A third of the league is showing interest in JaVale McGee, whom the Sixers waived late Sunday, reports Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Most of those 10 teams are playoff contenders, Spears adds, though their identities remain shrouded in mystery. The Clippers don’t appear to be one of them, as Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times hears they’re “not very” interested in the 27-year-old center (Twitter link). The teams that are in the mix for him envision him as a third-string center and wouldn’t shell out more than the minimum, a league source told John Gonzalez of CSNPhilly.com. There’s more from Gonzalez on McGee’s Sixers tenure amid the latest from around the Eastern Conference:
- The Sixers were reluctant to waive McGee immediately after trading for him last month because they wanted to have a first-hand look to see if they would come away with a more positive impression of him than other teams have, a league source told Gonzalez for the same piece.
- The Pistons recalled Quincy Miller from the D-League, the team announced (Twitter link). He averaged 11.5 points and 9.0 rebounds in just 19.7 minutes per contest during two games on his D-League stint, which began Friday. That was the day Pistons coach/executive Stan Van Gundy said he and his staff were leaning toward re-signing him to a second 10-day contract, notes Dave Pemberton of the Oakland Press (on Twitter). Today is the final day of his first 10-day pact.
- There’s increasing pressure on Randy Wittman and others involved with the Wizards amid the team’s slump, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com writes in his weekly power rankings. Still, Wittman is in no immediate jeopardy, Stein cautions, and the team isn’t thinking about a coaching change, as J. Michael of CSNWashington.com wrote this weekend.
- Lou Amundson hopes his stay with the Knicks will be “somewhat permanent,” in the words of Fred Kerber of the New York Post, who examines the positive effect the midseason addition has had. The pact he signed with New York after inking a pair of 10-day contracts runs only through the end of the season.