FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.
Okay, before we get started, I'm going to go ahead and take care of the handful of required played-out puns used by sportswriters in other media in this kind of scenario.
"Easy Peasy, Lemon Quisy, Daniels Ready to Contribute"
The Celtics are a good team. This is, by most accounts, an understatement.
Boston finished with a record of 62-20 last season, despite the fact that the heart and soul of its defense, Kevin Garnett, missed 22 of the team's final 26 games with a knee injury.
Garnett missed the playoffs as well, but that didn't stop the Celtics from taking the eventual Eastern Conference champions to seven games in the second round, before their title defense ended two rounds earlier than they had expected for most of the season.
In our inaugural edition of the NBA Twitter mailbag, we've got some interesting topics to get us started. How will Shaq's ego fit in Cleveland? Is Kevin Durant getting the attention he deserves? And what's left on the Celtics' summer to-do list?
On Friday here on FanHouse, Tim Povtak reported that the Celtics were hot on the trail for free-agent swingman Marquis Daniels to bolster their team as they reload in the OK Corral the Eastern Conference has become this summer.
Looks like the C's have their man.
Daniels' agent confirmed to Yahoo! Sports that the Celtics are in the final stages of working out a sign-and-trade for Daniels with his former club, the Pacers. If that fails, the biannual exception is in the Celtics' back pocket, with Daniels ready to accept.
Indiana free agent Marquis Daniels could be headed to the Boston Celtics by next week as part of a sign-and-trade deal still being discussed by the two teams, according to two NBA sources.
Daniels, who has played all three perimeter positions in his six-year career, would give the Celtics a reliable backup behind both small forward Paul Pierce and shooting guard Ray Allen. He also could serve as a third point guard.
Daniels is coming off his best season, one where he averaged 13.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.1 assists for the Pacers. But the team declined to exercise its option, which would have paid him $7.3 million next season.
Worried that leading scorer Ben Gordon will leave for Detroit, the Chicago Bulls have contacted Indiana free-agent guard Marquis Daniels as a possible replacement.
Daniels became a free agent last month when the Pacers did not pick up the option on a contract that would have paid him $7.2 million this season.
Although slowed by a wrist injury, Daniels is coming off his best season offensively, averaging 13.6 points and 2.1 assists. Based on the calls he has received Wednesday, he is shaping up as a second option for several teams that are chasing more sought-after wing players Gordon, Trevor Ariza and Ron Artest in free agency.
Not everyone is waiting for 2010 – the mother of all free agent summers – to try to improve their team by throwing big money at the seasoned veterans.
Even in hard economic times, the top players like Carlos Boozer, Hedo Turkoglu and Jason Kidd will leave teams and get their financial reward in other places. The squeeze will be on the lower-level free agents who must settle for minimum or various exceptions.
What hurts this class is that only seven teams really have major room under the salary cap to make something happen, and they usually aren't the NBA's biggest spenders. Unless the free agents stay with their current teams, only Memphis, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Atlanta, Portland, Toronto and Detroit have major room.
Although there has been plenty of dancing and unofficial talks the last few days, the real dealings can't start until 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.
Here is a breakdown by position of the five most intriguing – and unrestricted – free agents.
In a no-brainer move, the Pacers will decline the $7.5-million option the team held for Marquis Daniels' services in 2009-10, reports the Indianapolis Star. The news betrays the success Daniels had in Indiana last year: he started 43 games for the Pacers as Mike Dunleavy Jr. struggled with injury, and scored more than 13 points a game.
But $7.5 million is obviously a lot for an emergency stand-in who doesn't fit the system and has basically exhausted his potential. Daniels, once a scoring tornado for the Mavericks, is already 28. He's an awful three-point shooter on a team predicated on hitting lots of threes. But Indy has a big hole at the two. Dunleavy will miss the first few months of the season, and Brandon Rush and Travis Diener register as the only natural shooting guards on the roster, unless Jim O'Brien changes course and plays a huge line-up with star combo forward Danny Granger in the backcourt.
It seems that Jamaal Tinsley and Marquis Daniels will at least avoid the nastiness of having to explain to a judge why they were involved in a bar fight, as they accepted diversion agreements on Monday morning, meaning that they will not have to appear in court to sort out the sordidness of this little affair.
Instead, they will have to complete 32 hours of community service each and apparently get involved in something called behavior modification training, which certainly must be less brainwashy and spooky than it actually sounds. They need to go two full calendar years without getting in any sort of legal trouble to avoid having the diversion decision backfire on them.
Diversion, different from a guilty plea, is similar to pleading 'no contest' in some states. Before Marion Superior Court Judge Lisa Borges, Tinsley and Daniels admitted only that there was probable cause for their indictments -- not that they were guilty as charged.
'We're very happy to go back to playing basketball,' said James Voyles, Tinsley's attorney, as they stepped onto an elevator with Daniels and his attorney, Ralph Staples. The players answered 'yes' to the judge's questions, but made no other comments inside or outside court.
If the players violate their diversion agreements, prosecutors said, the charges will be reinstated.
It's essentially like a PJC for a non-driving offense, if I'm reading this correctly. Now, many people would get upset that this could be another case of athletes skirting the law's ever shortening arm length, but I'm all for this type of punishment. What good does a trial do them? They would end up copping to some sort of plea bargain, which this basically amounts to, only now they don't have to waste taxpayers money. Oh right. This happened a while ago. Sigh. As Indy Cornrows said, "lawyers gotta get paid too". And don't forget the state probably didn't mind the extra publicity for the DA's office. Whatever. Let's move on.
If that headline seems bizarre ... well, it that's because it is. A woman (obviously unidentified) has gone to the police regarding an alleged rape that took place at Marquis Daniels' house in Carmel, which is located north of Indianapolis. However, she is in no way accusing Daniels of raping her. In fact, the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department is emphasizing that Daniels is not a suspect.
Daniels is not a suspect in the investigation, [Sheriff] Carter said, and he is cooperating with investigators. The victim accused someone else at the house, the sheriff added.
Daniels, 27, played in the Pacers' loss Monday to the Toronto Raptors at Conseco Fieldhouse. The 6-6, 200-pound guard has averaged 7.9 points and 2.5 rebounds per game. He played college at Auburn and has been in the National Basketball Association four years.
'I don't know what happened; I wasn't involved,' Daniels said late Monday.
Look, let's be clear -- if there was a rape (I believe we still do the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing, right?) then this is a tremendous tragedy. And it is a horrible thing. What is (while certainly not more horrible by any stretch of the imagination) also bad for the Indiana Pacers is that the news headlines are all going to have "Marquis Daniels" and "Rape" in them, even if the word "Not" is the filler. And because this is an NBA forum for reporting news, I think I'm fairly required to at least point out that this sort of publicity is exactly what the Pacers have been trying to move away from through recent personnel changes.
FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.
FanHouse 
On Friday here on FanHouse, 
Indiana free agent 
Worried that leading scorer 
Not everyone is waiting for 2010 – the mother of all free agent summers – to try to improve their team by throwing big money at the seasoned veterans.
In a no-brainer move, the Pacers will 
It seems that 
If that headline seems bizarre ... well, it that's because it is. A woman (obviously unidentified) has gone to the police regarding an alleged rape that took place at 
