"Bull horns: A few weeks after admitting he missed his mullet, Andres Nocioni had his hair cut even shorter. "I look younger," he said while checking out the new close-cropped look in a mirror."

This is good news. Now he can look sharp and spiffy for his press conference for his new team when he gets traded this week! :-)

================================

In other worthless news...Vinny spews him "professionalism" garbage again.

"I'm a big character guy. When everything is going well, everybody is happy. When they're going bad, you need to see who will stick with you, show some professionalism and continue to work."

Here's something interesting—Coach Vinny Del Negro has a new "grading system" for effort, which he wrote up on the board before tonight's game. Players were each given a number grade for how much effort they put into the last game against Cleveland, and that, according to Del Negro, is to help bring attention to what certain guys can work on, to make them aware of what he expects from them. Personally, I'd just have a conversation with a guy if he wasn't giving 100%, but I'm also not being paid to head coach an NBA team.

========================================

I REALLY hope this isn't true. It's from Poopsworld, so who knows. But if this is true, then Vinny needed to be gone by yesterday!

Drew Gooden said he planned to play Tuesday night against Sacramento after an MRI performed on his sprained right ankle Monday showed no further damage. Gooden participated in part of Monday's practice and will test his ankle again at Tuesday's shootaround.

Gooden has missed eight games with his injury.

Also, Kirk Hinrich said he plans to begin practicing later this week as he continues to recover from right thumb surgery. Hinrich, who tore a ligament in his thumb on Nov. 7, has begun shooting and dribbling on his own.

Heading into Wednesday's action, Gordon was tied for third in 3-pointers made with 77, trailing Orlando's Rashard Lewis (90) and Atlanta's Mike Bibby (79).

Of the top 10 players in 3-pointers made per game, only San Antonio's Roger Mason Jr. (.477) and Bibby (.441) have a higher percentage than Gordon's .435.

Asked if he'd be disappointed not to be invited this year, Gordon said, "No, it's not a big deal to me. But it is something that would be nice to be a part of. I've never been in a contest like that before. It would definitely be fun."

Kings' center Brad Miller admitted to the Sacramento Bee recently that he has a difficult time dealing with losing.

"I hate losing, hate it," said Miller. "I'm a real competitive person, and I get real grouchy and hard to be around.

==================================
Brian Windhorst of the Cleveland Plain Dealer has reported that the Clippers are expected to hold onto their stable of big men this season.

Windhorst claims that word around the NBA is that Los Angeles won't trade Zach Randolph, Marcus Camby or Chris Kaman.
==================================
So that pretty much counts both of them out.

This season is getting worse and worse. Paxson better have a nice lil trick up his sleeve.

Gotta love the Chicago media and the Bulls organization. Ben breaks Scottie's record, surely it's posted on the Bulls web site right...uhhh no. Surely the beat writers had a nice lil story about it...negative. Surely our top-notch broadcast team made special mention of it...not so fast.

A two lil measly paragraphs in KC's lil blog was all it got. Nothing from Hanley, nothing from Jackson, one sentence from McGraw.

Ben really is the Rodney Dangerfield of the city of Chicago, let alone this team. Who knows, maybe the ATL loss de-emphasized the feat...in any event, I have a sinking feeling in my gut that if Kirk would've broken the record (which the papers started picking up on the story last year when it was noticed that he was close), there would've been a parade at Grant Park.

I was just watching CSN SportsNite and they had a short segment of someone (I believe it was Sam) talking to Paxson. Possible changes could be coming. The question posed was "so are you possibly tinkering with some things?"

His answer was..."We're trying right now...we're having a lot of conversations...we're trying to find some things that fit."

Short and sweet but take that for what it's worth. He really didn't reveal too much past that. But this is pretty big for him to come out and say this because he usually says nothing.

CSN doesn't really post all of their audio or video on their site, so I doubt that it's there, but I posted their main page link only because this isn't sourced yet. Maybe someone can find something.

[Update: KC & the other beat writers now have the story covered. I updated the link with KC's story from the Trib.]

A person with knowledge of the Suns-Bobcats trade said the deal was accomplished in time to allow both players to be trade-eligible by the deadline. NBA rules say traded players cannot be moved again for 60 days. The deal was done Dec. 10, which means they can be traded again Feb. 9.

Another source has said the Bobcats have maintained interest in Eddy Curry, who has yet to play this season because of a bone bruise in his left knee. The Knicks - who are owned by Cablevision, which also owns Newsday - could flip Curry for Diaw, who are close in salary. Diaw's deal goes a year longer than Curry's, but it would save the Knicks $2.2 million in cap space for 2010.

=====================================

This makes a little more sense. Though it would still be somewhat of a head-scratcher, especially with Curry not having played at all this year...even still, it would make sense for both teams.