During tonight’s game between the Knicks and Rockets, Kevin McHale opted to start Terrence Jones at power forward and made second-year man Greg Smith as the first big man to come off the bench. Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle says that although you could read into Omer Asik‘s trade request as a reason for him not playing much, he underscores that it’s more about how McHale has been unhappy with Asik’s play as of late (Twitter links). While it’s anyone’s guess at this point, I don’t think it would be too far-fetched to argue that Houston would look to get a deal sooner rather than later in order to avoid the situation turning into a possible major distraction for the team.
Here’s more of tonight’s miscellaneous news and notes from around the league:
- Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated thinks that two trade calls the Rockets should make regarding Asik would be for the Pelicans’ Ryan Anderson or Thaddeus Young of the 76ers (Twitter link).
- ESPN’s Chris Broussard turned to four long-time executives – two from the Eastern Conference, two from the West – to weigh-in on Carmelo Anthony‘s current standing in the NBA (Insiders only).
- Nate Gagon of the Deseret News ponders what the future holds for recent Jazz addition Diante Garrett and whether or not he’ll follow the same path as Sundiata Gaines, whose career in Utah was short-lived after a promising start.
- HoopsHype presents a slideshow of the top 100 free agents of 2014.
- Michael Pointer of IndyStar.com discusses why not much can be concluded yet from the Pacers’ 8-0 start.
I love how people keep assuming the Pelicans would give Anderson for Asik…They have had spacing problems themselves with Anderson injured. Why would they trade him to make those spacing problems worse?