By Tim McDarby -- DallasBasketball.com
      Remember Karl Malone?
      Our Shootaround begins with The MailThug’s bad karma.
      He sprained his knee back on November 30th and was supposed to miss 3-5 games. He hasn’t played since. Now comes word that Malone is at least another two weeks away.
      So he won’t be able to kick Mavs crotches on Thursday.
      Add that to Kobe Bryant’s timetable (also about two more weeks with a shoulder injury) and the strained calf of Shaq that won’t heal nearly as quickly as the Lakers would like, and the next month could be rather long for the boys from L.A.
      On top of that, the Lakers only play 5 home games between now and March 5th. On top of that, the Lakers haven’t won a road game since December 4th.
      Just think of all those writers and broadcasters who gave them the title in October.

      Very quietly the Detroit Pistons have gone on a franchise record-winning streak. While it took the Pistons a little while to adjust to new head coach Larry Brown’s way of doing things, Ben Wallace has taken over the leadership of the team.
      “Right now, everybody is jelling together, everybody is clicking,” Wallace said. “We definitely have got a swagger about ourselves. Everybody out there playing hard.
      “Everybody is playing loose, Larry Brown is not telling certain guys not to do this or that, he’s just allowing guys to go out and play. Allowing guys to make mistakes. I think that’s what it’s all about. Everybody is out there having fun. And when you’re having fun, good things happen.”
      As for the streaking ways of the Pistons, Wallace thought it would happen much earlier in the season.
      “I thought we should have been playing like this a little bit earlier, I really did,” Wallace said. “I thought it was a couple of games earlier (this season) where we could have put together a nice stretch. Probably even better than this one.
      “Right now, we’re trying to make up for those games that we lost that we know we should have won.’’

      It’s obviously been a difficult year in Portland, but now it’s really starting to show on the Blazers. After a recent loss in Phoenix, coach Mo Cheeks cried twice, including when meeting with reporters after the Blazers played well, but lost again.
      Apparently, there is crying in the NBA.
      "I cried when I came in, too," guard Derek Anderson said. "This one hurts to no end. It hits my heart and makes me sick to my stomach."
      Said Ruben Patterson: "I wanted to cry."
      It’s the same old story for Portland of late, play hard but a few mistakes late end all chances of getting a ‘W’.
      "It's not so much the losing, it's how we are losing," Wesley Person said. "We are playing so hard, but we are just coming up short. We play down to the wire, and then nothing goes our way."
      Add to it all the normal dysfunctional behavior that accompanies the Blazers and constant trade rumors and the team now appear to be at a breaking point (this is when they usually rattle off about a 7-game win streak in the past).
      "We can't throw the white flag up," Anderson said. "But we have to take a deep look at ourselves and soul-search as individuals. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror."

      Hornets’ guard Jamal Mashburnhas notified the team he will begin working out with them on January 26th. Mash has been sidelines since having knee surgery back in October.
      "I'm getting my legs stronger, so I won't have to worry about doing that stuff when I come back to New Orleans," Mashburn said. He has been rehabilitating at his home in Miami (does everybody live there?) "Everything is going well, and my workouts are more intense now than they were this summer."
      Mashburn’s return will not only be accompanied by adjusting his body back to the NBA game, but working out the kinks of Tim Floyd’s offense. He only had a couple of practices before his knee troubles developed and will need time getting in the flow of things.
      "It's good that we now have a definite date, so we can make the plans we need to make to get him back on the floor," said Bob Bass, the team's executive vice president of basketball operations and general manager. "The big thing is that it seems to me that he's in great condition and his knee is real sound."
      That is until the injury prone Mashburn breaks down again.

      Want a malcontented forward? The Toronto Raptors are looking for anyone who can take Lamond Murray off their hands. After being stranded on the Raptors bench virtually all of December, Murray was placed on the injured list with some kind of foot ‘injury’. With that, he took his displeasure to the press, which didn’t play well.
      "I've never been big about airing our gripes and grievances in public," GM Glen Grunwald said. "I understand his reaction, but we're trying to do things in a productive fashion and I don't think demanding trades in the media is necessarily the way to go about getting things done.
      "But I don't think it's anything horrible. He was frustrated and spoke out."
      It still may be tough to move the 10-year veteran.
      "Other teams don't necessarily want to have players that are complaining in the media," Grunwald said. "If something makes sense for our team then definitely we'd do something. But we're not just going to give him away."

      He might be 7-6, but Yao Ming hasn’t exactly proved to be the intimidating force the Rockets imagined.
      "You're aware that he's there," Minnesota’s Kevin Garnett said. "But you don't go in there thinking, 'I'm going to change my shot.' If anything, you are going to try to put it down his throat. Try to dunk on him or something like that. If I drive to the basket, if he's there, he's there. I'm not the least intimidated."
      When I first read that, I thought Garnett was talking about Shawn Bradley!

      When exactly did the San Antonio Spurs turn into the biggest clanking machine this side of the legendary Kim Hughes (goin’ ole school on all y’all)?
      As a team they are hitting only 67%, with MVP Tim Duncan really doing his best Shaq impression by hitting only 60%! That becomes a big problem since he takes more than double the amount of charity tosses as his teammates.
      "It's tough with Timmy," Spurs’ assistant PJ Carlesimo said. "He's the guy we go to on almost every possession. It's hard. It's become an epidemic for us."
      Now the Spurs have been streaky as a team. Recently they got a lot of play with their 13 game win streak. However, only 5 of those were against teams with winning records.
      "It wasn't like we were beating the Lakers or the Kings or Dallas,” Bruce Bowen said.
      "We weren't that good when we won 13 straight and we're not as bad as we look now," Carlesimo said. "But I think we're still ahead of where we were last year and defensively we're playing very well. But we better get it going soon or it can go the other way real quick."