On Thursday evening, Los Angeles Lakers Executive Vice President of Business Operations Jeanie Buss took to Twitter to share with her friends and followers news of a new bauble she'd received:

Twitter family - Phil finally gave me that ring I wanted!:-) twitpic.com/bs8xc5

— Jeanie Buss (@JeanieBuss) January 4, 2013

The piece in question:

Nice manicure. Oh, and also, that other thing. (Photo via @JeanieBuss)

Naturally, we wondered if this meant that she and longtime beau Phil Jackson had gotten engaged to be married. Buss told Ramona Shelburne of ESPN Los Angeles that they had, saying that she was "beyond happy" to be getting hitched to the "Zen Master."

Jeanie Buss says there is no date set yet. But since she'd been wearing the ring since Xmas, figured she should let people know. Awwwww

— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) January 4, 2013

Ain't love grand?

Udonis "Django" Haslem collects a bounty on Kevin Love (Mike Ehrmann/ Getty).

If you have any interest in movies, you're probably familiar with "Django Unchained," the new film from the hyperactively cinephilic filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. In a little more than a week, the movie — which concerns a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) who becomes a bounty hunter and fights slave owners in the antebellum South — has grossed more than $80 million in the United States alone. It's also the topic of much critical discussion, from raves to disappointed reactions to questions as to whether or not it's ethical for anyone other than an African-American to make a movie about slavery.

The movie has been very popular with audiences, particularly among African-Americans. Not surprisingly, that group of fans includes a number of NBA players, people who are certainly likely to identify with a black man who rises from humble beginnings to occupy a position of power.

One of these athletes has even decided to take inspiration from the film. Miami Heat reserve forward Udonis Haslem, a two-time NBA champion, now wants to be known as "Django." From Michael Wallace of ESPN.com's Heat Index on Twitter (via TBJ):

Thomas Robinson. Damian Lillard can't do this (Getty Images)

You’d probably make the call, too, whether your experience with college hoops either meant watching hours on end of the stuff from Midnight Madness onward or cramming in the days leading up to the NBA draft. Do you take the studly power forward with the square frame from the squarest of NBA breeding schools in Kansas, or the (probably) 5-11 point guard from Weber State? “Weber” as in “Weeb Ewbank,” mind you, and not “Chris Webber.”

Last June, the Sacramento Kings decided to go for Thomas Robinson, out of Kansas, instead of Weber State’s Damian Lillard. Because the team’s only bright spot in a miserable 2011-12 season (one the team’s owners would have probably preferred canceled due to the lockout) came in the form of sprightly rookie guard Isaiah Thomas it made sense. If the team chose Lillard with the fifth overall pick we would have shouted that it would have meant that the franchise’s clueless front office had no clue what it had in Thomas. Then we would have unfolded our arms and written a smarmy column about it.

Lillard, taken one spot later by the Portland Trail Blazers, will probably win this season’s Rookie of the Year award. His Blazers are struggling through a rebuilding year, but the potent guard is averaging 18.4 points and 6.4 assists in nearly 38 minutes per game. At age 22, he’s been able to step right in as a team-leading contributor, while Robinson has struggled. To hear former Kings beat writer and current USA Today NBA maven Sam Amick tell it, the only reason Sacramento drafted Robinson over Lillard last June was not the orthodoxy I previously detailed, but because the team’s ownership was frightened it couldn’t re-sign a player you can’t pick out of a lineup without a scorecard in Thompson to his second contract. From Amick’s report:

According to three people with knowledge of the situation who spoke to USA TODAY Sports on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, part of the reason the Kings drafted forward Thomas Robinson fifth overall out of Kansas in June instead of Rookie of the Year frontrunner and Weber State point guard Damian Lillard (who went sixth to Portland) was because of internal doubt about ownership's ability or willingness to pony up for restricted free agent forward Jason Thompson.

Amar'e Stoudemire shows how much he has to learn. (Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports)

When Amar'e Stoudemire made his 2012-13 season debut with the New York Knicks in the team's New Year's Day loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, he didn't exactly look great on defense. This is not surprising; as NBA.com's John Schuhmann (among others) noted, defensive breakdowns have been the rule rather than the exception throughout Stoudemire's NBA career. For all his scoring talents and athletic ability, even at the pre-injury peak of his powers with the Phoenix Suns, Stoudemire has just never been an aware or adept defender, much to the consternation of the fans of the teams for which he has played.

Luckily, there is a very simple explanation for Stoudemire's defensive woes — just teach him how to play defense, dummy! (For your health.)

You see, according to the man himself, as detailed by Al Iannazzone of Newsday, nobody's ever taken the time to do so:

"Just having a defensive coach for the first time in my career is going to help," Stoudemire said. "I've never been taught defense in my whole career. To now have a coach that actually teaches defense and teaches strategies and knows positioning and posture and how to guard different plays is going to be helpful. I'm going to take it as a challenge, accept the challenge and try to improve as a player."

OK, sounds great. Thanks, Amar'e!

Except — and you're not going to BELIEVE this — the spiteful New York media has decided, for some odd reason, that a 30-year-old player in his 11th NBA season shouldn't be blaming coaches (and, specifically, the offense-first coach for whom he has played the bulk of his career) for his defensive shortcomings. From Marc Berman of the New York Post:

Sam Mitchell casually confers with Andrea Bargnani (Getty Images)

Fresh off his work re-tooling the Steve Nash-led Phoenix Suns after disappointing turns at the hands of Jason Kidd and Stephon Marbury, Bryan Colangelo was a hot commodity in 2006. The GM was rumored to possibly have enough basketball sway to take over in New York, but instead of attempting to make hay out of Isiah Thomas’ salted soil, he instead accepted a job running the Toronto Raptors. With cap space in hand (thanks to deals with Isiah, of course) and a franchise player in Chris Bosh already on the roster, Colangelo’s nouveau touch seemed to be the perfect recipe for success.

It’s a long way of saying that he was hot stuff, his word was law, and that previous regime carryover Raptors coach Sam Mitchell was then thought to be soon on his way out in return for a Colangelo hire. Mitchell thrived in his first season working with Colangelo, though, putting together a playoff team without having to rely heavily on the services of rookie Andrea Bargnani, a 7-foot scorer that Colangelo chose first overall in what turned out to be a very weak 2006 NBA draft.

Bargnani turned out to be a blown selection, and years later his play has turned into a constant source of frustration for Raptor fans. Mitchell was let go in 2008, and in a recent interview Sam expressed regret that he was unable to coach Colangelo’s signature selection the way he thought best. From SportsNet:

"I wasn't allowed to coach Andrea the same way I was allowed to coach Jose (Calderon)," Mitchell told Tim & Sid on Sportsnet 590 The Fan on Wednesday. "I was a hard ass on Jose; I was hard on him, but look at the type of player he turned out to be.

Greg Smith has come a long way in a relatively short period, going from undrafted out of Fresno State to D-League All-Star to winning a roster spot in a crowded frontcourt and becoming the backup center on a Houston Rockets team that's become both an awesome nightly watch and, at the moment, the sixth seed in a very competitive Western Conference. But while the 21-year-old big man has been a revelation for the Rockets, hitting nearly 65 percent of his shots and averaging better than 16 points and 10 rebounds per 36 minutes, his game still needs some polishing.

One key area for development? Court awareness. Knowing where you are on the floor at all times is important at the highest level. Another? Self-awareness. Knowing your limitations — what you can and can't do on the floor — can be the difference between also-rans and All-Stars. During Wednesday night's game against the New Orleans Hornets, Smith took a step forward in both areas, learning A) that he can't tie his shoe in less than three seconds, and B) that if he's going to try, he shouldn't be in the paint while the Rockets have the ball:

Sure, you'd figure a player would have the "don't just kneel down in the lane and tie your shoe during a play" thing down by the time he got to the NBA, but hey, life is about learning, and we're betting coach Kevin McHale — who was pretty mortified by the whole thing — promptly took to instructing Smith about the dos and don'ts of the matter. Such is life with a young team, after all.

David Lee and Stephen Curry dominated the Clippers on Wednesday. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

It's a point I've made after both the first and second round of ballot results in the fan voting for the 2013 NBA All-Star Game — the lack of recognition that Stephen Curry and David Lee are getting for their sensational early-season play with the Golden State Warriors is a bummer. Well, they'd better be getting some attention now.

The Warriors' star point guard and power forward combined for 55 points on 20 for 32 shooting, 19 rebounds and 15 assists on Wednesday night, propelling Golden State to a 115-94 punking of the formerly red-hot but now reeling Los Angeles Clippers. It was the Dubs' fourth straight win and seventh in the last 10 games, pushing them to 22-10 on the season.

Golden State's dynamic duo took turns dominating, with Curry coming out of the gate white-hot (11 points on 4 for 5 shooting in the first quarter, 25 on 9 for 11 shooting in the first half) and Lee taking over after intermission (18 points on 7 for 11 shooting, nine rebounds, two assists in the third and fourth). Taken together, their brilliant play — not only offensively, but also on the defensive end, where Curry did able early work on L.A. All-Star Chris Paul and Lee holding his own in the post against the likes of likely All-Star starter Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan (with some help from their friends, of course) — seized control of the game and, as their head coach saw it, gave prospective All-Star voters a reason to cast ballots in their favor, according to Antonio Gonzalez of The Associated Press:

"If my two guys didn't make a statement, I don't know what else they have to," Warriors coach Mark Jackson said. Later, he added, "Maybe I'll hold my own game if these two guys aren't in there."

Kevin Garnett goes at it alone (Getty Images)

On Christmas day, the Boston Celtics absolutely and utterly waxed the Brooklyn Nets in full view of a national TV audience and the Nets’ home crowd. Playing an energetic style of ball, the C’s took Brooklyn out of their offense, only ceding buckets to random hustle plays from Gerald Wallace. Because the NBA’s unofficial start usually comes on Dec. 25, the prevailing joke was that the Celtics – at 14-13 following the impressive win – had decided to finally start their 2012-13 season.

As you probably know, things have more or less gone to rot in the week and a half since. Despite only playing four games in nine days because of a coast-to-coast-and-back schedule, the Celtics have lost four straight. Not only that, they’ve lost the four contests by an average mark of 19.8 points per game. Championship contenders usually don’t string two blowout losses in a row during the course of a season, much less four, and the Celtics are losing in ways that don’t remind of the respective low points during the 2009-10 campaign (one that saw them rally and make it the seventh game of the Finals) or last season (when they had a 3-2 lead in the conference finals).

Former Celtics guard and current Memphis Grizzlies stopper Tony Allen thinks he has the answer. And it may include, shockingly, Tony Allen:

Ben Rohrbach at WEEI, if you’re at work and don’t want to pull up the video, has the transcription: