Derrick Rose works out during Chicago's playoff series against the Heat (Getty Images)

It’s of little consolation to Chicago Bulls fans, a day ahead of the one-month anniversary of the team’s final game of the season, but for the first time in quite a long time Derrick Rose seems to be recovering from his ACL tear at an expected rate. The injury, which took place during the first game of the first round of the 2012 playoffs, cost Rose the entire 2012-13 season amid much consternation about the motives behind him sitting out.

According to Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau, though, Rose is right where he’s supposed to be in terms of rehab. Even if the Bulls aren’t where they’d hoped to be – playing for an NBA title in the second week of June. From ESPN Chicago’s Jon Greenberg:

"I worked him out about a week ago," Thibodeau said in a phone conversation Thursday. "It was great."

[…]

"Watching the way he's moving now, there's a confidence," Thibodeau said. "[Reporters] may not have been able to see the total work he was putting in. But he was putting in an enormous amount of work each and every day. He just never got to the explosiveness he was comfortable with. I think he's there now. He feels great, and that's the most important thing."

Chandler Parsons thinks he's got this (Getty Images)

The Atlanta Hawks, Houston Rockets, and Sacramento Kings were all recently fined by the NBA for tampering. Various outlets under each team’s umbrella (a ticket promoter, a team website, the new coach of your Sacramento Kings) mentioned upcoming free agents Dwight Howard and Chris Paul in innocuous, but still understandably penalty-worthy incidents. The NBA can’t have teams discussing players on other teams, because until July 1, Dwight Howard and Chris Paul are still technically members of the Los Angeles Lakers, and Los Angeles Clippers. They still have two more checks coming their way.

NBA players, however, can say whatever the heck they want, to whoever will listen. They can talk up opposing players as potential free agent targets to any media source available without risking a fine from the NBA. Heck, they can even text a player endlessly, or camp out at the dude’s house so as to beat their own general manager to the punch once July 1 rolls around.

This is what Houston Rockets forward Chandler Parsons, a Florida native and buddy of Dwight Howard’s, seems inching toward. Here are some quotes from his appearance on CBS Sports’ ROME on Thursday, as lovingly transcribed by ClutchFans, starting with his reaction to Jim Rome asking if he thinks the Rockets have “a shot at” acquiring Dwight Howard as a free agent:

George Karl and the award he's probably not too fond of right now (Getty Images)

Former Denver Nuggets coach George Karl has never been shy about going on record to discuss, well, anything. His last few separations from former NBA teams have resulted in a series of interviews about how daft the administration above him was, including fallouts with general managers Wally Walker in Seattle, and newly-appointed GM Larry Harris in Milwaukee.

The Denver Nuggets, who fired Karl last week, don’t have a GM. They don’t even have a newly-appointed GM. What they do have is Josh Kroenke, the team president, former University of Missouri men’s basketball player, and son of owner Stan Kroenke. Even before former Nuggets GM Masai Ujiri left the team to run the same position in Toronto, Josh and Stan were calling the shots – refusing to approximate the respectable contract offer made by the Raptors to the 2012-13 Executive of the Year, and the man who ran their bloody basketball team.

Stuck in a weird state, the Nuggets fired Karl soon after Ujiri split. And Karl thinks this is,

Dwyane Wade's back. (Getty Images)

Sometimes these bad scripts just write themselves. Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, much maligned throughout the 2013 playoffs, came to play in Game 4. As a result, the Miami Heat regained home-court advantage over the San Antonio Spurs with a win on Thursday night, downing the Western champs by a 109-93 score.

Wade was aggressive throughout, having his way with a switching and too-slow San Antonio defense, creating mismatches and ringing up 32 points on 14-of-25 shooting. Bosh, as many of us hoped, strayed away from settling for jump shots early and worked to ease into the game; the undersized Miami center starred on defense and ended up finishing with 20 points and 13 rebounds Meanwhile, LeBron James was able to pick his spots on his way toward 33 points and 11 boards of his own.

And though San Antonio had its chances in the second half, it could not make up for a lost early advantage (the Spurs led by 10 at one point) in the first quarter, and an inability to counter Miami’s quick play on both ends. Worse, the Spurs shot their own chances to pieces with a series of mistakes that championship teams can’t make in the second week of June.

Great. More of this. (Getty Images)

How many more NBA games have to be ruined by a block or charge call gone terribly wrong in the final moments of the contest? How many more years do we have to put up with an errant block or charge call, whistled in the last two minutes of the game, completely changing the course of natural action, lost forever and above overturning due to NBA rules?

Can’t think of many instances of that? Me neither. Referees usually swallow their whistles late in games, refusing to bail out both offensive player and defender in the final minutes of a close game, and rare is the instance of a block or charge call so severely shifting the course of action that it warrants league officials beating their chests or the referees stopping the flow of a close game to go scope out the play on tape.

That hasn’t stopped the NBA’s Competition Committee from giving us more time for TV timeouts attempting to get every call correctly, as NBA vice president of basketball operations Stu Jackson is going through with a plan to allow instant replay review for block/charge calls that typically (even with the advent of the semi-circle underneath the basket) come down to judgment calls. From the Associated Press:

Chris Bosh tightens up (Getty Images)

Miami’s collective backs aren’t against the wall. The team isn’t a loss away from elimination as it enters Thursday’s Game 4, it’s just in a bit of trouble. If the Heat do better to nail their open perimeter looks, while clamping down on a Spurs team that is bound to regress to the mean on their own three-point attempts, Miami could walk out of San Antonio’s AT&T Center on Thursday with the home-court advantage back in its grasp, and three games to earn two wins and back to back NBA titles.

As a result, the Heat don’t have to play a desperate brand of ball in Game 4, but it also has to be mindful of the fact that this is the team’s 102nd game of the season, and that the teachable moments are done with. The Heat have to run with the horses they’ve got, and with Dwyane Wade dragging a leg, fellow All-Star Chris Bosh can’t continue to blow chance after chance on connecting on good looks from the field.

[Related: Spurs' Tony Parker 'ready to go' for Game 4]

This is why the Miami Heat have to stop giving Chris Bosh chance after chance.

Patrick Ewing and John Starks take in a playoff game as half of Louis CK looks on (Getty Images)

Basketball Hall of Famer and longtime Wizards, Magic and Rockets assistant coach Patrick Ewing is back in the NBA, working as the newly-minted associate head coach of the Charlotte Bobcats. Ewing will run the team alongside head coach Steve Clifford as team owner Michael Jordan continues a long and frustrating rebuilding project with the long-suffering squad. The former Knick center, who was out of the NBA last season, has for just as long coveted a head coaching gig at this level, but he seems to have overcome his particular low point in this realm from last summer, when he turned down a job with the D-League’s Erie BayHawks last season so as not to slum as a minor league coach.

All seemed to be going fine for Patrick, until news hit about Jason Kidd’s surprising candidacy and then hiring as Brooklyn Nets head coach. Kidd, who had retired from the game just days before moving up the Nets’ list, has absolutely no coaching experience, and now he’ll be running a team that plays in the city that Ewing once routinely drove into the playoffs. Ewing, and son Patrick Ewing Jr. (a former New Orleans Pelican and NBA hopeful), were more than a little taken aback.

[Related: Jason Kidd was the best choice for Nets]

Here’s what the younger Ewing wrote on Twitter on Wednesday and Thursday:

Jason Kidd, during a frustrating final playoff run in May (Getty Images)

Jason Kidd, with that marvelous basketball IQ of his, may one day turn out to be the greatest head coach in NBA history. This isn’t the reason, though, that he’s the absolute best choice for the Brooklyn Nets.

Kidd, who was hired on Wednesday just days after ending his playing career, is the perfect hire for the Nets because he’s the most Brooklyn Nets-y hire the Brooklyn Nets could possibly hope to hire. Outside of signing on Magic Johnson or Justin Bieber’s giant hat to lead the team, Kidd was the biggest name the Nets could go for. And in a remarkable 11-month stint since finishing up the team’s final season in New Jersey, Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov and general manager Billy King have put together a lineup full of massive contracts featuring the biggest names that were available at their particular times.

Of course, they’ll go nowhere, but that isn’t the point. The point is the press conference on Thursday, or the flashing bulbs that will await Kidd’s first home game on basic cable TV next fall. Even if Kidd turns out to be the second coming of Red Auerbach – who ran a 143-82 record coaching with two teams before taking over the Boston Celtics – the focus right now is hiring a big name that can please Mssrs. Prokhorov and King, two basketball minds that have proven to have the patience of a Le Sueur pea over their respective NBA careers.