1. While nothing has been inked yet Lamar Odom has been in talks with both LA franchises and it seems likely he will resign with the Clippers. Odom has met with his former team and new coach Doc Rivers as well as visited practices. The Clippers would provide Odom with less responsibility than the struggling Lakers making his transition back into the league potentially easier. Either way it's good to hear something positive on Odom after the summer vacation he's had.
2. The Bulls handed the Pacers their first loss of the season Saturday night. Derrick Rose and Luol Deng had pretty great games, getting them out to an early lead in what was a pretty one sided game. The final was 110-94 but the Bulls lead by 25 at the half.
3. Marcin Gortat attempts to beat the Spurs the old way, with a dream shake.
4. As a result of the Spurs win over the Wizards, both Gortat and other mononymous big man Nene had high praise for the Spurs and their system. Gortat; "San Antonio runs offense perfectly. It was like listening to Mozart. It’s just ridiculous how they play." Nene; "..if I was young, I would watch video of that game for one week to see if I could learn something, because the way they play is how you’re supposed to play..."
5. Glen Davis in a moment of weakness destroyed a Florida area Travelodge's front desk keyboard. This pertains to basketball in no way, but his sideburns look great (clearly a post "Baby" coiffe) and it's hard not to feel for a weary traveller turned away from an inn at 4 am just looking for a place to rest his head. Keep at it Glen.
6. Chirs Smith, brother of Sixth man of the year/Commando J.R. Smith, has been the topic of much discussion since his signing a contract with the Knicks at the start of this season. He has a guaranteed contract, which is rare for such a fringe roster spot, and is expected to be relegated to the Knicks D-League team as soon as the season starts on Nov 22nd. Arguably the worst player in the NBA (although Bargnani is arguably the worst player on the Knicks) many suspect Chris' signing was simply a part of retaining J.R. who was a free agent this past summer. This past week Brandon Jennings, guard for the Pistons, stirred the pot again bringing up Chris Smiths ability and starting a twitter war with the brothers.
7. Serge Ibaka and Matt Barnes were ejected right before halftime in last Wednesday's meeting between the two western conference powerhouses. The interesting thing about Matt Barnes' ejection though is that he was sticking up for Blake Griffin, as he later pointed out in a colorful tweet he'd be fined for. Griffin let Ibaka throw him around and then lets a much smaller teammate come to his rescue. It would seem the title of "Big Baby" should be passed along to Griffin as Glen Davis has shown he is at least willing to destroy a computer and grow sideburns.
8. In the continuing saga that is the Knicks season of roster woes, the team tried to move young wing Iman Shumpert to Denver for Kenneth Faried but were turned down by the Nuggets. There have also been rumors of moving Shumpert to Boston as part of a package for Rondo or to Sacramento, although nothing has seemed to garner much interest at present. With Shumpert already butting heads with coach Mike Woodson it's hard to see how this can play out well for the Knicks if they're not able to move him soon and the trade value on their sole tradable asset slowly diminishes.
9. In other trade news that everyone saw coming Omer Asik has asked for a trade from the Rockets. When the team signed Howard in July Asik made it known he wanted to work somewhere else but stuck through camp and preseason. After being benched this past week by Kevin McHale (the only NBA vid you will ever hear Nils Lofgren fade into the Chi Peps) Asik again asked to be moved. Asik certainly has his merits, one could even make an argument to keep him over Howard, but with such a strong insistence to be shopped it will be hard for Houston to get full value on him and therefore may hold onto him for a while.
10. In what could end up being a great rivalry between two young conference rivals, the Warriors narrowly beat the Thunder last Thursday night 116-115. Huge offensive performances from both teams were capped off by a deep three from Westbrook giving the Thunder a one point lead and seeming win with 2.3 left. Proving you can never count the Warriors out Iguadola drains a fade away along the baseline to up the ante for the NBA's most watchable team.
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