We rounded up a few items out of the Western Conference this morning. Now it’s time to head east and check in on the latest from the NBA’s only undefeated team and a few of their Eastern rivals….
- While they aren’t a taxpaying team, the fact that the Pacers are only a couple million dollars away from that threshold signals that owner Herb Simon is shoving his chips all-in, writes Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. So far, so good for the 5-0 Pacers.
- The Nets became the second team in the NBA to assign players to the D-League this season, announcing in a press release that Tornike Shengelia and Tyshawn Taylor are ticketed for the Springfield Armor.
- The Bucks had been hoping that after signing a lucrative long-term extension this offseason, Larry Sanders would come into the year feeling comfortable about his future, which would help his on-court performance. As Sean Deveney of the Sporting News details, that’s certainly not how the season has played out for Sanders so far, but there’s plenty of time to turn things around.
- In a piece for The Score, Mark Deeks of ShamSports.com points to the Andrea Bargnani trade as one reason why the Knicks find themselves without a decent fill-in for Tyson Chandler. Deeks also notes that Kenyon Martin‘s contract will become non-guaranteed if K-Mart misses 15 or more games due to preexisting knee injuries.