Last season, the Charlotte Bobcats made history in their futility, winning only seven of 66 games for a winning percentage of .109, the worst mark in the NBA's long history. On top of that, they weren't even an especially exciting team — they didn't score much, didn't defend with any particular high-risk strategy, and saw irregular flashes from their best young players. While the Bobcats figure to be better in 2012-13 — how could they not be? — that woeful season could haunt them for a while.

Unfortunately, sometimes the NBA forces nostalgia. Every offseason, our friends at NBA.com and Turner Sports put together a highlight reel for every NBA team of the 10 best plays from the season that was. On Wednesday, the NBA's official YouTube page premiered their installment for the Bobcats. It's not the best set of highlights you'll ever see, to put it lightly, and there are few reasons for celebration. At Deadspin, Barry Petchesky provides some helpful context for the plays: only three came from Bobcats wins, and the top play — a game-saving block by rookie Bismack Biyombo — came against the lottery-winning New Orleans Hornets, which means this particular win might have hurt Charlotte in the long term.

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Yet, despite, the overall lack of excitement, only a true cynic couldn't derive any pleasure from this video. Yes, there are much better top 10 clips around the Internet, and a truly great NBA game could feature more than half of these plays in its 48 minutes. But the fact that any of these plays happened at all, let alone from literally the worst team in league history, is still something worth cheering.

In 15 years, these Grizzlies fans will drunkenly recreate this photo (Joe Murphy/ Getty).

On Aug. 14, we noted that prospective Memphis Grizzlies owner and Silicon Valley businessman Robert Pera had seen his bid to join the NBA look less likely after questions concerning his cash flow and business in Iran. While the circumstances of the latter issue were unclear and perhaps an honest mistake, the problems of the former were more substantial. In less than 12 months, Pera had fallen from the ranks of American billionaires and had his company's stock plummet. Given those developments, it seemed unlikely that he'd ever be approved as an NBA owner.

Pera realized those issues, because he's added some important new members to his investment group. Pera hasn't only improved the financial outlook — he's done so in a way that will ensure the Grizzlies will stay in Memphis for the foreseeable future. From Geoff Calkins and Kyle Veazey for The Memphis Commercial Appeal:

Dan Rather and Mark Cuban trade folksy wisdom (Frederick M. Brown/ Getty).

A year ago at this time, when the NBA was still in the midst of a lockout, owners and players haggled over splitting basketball-related income in a way that would allow franchises to turn a profit. Despite not opening up its books or proving losses in any other way, the league eventually got enough of what it wanted that owners could anticipate a much healthier financial future. Never mind that all owners involved were probably going to turn a sizable profit anyway whenever they decided to sell their franchises for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Nevertheless, the lockout ended up being a net positive for the owners. However, they're not done, and will likely try to extract more concessions from the players' union the next time they renegotiate the collective bargaining agreement. If you don't believe that, just listen to Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who came up with a helpful analogy to demonstrate the problem. From a radio interview with Mark Cuban on "The Ben and Skin Show"

Eduardo Najera (LatinContent/ Getty Images)With all the focus media and fans place on stars, it's sometimes hard to remember that a player can have a long, well-paying NBA career based on more workmanlike skills like rebounding, playing defense, and generally acting as the connective tissue between the guys who get a lot more publicity. Over 12 seasons with six teams (plus a second stint with the Dallas Mavericks), forward Eduardo Najera played that role very well and marked himself out as a dependable member of any team, whether as a tough reserve or a valued member of the locker room.

Najera retired on Wednesday, but he did so with a new job already lined up. As announced by Donnie Nelson, owner of the D-League's Texas Legends and Mavericks general manager, Najera will become the head coach and a minority owner of the Legends, as well as hold a front-office position with the Mavs. In doing so, he'll also make NBA history. From HOOPSWORLD:

Jason Kidd and Mark Cuban, in bro-ier times (Nathaniel S. Butler/ Getty).Over two separate stints spanning six full seasons and parts of two more, Jason Kidd played point guard very well for the Dallas Mavericks. While those seasons didn't overlap with his prime — those seasons were spent in Phoenix and New Jersey — Kidd did share Rookie of the Year honors with Grant Hill in 1995 and played a key role in the Mavs' championship two seasons ago. Put simply, he meant a lot to the franchise.

Kidd is gone now, of course, after signing a three-year deal with the New York Knicks. The Mavericks had offered a similar contract, so Kidd effectively chose to play for the team in the city where he resides rather than for the one that's treated him pretty well since he was traded in 2008.

This development did not make Mavericks owner Mark Cuban particularly happy. So much that he now claims that the franchise will not retire Kidd's jersey (either the mid-90s No. 5 or more recent No. 2) due to this perceived backstabbing. From Jon Machota for The Dallas Morning News (via TBJ):

Andray Blatche (Ned Dishman/ Getty)Since the advent of the NBA's amnesty clause, many highly paid players have been waived only to find new teams shortly thereafter. For players like Chauncey Billups (Knicks to Clippers) and Elton Brand (76ers to Mavericks), the problem wasn't that they lacked all use on the basketball court — it was simply that they made too much money given their contributions. Precious few of the amnestied players have failed to find new work at all, because it's not as if their large contracts were handed out with no on-court basis at all.

However, some players present different problems altogether. Consider, for instance, former Washington Wizards forward Andray Blatche, whose remaining three years and $23 million were wiped from the franchise's salary cap figures in mid-July. Over his seven years in DC, Blatche cultivated a reputation as a troublemaker and malcontent. So, despite his considerable abilities and the near-constant need for talented big men around the NBA, Blatche has earned very little interest on the open market.

Things look so dire, in fact, that Blatche is openly proclaiming that he's willing to play in the D-League. From Donna Ditota for The Syracuse Post Standard (via EOB):

Hillary Clinton asks Jeremy Lin how tall he is (Kevin Mazur/ WireImage).

When the New York Knicks parted ways with Jeremy LIn in July, many critics of the decision focused not just on Lin's potential on-court impact, but what he could mean financially for the franchise and its parent company MSG. They had some evidence for the case, too. Just a few days after Lin agreed to terms with the Houston Rockets, MSG stock fell 8.5 percent in only two weeks. After a 31 percent jump following Linsanity, that dip seemed telling.

It turns out that we were mostly wrong, because on Monday MSG stock hit an all-time high. From Barry Petchesky at Deadspin:

A Celtics fan shows off his ticket (Darren McCollester/ Getty).

As of now, there are two primary legal ways to get a ticket to an NBA game: buying directly from the team box office and purchasing on a secondary market site such as StubHub. (Other options exist, like dealing with scalpers or pestering a friend until he gives you a spare, but let's forget those for now.) While the second option is not as official as the first, it can also result in some bargains and act as a saving grace for sold-out shows. It's an effective system, in part because it doesn't always have to play by league-mandated rules.

It's been so successful in fact, that the NBA has its own plans to start an online ticket marketplace. As Darren Rovell reports at ESPN.com, the league has partnered with Ticketmaster to create a new website (via PBT):