With only two games on the NBA slate tonight, here are the latest news and notes from around the league on Thursday evening:
- Mark Deeks of the The Basketball Jones compiles an extensive list of former NBA players who may rejoin the league soon. We learned that one player on that list, Mike James, joined the D-League's Texas Legends earlier today. Teams can begin to sign players to 10-day deals on Monday.
- In his NBA PM update, Alex Kennedy of HoopsWorld says that Anthony Davis and Damian Lillard, the consensus front runners for Rookie of the Year, were nearly teammates in New Orleans. Kennedy writes that the Hornets had targeted Lillard before his meteoric rise up draft boards, but were happy to land Austin Rivers as a consolation prize once they realized Lillard wouldn't fall to them.
- Within the same update, Kennedy echoes what we've heard from many analysts regarding the Nets' coaching job. He asserts that if the team wants to lure a big-name coach to Brooklyn, they will likely have to wait until the offseason to do it. The coaching fraternity is very close-knit, Kennedy says, and when you factor in that a brand new coach would have limited opportunity to shape his staff and team, it's no surprise that guys like Jeff Van Gundy and Phil Jackson have stayed away.