Rick Adelman points to a more veteran-y, serene future (Getty Images)

Usually, when an NBA head coach goes on record to borderline plead his team's front office to give him some veteran help, we dismiss the sideline stalker. Especially if he's running a rebuilding club, full of players in their early 20s; why muddle the roster with players that are going to be past their primes by the time those youngsters hit their respective primes? Especially when that means paying veteran players veteran monies that push a team into luxury tax mode once the youngsters outgrow their rookie contracts, and start making their own "veteran monies."

With Minnesota's Rick Adelman, though, we can understand. The Timberwolves coach didn't exactly beg for veteran help in his last media availability session of the season on Wednesday, but he wouldn't mind a roster upgrade. And, for once, we think it pretty sound to bring some big brains and graying hairs to work alongside Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio and Derrick Williams; even if the oldest (Love) among them was only alive for the last five months of the Reagan Administration. Here's Adelman, via the Pioneer-Press:

"We can't wait," Adelman, the Wolves' first-year coach, said Tuesday. "You hope your young people get better, but that's not a given. Other people you can get, in free agency or trades, are givens. We have to be aggressive in all those areas."

Tyreke Evans waits out the lockout season (Getty Images)

He hasn't quite sunk to the depths of his injury-addled second year with the Sacramento Kings, but former Rookie of the Year Tyreke Evans hasn't been making much noise in Sacto of late. Once lauded for his all-around offensive play, the guard's decision-making and seemingly stagnant growth rate have frustrated Kings fans to no end; even if they don't (and should not) blame the guard for the team's struggles. And though she doesn't quote an anonymous source in her report, Sacramento Bee columnist Ailene Voisin confirmed on Sunday that the Kings "will entertain trade offers" for the guard this summer, as he enters the final guaranteed year of his rookie contract in 2012-13.

That's a sad, almost unprecedented scene. Rare is the player on a relatively cheap-o (Evans is set to make $5.25 million next year, nearly the league's average salary) rookie deal that is tossed around on the trading block.

And yet, though Evans is clearly to blame for not diversifying his game and building on an impressive rookie year that saw him rank among Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James as the only rookies to average over 20 points, five rebounds and five assists, you can blame environment as much as you can blame the individual. Evans, whose iffy on-court habits were condoned in a major way by former coach Paul Westphal, wasn't exactly brought up the right way.

The former Ron Artest ponders the life ahead of him (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: BuzzFeed. Congrats to Metta World Peace on topping the century mark in suspended games.
PF: Hardwood Paroxysm. Curtis Harris on the snubbed career of George McGinnis.
SF: ESPN New York. Knick forward Steve Novak is about to set a major single-season record.
SG: The Classical. David Roth on the late Dwayne Schintzius.
PG: Sports Illustrated. Not long; please read. Lee Jenkins on LeBron James.

Billy Hunter at the November, 2011 press conference announcing the end of the lockout (Getty Images)

In the strongest condemnation yet amongst the many charges of nepotism and misplaced funds prevalent in Billy Hunter's tenure as National Basketball Players Association executive director, Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski and Rand Getlin are reporting that Hunter's dubious business tactics are going well beyond giving cushy gigs to family members. Documents reveal that not only has Hunter encouraged the players he's charged with representing to entrust millions in a disgraced bank that his son served on the board of directors with at the height of the banking crisis, but that his compensation as executive director takes up nearly half of the NBPA's budget.

For perspective, this is 2 1/2 times what the executive director of the NFLPA (DeMaurice Smith) makes, and 4 1/2 times what Hunter's counterpart at Major League Baseball earns. Toss in a clear and well-documented strain of nepotism, and you have a litany of well-sourced charges that should very well be leading to Hunter's dismissal as executive director. Assuming the players know what they're doing, of course, which is always up for debate. Here's Wojnarowski's and Getlin's take:

As NBA players lost $400 million in salary during last summer's lockout — and $3 billion over the course of the new 10-year collective bargaining agreement — Billy Hunter, his family and the entities that employed them made approximately $3,430,953 from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, according to labor filings.

It's very much possible that in one split-second decision, Kevin Garnett gave us more enlightening entertainment in the clip posted above (via The Basketball Jones) than the injured and resting Boston Celtics and Miami Heat gave us in the entirety of Tuesday night's Boston win.

If you missed the game, the AP headline should be more than enough detail: "Pavlovic rallies Celtics." That's Sasha Pavlovic, somehow still in the NBA, leading the league's most storied franchise to a win over a Miami Heat team that might be the favorites for the NBA title in this upcoming postseason.

No Ray Allen, no LeBron James. No Rajon Rondo, no Dwyane Wade. No Chris Bosh, and no Kevin Garnett. Well, save for a bit of pregame creepy from KG, in what was probably the closest he's ever come to a pregame interview in his NBA career.

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Could Phil Jackson be returning to New York? (Getty Images)

Buried at the bottom of a seemingly random notes column penned by the respected NBA columnist that covers a team that isn't making the playoffs this year is a note about the NBA's most famous potential coach possibly joining the team in the league's biggest market. Something to dismiss? That's your call, but after working your way through the Racine Journal-Times Gary Woelfel's tidbits about Milwaukee Bucks guard Beno Udrih contract option and Carlos Delfino's groin injury, you get to read this bit about former Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson possibly returning to the team that drafted him in 1966:

If the New York Knicks don't advance beyond the first round of the playoffs, I'm hearing they'll make a major — repeat, major — push to lure legendary coach Phil Jackson out of retirement.

With money being no object, the scuttlebutt is the Knicks brass may offer the "Zen Master" a four-year, $50 million deal.

Michael Jordan talks to Larry Brown with a hidden mic under his cap (Getty Images)

With their respective playoff seedings all but assured, the Orlando Magic and New York Knicks are likely to rest as many starters as possible on Wednesday and Thursday night, as they take on the Charlotte Bobcats. And, because the Bobcats are the Bobcats, it probably won't matter. Dwight Howard might be on the road to recovery, the Knicks might still be undergoing their hundredth rotation permutation of the shortened season, and yet they'll both probably take down a miserable Bobcats team that is about to set an NBA record for the worst winning percentage in a regular season.

And on the eve of those potentially record-setting losses, former Bobcats coach Larry Brown took to the airwaves to discuss the "spies" that he felt team owner and one-time (and possibly current) personnel chief Michael Jordan employed around the only coach to lead the Bobcats to the playoffs. Appearing on "The Dan Patrick Show" on Wednesday, the newly hired Southern Methodist University coach relayed that Jordan works "around people who don't have a clue," and that the fellow University of North Carolina product "had people around me that made me sick."

[ Video: Video: Do the Miami Heat have the talent to win the NBA title? ]

This dovetails nicely with some of the rumors that have surfaced around Jordan's five-year tenure as (initially) team personnel el jefe, and eventual owner. Charles Barkley was the first to complain about the yes men that MJ surrounded himself with in Charlotte, and then former coach Sam Vincent discussed the six-time champion's apparent dodgy work ethic in comments he later added several caveats to. Brown's accusations, with charges of "spies" employed just to keep an eye on the coach, are by far the weightiest. But does LB have a point? Or is he just frustrated as usual at yet another NBA coaching gig gone pear-shaped?

Mike Miller, like the rest of the NBA, digs another one out (Getty Images)

In about a day and a half, the NBA's 2011-12 regular season ends, and for a lot of us it doesn't come a moment too soon. The lockout made it so that the "2011" part of the season's tag comes off as somewhat laughable, the league didn't begin play until December 25th, and the greedy and cynical (like we wouldn't notice, NBA?) lumping of 66 games in a space where 50 or so games should have gone has resulted in a forgettable, frustrating year. Once this weekend hits, though, and 14 teams disappear? And teams get actual practice time, and proper space off between games? Things should perk up. Right?

We're hoping so. Someone like Miami's Mike Miller is hoping so. Miller, who has had a terrible go of things health-wise since signing with the Heat during the summer of 2010, was recently the subject of a Miami Herald piece that pointed to his late-season return from injury, lauding his "versatility," "increased playing time," and the hope that Miller "might finally be close to becoming that guy." "That guy," apparently, being someone who puts the Heat over the top, as they attempt to win the team's first title with LeBron James in charge.

The problem is that, even with the relative health and increased playing time, Miller has been pretty terrible in the month of April — shooting 32 percent and registering nearly as many turnovers as assists as he continues to try and act like a mini-LeBron of sorts. Miller is shooting 39 percent from long range during the season's final month (19-48), but even that solid mark is a step down from his season-long pace of 45 percent from behind the arc. Even as a rebirth, Miller's return is as frustrating as yesterday is. And on Tuesday, Yahoo! Sports' Marc J. Spears and Greg Anthony wondered aloud if the Heat had enough to pull out a title. Watch the video: