Mitch Lawrence of the New York Daily News writes that as the Lakers are trying to get into the top eight in the Western Conference, and thus the playoffs, they may be looking in the direction of Knicks forward Latrell Sprewell as a possible key.

L.A. is trying to find a third scorer to help relieve some of the burden from stars Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, and they have gone as far as holding internal discussions about trading for the Knicks' small forward, even asking Shaq for his input.

Two names mentioned from the Lakers have been Derek Fisher and Samaki Walker, but combined the Lakers are roughly $8M short of arriving at a deal which would be accepted by the league.  The Knicks, however, continue trying to find other teams who might be interested in Sprewell.

"They've got maybe one player I like - Kurt Thomas - because his money matches his talent," said one Western Conference VP, citing the $5 mil Thomas makes this season, and the $5.4 mil for next. "But who wants Spree at his money?"

It is getting into the funny season in the NBA.  Yes, that's right, from today there is exactly one month remaining for teams to tweak their rosters to make those playoff runs.  Will your team make a deal to make your team better?

This time of the year is renowned for its hot air talk, with rumors running rampart and unrealistic deals hitting the papers we read and the sportstalk radio we hear.  So who will be discussed this year?

The Indiana Pacers were involved in the biggest trade of the period last season when they traded Jalen Rose to the Bulls for Ron Artest, Brad Miller and Ron Mercer.  According to Dave Lewandowski of the Indianapolis Star the Pacers again are set to make the headlines this year, but will it only be hot air?

The Pacers are a wild card thanks to the impending free agent status of starters Reggie Miller, Brad Miller and Jermaine O'Neal.  Team President Donnie Walsh is committed to re-signing all three and all signs appear to point to these players liking Indiana, but with the team quickly looming on the luxury tax threshold it will be very hard to achieve without being penalized.

"I'm depending on Donnie to do his magic," co-owner Herb Simon said.

The Pacers could certainly do with cap space to make Walsh?s job a little easier, and according to Lewandowski deals talked about over the upcoming month will have everyone from Austin Croshere and the remainder of his four-year, $39 million contract to the injured Jonathan Bender going to a team for a player in the final year of his contract.  [RealGM Note: Bender signed an extension this summer and this season still remains on his rookie contract.  For this reason he qualifies for the Poison Pill Provision (PPP), a nasty type of Base Year status that makes him very difficult to deal.  Ron Artest of the Pacers also fits under this category.  For more information on PPP please visit Larry Coon?s CBA FAQ (link available on RealGM left menu)]

Gary Payton has already been one name mentioned as a  potential acquisition for the Pacers, a deal which the Pacers would be reluctant to do due to the cost involved.  Payton has thus far been unbothered by the trade talk.

I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing," said Payton. "Trust me. That other stuff, that's not bothering me."

Other players likely to be involved in trade talk is Kelvin Cato of the Rockets, Kenny Anderson of the Supersonics, Brian Grant of the Heat, Marcus Camby of the Nuggets, Robert Horry of the Lakers, Jamal Crawford of the Bulls, and Jason Terry of the Hawks.

Of these players the most likely to be dealt would be Horry, who Lewandowski states has a cap-friendly contract, his on court performance during the Lakers struggles may just make him available.  The other player highly likely to be dealt would be Anderson, whose final year-$9 million contract makes him all that more attractive.  Washington and Minnesota, two teams desperate for point guard help, appear to be the obvious suitors.

With all the recent controversy surrounding the much anticipated matchup between ?The Future? Yao Ming and ?The Present? Shaquille O?Neal, could the excitement already have peaked before the two even face off on Friday?

If you listen to Houston Chronicle write Dale Robertson Yao Ming has hit the wall.

?Yao couldn't shoot. Yao couldn't rebound. Too often, Yao couldn't even stay vertical. He had no touch, no rhythm, no mojo. His right foot had turned into a second left one. Could he have been suffering from an early case of the Shaq shakes? Nah. He just stunk. It happens,? writes Robertson.

His coach Rudy Tomjanovich defended Ming, saying that this is just a bump in the road that every NBA player experiences at one point or another in their careers, especially when they are on the side of youth.

"This is the NBA," said Tomjanovich. "It's tough. You're going to have your ups and downs. You expect it from any young player. Yao has to experience these games."
"Sometimes you're a zero. Sometimes it's just not going to be there. The challenge is to not have it emotionally turn into a negative 10. You find a way to make something good happen. You set a pick; you get a rebound."
Yao?s bad night which these guys are referring to included 11 points, 7 rebounds and 2 assists ? a career night for half of the centers in the league.

But Houstonians have seen the future, and it was raised out East.  It is hard to make a case against Ming already being a dominant force in the NBA, and the scary thing is he is only going to get better.  Ming might not have been the best rookie on the floor last night ? that honor went to super diaper Amare Stoudamire ? and it certainly appears that he is not ready for someone with the mite of O?Neal.

"It seems to me that, physically, I may still be needing a little bit," Yao replied through his interpreter when asked to reflect on his pending joust with O'Neal. "I think I may need a suit of armor for Friday night."

Shaquille O'Neal has already apologised for his mock Chinese dialect on a television show when talking about Chinese center Yao Ming, but is his apology really enough?  If you ask Terry Foster of the Detroit News that answer is a certain no.

'One of my best friends growing up was a Japanese-American from Minnesota named Rosanne. She told me never to refer to her as Oriental because she said it was the same as calling a black person colored,' writes Foster. 'Let's say Yao gets on television and uses a mock black dialect. If he did, there would be an uproar from black people. We'd boo Yao the next time he came to The Palace for a Pistons game.'

And on Shaq's apology? 'Well, Fuzzy Zoeller was just joking when he said he hoped Tiger Woods wouldn't serve fried chicken and collard greens at the Master's champions dinner. '

Jemal Horton of the Indianapolis Star goes one step further and writes that the NBA should fine and/or suspend O'Neal for his comments.

'Racist is the only way to describe O'Neal's alleged joke, which was punctuated by a kung fu move. How could it be anything but racist?'

Tim Brown of the Los Angeles Times reports that Shaquille O?Neal is misunderstood. After receiving criticism for his comments about Yao Ming, O?Neal issued an apology yesterday.

More than six months ago, O?Neal taunted Ming in front of a cable television crew. He looked into the camera and said, "Tell Yao Ming, 'Ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh,' " apparently mocking the Chinese language.

A weekly Asian publication called O?Neal out with the headline "Shaq is a Racist". The column in Asian Week had become a popular subject for radio call-in shows. When O?Neal arrived at Staples Center for Friday?s game against the Cavaliers, he was well aware of the controversy.

"If I offended anybody," O'Neal said, "I apologize. "To say I'm a racist against Asians is crazy," O'Neal said. "It's probably [someone] just trying to start trouble. I said a joke. It was a 70-30 joke. Seventy percent of people thought it was funny, 30 didn't. At times I try to be a comedian. Sometimes I say good jokes, sometimes I say bad jokes. If I hurt anybody's feelings, I apologize."

Perhaps O?Neal himself said it best when he called himself an "idiot prankster".

Many of us dislike our day jobs but we continue each day, striving through just to survive while hundreds of athletes get paid millions of dollars just to shoot a ball through a hoop.  Okay, so there is a little bit more to it than just that, how how tough is it really to be an NBA player?

Marcus Camby cannot help but feel like a prisoner in Denver after being traded from the Knicks in the offseason reports to Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post.

Camby has missed all of the season with a hip ailment which sidlined him in October, and despite performing some highlight-worthy dunks during practices, he insists there will be no return to the court until the lingering pain subsides.

Camby has made it clear that he is not willing to make the Denver situation work for himself or for the team, and as Kiszla writes it is clear the same sales pitch this downtrodden franchise must deliver to skeptical free agents in the upcoming months has failed to make an impression on Camby.

"I'm an East Coast guy," Camby said. "I grew up in Connecticut, went to school in Massachusetts and played the majority of my pro career in New York. Coming out West in itself has been a big adjustment for me. My whole life is on the East Coast. I'm basically out here by myself. No family or nothing."

"Practices here are long, shoot-arounds are extra long," added Camby.

And of course being on the worst team in the Western Conference certainly doesn't help matters.

"It's definitely frustrating," he said Wednesday. "I'm used to being in the playoffs."

Kiszla believes that the Nuggets should trade Camby now, severing their ties with a disgrunted star while getting someone who could help the team's fortunes now.  Options include Michael Olowonkandi from the Clippers, Robert Horry and Samaki Walker from the Lakers, or even Jamal Crawford and Eddie Robinson from the Bulls.

"The whole year and how it went down is frustrating," concluded Camby.

According to Martin McNeal of the Sacramento Bee the defending champions are not an immediate concern for the Kings right now.  While the Lakers try to get back to their winning ways the Kings aim is to pull away from the Phoenix Suns and the Portland Trail Blazers.

The unexpected resurgence of the Suns and the good start of the Trail Blazers has given the Kings a new focus.

?Everyone keeps talking about the Lakers and everything,? said Adelman, ?Forget about (the Lakers) right now. It?s Portland and Phoenix we?ve got to worry about.?

Adelman was not caught off guard by the Trail Blazers and expected them to be part of the Pacific Division?s elite.

"I'm not surprised about Portland," Adelman said of the Trail Blazers, "I didn't know what kind of team Phoenix was going to be.

?You didn't know what Stoudemire was going to be like. You didn't know if Hardaway was going to be healthy. You knew they had Marion and Marbury, but at first when they were there (the Pacific Division's upper echelon), I was wondering if they were going to be able to stay with everybody.?

"But they are. And they are pretty darn good."

Is it really a far-fetched story to say that Shaquille O'Neal will never start another All-Star game as long has he and Yao Ming both remain in the West?

Ming's popularity has taken the world by storm, the 7-5 center from China now taking over the lead as the starting center in this February's All-Star game from Shaq.  Ming thus far has collected a staggering 814,393 votes, 158,649 more than O'Neal, and appears set to start along side teammate Steve Francis in Atlanta.

"I'm happy, and I'm very honored," Yao said. "If I do play in the All-Star Game, I hope it won't be like my first NBA game was."

An even bigger suprise came with Shaq actually supporting Ming's All-Star bid, the NBA's most dominating monster seemingly backing away from his original promise to greet Yao with an elbow to the nose. According to Jonathan Feigan of the Houston Chronicle, Lakers coach Phil Jackson said that if they played Nov. 17, when O'Neal was still coming back, O'Neal would have broken Yao in two.

"It happens to the best of us," O'Neal said in response to Ming's probable All-Star berth. "When I came in, I beat out Patrick Ewing."

"He (Yao) is making history for his people. His people are proud of him. They should be. One billion people -- that's tough to beat."

"I doubt if Shaq really cares," added Rocket Mo Taylor. "He's Shaq. Why should he care about Yao? His talk (about Yao) is just in fun. He doesn't really care. When he opens his mouth, he's having fun. I don't think he's worried. He's secure in himself. I don't think he has animosity toward Yao. He has fun with it. He's won MVP, All-Star Games, (championship) rings. He should be happy for a young guy to be doing something like this."

Ming is set to become the first rookie since Grant Hill in 1995 to start an All-Star game, and will become only the with rookie center to achieve such a feat (joining Ray Felix, Wilt Chamberlain, Walt Bellamy and O'Neal).