While it's been reported plenty of places elsewhere, I just found out about it today.  After announcing it on Twitter, Sharapova's Thigh's Matt Clapp kindly pointed out that "death is no excuse to not update us on the D-League happenings."  While my emergency gall bladder removal wasn't exactly death, it did keep me from covering the D-League beat yesterday.

Anyway, let's get my thoughts out on Antonio Anderson.  He's a fine player, but in my opinion, there were more NBA-ready players available.  Unless the Thunder were specifically looking for a talented but slumping combo guard whose defense is a bit overrated and offensively underrated, I'm a bit perplexed by this move.

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Garrett Temple will be called-up to the Houston Rockets Monday. This doesn't surprise me one iota.

While Temple is averaging a rather pedestrian 14.9 points, 3.7 boards and 3.4 assists while shooting 43% from the field and 37% from beyond the arc, he knows the system and fills a void with both Trevor Ariza and Kyle Lowry expected to not be available until after the all-star break.

Temple started his career with the Rockets as a Vegas Summer League invite, where he averaged 4.6 points per game over the course of five games.  He apparently impressed Rockets GM Daryl Morey enough to get an invite to play for the Rockets this Fall, however.  In the preseason, Temple appeared in four games with the Rockets, though didn't make much of an impact averaging 2.5 points over four appearances, though he was released in the first round of cuts.

Temple was described as a do-it-all, defensive stopper during his four seasons as an LSU Tiger, never scoring very well, but he finished his college career as the only player in school history in the top 10 in career assists, steals and blocked shots.

For the Vipers, he's taken more of a scoring role, potentially being one of the better isolation players in the D-League - his typical gameplan seems to be get the ball, use his first step to get the defender off balance, pretend like he's going to drive the lane and drop a 17-foot jumper.  In last night's nationally televised VERSUS game, Temple hit 6-of-11 from the field, including 3-of-5 from 3-point land, to finish 16 points, six boards and five assists in 36 minutes of action.

In the NBA I have no idea what he'll be asked to do, aside from be a practice body, because I'd assume Jermaine Taylor will play ahead of him, and Taylor doesn't get many minutes the way it is.

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Sources said the Bulls plan to sign Noah's fellow Florida alum Chris Richard to a 10-day contract.

Richard, a late training-camp cut by the Bulls, suddenly is needed to shore up a depleted frontcourt that no longer has Aaron Gray and features Taj Gibson battling plantar fasciitis in his right foot and Miller nursing a sore left knee.

-From the Chicago Tribune's K.C. Johnson.

I really don't have much to add to this report, aside from me not being a fan.

According to yfBB (now on twitter!), Sam Smith mentioned Rob Kurz, Dwayne Jones, Jared Reiner, and Chris Richard.

For the record, I would've taken all of the above over Richard, who's averaging a pedestrian 10.1 points and 8.6 boards in the D-League with the Tulsa 66ers.  In Richard's last D-League game, he got into foul trouble (a usual occurence) and finished with nine points and three boards in 27 minutes against Luke Nevill.

Mark Deeks summarizes my other thought via his Twitter account:

Richard was here before, though! He knows the plays! Can't execute them, but dammit he knows them! Hooray!

Yay, Bulls! At least you didn't call-up JamesOn Curry, I guess.

[Note by Scott Schroeder, 02/05/10 12:15 AM CST ] I would've called-up Raymond Sykes.

In a story first reported on NBA.com by David Aldridge and currently making the Twitter and blog rounds, Paul Pierce may have broken his left foot and could miss "significant time."  Now, Aldridge writes "The team does not know for sure if Pierce's foot is broken after X-rays taken Tuesday; more tests are scheduled. But it 'looks that way,' the league source said."  So it could just turn out to be a less severe injury and this post could be premature.

But, like an "ambulance chasing" law firm like you see on the TV, whenever an NBA player injures himself we here at RU perk up our ears.  It's even more intriguing in this instance because one of Pierce's possible in-house replacements, J.R. Giddens, just had surgery himself.  The Celtics also have been actively using the D-League for several years, sending Giddens, Bill Walker and Gabe Pruitt to the Utah Flash last season and Giddens, Walker and Lester Hudson to the Maine Red Claws this year. There's also the fact that Maine's coach Austin Ainge is related to the Celtics GM by blood; add all of that up, and the chances that the Celtics could look to their D-League affiliate for help grows. 

Let's take a look at the likely candidates (who I would call the likely candidates, anyway; I have no idea who the Red Claws like, and this is the season that saw Mario West and JamesOn Curry call-ups.  But these are the best options available):

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New Orleans Hornets' guard Chris Paul will undergo arthroscopic surgery for a cartilage tear in his left knee on Monday and could miss one to two months, sources close to Paul told Yahoo! Sports on Sunday night.

That's the devastating news Hornets fans received last night, courtesy of Yahoo! Sports Adrian Wojnarowski yesterday.

With the Hornets dealing their third point guard, Bobby Brown, to the Clippers last week in order to avoid the luxury tax, I don't foresee anything more than a couple of different point guards rotating 10-day contracts until Paul is healthy enough to rejoin the Hornets.

Since I don't envision many established out of work players (Mike Wilks, Antonio Daniels, Shaun Livingston, etc.) to take what will amount to almost certainly be nothing more than two 10-day contracts, it seems very likely that Darren Collison's new backup will be a freshly plucked guard from the D-League.

For you, I'll run down my entire list of D-League options - handily sorted by last name.

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Typically, I'm the first to break D-League call-up news.

Last night I teased it two hours before the story broke, but decided to post it in the morning because who's reading Ridiculous Upside at 11:45 on a Friday night.  Hell, who's writing about D-League call-up's at that time?

Apparently the immortal Marc Stein because he put together a great post on the story over at TrueHoop:

With Cartier Martin's second 10-day contract coming to an end Saturday, Golden State has to sign Martin for the rest of the season if it wants to keep him. Yet that would require waiving someone on the Warriors' roster with a guaranteed contract, since league rules prevent players with fully guaranteed contracts from occupying temporary roster spots created by injury hardship.

The Warriors are thus letting Martin go and plan to bring in a new player on a 10-day contract, according to sources close to the situation.

That player, sources said, is expected to be guard Coby Karl, who sat out Friday night's game with the Idaho Stampede in anticipation of joining the Warriors.

Karl played just five games in the D-League, but averaged 27.2 points, 7.8 boards and 4.2 assists.  Still, he was decidedly not the best wing prospect in the D-League according to the Randy Livingston Memorial On The Edge Call-Up Rankings.

I really don't think this is the best the Warriors could do.  I like Coby well enough, and his stats in the D-League were great, but I would've rather seen a guy like Carlos Powell or Reggie Williams get a chance.

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It was pretty clear that the Houston Rockets were keeping an eye on point guard Will Conroy.  First, they put him on their Summer League team.  Then they brought him in for the preseason.  Then their D-League affiliate the Rio Grande Valley Vipers traded for him, sending talented center Kurt Looby to the Albuquerque Thunderbirds.  So it probably was just a matter of time before they put him on the NBA roster.

Most of what I have to say about Conroy was expressed in last May's profile (remember when we did those?), but to update it for this season, his scoring has gone down a little bit but so have his turnovers (way down in the latter case), and he's currently second in the league in assists both per-game and per-minute.  He's also posting the second-best field goal and three-point shooting percentages and the best free-throw shooting percentage of his career.  Please ignore the fact that he wasn't on the most recent call-up rankings.

There have been some questions about his attitude in the past, but he also was named the D-League's Sportsman of the Year last season in addition to being named First Team All D-League.  He knows how to run an offense, and more importantly, he knows how to run Houston's offense.  The Rockets have been active with their affiliate so far this season, assigning Joey Dorsey and calling up Mike Harris earlier this year.  Second round pick Jermaine Taylor is likely to see an assignment at some point as well.

See Clippers?  Using the D-League doesn't have to be so hard.

As much as I hated the JamesOn Curry call-up, the Cavaliers are about to make me happy.  And, since Jackson's currently in Cleveland getting a physical according to my sources, I'm about to be happy.

As I wrote this morning, Jackson was a bit of a long shot, but had a few things going for him as well:

Cedric Jackson (Erie BayHawks, 16.5 ppg, 8.2 apg, 4.7 rpg (as a starter), 40% FG, 30% 3pt) - Jackson's the best defensive player on this list not named Jefferson.  The Cleveland State alum was actually the Horizon League defensive player of the year last season.  With the Cavs D-League affiliate, the Erie BayHawks, he's recently earned himself his spot in the rotation as a full-time starter - Since January 6th, the 10-13 BayHawks have won six  of their past eight games, all Jackson starts.

 Jackson doesn't really have a jump shot (the numbers aren't lying), but he does very well at working off the pick-and-roll and getting to the bucket, either finishing below the rim or getting to the free-throw line.  The Cavs' brass should be very familiar with him as he played right underneath their nose at Cleveland State and is now playing for their affiliate in Erie.  

While this is probably a long shot, I'd welcome this call-up because, if nothing else, it'd be a nice way to reward the rookie's solid play with a 10-day contract and see how he does on the big stage. 

He's also a pure point in the same way Williams is a pure point, if you catch my drift.

In all honestly, I don't love Jackson as an NBA point guard for years and years to come, but it is nice to see that if a player plays hard and does what he's supposed to do, even without a big name, he has a chance to get called-up.

Yes, that JamesOn Curry - The 6'3", 200 pound guard out of Oklahoma State currently playing for the Springfield Armor.

Since ClipsNation's Steve Perrin asked for my thoughts, I'm going to delve into this one deeper than usual.  Essentially, though, he was right on target.

Before we get into this, let me point you to our call-up rankings.  As you'll see, no JamesOn Curry.  Maybe the four D-League bloggers are somehow all biased toward Curry?

Let's look at DraftExpress's top 30 D-League prospects.  DraftExpress knows their stuff, and I see quite a few guards on that list, but no Curry.

Just for fun, let's look at the official D-League Gatorade Call-Up Candidates as of Wednesday.  Once again, no Curry.

To be honest, I have no idea how or why this happened.

Curry's a shoot-first shooting guard who was averaging 16.1 points and 7.5 assists per game as the point guard by default for the Springfield Armor.  Before you say "But he was averaging 7.5 assists!", I'd like to let you in on a little secret: both you and I could average 7.5 assists by passing the ball to Morris Almond 41 minutes a game.

Let's break it down.

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The Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Los Angeles Lakers last night by a score of 93-87, even without injured starting point guard Mo Williams.  For their game tomorrow against the Thunder, they could also be without new starting point guard Delonte West, who hurt his finger in the fourth quarter of last night's game.  Boobie Gibson (is it okay still call him Boobie? Am I even allowed to say Boobie on Ridiculous Upside) is the last remaining point guard on the roster, but he's been in Mike Brown's doghouse for much of the season.  I really can't envision him playing the 43 minutes West did in Williams' absence.

UPDATE: According to the Akron Beacon Journal's George Thomas twitter account - Delonte West left ring fracture. Out tomorrow...after that day to day after finger settles down.  There's now a definite need for a call-up.

That was the long way of saying that the Cav's are running out of ball handlers.  They'll probably need to find one soon, probably this morning for tomorrow's game, especially if West is expected to miss any time.

Looking through my rolodex of available D-League players that might whet the Cavaliers appetite, I settled on recently released Coby Karl, top point guard prospect Dontell Jefferson, the Mo Williamsesque Mustafa Shakur, former Cavs Summer League invite Will Conroy and last, but not least, the darkhorse of the group: Cedric Jackson, the rookie out of Cleveland State currently playing for the Erie BayHawks.

The available free agent point guards out there are endless, but if I were the Cavaliers, I'd probably try finding one that's played this year such as one-time uber-prospect Shaun Livingston or former Cav Mike Wilks.  The other option would be a guy like NBA veteran Antonio Daniels.

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