Tom Ziller Posts

It has, without a doubt, been a disappointing November for the 76ers. The team didn't figure to get a whole lot better than last season's solid showing (which ended with a 4-2 first round surrender to Marcin Gortat), having lost first-string point guard Andre Miller and adding only 18-year-old point guard Jrue Holiday in the draft. But a 5-10 record out of the gate registers far below expectations, and that mark comes even with new starting PG Louis Williams playing really, really well.

And now even that bright spot is blotted out! Williams broke his jaw on Antawn Jamison's shoulder earlier this week, had it wired shut and will miss up to eight weeks. (He also missed Thanksgiving, tragically. Turkey malt shake, anyone?) In his place, Holiday started Wednesday, a (surprisingly) tight loss in Boston. (The Sixers had lost to Boston by 31 in Philly earlier this month.)

Jack Mai, the former assistant director of scouting for the Kings, has been barred from future employment in the NBA after a league investigation found that Mai had bet on numerous games, including ones involving the Kings. Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski initially reported the Mai banishment. League spokesman Tim Frank confirmed to FanHouse.com that Mai has been disqualified from future employment with any NBA team.

According to a league memo acquired by FanHouse, Mai was found to have bet small amounts on NBA games with acquaintances, and the league's year-long investigation found no proof Mai used his position with the Kings to influence the outcomes of games. But any betting on NBA games is barred by league rules.

The difference between the Nets and the Timberwolves is that Damien Wilkins bank shot.

The Nets visited Minneapolis on opening night. The game ended with Wilkins' circus putback, a final stitch in a fourth quarter comeback that ultimately pushed New Jersey into a sea of embarrassment. You see, since that game, neither the Nets or the Wolves have won a game. But it's not Minnesota testing historic blight -- it's New Jersey.

As Washington, D.C., and the NBA community mourn the loss of Wizards owner Abe Pollin, the future of the franchise sits in question. Unlike the situations in Salt Lake City, Detroit and Indiana, where NBA team owners have also passed away in last nine months, the Wizards will apparently not stay in the family.

In 1999, when Pollin sold controlling interest of the NHL's Washington Capitals to AOL executive Ted Leonsis, he also handed over a minority interest in the Wizards, which included a clause giving Leonsis the first option to buy the team if Pollin chose to sell.

Abe Pollin, who has owned the Washington Wizards since 1964 when they were the Baltimore Bullets, has died. He was 85 years old.

Pollin had suffered from an undisclosed chronic illness for the past several years, one which confined him to a wheelchair but didn't keep him away from the Wiz. Pollin had previously owned the NHL's Washington Capitals, but sold the team to a group led by Ted Leonsis in 1999.

Pollin was the NBA's longest tenured team owner. Upon selling the Caps, Pollin told reporters his sons had "no interest" in running a sports team, and it's not known whether Pollin's wife Irene will maintain control of the franchise.

Bruce Ratner won't own the Nets much longer, as Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov is set to take the reins soon. But Ratner's long-held dream -- to move the Nets to Brooklyn, as a cornerpiece of his massive Atlantic Yards development -- looks to become a reality within a few years, as the New York Court of Appeals today dismissed what is seen as the final major legal hurdle standing in the way of the project. Opponents of the project had sought a ruling that the state's use of eminent domain to free up land for the project had violated New York's consistution.

Ratner had been crunched for time, as a state-backed plan to sell tax-free municipal bonds to fund the construction of the project expires on Dec. 31. The New York Times reports Ratner's firm will sell those bonds next month. The arena -- dubbed the Barclays Center -- is expected to be completed in 2012, which means the Nets have two seasons (in addition to the current one) to kill, either at their current home, Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J., or at the Prudential Center in Newark.

Mark Deeks of the hilarious and insightful ShamSports.com recently took a look at the history of the NBA luxury tax. It's a good survey chock full of numerous gems, but one in particular stuck out to me.

Since the inception of the luxury tax in 2002-03, only two teams have crossed the threshold every season it has been collected: the Dallas Mavericks and the New York Knicks. That the Knicks have had the highest payroll for basically the entire decade is hilarious itself, but just for kicks, let's compare the two teams' records in those luxury tax seasons.

So, Ron Artest was a guest on ABC's late-night Jimmy Kimmel Live last night. In his underwear. With Kimmel's name shaved into his head. I can't tell whether it was a planned gag; Artest is infamously said (by former Kimmel writer Bill Simmons of ESPN.com) to have ridden with sponsors and Rockets owner Leslie Alexander on a team bus wearing only boxer shorts, a story Artest "clears up" here. (There is also a Part 2, which includes the revelation that steam rose from Kobe's body during that infamous shower scene from 2008.)

We hear quite a bit about how well Kobe Bryant and LeBron James play at Madison Square Garden, the so-called Mecca of basketball. But Sunday's action reminded us that Paul Pierce belongs in that discussion, too.

Pierce scored 33 points in Boston's overtime win against the Knicks Sunday. It was the sixth career 30-point game at MSG for the longtime Celtics, matching Kobe, Dirk Nowitzki and Allen Iverson for the lead among active (or very recently active, in A.I.'s case) players. LeBron has five 30-point games at the Garden.

Of course, Pierce has been around quite a bit longer than LeBron, and as an Eastern Conference player he plays at MSG twice as frequently as Bryant and Nowitzki. But the mark is still impressive. (In case you're wondering, Michael Jordan holds the modern era record for 30-point games at MSG as a visitor, with at least 17. Basketball-Reference only has a game-by-game box score data going back to 1986-87.) Pierce was the fourth visitor to hit 30 at the Garden this season, following James, Andre Iguodala and Chris Paul.

Magic star Rashard Lewis tested positive for a banned performance-enhancing drug sometime before the NBA Finals last season. A follow-up test was given during the Finals, where Orlando fell 4-1 to the Lakers. But based on when that first test happens, Lewis's former teammate Ray Allen wonders if it might have been the Celtics in the Finals.

Allen told the Boston Globe this weekend that if Lewis has tested positive during the Magic-Celtics Eastern Conference semifinals series, he should have been suspended then. Allen follows that up by suggesting that without Lewis Orlando would have fallen to Boston (a fair retrodiction). The Magic beat the Celtics and Cavaliers on their way to the Finals.

The NBA never announced the timing of that first test, and news of Lewis's positive test didn't break until the start of August -- some nine weeks after the start of the Finals.