James Harden is thrilled to receive this award. (Getty Images)

Oklahoma City Thunder game-changer James Harden is going to be named the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year, and that's entirely reasonable, because of all the players in the league who come off the bench, he was by far the best this season. Sometimes these awards actually work out.

Talk began to fly early Thursday that the Thunder had scheduled a Thursday afternoon news conference to make an undisclosed major announcement, according to multiple outlets, and that pretty much left nothing to the imagination, since basically everyone who watched the NBA this season knew that this award was Harden's. The third-year pro, drafted No. 3 overall out of Arizona State in the 2009 NBA draft, eliminated all mystery Thursday afternoon, taking to Twitter to thank his supporters for their, um, support:

(Screencap via @JHarden13)

Again, this is only surprising if you did not watch basketball this year or are almost entirely unfamiliar with the term "awesome."

Harden had already established himself as one of the league's premiere second-unit contributors with his stellar sophomore turn for a Thunder team that ran all the way to the Western Conference finals in 2011 before falling to the eventual champion Dallas Mavericks. He took a great leap forward in his third NBA season, leading all NBA bench-mobbers in scoring and producing at a staggering level that has led some observers to wonder whether the Thunder's sixth man might actually find himself receiving max-contract offers when he's eligible for free agency after next season. He needn't wonder; if the Thunder know what's good for them, he'll receive one before that.

Amar'e Stoudemire hangs his head. (Getty Images)

Let's start with what we know: The 2011-12 edition of the New York Knicks was the best team the franchise has put on the floor in 12 years. You can argue that a fact like that doesn't say a whole hell of a lot, given the dilapidated decade the Knicks turned in to kick off the 21st century, but that doesn't mean it ain't true.

This year's 36-30 record, .545 winning percentage and 101 defensive rating (which estimates how many points you allow per 100 possessions) were not only better than last year's model, but also better than anything the Knicks have managed since the 2000-01 season, Jeff Van Gundy's last full year of stalking Madison Square Garden's sidelines. They had the league's fifth-most-efficient defense, thanks to Defensive Player of the Year Tyson Chandler, its seventh-best point differential and the NBA's eighth-best expected win total based on Pythagorean winning percentage (basically, a measurement of how well you scored versus how well you defended, intended to show how lucky or unlucky you got in the final analysis).

This team — this often-maddening, at-times thrilling, ceaselessly rambling wreck of a seventh seed — was not half-bad.

The problem, of course, is that "better than before" and "not half-bad" don't equate to championship contention, a fact that has and will continue to depress the many, many Knicks fans still stinging from a second straight first-round exit at the hands of a better team with better stars.

On some level, that's OK; it's understandable that fans want to see their squad compete for championships after suffering through such a disastrous spell and watching the team bring in marquee names expected to do big things. But on another level, it's just not realistic, given the construction of New York's roster, the state of the conference and the assets at the Knicks' disposal going forward. Next year's team might be better than this year's, but Knicks fans heading into the offseason expecting a tectonic shift in the team's complexion and prospects will likely be sorely disappointed.

Way to extract a measure of vengeance, Landry Fields. That'll teach LeBron James to summarily dominate the proceedings, averaging 27.8 points, 6.2 rebounds and 5.6 assists per game and posting a Player Efficiency Rating of 30 (remember, average is 15, so that's, like, real good) like some kind of big-shot while the rest of us nine-to-fiver nickel-and-dimers are unfairly oppressed into quietly scoring seven points per game and turning the ball over 21 percent of the time. It ain't right. Let's slap and smash!

It's like the old adage says: If you can't beat them — and clearly, the New York Knicks couldn't beat the Miami Heat on Wednesday night — then take out your frustrations on their faces. Or was it "then pretend to help them up and then walk away like a super cool guy?" I always have trouble remembering adages, to be honest.

Videos via VengefulxWarlord (duh) and KnicksHighlights16, respectively.

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Jeremy Lin, where he belongs for right now. (Getty Images)The New York Knicks head into a do-or-die Game 5 against the Miami Heat on Wednesday night as double-digit underdogs expected to go home on the business end of a gentleman's sweep. There are plenty of reasons for that — the fact that Miami's been a significantly better team over the course of the season, winning six of seven matchups against the Knicks, seems like a pretty good catch-all — but the one most of us have been focusing on since New York's elimination-delaying Game 4 win on Sunday is the sad state of affairs in the Knicks' backcourt.

After losing Iman Shumpert and Baron Davis to season-ending knee injuries, the Knicks' backcourt looks like this:

• Landry Fields, starter. Coming off a real tough year-and-a-half except for that cute glasses thing, posting a robust 7.8 Player Efficiency Rating through the first four games of this series, going to have to guard Dwyane Wade and LeBron James again, shock/horror.

• Mike Bibby, starter. Three days shy of 34 years old, legally dead on defense for three years, shooting 31.3 percent for the series, yet about to play somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes in an elimination playoff game if Knicks interim coach Mike Woodson gets his way, shock/horror.

• J.R. Smith, first guard off the bench. The utterly context-less man, shooting 5 of 24 from 3-point land in this series and yet somehow the Knicks' No. 2 option offensively for like 35 minutes a game, shock/horror.

• And Toney Douglas, second guard off the bench. The Knicks' former starting point guard, whose all-but total failings have rendered him nearly impossible to play for the last three months, to the point where a version of Mike Bibby about whom "Weekend at Bernie's" jokes have now become standard vernacular is a clear first-team choice ahead of him. Shock/horror.

Given that, you can understand why Knicks fans the world over were hanging and hoping and praying on every report that once and former bolt-from-the-blue Jeremy Lin was ahead of schedule in his comeback from surgery to repair a torn meniscus. The Knicks' Sunday win seemed like it might have opened the door for Lin's return if his recovery proceeded apace — even though that prospect was very, very scary from the get-go — but it didn't. Woodson told the media Tuesday that Lin will not play in this series, even if the Knicks win Wednesday night.

On Wednesday, Lin spoke with members of the media in Miami, including Howard Beck at the New York Times, to give his perspective on why that ahead-of-schedule return stalled out while he was working out on Monday:

"I tried to take off, tried to plant, just go full speed at 100 percent," Lin said Wednesday, as the Knicks prepared for Game 5. "It didn't feel right. It felt pain when I tried to take off."

Lin said team doctors told him, "I need to be able to just trust the knee. And right now there's some tightness and soreness. And I need to get that out obviously before I can be 100 percent."

Yes, he does. And screw anyone who suggests otherwise.

The Denver Nuggets, fresh off a trip to mysynergysports.com. (AP)

The Los Angeles Lakers were mad at a lot of things following Tuesday night's Game 5 loss to the Denver Nuggets — dropping a closeout game on their home floor, giving new life to an opponent angered by a certain center's "arrogance," watching JaVale McGee torch their frontcourt and then chuck away his game ball like it ain't no thang, and having to go home and pack for another trip to Denver. (Although, as ESPN.com's J.A. Adande noted Tuesday night, it's supposed to be nice there, so that's a plus.)

One thing that angered the Lakers probably flew under the radar for the fans in the stands and the viewers at home, though — the fact that one Nuggets assistant reportedly made like "Get 'Em, Girl"-era Cam'ron during a critical late-game stoppage in play.

From Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times:

The Lakers were privately seething after seeing the Nuggets use a laptop computer in their huddle during a 20-second timeout with 19.9 seconds left to play.

The computer apparently belonged to an assistant coach sitting behind the bench with it. NBA rules forbid the use of such devices in the huddle, which won't change the final score but can carry a hefty fine of up to $250,000.

At that stage in the game, Denver was clinging to a 99-96 lead and in the midst of weathering a furious Laker comeback fueled by a stretch of hot shooting by L.A. star Kobe Bryant. Bryant had just missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer, which was rebounded by McGee, who was then fouled, triggering an out-of-bounds play on the near sideline. That's when Denver took the timeout in question.

The $250,000 fine would definitely be hefty, which explains why Nuggets executive vice president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri reportedly "worked to clarify the mater with the NBA [Wednesday] morning," according to Christopher Dempsey of the Denver Post. Ujiri probably could have just chilled out, though; NBA spokesman Tim Frank told Ball Don't Lie on Wednesday afternoon that what the Lakers accuse the Nuggets of doing is "not against the rules."

[Related: Pizza And Beer With Metta World Peace For Game 5]

"It is permissible to use a laptop or tablet (i.e., iPad) for the purposes of accessing, using or presenting statistical and scouting information to players and coaches during games," Frank told BDL in an email Wednesday. "This can include video or photographs of prior games."

Where the "hefty fine of up to $250,000" would come into play here remains unclear.

The Boston Celtics missed an opportunity to close out the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night, dropping an 87-86 road affair that gives Atlanta the chance to knot their first-round series in Boston on Thursday night. Near misses like the one Boston had at Philips Arena tend to stick in a player's craw, especially when the player singlehandedly got his flagging team back into the game and conjured a chance to win it out of thin air, only to see it end in a trap, a turnover and a loss, extending a series that player felt his team already had won.

So, yeah, Rajon Rondo — whom NBA fans know to be a quiet, reserved and occasionally volatile sort as it is — was a little bit salty when he spotted a cameraman filming him after Boston's Tuesday night loss:

While waiting to take the podium for his postgame media session, Rondo noticed a cameraman filming his idle chatter. The point guard pointed at the cameraman (which, if I was the cameraman, would probably have me thinking, "Oh, crap") before walking over to voice his displeasure.

"Listen — how many times I'mma tell you?" Rondo asks. "You are not filming me. I told you to quit filming. Do not film me. I'm not doing an interview right now. I just told you."

The progression is simple — Emotional Dude fresh off a tough loss wants to have a couple of moments with some people close to him before he steps up to the podium and talks about not having his best performance and his team dropping a winnable playoff game; Emotional Dude sees a camera encroaching on those moments; Emotional Dude responds in an emotional fashion; Emotional Dude comes off looking like kind of a jerk, especially after "Inside the NBA" host Ernie Johnson tags the encounter with a terse "Whatever."

If you just looked at the play-by-play description of the final 10 seconds of Tuesday night's Game 5 between the Atlanta Hawks and Boston Celtics at Philips Arena in Atlanta, you'd see something like this:

0:10, ATL 87, BOS 86: Atlanta full timeout
0:10, ATL 87, BOS 86: Avery Bradley enters the game for Ray Allen
0:10, ATL 87, BOS 86: Atlanta 20-second timeout
0:09, ATL 87, BOS 86: Josh Smith bad pass (Rajon Rondo steals)
0:00, ATL 87, BOS 86: End of the 4th Quarter
0:00, ATL 87, BOS 86: End Game

And you would go, "Oh, I guess absolutely nothing happened in the nine seconds between Rondo stealing Smith's pass and the final buzzer, which means the Hawks have staved off elimination and will try to even the series at three games apiece on Thursday night. That seems kind of weird, but I don't intend to question it, since it's right here in front of me in black and white."

But that's where you're wrong, dummy. If you'd seen it, you'd know that multiple things happened in that final 10.9 seconds ... although, now that I think about it, you'd probably be happier not seeing any of it, since it's not exactly a ringing endorsement for the peerless quality of the NBA game. Behold:

OK, well, that was gross. So what actually happened there?

"The first thing I learned was, you can't be nice. You know, the first time I made it to the Finals, we lost the Finals because I was a nice guy. I respected Hakeem Olajuwon too much. Yeah, he had his way with me — he scored 25, I scored 24 — but I was too nice." — Shaquille O'Neal on TNT's "Inside the NBA," Monday night.

A response* by Hakeem Olajuwon, who actually averaged 32.8 points, 11.5 rebounds, 5.5 assists, two blocks and two steals per game in the Houston Rockets' sweep of O'Neal's Orlando Magic, making 56 shots on Shaq in four games:

Hakeem Olajuwon responds. (Getty Images)

* Response may not be real.