FanHouse Travis Diener

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.

NBA Essentials provides the must-see links, quotes and videos of the day.

* "[Roy Hibbert]'s sitting next to Travis [Diener], which I find very interesting. You have to watch Travis because he can be very tricky on flights. Roy has an expensive bag he uses as a carry-on and on our last flight from Boston, Travis thought it would be a good idea to hide a meatball in it. Now, this was not a meatball in tin foil or anything but a meatball with pasta sauce and parmesan cheese on it. Roy was not amused, to say the least." -- Troy Murphy's blog, via Indy Cornrows.

I've already discussed the monster night that Amare Stoudemire put up against the Indiana Pacers ... twice, in fact. This video shows how much fun STAT was having in the process. After an absolutely posterizing dunk on Jeff Foster, Amare celebrated a little by thumping his chest, which is something that the much smaller Travis Diener did not appreciate.



Amare blatantly flops after the semi-shove from Diener, and is laughing the entire time. You know, like anyone else who watched this and thought it was a little odd that Diener might be able to have that type of physical effect on someone who's nine inches taller and out-weighs him by roughly 75 pounds.

[via Ben's Suns Blog]