* Rashad Mobley wonders if JaVale McGee can grow into the defensive player Tyson Chandler currently is.

* Bob Kravitz makes a passionate plea for the NBA adopting a hard cap or something similar to the Franchise tag the NFL uses. Both ideas are something I’ve been talking about for months. It appears great minds do think alike…

* Michael Wallace has a great article on why Miami needs a legit point guard running their show. Everyone keeps talking about the “Carmelo Anthony trade” but ever since it went down I’ve argued the inclusion of Chauncey Billups was just as big as the addition of ‘Melo.

* Carl Landry on being dealt to New Orleans: “I went from 13 wins to almost 40 overnight. I fit right in. Coach Williams told me the first day we were pretty much a defensive minded team, defense first. I like that because defense wins games.”

* Man, what are the Clippers thinking? They really should hire a PR firm based out of Los Angeles to help them navigate Sterling and all of his brain farts.

* Blazers Edge recorded Gerald Wallace checking into his first game as a Blazer. I don’t think I’ve heard the ACC that loud in my five years of covering the Raptors.

* Brandon Jennings recently complained about the offense not running through him the same as last season and Jeremy Schmidt uncovered these great stats: “The percentage of Jennings possessions in which he’s the ball handler in a pick and roll scenario or in isolation comes to 49.3% of his possessions. In comparison, Derrick Rose, clearly the focus of the Bulls offense, handles the ball in either of those scenarios on 57.4% of his possessions.  Rose’s numbers fall right in line with other elite point guards that largely operate their team’s offense.  Chris Paul is right at about 60% of his possessions spent in these scenarios and Steve Nash percentages are even higher, with better than 66% of his time in these possessions.”

* Some great insight from Royce Young over at Daily Thunder: “There’s just no denying that Ron Artest defends KD so incredibly well. It’s not a coincidence that Durant can never seem to break lose for 30 against the Lakers. Artest just cuts off KD’s path wherever he’s going. It’s like Artest somehow holds Durant with his body. It’s just terrific work. KD finished with 21 on 8-20 shooting, but missed a couple decent looks inside the lane at the rim. But Artest is just a bulldog. He tied up Durant on the first possession of the game and really bullied him for the entire game.”