Florida vs Florida State: Which Is the Better Basketball Team?
The Florida-Florida State debates are usually reserved for the fall, when both teams are winning football games en route to their annual match-up in late November.
However, with both teams currently ranked in the top 25 and competing for their conference titles, the debate over which team is superior on the hardwood is worth diving into.
There are other common threads between the two. Both teams won important conference games on their home floor this weekend. Each has also won seven straight conference games after this weekend’s wins.
Florida beat Vanderbilt 73-65 in Gainesville, to improve to 7-1 in SEC play—a game behind Kentucky for first place. The Gators will travel to Lexington Tuesday to take their first shot at the top-ranked Wildcats.
Meanwhile, over in Tallahassee, Florida State held off No. 18 Virginia 58-55. The win kept them tied with North Carolina and Duke atop the ACC at 7-1 in league play.
While Florida has the better overall record and is ranked considerably higher (the Gators may move into the Top 10 this week), a look at the two teams’ overall performance throughout the season makes this a tough call. Here is a breakdown of how the two have fared before, after, and during their match-up back in December.
photo from gatorcountry.com
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Everyone Knows Indiana University Is Better Than Purdue University Any Day
Today the Indiana Daily Student and Purdue’s The Exponent began a war of words in which a columnist from each wrote an article on why each school was better than the other. I figured: “If they can do it, why not me?”
I will begin with Anil Rao’s article about why Purdue is superior to Indiana. He begins his argument saying that he congratulates IU on being “back” only to mock the gesture by throwing out useless statistics from the last three seasons. Statistics like our sub-.500 record in the Big Ten and 2-32 record on the road under Tom Crean, and who can forget the Boilermakers’ 112-84 head-to-head record against Indiana? Good arguments. But not really.
Okay, the last three seasons have been more than a tough road for the Hoosiers and Tom Crean. If Kelvin Sampson happened to any other school (outside of Kentucky, Kansas, UNC and Duke), that school would have been in the basement of their conference for a decade before they could redeem themselves.
Yes, that includes Purdue. In the past two seasons, Indiana nearly cracked the top ten in home attendance. Would that have happened in Mackey Arena? No! IU had a total of 22 wins in those two years and IU fans still showed up and cheered for them.
Rao goes on to argue that even though Purdue is having a down year, they have won three road games. Road games are hard enough to win without your team being dismantled like Indiana’s was, so that argument doesn’t hold much water either.
Congratulations for beating the Big Ten’s bottom dwellers (Iowa, Minnesota, Northwestern) on the road.
Excuse me for not standing up and applauding. Indiana still plays Iowa and Minnesota on the road. Let’s not forget the 20-point drumming Purdue received at Penn State.
Rao’s next brilliant argument is Indiana’s lack of success over the last 24 years since their last championship. Let’s look at the last 24 seasons for both squads, shall we?
Purdue has seven Sweet Sixteens appearances. Indiana has six.
Oh, it gets better. Purdue has two Elite Eight appearances. Indiana has three. Here we go. Purdue has zero Final Fours. Indiana has two! Now, you can applaud.
Are you kidding me? Even in the down years of Indiana basketball, Purdue cannot manage to outplay us.
You can have Big Ten titles. Purdue has six to Indiana’s four in that span. You can have useless Big Ten Tournament titles. Rao also boasts about how Purdue has more wins over that span, too. Yes, it is true. Purdue has 526 wins and Indiana only has 484.
However, shall we not forget Indiana’s past three seasons? What if we take out those three seasons? Oh wait. Purdue has 444 wins and Indiana has 456. How interesting!
To be fair, I will also cancel out Purdue’s worst three seasons in the last 24 years. Purdue, then, has 497 wins to Indiana’s 456. There, Rao. That’s the argument you were looking for.
I feel so bad for tearing up your entire argument. I decided to be nice and do some journalism for you.
Rao’s next argument against Indiana is the obnoxiousness of the fans. I cannot defend my student section’s support of Kelvin Sampson in his last game, although I was not yet a student at IU.
I also cannot defend and definitely do not condone the grotesqueness of our taunt to Greivis Vasquez when Maryland came to Assembly Hall in 2009. All I can say is that I am ashamed when IU fans become too obnoxious toward other teams, players and fans.
Rao mentions the fans’ lack of support for the football team and says we “instead cheer for Notre Dame.” If Purdue had as bad a football program as Indiana, you too would root for another school. Let’s not bring football into this argument. This is about the basketball game anyway.
Although I have limited research on rankings, I did find a U.S. News & World Report ranking that that ranks IU 71st overall and tied for 9th in the Big Ten. Purdue is merely 10 spots ahead at 61st and only 7th in the conference.
To say you are by far superior in academics is a major exaggeration. I will concur that Purdue’s academics are slightly better only because that is what every publication I founds says. I do not agree that it is so much better that an employer would not be interested in an IU graduate.
Rao’s last jab at the Hoosiers is from a fellow Indiana alumnus. Bill Benner said: “Boilermakers everywhere are enjoying a hearty last laugh. I never thought I (would) say it, but the bumper sticker I long ago detested is true. Purdue is the Indiana university.”
I remember reading this quote. Benner was simply overreacting to Purdue’s dominance in a two-year span when they won the Crimson and Gold Cup twice and their academics were ranked higher than IU’s. Benner, like a lot of IU fans, is an over-reactor.
It is now proven that Benner was a little premature in crowning Purdue as superior in athletics. Purdue’s great basketball class (Robbie Hummel, E’Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson) went to two Sweet Sixteens and nothing more.
If you want to know about all of the varsity sports, all you need to know is this. Purdue has 18 varsity sports, the least of all Big Ten Conference foes (even less than Northwestern’s 19).
In Purdue’s history, they have captured three, count them one…two…three national championships. They have a remarkable 69 Big Ten championships, which only puts them ahead of recently-admitted Nebraska and Penn State, who was admitted into the Big Ten in 1993.
Indiana, meanwhile, has 24 varsity sports, 23 national championships and 163 Big Ten championships. Back to basketball.
Remember when I mentioned the 112-84 record the Boilermakers have against Indiana in their history? Pretty impressive, right? What if I told you that it really doesn’t indicate who’s winning the rivalry? What if I told you that the Boilermakers were 50-10 against IU from 1901 until 1939?
Of course, 1939 was the year that the NCAA Tournament came to exist. If you can do a little math, you will figure out that since 1939, Indiana is actually winning the series 74-62. Hmm. Is that so?
In fact, the only decades the Boilers came out on top since the 1940s were the Rick Mount ’60s years and the Junkyard Dog Glenn Robinson ’90s years. That leaves the ’40s, ’50s, ’70s, ’80s, 2000′s for the Hoosiers. Oh yeah, Purdue is really dominating IU in basketball.
You gotta love this rivalry.
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LeBron James vs. Blake Griffin: Whose Dunk Was Better?
Poor John Lucas III.
While he did have the best seat in the house to watch LeBron’s monstrous dunk, he didn’t get the chance because he was looking down as James sailed over him.
Also, poor Kendrick Perkins.
He thought it would be a smart idea to step in front of the 2011 Slam Dunk Competition winner and attempt to block his route to the basket.
Very bad choice.
Two men, two very good dunks. But which one was better?
Was the fact that James sailed over the 5’11” Lucas with barely any effort, evidence that this was the better of the two? Or was is possibly the way Blake completely ignored the laws of gravity (and Perkins) to ferociously slam down the dunk?
After looking over the tapes, I’ve come to a conclusion. Take a look, and decide for yourself.
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Los Angeles Lakers Need Better Offensive Balance or They Will Miss the Playoffs
In case you hadn’t noticed, the Los Angeles Lakers are 12-9 and currently in eighth place in the Western Conference standings.
If the playoffs started today, the eighth-seeded Lakers would be matched up with the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the playoffs.
Can you say first-round exit?
The Lakers are quite simply, a bad basketball team that appears to be getting worse as the season wears on.
This is a team that went 13 straight games without breaking the 100-point mark (a new franchise record during the shot clock era) before scoring 106 points in last night’s win over Minnesota.
This is a team that replaced Lamar Odom with Josh McRoberts.
This is a team that lost to an Andrew Bogut-less Milwaukee Bucks team by 11 points.
This is by far the worst Lakers team in the Pau Gasol era and it’s really not even close.
So what gives?
It all comes down to shot distribution, and when you’ve got one player who has accounted for 484 of the 1,572 shot attempts (30.8 percent), you become very easy to guard as a team.
Kobe Bryant is taking way too many shots and in his attempt to beat teams one-on-five, he is failing miserably.
Kobe has taken 221 more shots than Pau Gasol (263) and 292 more shots than Andrew Bynum (192). It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that this makes absolutely zero sense when Kobe shoots 45.5 percent from the field while Gasol is shooting 50.6 percent and Bynum is at 53.7 percent.
Gasol and Bynum are both averaging 16 points per game; combine the two and they are outscoring Kobe 32 points to 30. That’s not how a so-called “Big Three” is supposed to work, folks.
There is no reason for Gasol and Bynum to not be averaging 20 points per contest. The shot distribution in Miami is a perfect example—LeBron takes 19 shots, Wade takes 17 and Bosh gets 15.
In LA, Kobe is taking 24 shots, Gasol is getting 13 and Bynum 12. See the difference? You can’t have your best player taking twice as many shots as the next two guys in line; it’s just not a recipe for success in today’s NBA.
Kobe’s defiance is destroying the Lakers once again—he’s going to go down in flames and he’s taking this team with him.
Now I will admit that things were a little better in Minnesota last night. Even though Kobe managed to take 29 shots, at least Pau and Andrew were able to match him with 29 combined shots between the two of them.
Kobe was able to make 14 of his 29 attempts while Bynum and Gasol combined to make 19.
The question remains, how much longer can the Lakers go on like this? How much longer can they continue to have Kobe take as many shots as their two soon-to-be All-Star big men combined?
So how can the Lakers better balance their offense? Well, I know it sounds simple, but they need to play inside-out and they need to force feed the ball into the post from the opening tip.
Bynum and Gasol should never combine for fewer than 30 attempts and Kobe shouldn’t be taking more than 20 on any given night.
Especially when you consider where Kobe’s shots are coming from on the court and their degree of difficulty versus Pau and Andrew doing most of their work in the paint.
That’s my magic formula folks, instead of the big three’s shot chart looking like this—24-13-12, it should look like this—20-15-15.
Less shots for Kobe and more shots for the Bynum and Gasol, it’s the only way things are going to get any better in Laker Land.
After the Lakers beat the Bobcats at home on Tuesday (don’t even say it), they will be improve to 13-9 with a third of the season officially in the books—on pace for a 39-27 final record.
That record will be good enough to get into the playoffs and it might even be good enough for a top four seed with the way things are currently jumbled up in the Western Conference standings today.
That said, is this the kind of attitude we’ve officially resorted to as Lakers fans now? Just hoping to have a good enough record to get into the playoffs and maybe having home court for the first round?
Unfortunately, this is the new reality in Laker Land. The rest of the league has caught up with the Lakers through free agency and the draft, while the Lakers haven’t made any significant upgrades to their roster since 2008. (I’m considering the whole Ron Artest for Trevor Ariza fiasco to be a wash)
So unless GM Mitch Kupchak (who is now having to deny rumors that he is about to call it quits) has one or two more moves up his sleeve in this lockout-shortened season, we can pretty much call it wrap for 2012.
I hate to be the one to break it to you Laker fans, but there are anywhere from five to 10 teams in the NBA right now with better personnel from top to bottom than what you will find on the current Lakers roster.
What’s that saying I hear every single athlete use in every single interview when they have absolutely no idea how to answer the question that’s just been posed?
“It is what it is”.
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NBA Rumors: Signing Gilbert Arenas Would Make Los Angeles Lakers Better
Gilbert Arenas is no longer the “Hibachi,” but he could still give the Los Angeles Lakers a nice bench scoring option. Signing him would be a low-risk, potentially high-reward transaction. The Lakers have the perfect environment for him and he wants to be there.
First, he wouldn’t be required to carry much of the load. When he came in off the bench, he’d be looked at to score. Arenas could play either guard spot so his versatility would be a plus, but it still comes down to scoring, plain and simple.
Secondly, Arenas is desperate for another shot. Right now, he has to be hoping teams haven’t blackballed him because of his issues and subsequent lackluster play in Orlando. He grew up in LA, and he wants to play there. For a veteran’s minimum deal, it is worth exploring.
Lastly, many teams could be concerned about Arenas’ injured knees and most of all, his impact on chemistry. Well, the knees will have to be tested in a workout, and only time will tell, but as previously noted, the veteran’s minimum is a small price to pay if he isn’t healthy enough to contribute.
As for the chemistry issues, I wouldn’t worry about that, not as long as Kobe Bryant is around. In Bryant and Derek Fisher, the Lakers have the type of veteran leadership that commands respect. It is hard to find a player in the NBA that doesn’t respect those two and moreover, the Lakers’ tradition and uniform.
The Lakers would get the best Arenas has and he would make them a dangerous team.
Arenas has been punished for his immaturity, but he deserves another shot and the Lakers could use the punch off the bench.
Follow Brian Mazique on Twitter
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Heat better without Wade? Not a chance
MIAMI — There were some who actually suggested when Dwyane Wade was sidelined that the Miami Heat are better without him.
Want to know what Wade has to say about that?
“Ridiculous,” he said.
He’s right. And anybody who disagrees might just get dunked on.
After missing six games due to a sprained right ankle, the guard came back with a vengeance Friday night. He scored 28 points in 33 minutes as the Heat defeated the New York Knicks 99-89 at AmericanAirlines Arena.
“This is a very good team with or without me. But without me, I doubt that,” Wade said of the Heat being better when the Big Three is reduced to a Big Two of LeBron James and Chris Bosh.
Such suggestions surfaced when the Heat went 5-1 during the most recent stretch without Wade, making them 8-1 this season in games he has missed. But Wade hasn’t been healthy all season, having also battled foot and calf problems.
It was the real Wade on display against the Knicks. He soared for six dunks while driving relentlessly to the basket all night.
“To be out six games and look like basically you didn’t miss a beat, his speed and stamina were the two things that were like, ‘Wow,”‘ James said.
James scored a game-high 31 points while throwing down five dunks himself. But this night belonged to Wade.
Wade had gotten hurt Jan. 13 at Denver. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra revealed Friday the plan then pretty much became to give two full weeks of rest.
“We had a collective franchise decision on this,” Spoelstra said. “We were going to make sure that we would get his body right. In normal years, he probably would have tried to play in the (Jan. 19) Laker game. We held him out another week just to make sure he felt right.”
Sitting out that long wasn’t always easy for Wade, who spent a lot of time watching television when he wasn’t working hard to get back in shape. He then saw many of the pundits who suggested the Heat might be better without him.
Wade knows he hadn’t been himself all season. So the ankle injury was perhaps a blessing in disguise since it allowed his entire body to heal.
“I had to be smart, think of longevity and what’s best for the team,” said Wade, who shot 11-of-19 after entering the game averaging 19.6 points, on pace to be his lowest since his rookie season of 2003-04. “It took a real painful ankle injury to let me sit out. Not only work on my game, work on my body, get healthy, lose a couple of pounds. I had to make sure that I came back better than I was before.”
He was. And perhaps now Olympic teammate Carmelo Anthony will take notice.
The Knicks forward, banged up with a sprained ankle and wrist and thumb injuries, sat out Friday and also will skip Saturday’s game at Houston in an attempt to get him healthy. With Anthony out, New York went to three-point barrage rarely seen in the NBA.
The Knicks shot 18-of-43 behind the arc to become just the fourth team since 1996-97 to attempt more three-pointers in a game than two-pointers (they had 41 of those). Until they slowed down late, New York had a chance to break NBA records for most three-pointers made (23) and attempted (49) in a game.
“We tried to exploit what they gave us,” said Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni, whose main marksman was guard Bill Walker, who shot 7-of-10 on three pointers for all of his 21 points in a game New York by as many as four points in the third quarter. I thought we did that for a long time. We just couldn’t sustain it.”
With the Knicks firing away at will and the Heat throwing down 11 dunks, it looked at times like an ABA game. All that was missing were the 1971-72 Miami Floridians throwback uniforms the Heat actually did wear last weekend.
In the first half, James had five dunks and Wade had three. When Wade threw one down midway through the first quarter, Spoelstra knew his star guard was all the way back.
“The fast-break dunk, when he wrapped it around,” Spoelstra said. “We hadn’t seen that this year during the regular season. Maybe the first couple of days of training camp. It’s been that long. So he feels ready. His body is much better.”
Now that Wade is back, there are still some issues on the Heat. Bosh, after averaging 26.7 points in the most recent six games Wade had missed, shot just 4-of-18 Friday for 13 points.
But it’s just one game. And the forward is determined to continue looking for his shot when playing alongside Wade and James.
“I’m going to shoot, make or miss,” said Bosh, who said until recently he had been too hesitate at times looking for shots.
James also must continue to learn to mesh with Wade, with both wing players having similar traits, including liking to dominate the ball. It wasn’t a problem Friday, with James shooting 11-of-18.
“Dwyane told me to just continue to play my game once I return,” James said of Wade wanting him to remain agressive. “I’m going to do that. Last year definitely was a learning experience trying to play alongside him.”
Last year, the Heat were pretty good, making it to Game 6 of the NBA Finals. This year, they’re even better.
But are the Heat better without Wade?
Ridiculous.
Chris Tomasson can be reached at christomasson@hotmail.com or on Twitter @christomasson
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Golden State Warriors Keep Losing: Loyal Fans Deserve Much Better
The Golden State Warriors entered the second season of the Joe Lacob-Peter Guber ownership era with high hopes.
Armed with a tough-minded rookie head coach in Mark Jackson, a new assistant GM in Bob Myers and The Logo himself, Hall of Famer Jerry West, in an advisory role, surely the Warriors would be a new-look, playoff-caliber team in 2012.
Uh, nope.
On Monday night, Golden State suffered an absurd, self-inflicted 91-90 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, in which the Warriors squandered their biggest lead of the season—a 20-point second-half advantage—by committing nine turnovers in the fourth quarter.
The loss was a microcosm not only of Golden State’s season to date (5-11 record, 15th place out of 16 Western Conference teams) but also of the Warriors franchise over the past several years. Remember, this is a team that has had a total of two winning seasons and just one playoff appearance since 1994.
A team whose roster has for years been mostly comprised of exciting, talented, offensive-minded shooting guards and wings, many of whom have been undersized and slightly built—that can be a nice formula for scoring points and selling tickets, but not for winning games.
And, while Coach Jackson’s squad seems slightly more willing to play defense than previous Warrior teams, there is still no one on the team who appears to enjoy defense or rebounding.
There’s also no sign of a closer anywhere. Monta Ellis may be one of the league’s most electrifying scorers during the first 45 minutes of a game, but he is not a Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant with the outcome on the line.
Finally, the management “dream team” inexplicably failed to “amnesty” center Andris Biedrins and his $9 million annual salary. Biedrins is a likable yet hopelessly overmatched center, whose double-double potential seems farther than ever from being realized.
After another dismal showing against the Grizzlies (16 minutes, no shots attempted—and, therefore, no points—two rebounds and three fouls), there may be only three people left who still believe Biedrins will become a legitimate NBA center: Biedrins, his mom and Bob Fitzgerald, the Warriors’ irrepressibly optimistic play-by-play announcer (“if Andres Biedrins can just average 12 and eight, or even 10 and seven, the Warriors can contend for the NBA title!”).
To be sure, the team’s recent travails have been compounded by the seemingly chronic weakness of Stephen Curry’s ankles and the absence of Kwame Brown, sidelined by a torn pectoral muscle. Brown was the team’s only real power presence inside. Because, you know, the roster was otherwise full of guards and wings.
The result of all this is another season of what the incredibly loyal fans at Oracle Arena have witnessed for years: a vastly entertaining, high-scoring outfit that can compete with any team in the league, even pull off the occasional upset, but which more often gets overpowered in the fourth quarter.
Despite this record of sustained futility, the loyal Warriors fans continue to sell out Oracle. Sports Business Journal recently reported that Golden State is one of only 12 NBA teams to have sold over 10,000 season tickets. The other 11 include a who’s who of NBA royalty: Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, Miami Heat, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, Oklahoma City Thunder, Orlando Magic.
If the Warriors ever want to match that upper echelon in something other than ticket revenue, most or all of the roster needs to be overhauled—the sooner the better.
No more stockpiling of slender shooters who think defense is what happens in between the fun parts of the game. No more power forwards who look and play like small forwards. More guys who like to play defense and get rebounds.
Look at the recent transformations of the Thunder, Los Angeles Clippers, Grizzlies and Philadelphia 76ers. It can be done. No fanbase would be more deserving of such a turnaround than that of Golden State.
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Haith, No. 2 Missouri a better fit than expected
Most of the displeasure came from fans who wanted an established name to take over for Mike Anderson when he left for Arkansas.
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Chris Paul misses fifth game but is feeling better
It seemed as if everything was set up for Chris Paul to make his return Sunday against Toronto at Staples Center.
Paul had gone through multiple workouts at full speed, and he had come out of those workouts pain free. Still, with the Clippers not playing again until Wednesday, Vinny Del Negro and the Clippers’ training staff decided a 100 percent Paul is worth the wait.
“We worked him out (Saturday) and he feels great,” Del Negro said. “But I just think the smart, prudent thing to do right now is to give him a couple more days and a couple more workouts and practices.”
Paul’s missed five games with a strained left hamstring, including Sunday’s 103-91 win over the Toronto Raptors. It is an injury he suffered while scoring 33 points in the Clippers’ 102-94 win over the Lakers on Jan. 14.
He has not spoken to the media since after that game.
Del Negro admitted the team wanted to err on the side of caution with Paul considering the busy schedule that awaits the Clippers in the upcoming months.
“I just think that we feel it’s in the best interest in terms of the big picture,” Del Negro said. “He wants to be out there, but the big picture is that we have a lot of games. To be a little cautious now, we feel, makes a little more sense.”
NOTES, QUOTES
–With Chris Paul out and Eric Bledsoe not back from offseason knee surgery, the Clippers turned to the NBA Development League for reinforcements at point guard. In Courtney Fortson, they got a player they really like.
“I like Courtney. He’s a great kid and he works hard,” coach Vinny Del Negro said. “He can penetrate the ball. He just gets out there and competes. I really like that about Courtney. That’s why we brought him in.”
Fortson’s given the team positive minutes for the most part before turning the ball over three times in just over six minutes during the Clippers’ 103-91 win over Toronto Sunday afternoon. Fortson said he knows that ultimately he’s auditioning for a job with another team because it’s unlikely the Clippers will carry four healthy point guards once Paul and Bledsoe return.
“I wish I could see the future. Hopefully, mine’s here,” Fortson said. “But if it’s with some other team, so be it. Right now, this is my family. I’m just trying to make this a hard decision for them.”
–Rookie guard Travis Leslie is known for his high-flying, but after a botched alley-oop late in the Clippers’ 103-91 win over the Raptors Sunday, Leslie was left shaking his head. “It’s like I can’t dunk anymore,” he said.
QUOTE TO NOTE: “When he gets hot and he gets going, you just kind of get out of his way and watch.” — Forward Blake Griffin on Clippers’ guard Mo Williams, who scored 17-straight points for the Clippers to start the fourth quarter in their 103-91 win over Toronto.
ROSTER REPORT
PLAYER NOTES:
–G Chauncey Billups scored a season-low five points Sunday. He made up for the one-for-nine shooting game by dishing out a season-high 14 assists.
–C DeAndre Jordan pulled down a season-high 16 rebounds Sunday against Toronto. Jordan had nine rebounds in the first quarter.
–F Blake Griffin finished with 18 points and nine rebounds. Griffin had recorded double-doubles in eight-straight games prior to Sunday.
–F Caron Butler returned for a one-game absence to score 15 points in 24 minutes. Butler missed the Clippers’ game Friday after hyper extending his knee last Tuesday.
MEDICAL WATCH:
–G Chris Paul (left hamstring strain) worked out on the court before the game Sunday. Paul will continue to rehab and receive treatment, and he could return Wednesday against the Lakers.
–F Brian Cook (sprained left ankle) was active and in uniform Sunday, but he didn’t play. Cook’s day-to-day.
–G Eric Bledsoe (torn right lateral meniscus) is set to begin 5-on-0 work in practice and could return in early February.
ROTATION:
Starters:
–Point guard Chauncey Billups
–Shooting guard Randy Foye
–Small forward Caron Butler
–Power forward Blake Griffin
–Center DeAndre Jordan
Bench:
–Guard Mo Williams
–Forward Ryan Gomes
–Forward Soloman Jones
–Forward Reggie Evans
–Guard Courtney Fortson
–Forward Trey Thompkins
–Guard Travis Leslie
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Nowitzki told to miss games while he gets in better shape
Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle says forward Dirk Nowitzki will sit out for at least the next four games so he can get in better shape.
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