Same-sex marriage is legal in nine of the 50 United States and recognized in two more; civil unions are legal in eight states. None of them is Colorado. The Centennial State does acknowledge domestic partnerships in a limited framework, but not the right of same-sex partners to fully, officially and legally participate in married life.

Colorado is where Kenneth Faried plies his trade as a double-double machine for the 26-18 Denver Nuggets, and as you can see in the video above — produced by One Colorado, an advocacy organization that works to achieve and protect equality and opportunity for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Colorado residents and their families — the state's present position on civil union strikes the 23-year-old power forward as kind of odd. See, he's long since made his peace with the notion of the LGBT community having the same rights as heterosexuals because he's come of age in a loving environment with two mothers. It's clearly worked out pretty well for him; he's not sure why other folks mind it so much.

How a true gentleman travels. (Photo via @ChrisVito)

Looking good, Spencer Hawes. It's nice to see that you're not bored with (what appears to have been one of) your Christmas gifts after a month of playing with it, although I'm not entirely sure the Philadelphia 76ers love the precedent you're setting of bringing your toys to work. If they let you do it, then soon Nick Young's going to want to bring all his G.I. Joes in, and that's a recipe for disaster. You can't pay attention in Coach Collins' film session if everyone's arguing over who gets to be Snake Eyes and who gets to be Storm Shadow.

[Related: Fan gets $75K, bear hug from LeBron James after hitting half-court shot]

The still shot's obviously goofy and great, but I wish we could see more of Hawes in motion — there's a brief (unfortunately not-playing-nice-with-our-publishing-system) clip of him exiting the practice gym, and he looks like he's handling it pretty well, so I'd love to see him tooling around a bit more. The better he gets at it, the more likely he is to spread the green-transportation gospel to his teammates; we've already know he's gone out on a Segway tour with Evan Turner, and we already know the Sixers' front office is looking for every possible way to reduce the stress on Andrew Bynum's haunted legs. Just a bit more Hawes evangelizing and Philly'll be rolling around like Team USA in Barcelona. Well, a version of Team USA that is eight games under .500 and has lost eight of its last 10, but still.

Jamal Crawford prepares to do something evil to Kyle Singler. (Allen Einstein/NBA/Getty Images)

As my colleague Eric Freeman noted Thursday night in discussing the announcement of the Eastern and Western Conference All-Star reserves, TNT analyst Charles Barkley argued hard for the inclusion of Los Angeles Clippers guard Jamal Crawford on the West squad, due in large part to the punch he's provided off the bench as the second-leading scorer on the team with the NBA's third-best record. His Clipper teammates, while admittedly biased, echoed Barkley's sentiment, noting the important role he plays in offering instant offense to bring L.A. back when the team's flagging or extend leads when it's pushed ahead.

Reasonable people can disagree over whether those arguments make sense and which Western selection, if any, was less deserving than the 32-year-old combo guard, but they ignore the primary reason to be bummed Crawford isn't an All-Star — we'd get to see him bust out his sick handle and killer crossover in prime-time against the best in the world in a game where nobody plays defense anyway and highlights are mandatory. It's a pretty perfect setting for his skill set, which, despite Crawford's insistence that he's playing the same as he always has, still has dropped jaws when showcased multiple times this season.

His off-the-bounce dance has made him a major weapon for Vinny Del Negro's team this season, and it's also inspired his teammates to come up with new nicknames that describe his play, according to Ben Bolch at the Los Angeles Times:

The move has spawned the Twitter handle @JCrossover and a legion of nicknames from his teammates. Chauncey Billups calls Crawford "The Mechanic" because he's always fixing people up with his ability to create space for jumpers or drives toward the basket. Grant Hill dubs his array of moves "The Barbecue Pit" because Crawford is constantly cooking his defender.

Long before DeMar DeRozan hit a high-arcing buzzer-beater to push the Toronto Raptors past the Orlando Magic to a 97-95 road win, things got pretty physical in Central Florida, especially between Magic big man Glen Davis and Raptors even bigger man Aaron Gray.

With Toronto leading 21-20 just before the end of the first quarter, the two frontcourt players tangled at the free-throw line as Davis tried to get into position to set a screen. A frustrated Davis tossed up his hands and looked toward the officials for some relief, but got none. After setting a high screen for E'Twaun Moore, Davis popped to the elbow, received a pass and drove to the basket, but was whistled for traveling. He kept heading to the rim to get a shot up, though, and Gray stayed with him, bodying up "Big Baby" even after the play had been blown dead.

Baby didn't like that, and he wasn't going to back down. Gray didn't like that Baby didn't like that, and he wasn't going to back down either. The result:

Very close talking. (Screencap via r/nba)

So, this is better than backing down, huh? OK, then. Cool, I guess?

Even Paul Pierce isn't entirely sure how he does it. (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

A look around the league and the Web that covers it. It's also important to note that the rotation order and starting nods aren't always listed in order of importance. That's for you, dear reader, to figure out.

C: The Classical. As a New York Knicks fan, I kind of — OK, not "kind of" — hate Paul Pierce. He's proven ruinous and murderous to my favorite team's fortunes more times than I care to remember. But this "Why We Watch" piece by Red's Army chieftain John Karalis, describing the wizardry, alchemy and mystery of how No. 34 continues to beguile defenses throughout the NBA — including, I suspect, the Knicks' defense tonight — spoke to me. I hate what it said, which is about as pure a recognition of real as I can muster.

PF: BuzzFeed Sports. Our dude Jason Concepcion — a.k.a. @netw3rk — wrote 2,000 words of Los Angeles Lakers fan-fiction pegged to the notion that Mike D'Antoni is a (maybe not-so) hard-boiled detective. It is not suitable for work, but it is after work hours. Have fun, friends.

SF: TrueHoop. There are plenty of off-court/front-office/outside-narrative arguments for why the Los Angeles Lakers stink right now. Beckley Mason offers one legitimate basketball reason — Steve Nash kind of can't guard anybody right now.

NBA guys hug weird. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

When the New York Knicks visit the TD Garden to take on the Boston Celtics in a nationally televised game on Thursday night, it'll be the two Atlantic Division foes' first meeting since the Jan. 7 contest in Manhattan that saw stars Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Garnett engage in a heated and highly publicized physical and verbal battle. The ongoing trash talk, allegedly initiated by the Celtics big man, got the New York forward off his game, resulting in a poor Anthony finish that helped Boston score a road win and led to scuffles both on the court and off it. Speculation about what insult(s) raised Anthony's ire has raged for two weeks, and with the teams set to renew tensions in Boston tonight, it seems unlikely that anything else will be the primary topic of conversation in the hours before game time.

After learning that they'd each won starting frontcourt spots for the Eastern Conference All-Star team last week, Garnett said he believed he and Melo "are fine" and didn't "anticipate any friction" moving forward. Anthony, for his part, echoed similar sentiments this week, according to ESPN New York's Ian Begley:

"It's no bad blood, no grudges between us (or) anything like that," Anthony said after practice on Wednesday. "I don't hold no grudges or have any bad blood towards the guy." [...]

Anthony doesn't anticipate any carryover from his confrontation with Garnett.

"On my end, there's nothing left over," he said on Tuesday.

Of course, whether or not the individuals involved in the initial imbroglio harbor any residual ill will, Anthony still must face the partisan TD Garden crowd, which is sure to be champing at the bit to lob cereal-based gooves at him and, while not especially vicious, has a reputation for being a tough NBA crowd, as Tim Rohan of The New York Times writes:

Come at me, bro. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

Just about everything's been going the Brooklyn Nets' way of late — they've won nine of their last 10, they're 12-2 since firing Avery Johnson, they've made multiple improvements on both sides of the ball under P.J. Carlesimo and they've drawn to within a half-game of the New York Knicks for first place in the Atlantic Division. Brook Lopez, Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Kris Humphries ... it seems like every player in black and white's got an extra spring in his step and some extra snap on his jumper.

Everyone except Jerry Stackhouse, that is. In 17 appearances under Johnson, the 38-year-old veteran had been a surprisingly effective option off the Brooklyn bench, scoring 6.4 points in 17 minutes per game and hitting an above-league-average 36.1 percent of his 3-pointers, including a 43.9 percent (18 for 41) mark on corner 3-pointers. Since Carlesimo's Dec. 28 takeover, though, Stackhouse has been bumped down the depth chart, making nine appearances and averaging just 10 minutes per contest, and he hasn't given Brooklyn much, shooting just 19.2 percent from the floor, 14.3 percent from 3 and missing nine of his 10 corner tries.

As the team has risen, Stack's stock has fallen, and when some Nets fans let him know as much on Twitter on Wednesday, the 18th-year pro decided to fire back. From Nets Daily:

Delonte West could soon be coming to a D-League city near you. (Glenn James/NBA/Getty Images)

Coming into this season, Delonte West was expected to play a major role in a rebuilt Dallas Mavericks backcourt that featured new starters at both guard positions. Things went sour just before the start of the campaign, though, with Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle suspending West "indefinitely" after a preseason outburst, reinstating him the next day after hashing things out, only to put him back on ice eight days later for "conduct detrimental to the team." The second shelving stuck, as the Mavs waived West four days later to open up a roster spot for, of all people, center Eddy Curry. (That marriage didn't last too long.)

We haven't heard much from West since; since Halloween, when he laid out his resume for prospective NBA suitors, West has tweeted just once — to share a bulletin about Carlisle threatening other Mavs with suspensions, a sort of "I'm just going to leave this right here" tweet without any added commentary. The quiet on the West-ern front (oof) broke this week, though, with the Memphis Grizzlies reportedly considering a 10-day contract offer for West to fill out their roster following Tuesday's multiplayer deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers. On Wednesday night, ESPN.com's Marc Stein reported that the combo guard's hedging his bets a bit by entering the player pool for the D-League in the hopes, it seems, of getting back to the league by mending some Lone Star fences:

[...] if the Grizzlies pass, West would be eligible to join the team at the front of the D-League waiver line, which sources say is the Donnie Nelson-owned Texas Legends, Frisco-based affiliate of the Mavericks.

Sources say that West hopes to play his way back into the league just like Mike James did earlier this month, earning a call-up from the Mavericks after a brief but successful stint in Frisco. James is nearing the end of his second 10-day contract with the Mavs and, according sources, is a strong possibility to be signed for the rest of the season next week.

A source close to West told Jeff "Skin" Wade of the Ben and Skin Show on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM that the guard prefers a potential situation with the Legends to the Grizzlies scenario in hopes that a good showing with the D-League team could put him back into favor with the Mavs, who released him before the regular season began.