Heard It Through the Grapevine

Posted by Rob Mahoney on October 12, 2009 under The Grapevine |

• A proposed nickname for dominant preseason presence Kris Humphries: Krash Humphries. Two notes: I generally shy away from intentional misspellings in nicknames unless they’re especially pun-worthy, and technically Gerald Wallace already has the nickname ‘Crash’, even if it’s a different spelling.
• Related: Mike Fisher sees similarities between Humphries, Eduardo Najera, and Brandon Bass.
• Wayne Winston, Mavs stats guru and subject of Henry Abbott’s multi-part feature at TrueHoop, is now Wayne Winston, former Mavs stats guru. The change in NBA employment status is independent of his comments on TH, even if it does seem like Winston was canned shortly after claiming he wouldn’t take Kevin Durant on his team for free. Quite the claim, but apparently completely irrelevant in the Mavs decision to head in a different direction with their stats work.
• Michael Lee of the Washington Post (on his Twitter account, @MrMichaelLee), during the Mavs-Wiz preseason bonanza: “Rodrigue Beaubois just picked Gil’s pocket and dunked. He looks nice. Has 11 points. Can we start calling him The Darker Tony Parker?”
• Mark Cuban is less than thrilled with the Mavs coverage on ESPN Dallas.
• If Jason Terry could somehow morph into a great defender at this point in his career, that would be absolutely fantastic. But color me skeptical. Terry tries on defense, he just doesn’t have the technique or the size to really defend well at the 2.
• Devin Harris fawns over Boston’s acquisition of Marquis Daniels (via Mike Fisher at DB.com)