Nothing says "tanking" like minutes for Michael Beasley (Getty Images)

Apologies for the downer take, but this has to be a particularly depressing time for fans of teams at the bottom of the NBA’s standings. Not only have they sat through five months of bad basketball, but watching this year’s NCAA Tournament can’t be encouraging hopes for lottery greatness this summer. The rumored number one pick, Kansas’ Ben McLemore, is coming off of an ohfer nine performance in the second round of the tourney. Last summer’s rumored top prospect, Indiana’s Cody Zeller, was bounced from the bracket after a 3-10 shooting night against Syracuse, seeing several of his weaker attempts blocked. There is no savior in the 2013 NBA draft.

The teams that are playing out the string in the 2012-13 season are more than aware of this, and faced with the uneasy prospect of either being accused of tanking as the season winds down, or ruining their franchise’s lottery chances by, y’know, playing hard and attempting to win ballgames. The Phoenix Suns are the worst team in their conference and currently own the fourth-worst record in the NBA, and they’re more than aware of their station as the season moves into its final three weeks.

From Paul Coro at the Arizona Republic:

The timing and the idea of holding out Goran Dragic, the Suns’ best player coming off his best game, for the past two nights said something to fans and players about the lack of importance to win for a last-place team. Dragic did not want to sit out. He was told to sit and it is not like when a 38-year-old Steve Nash did it to save his body for a playoff push.

Reggie Evans, possibly glaring at "Unnamed Teammate #1" (Getty Images)

Relative to all basketball players, Brooklyn Nets forward Reggie Evans is a fantastic basketball player. In NBA terms, though, Reggie Evans is a one-dimensional player. By most metrics and the typical eye-tests, Evans is not a particularly strong defender. He has no post game on offense to speak of, no jumper to test a defense’s mettle, and his 52 percent career free throw stroke leaves him prone to bouts of Hack-a-Reg from opposing teams.

[Also: Kobe injury adds to Lakers woes as they hobble toward finish line]

What Evans does do is rebound, expertly. The problem with that insistence on performing in 1-D is that Evans either needs to rebound better than just about any other player in the NBA, or he needs to at least make the other aspects of his non-rebounding game more potent, in order to justify minutes. Mainly because it’s hard for players that only focus on one aspect of basketball (people like Jason Collins, Tony Allen, Nick Young, Steve Novak, and to a lesser extent Jose Calderon) to earn big minutes on a great team by merely plying one trade at a time. This is why an unnamed teammate of Evans asked for Reggie to be benched last month, and why Evans has responded with perhaps the best month of his career. From the New York Daily News (via Pro Basketball Talk):

“I got frustrated one day when one of my teammates told my coach to take me out the game. I bit my tongue. I didn’t say nothing to (my teammate),” Evans said. “But me, knowing me, I usually attack and say something. I bit my tongue. I said, ‘OK.’ I said, ‘All right, start being aggressive.’ So I took it in a positive way, instead of just doing my normal self, like ‘What you say? What you say?’”

Tom Boerwinkle nails the hook over Dave Cowens (Getty Images)

Tom Boerwinkle passed away on Wednesday. The former Chicago Bulls center had been suffering from a rare form of leukemia for over a decade, and he succumbed to the illness at age 67. This is a website about basketball, though, and our love for a game we’ve devoted our lives to. And Tom Boerwinkle, unheralded center during the golden age of NBA centers, was a devoted master of the all-around craft of pivot play. Boerwinkle thrived at a position that used be relevant, loving a gig that used to value passing and screening and spacing in a five-man offense as much as it did the de rigueur big man options like rebounding and block shots.

Though the greatest rebounder of all time, Dennis Rodman, played for the Bulls between 1995 and 1998, Boerwinkle still holds the team record for most boards collected in a game (37) while working in a Bulls uniform. And though excellent passers like Luc Longley, Brad Miller and Joakim Noah have tossed the pill around with ease through their Chicago careers, Boerwinkle remains the gold standard when it comes to finding the open man in an offense that isn’t tailored to meet the needs of the big man that can score and defend.

NBA.com’s Sam Smith asked around, in the wake of Boerwinkle’s passing, and absolutely nailed it in his remembrance of the big man’s work. The best summation comes from former Bulls teammate Jerry Sloan:

Attending a live sports event as a child can act as a pretty evocative event. Some 25 years on, I can still recall first seeing the green of Wrigley Field’s grass and Notre Dame Stadium in the gloaming to nearly pitch-perfect detail. Even the bright-green Astroturf at Rosemont Horizon for a Chicago Sting game still sticks. My kids are still buzzing from their first NBA game from a few weeks ago, and every live interaction – whether you’re plunking down three bucks to go see the local high school’s baseball game or handing your youngster the Jack Nicholson seats at a Golden State Warriors game – is worth it.

Unless, of course, Stephen Curry overreacts to the swarming of a pick and roll and fires a pass all the way across the court at your kid’s face. In this instance, you need to have Sacramento Kings coach Keith Smart on your family’s side. Watch (via The Basketball Jones):

Brandon Jennings is annoyed (Getty Images)

Despite an interim head coach, an uncertain future, and a recent swoon that has seen the team lose seven of its last nine games, the Milwaukee Bucks are in no danger of losing the final playoff spot in the Eastern bracket. The team is six and a half games up on the ninth-place Philadelphia 76ers, even after falling to Philly on Wednesday night in a game that saw Bucks guard Brandon Jennings miss the entire fourth quarter.

Brandon didn’t miss it due to injury, it should be pointed out. He missed it because prior to the fourth quarter Jennings had missed all three shots from the field in an invisible performance. Interim head coach Jim Boylan decided to sit the fourth-year guard for the last 12 minutes, and things didn’t exactly work out following the decision. Here’s Jennings, as quoted by Dan Gelston of the Associated Press, following the loss:

With the Bucks in the playoff chase, Jennings was benched in the fourth quarter, and wondered why he was singled out.

''I don't see any All-Stars in this locker room,'' he said.

The hubris of the Los Angeles Lakers franchise has been well-documented since the swoon that started this squad’s 37-35 run toward the West’s eighth seed. The team receives just as much media coverage as the defending champion Miami Heat, and far more words have been written about this year’s Lakers than the West-leading San Antonio Spurs and Western championship-defending Oklahoma City Thunder combined. Because the Lakers are the Lakers – and writers like me can’t stop talking about them – people have been pretty sick of this crew since mid-winter.

On Tuesday, we discussed how Los Angeles will probably sneak in the back door of the playoffs due to a weak schedule, and various lucked-out charms (injuries to key opponents, the possibility that playoff teams will be sitting their starters in the last week of the season) between now and the end of the 82-game turn. Minnesota, just one game away from being officially eliminated from the playoffs entering Wednesday, served as a suitable obstacle for the Lakers. Los Angeles, somewhat, acquitted itself well – only giving up 117 points to the NBA’s 24th-best offense before the game’s final possession.

[Also: LeBron calls for justice after Heat's 27-game winning streak snapped | Photos]

And here is the game’s final possession:

That’s Kobe Bryant missing a free throw that would have clinched the game, following through needlessly on his shot, letting a 6-2 point guard grab the rebound, and fouling the guard as he attempted a three-point shot to tie the game.

Except, of course, Kobe Bryant wasn’t called for a foul on Ricky Rubio. And why, you ask, wasn’t Kobe called for a foul?

Jimmy Butler makes Chris Bosh look silly (Getty Images)

Through the latter stages of the Miami Heat’s 27-game winning streak, we repeatedly brought up the fact that luck, timing and inevitability would result in the team eventually losing to a squad that didn’t seem worthy of the Heat’s presence. The Heat are the defending champions and the best team in the NBA, but because this is the NBA the best team doesn’t always win every time out. It’s why Miami entered its streak with a 29-14 record.

That record was bumped up to 56-14, and now it stands at 56-15 thanks to a Chicago Bulls team that was working without three of its starters in Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, and Richard Hamilton, and perhaps its best shooting guard in Marco Belinelli. Chicago rode withering perimeter defense and a few kind non-calls on its way to a gutty, moving win that hardly felt like “just one of those nights” for Miami. Despite the Heat’s 13 missed three-pointers.

In a season full of unanswered questions and lowlights for Chicago, despite a 39-31 record, here are the highlights from Wednesday’s game:

Earlier on Wednesday, Eric Freeman pointed toward Metta World Peace’s competitive nature as a reason why he may try to squeeze in a quicker than usual return from a lateral meniscus tear in his left (jumping) knee. That plan may still be at the forefront of Metta’s mind, but things have been complicated significantly by the news out of Los Angeles from Wednesday afternoon. MWP will undergo surgery for his tear, damn, and he’ll be out a minimum of six weeks. From the Associated Press:

The Lakers announced the timeline on Wednesday. World Peace is scheduled to have surgery Thursday and he won't be ready when the playoffs begin next month, if the Lakers reach the postseason.

In spite of a perimeter triptych that will now feature Steve Nash, Jodie Meeks, and Kobe Bryant – three of the worst perimeter defenders in the NBA – guarding opponents, the Lakers will probably still make the playoffs. As we talked about on Tuesday, the team’s upcoming schedule and obstacles facing both the Dallas Mavericks and Utah Jazz make any usurping a tough task. This doesn’t mean the Lakers will likely be an active NBA team when MWP is cleared to play, though. The regular season ends in three weeks, Metta probably has three weeks worth of recovery following that to work through, to say nothing of the days and games he’ll need to get up to NBA speed.

Six weeks, as prescribed, doesn’t always mean “six weeks.” As Laker forward Pau Gasol knows too well.