Phil Jackson consults Andrew Bynum in 2011 (Getty Images)

In his seventh NBA season, Andrew Bynum has played in 53 of his team's 58 games, quite the achievement for someone that has missed 160 of his team's 492 total games entering this year. He's also playing over 35 minutes a contest, after averaging 10 fewer minutes a game for the first six years. Bynum is dropping about 18 points and 12 rebounds per game, and he was voted to the Western Conference All-Star team as a deserved starter.

He's also been benched, just as deservedly, by coach Mike Brown for taking a ridiculous 3-point shot in a game against the Warriors. He's made some smirking references to Brown's coaching style, while sitting out some huddles, and more haughty types like yours truly have taken him to task for his immaturity. The only pro coach that Bynum has had the pleasure to have known before Brown, the recently retired Phil Jackson, went the exact opposite direction recently, taking us to task for asking Bynum to do too much, too soon. In Jackson's own inimitable style, as emailed to the Los Angeles Times:

"Bynum is not quite mature, but everyone should relax and watch him grow up," Jackson said via email. "This year has been a big step for him offensively…nice to see…and when he takes up the mantle as defensive captain the Lakers can get back in the hunt."

Michael Jordan hires Sam Vincent, in 2007 (Getty Images)

It was more than a little startling to hear Sam Vincent go so explicitly on record about the work habits of Charlotte Bobcat owner Michael Jordan. Sure, we've mined this territory since the outset of Jordan's tenure as an owner; he surrounds himself with yes men, and he tends to give short shrift to the work behind his personnel choices. But not only was Vincent Jordan's former teammate on the Chicago Bulls, he was one of MJ's biggest hires (and, eventually, fires) as Bobcat boss. And it's rare to hear an ex-employee, still probably trying to acquire the same job with a different team, speak so candidly.

Vincent didn't hold back, though, in his appraisal of Jordan. From the Washington Post:

"The work he put in to be a great player and the work you put in to be a great executive, those are different things," said Sam Vincent, whom Jordan hired as his head coach in 2007 less than a year after he became minority owner. "That additional time you spend on jump shots, running, dunking, I don't know if he puts in that same amount of time as an executive or if he even cares to."

Zach Randolph, post-minor accident (Getty Images)

On Monday, Memphis Grizzlies forward Zach Randolph was rear-ended while exiting an off ramp in downtown Memphis. Randolph, who was on his way to morning shootaround, was hit by the driver of a 2000 Honda CRV; and the Honda driver in question was cited for "Failure To Maintain a Safe Lookout." That is to say, "don't tailgate, Guy Who Is Probably Trying To See if Zach Randolph Is In That Car." Zach was driving a 2011 Dodge Charger Challenger at the time.

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For the 2011 model year, Dodge redesigned its Charger Challenger model, creating a more streamlined version of its longtime go-to feature sedan. Around the same time, Randolph redesigned his game, working quickly out of the post or in the triple-threat position on the baseline, and utilizing his strengths in a manner that actually aided in a winning cause. Just as much power, but streamlined in a way that Zach's typical double-double efforts didn't come at the expense of his team.

Stan Van Gundy and Shaquille O'Neal in (un?) happier times (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: Palm Beach Post. Ethan Skolnick absolutely destroys Shaq's selective memory with, y'know, facts.
PF: HoopsAnalyst. Why Stan Van Gundy might be better off being let go right now.
SF: SB Nation. Jarrett Jack won't be suiting up for the New Orleans Hornets soon.
SG: Real GM. 'The Long Term Future of the Thunder.'
PG: This Is the Sports. Dwight Howard is denying ever wanting a ham sandwich, guys.

Hasheem Thabeet readies himself for battle (Getty Images)

During the offseason, veteran big man Kurt Thomas signed with the Portland Trail Blazers to offer the same sort of fantastic defense and steady locker room guidance that he's given eight other teams during his 16-year NBA career. Once written off as a too-early victim of crippling and potentially career-ending leg injuries after just his third NBA season, Thomas remains a steady contributor at age 39, with his talents somewhat wasted on a Trail Blazers team that is attempting to rebuild (while still working at .500, during that rebuilding process). As a mentor, during that rebuilding process, Thomas is asked to lord over former lottery pick Hasheem Thabeet, now struggling on his third team. And, as Hoopsworld's Bill Ingram pointed out the other day, Thomas isn't exactly enthused with Thabeet's advancement:

(Courtesy twitter.com/TheRocketGuy)

Doug Collins tries to take it easy on Lou Williams and Jrue Holiday (Getty Images)

If you were around for his stints in Chicago, Detroit and Washington, you know the storyline by now. Doug Collins is a brilliant basketball coach who tends to wear on his players after a while. In Chicago, it took three years before he was able to exhale his way to a TBS/TNT gig. He stayed two and a half years in Detroit before things went sour, and Collins went to NBC. In Washington, it took two full seasons. And now, just 138 games into his tenure with the Philadelphia 76ers, could Collins be losing his grip on the team he appeared to be expertly piloting earlier in this season?

Perhaps that's what a lockout, and a ramped-up schedule, does to the timeline. On Friday, former 76ers beat writer Kate Fagan wrote that "at times" the Sixers have "reached the point of tuning [Collins] out," and later that afternoon Collins lambasted Fagan as "someone who has not been around our team all season long" before calling her piece "totally untrue." Fair or foul, the 76ers went on to lose Saturday to a reeling Orlando Magic squad, and were blown out by 24 points on Sunday by a Boston Celtics team that it is in desperate competition with for the Atlantic Division lead. And, by extension of a division win, a chance to face a Miami Heat team in the first round that both squads match up well against. Even before that loss, Collins could only lament the relative sensitivity of his players. As quoted by SB Nation's Gethin Coolbaugh:

"The one thing about players today is that they're very sensitive, and very fragile," Collins said before his team's game against the Boston Celtics on Easter Sunday. "They didn't grow up with tough coaches. You know, I had my ass kicked since I was six. It's a different time, and so I treat this team very much with kid gloves. I really do, and I'm still looked at as an ogre."

Antoine Walker in his last week with the Idaho Stampede (Getty Images)

There was a time when the Boston Celtics were as obscure, and as inconsequential, as any other NBA team. Though the current Celtics are just sixth in the Eastern Conference as of Monday, the team still seems to play on national TV every other day, and are the subject of great concern when things go terribly wrong, or exhilaratingly right. That wasn't always the case, though. And during Antoine Walker's first three NBA seasons, well, the dude might as well have been playing for the Grizzlies, or Warriors. Before the advent of League Pass, Antoine Walker was someone you had to see to believe. And by the time we got League Pass, nobody seemed ready to believe. Not with that shot selection.

Walker retired on Saturday, calling it quits following his D-League Idaho Stampede's win over the Bakersfield Jam. It was Walker's second stint with the team, and both versions saw the former NBA All-Star look decidedly out of shape. Nobody should have expected the 35-year-old to keep up with players a decade younger than him, but this turn was supposed to be rehabilitation of sorts. A run created to show that Walker's guile and smarts could aid one of the 30 NBA teams that happily employ players in their mid 30s because of their combination of production and leadership.

Instead, Walker showed up to Idaho completely out of shape. Sports Illustrated's Chris Ballard detailed his fast food and sugar-cereal strewn apartment in his must-read feature on Walker's hoped-for NBA return, and Antoine's play reflected the unholy marriage of his shape and NBA stylings. He was still the same old Antoine, shooting endless 3-pointers because there were no 4-pointers to take, well over four per game despite playing only 25 minutes a contest and a terrible 20 percent mark from long range. It was every Antoine Walker stereotype, come true.

Bob Knight, ready to shake down your Uncle for forty bucks (Getty Images)

The Indianapolis Star was nice enough to Bob Knight to describe his performance at Carmel, Indiana's Center For the Performing Arts as a "speech," but that's about as misleading as performance reviews come. This was an event. Bob Knight is on tour, charging (as far as we can tell) in upwards of $40 a show to have you dabbing at your eyes with his latest telling of the Landon Turner story, in front of a rapt audience that no doubt wishes things were way, way different.

Knight wishes college basketball was different, and we don't blame him. The product, since young athletes determined they could succeed in other collectives while being paid for their work, has suffered in recent years. Knight, and no doubt his audience, is a bit ticked that NBA-level basketball players won't stick around the NCAA for a few years to ramp up their college credits, and he's decided to call players that play NCAA ball for one year before moving onto the NBA "a disgrace." That's right, he likes it better when these guys only stick around long enough to make money for their colleges, CBS and various auto insurance companies, and not themselves and their families. As quoted by the Star:

"I think it's a disgrace," Knight said of players who attend college for one year to fulfill the NBA's requirement to be drafted. "If I was an NBA general manager, I would never want to take a kid 18, 19 years old, a year out of college. I'd wait until someone else worked two or three years with him to adjust him to the NBA and I'd trade a draft pick."