LeBron James has gained a little habit of dancing a bit when he’s happy. When the team is doing well, he is dancing and goofing off. Someone must have told him to relax and be himself. James was taken to task earlier this week when Joakim Noah decided to shout him down in the 4th quarter. They got into a bit of a verbal spat and were split up. But it was clearly Noah’s annoyance at the less-sportsmanlike manner that this dancing is occurring and such. Hopefully we can enjoy LeBron James back in normal humble form sometime soon. But maybe the Cavs have decided that getting their opponents annoyed would be to their advantage. Stay tuned and it will be interesting to see what he does in future games.

When the Bulls battled against the Kings earlier this week, it was expected to be a fairly even match. These two teams seem to be sitting at about the same level and could have given a tough competition. In some ways, it was. The Bulls played an amazing first half. Even late in the 3rd quarter, the Bulls were ahead by 35 points. But that was the high water mark. Then the Kings hit their stride and ended up heading far down the road of comeback, ending up with a 4 point win in the end. This is a bad moment for the Bulls’ coach, who seems to be struggling to get his team to focus and get the job done. On the other hand, it shows that the Kings have a surprising amount of energy and action that will make them a potential contender in the division, if not this season, then possibly next.

The Mavericks are having a little bit of trouble getting themselves moving the way that they have in previous years. They have had some great successes recently, but this season just isn’t quite working out. But they had a game just the other day which had a couple of calls to be appealed. GM Mark Cuban has taken charge of it and says that the game should be restarted in Dallas with just over a minute remaining on the clock and the Mavs with upcoming possession of the ball. What? This is an unusual statement to come out of an NBA GM. Usually, the coaches or players might say something like this, but they know that they’ll be subject to trouble if the NBA objects to it. We’ll see what actually happens with this, but it’s just one more odd Mark Cuban story to add to the pile.

There are two big events this decade in the NBA that are right at the top of the list that was just put out by SI. The first one was the big brawl at the Palace of Auburn Hills. When Ron Artest ran off into the stands and started hitting fans, it changed the way that we talk about the NBA. Breaking that fourth wall turned out to be a good way to reevaluate the way the league does business. But for the Pacers, it was an awful way to fritter away their season, having lost several of their best players for a long time in the 04-05 season. Meanwhile, the other big story was the Tim Donaghy betting scandal, which made us question how many of the games over the last several years had been fixed or manipulated in some way. Donaghy is out and the rules are much more clear and strict than they were before.

The Los Angeles Clippers missed a chance to get the San Antonio Spurs down decisively the other day at the Staples Center. The way that an analyst is describing the game is as a potential dagger. They could have come within one game of that titanic team that keeps winning in the postseason. But instead, they lost by almost 30 points, suffering a bit of an embarrassment. Now the team appears to be looking at dismantling the team, or at least parts of it, to try to cash in their “assets” as it were and slide back down. Maybe they can get something good to bring them into contention next season. I’m not so sure it’s time to give up on this year yet, but I haven’t been watching them as closely as some of the analysts have been. It’s a rough year so far either way.

Vinny Del Negro put himself into the conversation about his future this week. His team has now lost 9 of 10 in the last couple weeks, including losses to teams that aren’t good. The Nets beat them, and the Nets only have one other win this season. The firestorm is brewing with the media in his home city and many people are hoping that he gets fired in the next little while. They have a good roster, but it’s just not working right now. Vinny came out and told the media that they really have no business calling for his head, because they haven’t played the game, they don’t realize how difficult it is, nor how tough this team is becoming. But they have yet to show that they can really get it done yet, so the talk will continue, whether or not the media folks know what it’s about or not.

When Cleveland took on Milwaukee last night, it wasn’t a surprsie that they won. Although Milwaukee has been having a nice year, they aren’t the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavs have been able to play their games to the highest ability. Last night, the Cavs were down 12-0 near the beginning of the game, but then went on a 29-0 run. This is the biggest run of any team this year. Nicely done, LeBron and Shaq. It’s also interesting that this high-level team doesn’t seem to be having the kind of drama that the Los Angeles Lakers had when you paired Shaq with someone like Kobe. But Cleveland is a smaller team and has that kind of character at the moment. We hope that the team will be able to move on towards a big playoff presence this year. So far, they are dominant in almost every way. We’ll see what happens! Last night, though, they won 101-86.

When Ron Artest was in Chicago, he was a player who could be tough to handle. He always was in his younger days. He’s a provocateur, which has become an important part of any team at this point. He was interviewed this week, saying that he used to drink sometimes during halftime or before the game. It might have been only a sip or two, but it was still during the game. He went on the radio in Chicago yesterday to say what he actually meant in giving out this information. His point was to say that the fame had come to him so quickly that he didn’t know how to handle it. In fact, he didn’t handle it well at all, and resorted to drinking. His point was to emphasize how bad off he was at times during his career. Hopefully young kids will take this lesson and try to keep on top of those kinds of problems before they happen.