Blake Griffin’s Clippers lost last night after the ageless Derek Fisher nailed a buzzer-beater for the Lakers, Raymond Felton delivered a game-winner for Knicks against the Raptors, the Heat look as if they’ve figured some things out, Larry Bird turns 54, and news has surfaced that Shaquille O’Neal might play in Turkey next season.

Are you kidding me?

Plus, an inquiry into whether NBA officials are potentially making calls based on race and the Nuggets appear committed to trading Carmelo Anthony if an extension is not signed. How about that!

Welcome to “Daily Buckets” where I peruse the NBA universe each day and deliver a few worthy pro basketball news items from around the league via different sources. To view the entire article just click the link I have included with each header.

The Clippers’ loss last night left Blake Griffin in agony, ** via Yahoo! Sports:**

*Everyone else on these Los Angeles Clippers had disappeared down the hallway and toward the locker room, leaving behind one more snapshot from decades of disappointment. Only, Blake Griffin(notes) wouldn’t move. He stood there, ball tucked under his arm, and stared across the Staples Center floor. He wore that ghastly, gaunt Clippers face, and watched the NBA champions cackle. *

“I was just thinking, ‘Wow, that really happened,’ ” he would say quietly at his locker later.

Wow, it really happened, an epic meltdown that human resources can splice right into the franchise’s orientation video for new hires. For a moment, it almost felt like Griffin wished he could stop staring and start walking toward those Lakers. Someday, he’ll leave the Clippers. Someday, he’ll tire of the dysfunction, the losing, and he’ll be the biggest free agent on the market. For now, he felt a tap on the basketball, turned his head and there was his coach, Vinny Del Negro, telling him it was time to leave the Lakers’ celebration and come back to the losing locker room.

**Raymond Felton delivered game-winning heroics for the Knicks, staking his claim as their PG of the future. Via ESPN NY: **

*The New York Knicks told Raymond Felton they were getting rid of him the very minute they signed him. The contract covered a mere two seasons, making Felton nothing more than a rented tux to be returned in the summer of 2012. *

He was hired to be fired, and Felton understood the terms of engagement when he signed the papers.

“It’s a business, man,” he said as he was lacing his dress shoes Wednesday night.

A lucrative business, yet one that can be unforgiving and cold.

“I wanted play in New York and I wanted to play in this system,” Felton said. “So I took the deal.”

Two years and fifteen million bucks before handing the ball to Deron Williams or Chris Paul.

Felton was among the consolation prizes when LeBron James didn’t sign. He was supposed to be a game manager, a playmaking upgrade on Chris Duhon charged to do a credible job as a temp.

You know, protect the ball, play some defense, throw some alleys for Amare Stoudemire’s oops.

Only on another December night in 2010, Felton did not look like anyone’s idea of a stand-in. The kid who played his high school ball in South Carolina and his college and pro ball in North Carolina hardened his standing as the best quarterback in New York.

**Tracy McGrady returned to Houston last night and is wondering who they’ll blame now that he’s gone, via the Houston Chronicle: **

Even now, with no first step, he could get past defenders off the dribble. Even now, he sees passes that others never will.

But now, he is reduced to brief bursts of production, then returns to a minor role. Those flashes only serve to remind not only of what he was, but of all he could have been.

McGrady said he will be satisfied with his career, as if he had no role in its failure to live up to its promise, just as he also said he had no responsibility for the way his time in Houston ended, even though he admitted on Tuesday that he knew he was not 100 percent last season, even though he repeatedly said he was 100 percent.

He also indulged in a moment of self pity.

“I want to know,” McGrady said, “who they’re blaming around here now that I’m gone.”

If McGrady was blamed, that would have been an indication of how much more was possible.

Shaquille O’Neal to play in Turkey next season? Via CBS Sports: **

So currently, Shaq’s got something like 675 days left. Give or take. Shaq’s long said that his future after retiring from the NBA would be in law enforcement, but according to Seref Yalcin, the general manager of the Besiktas (where Allen Iverson is playing), Shaq is planning to play in Turkey after his NBA career ends. From Ajansspor, translated by Hoopnotes:

Seref Yalcin, GM of the Turkish club, said he was in the United States to meet with the center who said to him: “I want to be champion this season with Boston. But I’m coming to Turkey next year.”

“Some people will still come out and said ‘Shaq won’t come to Turkey’,” Yalcin added. “But the chances are very high.”

Shaq’s two-year contract includes a player option for the 2011-12 season, so he could opt out. People have long believed that Shaq would go get paid big in Europe after his NBA career ends, Shaq even mentioning this past summer he had big dollar offers. So maybe there’s some truth to it.

To be clear though, Yalcin didn’t say it was for sure. There’s no spit-in-the-hand-and-shake deal made here. He just said, “Chances are very high.” And honestly, would you really put this past Shaq? I wouldn’t, especially if he gets his title in Boston this season and a lockout pops up next summer.

**Have the Heat finally figured things out? From ESPN’s Daily Dime: **

So what is different now? Well, they are still taking turns but it is happening within individual possessions. That is making them exponentially harder to defend and the Heat significantly tougher to beat.

“We’re finding our comfort spots on the court at the same time,” said James, who is averaging 26.3 points during the Heat’s six-game win streak.

“We’re just doing our thing. We’re not being too unselfish. If one doesn’t have anything, we swing it to the other side and play good basketball.”

There have been a couple of minor structural tweaks to the Heat’s James/Wade attack. They are playing less point guard — coach Erik Spoelstra has entered Mario Chalmers into the rotation to help — and are playing more at their true wing positions.

Each has started to run cuts when the other has the ball. There’s not yet as much movement as there could be, but both players have started to take advantage of the attention the other draws.

They are also not afraid to dominate the ball. If that means leaving the other guy in the corner or on the wing watching, then, as they have said, so be it. But instead of making the unnecessary pass to set the other up or hold the ball too long, they are trying to make their move earlier in the shot clock. If they’re stopped then they swing it to the other man.

It sounds simple but it took a while for them to smooth out the edges. Now the opponents are having trouble sending multiple defenders to deal with both superstars on the same possession.

Do NBA officials make racially biased calls during games? Check out this interesting read from Zach Lowe of SI.com:* *

The study analyzed box-score data from 1991-2003 and found that three-man officiating crews of different racial compositions (i.e. all white, two black/one white, etc.) display a slight bias in favor of players of their own race. In very simple terms, white referees (and about two-thirds of the league’s refs in 2007 were white) called slightly fewer fouls on white players than black players. The study controls for about every variable you can think of — home-court advantage, the skill level of particular players, the race of the coaches, starters versus reserves, scoring margin and others.

Wolfers and Price seem every bit as confident in their conclusions as they were three years ago, when the league mounted an aggressive campaign to refute their findings and even hired consultants to conduct its own study, which (mostly) vindicated the officials. A bunch of academics compared the two studies and found the Price-Wolfers original more convincing.

You can understand why the league would react a bit defensively, if that’s a fair way to characterize how David Stern’s office responded. Many folks are not going to read the finer points of the academic study and will conclude simply that NBA officials are racist. And for whatever reason, racial issues in basketball get more attention than they do elsewhere; The New York Times published the story about the Price-Wolfers study on the front page, while a study that found similar biases among baseball umpires appeared in the sports section.

The Denver Nuggets have committed to trading Carmelo Anthony if he doesn’t sign. Via CBS Sports:

*The Nuggets have all but decided to trade Anthony if he does not sign an extension with the team by the trade deadline, and Denver’s management team believes Anthony is fully prepared to play out the season and become a free agent, multiple sources told CBSSports.com. *

  • The Nuggets’ strong start, coupled with George Karl’s inspirational return from cancer treatment and positive discussions about a contract extension for the soon-to-be-1,000-win coach, have the organization feeling they’ve done everything possible to persuade Anthony to stay. But according to people with knowledge of the team’s strategy, if Anthony doesn’t agree to sign the three-year, $65 million extension by the Feb. 24 trade deadline, the wheels are all but certain to be put in motion to part ways with the three-time All-Star rather than lose him as a free agent and get nothing in return. *

  • According to people in contact with the Nuggets’ management team, there is far more clarity today about what the team is seeking in a potential Anthony trade than there was in September, when new GM Masai Ujiri was thrust into the tempest in his initial days and weeks on the job. Executives believe the Nuggets have decided they would like to receive the best possible package of young players and are not interested in stopgap options that would hamper their flexibility. Acquiring a high-priced veteran player — such as Andre Iguodala, whose talent the Nuggets value but not his contract — would only hurt the team’s ability to build around youth while maintaining payroll flexibility into the uncertainty of a new collective bargaining agreement.*

**Finally, Larry Bird turned 54 on Tuesday so a columnist from CelticsBlog offered words in tribute: **

As I grew older and ESPN Classic (not to mention old-school DVDs) became my friend, I only learned to appreciate Bird further. The excitement bubbling out of five-year-old Jay slowly decreased, of course, but in its place grew a fantastic respect. Larry Bird played the game like I always wished I did, like everyone should. He dove after loose balls, even in the waning moments of a blowout. He found open teammates, even when every teammate was less talented than he. He played with a bravado that said, “I’m better than you, you, you, you, and you,” yet he stayed humble enough to remain the hardest-working Celtic, and team-oriented enough to play an infectious style of unselfish basketball.

Bird didn’t have an immortal playing style, and in a way that was endearing. He wasn’t Michael Jordan, turbo-boosting and elevating his way over and through defenders. No, Bird mostly stayed stuck to the ground, playing the game in a stratosphere I was used to. There was something more tangible about the way Larry Bird tallied his gawdy statistics, something that made you think, “I bet I could do a lot of the things he does.”

Of course, you couldn’t. Bird was 6’9” tall, with the coordination of a point guard and the court vision of an owl. He was singularly focused on maiming every opponent he played, and thus entirely dedicated on improving himself and raising his teammates to his own level. He wouldn’t stop until he beat you, and even after he beat you, still wanted to play the game the right way. I never met Larry Bird, but I imagine there was little — and maybe nothing — in his life more sacred than competing on a basketball court.

I also delivered my own video tribute to Larry RIGHT HERE. Happy Birthday, Larry!* *

Until next time…** **