FanHouse WilsonChandler

Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

Rule: if you drop 30 points on Boston, you get special consideration for Doing Lines. Welcome to the club, Wilson Chandler. The spiritual guide to D'Antoni Ball in the Big Apple dropped 31 points on 19 FGAs, and added eight rebounds and no turnovers. The hardest things to do against Boston: shoot efficiently and protect the ball. You're a man, Mr. Chandler. (Al Harrington also dropped 30.)

Making Up Lost Ground: Nicolas Batum has been cold as a starter in Portland, but Sunday's loss to the Lakers featured a break-out of sorts: matched up against clone Trevor Ariza, Batum had 17 points on perfect 6-6 shooting, along with five rebounds, four assists and no turnovers. Batum's starting because of his defense and his willingness to stand in the corner and hoist up open threes. It's a boon when he can make those shots.

Property of Camby: NBA Rule 34a, Section 3: All rebound opportunities belong to Marcus Camby (20 rebounds, averaging 21/game over last four) by default. In the event another player lays claim to a rebound Camby could capture, case will go to arbitration. Maybe soon they'll replace Camby's cousin as the rebound arbiter. Seems a little unfair.

I don't know why, but sometimes I find little anecdotes like this more amusing than actual analysis:

Nate Robinson had seen enough, and he wanted out - away from the chaos, the congestion and the cameras. His locker stall, squeezed between those of Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph, was prime territory for reporters staking out the Knicks' burly big men. The nightly swarm had become intolerable.

Last week, Robinson got his wish, migrating to the other side of the room, in a locker swap with the rookie Wilson Chandler.

That's from the New York Times in an article that goes on to analyze whether the on-court pairing of Randolph and Curry will ever mesh. It's a legitimate question, but I'm more curious in the circumstances surrounding NateRob's locker swap. Did money exchange hands? Or bartering, say, in exchange for immunity from any more rookie hazing? Or was the switch an example of rookie hazing in itself?

I've been in NBA locker rooms after games, and I've been in the often difficult/impossible position of trying to maneuver my way into a scrum of reporters surrounding a star player without overtly invading the space of another's player's adjacent locker. There's etiquette involved: if you're not going to care enough about a player to ask what he thinks about the game, the least you can do is give him room to put on his (free) socks. And while the pint-sized Robinson doesn't take up much physical space, I'm guessing getting stepped on and then ignored was too much for his ego to handle.