players go down, and a third emerges as a double-double monster and leader of a playoff-caliber team. On sheer production, Aldridge is on the bubble, especially when you factor in how he started the season (and, for that matter, his career). And it sure doesn't help that his team is middling and plays games that start incredibly late for a lot of voters. However, here's what you're missing: All-Star games are about stellar plays, a good hunk of which are lobs. Not sure anybody finishes more lobs than this long, fast leaper. It would have been pretty.

Monta Ellis
Turn off your inner critic for a moment. Speak not of efficiency, nor wins and losses. Take a deep breath. Go to your happy place. Listen to the airy music. And just watch what this guy does: He takes big piles of nothing and turns them into and-1s. He takes your lazy passes and makes them steals and dunks. He takes double-teams and splits them. He takes your slow defender and makes him fall over. He takes your outstretched arms, and, little though he is, shoots over them and hits every time. At least, that's how it goes in the highlight reel. He'd be fun to watch in Los Angeles. (And Commissioner Stern, think how much cheaper the travel would be, sending a guy who lives a tad farther up the coast.)

Steve Nash
The two-time MVP is doing just about everything as well as he ever did. Now the supporting cast and the W-L record are far less impressive. Should that matter? Yes, of course, in some ways. The challenge to every NBA player is to win. On the other hand, if not an All-Star berth, what way is there to honor the otherworldly play of an aging hero doomed by his owner's questionable leadership? Hollinger: "What we're basically saying is that Nash was responsible for having Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion on his team, and now it's his fault that they're gone."

David West
In addition to being the featured big man in Chris Paul's multifaceted attack, West is now the starting forward for a title-quality defense. If the Hornets could upgrade their wing players, Paul, West and Okafor would be a force in the West, and West would be an All-Star.

Zach Randolph
Has anyone noticed that Memphis has been turning it on lately? The Grizzlies have long been a popular pick to be terrible, but ever since getting Randolph, he has been putting up huge numbers and they have been better than expected. At the moment, the Grizzlies have a winning record and are on track to make the playoffs. Surely somebody deserves recognition for exceeding expectations like that. You could do worse than to pick the guy averaging a cool 20 points and 13 rebounds per game.

The 2010-11 East All-Stars

Starters
LeBron James
Amare Stoudemire
Dwyane Wade
Derrick Rose
Dwight Howard

Reserves
Ray Allen
Chris Bosh
Kevin Garnett
Al Horford
Joe Johnson
Paul Pierce
Rajon Rondo

Andrew Bogut
One of Andrew Bogut's problems is that he's in the Eastern Conference with Dwight Howard, who is unlikely to ever miss this game, and, now, Al Horford, who is proving to be quite the stud. As an extra annoyance, players like Joakim Noah (whose Bulls are 14 games ahead of the Bucks in the standings) and Brook Lopez also vie for the title of conference's third-best center. Last year when Bogut was on the All-Star bubble, he offered to switch positions. He can play center, but he swears he can also bring the ball up and zing behind-the-back passes. So, maybe that's something to consider next time.

Carlos Boozer
It was 2004 -- a half-century ago in dog years -- that Carlos Boozer offended the NBA by taking the biggest contract he could get. Sometimes it feels like he gets punished anew for that every year. He's a 20 and 10 guy (and the highest-paid player) on a 34-14 Bulls team that is shattering the assumption that the Celtics, Magic and Heat are the East's three candidates to make the Finals.

Joakim Noah
Charles Barkley's favorite NBA player is beautiful to watch, even if you're not captivated by the flowing curls. He has infinite love -- for the game, for winning, for his teammates, for hustle, for the big moments. It's no coincidence he was part of special teams in college and again in the pros. The man plays his heart out, and any league would be wise to reward that. Meanwhile, his team has been as exciting as any in the league this season. The only real drawback to his candidacy: Thanks to injury, he has played just 24 games, and a lot of Chicago's best ball has come with Noah in funky street clothes.

The Dallas Mavericks made it 14 straight regular-season wins over the Miami Heat on Monday with a 98-96 victory in Miami. Dirk Nowitzki led all scorers with 26 points and Jason Terry scored all 19 of his points in the 4th quarter.

Terry was the first NBA player to score 19 or more points in a game, all in the fourth quarter, since Vladimir Radmanovic did it for the SuperSonics with 19 points on Dec. 7, 2002.

It was the second time this season that the Mavericks snapped an opponents' win streak of 12 games. They also did it against the Spurs back on November 26. Dallas is the fifth team to post a win streak of 12 or more games and snap an opponents' 12-game win streak in the same season.

Dwyane Wade is now 1–10 in his career against the Mavericks, having lost each of his past 10 games. That’s his worst record and his longest losing streak against any particular opponent.

LeBron James is now 6–10 against Dallas, his third-lowest winning percentage against any opponent; he’s 4–10 against both the Nuggets and Rockets.

LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh combined for 60 points on Monday, but had their worst combined plus/minus in a game this season.

Elsewhere around the NBA:

FROM THE ELIAS SPORTS BUREAU: Monta Ellis scored 44 points and made 15 of 20 field goals (75 percent) in the Warriors’ loss to the Rockets on Monday. It’s the second time this season Ellis has had a 40-point game in which he made at least 75 percent of his field goals. On October 27, the Warriors’ first game of the season, Ellis scored 46 points and made 18 of 24 field goals. No other NBA player has had a game this season in which he scored at least 40 points and made at least 75 percent of his shots from the floor.

FROM THE ELIAS SPORTS BUREAU: Dwight Howard outrebounded his teammates, 20–18 in the Magic’s loss to the Hawks on Monday. It’s the fifth time this season that a player has outrebounded his teammates; Kevin Love has done it twice and Al Horford and Reggie Evans each did it once.

It’s the 10th game in which Howard has outrebounded his teammates, twice as many as any other NBA player since Howard entered the league in 2004–05; Marcus Camby has five such games.

On Wednesday there were 12 games on the NBA schedule. The 24 teams combined for 2,443 points, which is the second-most in the NBA this season. Five teams won by twelve or more points including the Magic who beat the Timberwolves by 42 (fourth-largest margin of victory in franchise history). Besides the outburst in Orlando here are some primetime players that blew out the box score on Wednesday.

• Kobe Bryant went for 30 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists giving him the 17th triple double of his career. Bryant broke a tie with Kevin Garnett (16) and put himself alone in fourth place among active players for most triple-doubles. The three active players with more career triple-doubles are Jason Kidd (105), Grant Hill (29) and LeBron James (28).

• Rajon Rondo scored 17 points and dished out 15 assists vs. the Bucks. His 82 assists through the first five games of the season are an NBA record (he set the four-game record in his last game).

FROM THE ELIAS SPORTS BUREAU:
• Rondo’s teammate Paul Pierce scored 28 points in Boston's victory, including the 20,000th point of his career late in overtime. Pierce is the 20th player in NBA history to net at least 20,000 points for one team and he's the third player to reach that milestone for the Celtics, joining John Havlicek (26,395) and Larry Bird (21,791). The only other franchise with as many 20,000-point players as the Celtics is the Lakers, who have four: Bryant, Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Elgin Baylor.

• Dwight Howard had 18 points, 16 rebounds and eight blocks in 23 minutes against the Timberwolves. He is the first player in NBA history to reach each of those stats in less than 25 minutes played (blocks first recorded in 1973-74 season). The only other player with at least 15 points, 15 rebounds and five blocks in 25 minutes or fewer was LaSalle Thompson on November 3, 1983 vs. Denver (15 points, 15 rebounds, seven blocks in 25 minutes).

• Like the sun, this post sets in the West. The Golden State Warriors defeated the Grizzlies and improved their home record to 3-0. It's the first time Golden State has won its first three home games of a season since 1990, when the Run TMC crew (led by Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin) won its first six games at The Arena in Oakland (now known as Oracle Arena). Monta Ellis led the way with 39 points, nine rebounds, and eight assists and on the season is averaging 30 PPG and six APG. The last Warriors player to average at least 25 points and five assists per game in the first four games of a season was Hardaway in 1994.

The Bay Area's newest rock star is Jeremy Lin, an undrafted rookie guard from Harvard whose primary résumé item until recently was being the first player in Ivy League history to record 1,450 points, 450 rebounds, 400 assists and 200 steals. The Dallas Mavericks were the only team to extend Lin an invitation to summer league to play behind highly touted guards Roddy Beaubois and Dominique Jones.

Then something phenomenal occurred in Las Vegas:

Lin matched No. 1 overall draft pick John Wall possession for possession down the stretch of Lin's fourth summer league game.

Cox Pavilion is usually a fairly subdued venue, a place where people mill about, and where executives, scouts and media schmooze with only one eye on the game. But for about 15 minutes last Thursday, the place had all the intensity of an NBA playoff game.

Here was Lin tying up Wall on a drive, forcing a jump ball. Then Lin drained a 3-pointer, which he promptly followed with a 360 degree spin move in traffic. After that, he snatched a rebound away from JaVale McGee.

Those are just a few of the highlights.

On Wednesday, the kid from Palo Alto agreed to a two-year deal with the Golden State Warriors, his home team. Throngs of media turned out for Lin's introduction.

We caught up with Lin by phone on Thursday:

So how insane is this?
Awww, man. Very, very, very insane. Obviously, this is like my dream come true, playing in the NBA with this team. It's been a day or two and it still hasn't sunk in. I'm still riding this emotional high. It's been unreal. It really has.

In some sense, was this route better than being drafted -- where you might've been stashed or banished to the bench or even gone unsigned as a second-rounder?
It's way, way better. Now looking back, I'm so happy that I went undrafted. There are a lot of people who are going to get stuck in situations, or could've been in a better situation somewhere else, but they got drafted so that team has their rights. I honestly believe it was a blessing in disguise to go undrafted because if I were drafted, I wouldn't have had that opportunity to test the field and take offers from different teams. That's what helped me a ton in the end.

How important is the [Asian-American] identity stuff?
You know, it's important but not as important as my being a Christian. That's first and foremost the most important thing to me when it comes to my identity.

Is it more important to your folks?
No. We believe in the same thing. That's how our house is and how I was raised. We've always taken our Christianity and our walks with God as our first priority.

Let's talk about summer league last week. The John Wall Game ... which suddenly became The Jeremy Lin Game. All business stopped in that gym during the fourth quarter. Everyone was gripped by what was going on down on the floor.
Roddy [Beaubois] was hurt so I got a chance to get a little more playing time in the first half, which helped a lot because I got a chance to get comfortable. Going into the fourth quarter, we were down. I wanted something to happen. I was just, like, playing. It just felt like it was college again. I was just, like, out there. It felt very, very comfortable and very relaxed. It was such a natural feeling. It wasn't like that with most of the other games. In those other games, it was more like, "Wow, this is a job interview. I have to perform well." I had that kind of pressure. But in the Washington game, going against John Wall in the fourth quarter, trying to come back, I was just playing off instincts. It was the best quarter I had in summer league at the best possible time. If the Dallas Mavericks weren't scheduled to play the Washington Wizards, I might not be in the NBA.

So your feeling is that the Wall matchup was the decisive factor for your getting that contract from Golden State?
That was the biggest thing by far. Like you said, business stopped and that's what everyone was watching. Because it was John Wall. Nobody was really paying attention to me before that. But after that, people started talking about me.

You said you were relaxed, but you seemed pretty bent about that charge call on your 360 spin move.
I mean relaxed in that I wasn't thinking about how big the game was. I was just focused completely on the game. I wasn't thinking, "Oh, this person's watching so I have to perform well." You know what I mean?

Relaxed in a larger, just-go-out-and-play sense?
Right.

There were a couple of huge plays in that sequence.
That charge call on the spin move? I didn't even see the guy, so I had no idea if it was a charge. But I heard the crowd's reaction, so I immediately assumed that it wasn't. But looking back on the tape, it was a pretty tough call. I was shocked because the whole gym was rooting for John Wall the entire game from the very beginning. So at first I was like, "John Wall must've taken the charge." I didn't know if it was him or not, but that was the first thing that came to my mind. Then, I realized, "Wait, they're rooting for me." I was like, "Whoa. What just happened?" Because, like, thirty minutes ago everyone was rooting for him.

So what changed?
I'm not even sure.

Are you a pure 1? A 2? Does it matter?
I'm a 1, but I can also play the 2. But I'm naturally and primarily a point guard. A lot of people don't realize that I didn't play the 1 in college. I played the 2. In summer league I was splitting time. In my eyes, I'm an NBA point guard and that's my natural position. I believe that.

You’ll probably be seeing more minutes -- albeit practice minutes -- against Steph Curry and Monta Ellis than anyone else in the league. Do you have a scouting report on those two guys?
Steph Curry is a playmaker and we all know he can score and shoot. But he's really, really smart. He knows how to see angles and get into the lane. He's just a complete offensive player. We saw at the end of last season how good he is. Monta Ellis is a big-time scorer and a very explosive offensive player. He's really quick and primarily a slasher. I'm looking forward to learning a lot from both of those guys. I can't wait to see them play and pick their brains --

And guard them for two hours a day.
That's going to be awesome! I'm going to learn a lot. That's going to help me so much.

Have you gotten a call from either Joe Lacob or Peter Guber yet?
No. I've talked to Larry Riley, Bobby Rowell and Travis Schlenk.

Is there a shoe or merchandise deal in the works?
That's something for my agent. It's been so crazy, I haven't really had any time to think about it. Things have been so busy. I know there's interest in terms of different companies but I don't know exactly what's going on.

Is self-branding in any way a small part of your ambition? Will it be cool to have a shoe?
It would be cool, but it's not a goal or anything.

When you hit the scene at Harvard and you guys started to win, was there an academic celeb scene at Lavieties Pavilion?
Not that I noticed. But Arne Duncan showed up.

What was your favorite class at Harvard?
Sociology 128: Methods of Social Science Research. Basically, it was a semester-long sociology experiment. My friends and I did an experiment on the differences between athletes and non-athletes when it comes to motivation and results in the classroom.

And?
The non-athletes had the highest GPAs, then the walk-ons next, then the recruited athletes. That's what we anticipated. But one of the other interesting things we found was that some of the athletes thought that they would've gotten better grades had they had more time. But then some of the non-athletes thought that some of the athletes were lazier or naturally not as smart. So there was a difference in perception of why that disparity exists -- but the disparity is indisputable.

Do you think there's a sense of entitlement among some athletes?
I think there's a sense of entitlement for both.

• Poland lost its head of state and several other top government officials in a plane crash over the weekend. Prior to the Magic's game at Cleveland on Sunday afternoon, Marcin Gortat wrote Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s name on the tape around his wrist, and the flight number on his shoes.
• A smart recap of Sunday's Lakers-Portland game from Andrew R. Tonry and Portland Roundball Society. You'll find plenty of video reaction from key players -- including a Brandon Roy interview from the training room.
• Kevin Pelton's has posted his picks for NBA All-Defensive team at Basketball Prospectus. Pelton implores you not to laugh at his selection of Brandon Jennings as his choice for second team at the point guard position, and offers up a solid defense of Jennings.
• Some interesting data from Zach Lowe of Celtics Hub about Milwaukee's offense since Andrew Bogut went down: "The Bucks inside game has vanished without Bogut. The missing shot attempts have to go somewhere, and, to the surprise of no one reading this, they’ve gone out further from the rim."
• The Thunder's offense has a tendency to cramp up in the closing minutes. Last night, Oklahoma City trailed Golden State by one point inside of three minutes. NBA Playbook demonstrates how Russell Westbrook was unable to get Kevin Durant the ball, even though Durant was being guarded by Monta Ellis.
• Durant's "sit back and chill" musical selection.
• Scott Schroeder of Ridiculous Upside catalogs the NBA players currently averaging a double-double. Which of these names is not like the others?
• John Calipari: Not a fan of NBA eligibility rules: "I think that one, kids should be able to go directly to the league if that’s what they choose to do and if they go to college, they should stay two years or maybe three."
• Phoenix has been one of the standout teams in the league after the All-Star break, but there are a couple of red flags for Alvin Gentry's squad headed into the postseason. Kelly Dwyer watched the Suns-Rockets game last night and notes: "Houston was able to walk all over Phoenix's interior, and though the Rockets lost, it's clear that whoever the Suns meet in the playoffs is going to have a field day in the paint as long as Amar'e Stoudemire and Channing Frye are patrolling things."
• The NBA has become a mojito league.
• Matt McHale of By the Horns: "I’m here to tell you Joakim Noah is a winner. He goes full tilt every night. He wants it as bad as anybody. The dude is like a lightning storm on the court. Noah has limitations, and there are facets of his game that still need to be improved and polished. But honesty, every team would like to have a player like Noah on their roster. Heck, probably a whole team of Noahs (which is a scary notion, now that I think about it). Somebody who will sacrifice their body for the good of the team and would walk face-first through a Kraken attack to win."
• Mark Ginocchio of Nets are Scorching recounts some of his favorite Meadowlands memories, including Drazen Petrovic's inside-out exploits and Kenyon Martin being called a fugazi.
• John Krolik appreciates that mummifying LeBron James in bubble wrap until next weekend might be the smart way to go for Cleveland, but he's about ready for some meaningful basketball.
• Where do Aaron Brooks and Kevin Martin rank historically among Rocket backcourt tandems?
• NBA player and NBA dad enjoy lunch at ... The Cheesecake Factory.

Worth a moment of your time to watch a shot he made fooling around. (Via the Twitter)

From the Warriors' website comes word that their would-be star, Monta Ellis, is set to play his first game of the season after a major off-season ankle injury:

"I'm really happy, excited and looking forward to tomorrow," said Ellis. "We decided as a group today after practice that Friday's game would be a good situation for me. I have worked extremely hard during my rehabilitation, with the help of the Warriors' staff, and feel that I'm ready to go. It's just nice to get back to the game that I love and to play for the fans who have been so good to me. I'm really pumped. It's a great day." 

ESPN's Marc Stein:

Multiple league sources have told ESPN.com that Ellis had several cuts and abrasions on his leg -- atypical of an injury sustained on a basketball court. ... Two experts in sports medicine consulted by ESPN.com, granted anonymity because they aren't privy to the specifics of Ellis' condition, said that a torn deltoid ligament is rarely seen in basketball. The deltoid ligament, the sources explained, is on the medial (big toe) side of the ankle while the structures typically involved in a high ankle sprain are on the opposite (lateral) side of the ankle. Involvement of the deltoid suggests a more serious rotational injury than those commonly associated with the NBA, the sources said. ...

If Ellis is found to have sustained his injuries by taking part in non-basketball activities prohibited in his contract, Golden State could theoretically attempt to void the new six-year, $66 million deal signed by the 22-year-old on July 24. But such a drastic step is considered highly unlikely as long as the injuries cause no lasting damage, given Ellis' standing as perhaps Golden State's most prized asset in the wake of Baron Davis' free-agent defection to the Los Angeles Clippers.

The more likely punishments -- assuming Ellis makes a full recovery from his injuries -- are a fine or, at worst, a suspension.

A similar scenario played out in the 2006-07 season when Los Angeles Lakers forward Vladimir Radmanovic admitted to suffering a separated shoulder while snowboarding in Utah during the All-Star break, some five days after initially telling the Lakers that he slipped on an icy street while carrying a coffee. Radmanovic was fined $500,000, nearly 10 percent of his 2007-08 salary of $5.6 million.

Here's what this is about, right? There is language in standard NBA contracts prohibiting skiing, skydiving, riding motorcylces and various other things known to be dangerous.

That's what's on the table.

Here's what I can't decide: Are those clauses good?

I get it. I understand that a team has made a massive investment in a player's health and well-being, and they want to impress upon the player, in writing, the need to protect that investment.

But let's be honest: These clauses have nothing to do with the most common ways players get hurt. Players are injured all the time, usually by playing basketball. Players are also hurt by poor training habits, car accidents, hospital-borne infections, and weird incidents on boats. I'm sure someone could write you 5,000 strong words about bad diet, alcohol consumption, a lack of stretching, excessive airplane travel, or too little sleep impacting player performance more than riding motorcycles.

Those other things aren't banned, though. And why not? In some cases such a ban would be impractical -- no team can ban basketball, of course, or flying a lot. The  main reason those things aren't banned is because that kind of prohibition -- what if they banned cookies? -- would be insulting. It's onerous. It makes the team look like a bunch of jerks, and players and their agents would not be comfortable signing it.

Besides, don't you just know that no matter what you put in that contract, most players will have some cookies? That's just something people do. Cookies may, in fact, hurt performance, team value, and all of that. Pretending they won't is not really making the team better.

No, you're just giving the team owner more power. Just about everyone will eat some cookies, and so when they do, the team gets the option to try to terminate the contract (over the objections of the players association, presumably), fine the player, or extract some other kind of negotiated something or other. The team gets leverage.

Laker Vladimir Radmanovic earned the nickname "snowflake" by snowboarding. His contract reportedly banned skiing and not snowboarding, so there would have been a fight if the team had tried to sever ties entirely. Yet the team got to fine him a half-million dollars, and there was a general outpouring of "what an idiot" sentiment.

But step back for a minute. Think about the young, healthy, and wealthy people you may know or hear about. I would bet that a huge percentage of them have done something like snowboarding, riding motorcycles, or skydiving. They're not crazy, either. Done properly, those are legal and common activities, the kinds of things millions of people do every year, if not every day.

I have personally witnessed former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson tooling around at big motorcycle rallies, and he promotes motorcycling every chance he gets. Former Sixer owner Pat Croce -- who made his fortune helping people get healthy -- loves him some motorcycles, even though he was once very badly injured on a ride.

So, am I supposed to believe that guys like Tommy Thompson and Pat Croce are responsible adults, while, say, Jay Williams is someone who takes unacceptable risks?

Or are they all three fairly normal people, one of whom has a job that is wrapped up with some onerous legalese?

Short term, none of it matters. If you signed a contract saying you'd stay off the skis, you had better stay off the skis, or live with the consequences.

But in the long term, I suspect the NBA would not be a much more dangerous place if players were allowed to do the things normal people do. And if Monta Ellis is found to have ridden a motorcycle or jumped out of an airplane, I won't be convinced that he's a maniac.

(Photo: Rocky Widner/Getty Images)

Somewhere the gimpy guard has got to be feeling blue.

This has to help.

Seriously, this has to be the finest mashup of original Monta Ellis-themed poetry and video ever. The break dancing is good, but "tooting that horn" and the hot wax are even better. (This is family friendly, trust me.)

UPDATE: Another fun Monta Ellis video.