So when I was at the Houston airport this morning, walking toward my flight to New York, I passed a gate with a flight going to Detroit, and the entire Hawks contingent (Josh Smith, Batista, Arthur and Sekou Smith) was there, because the Hawks play the Pistons tomorrow. I didn’t have the heart to ask Josh what the hell he was doing in the contest, but he was upset that Iguodala hadn’t won.

The most interesting thing was that everyone seemed to hate Billy Knight. Sekou pointed out, “How can your starting center die during training camp and you not even bring in anyone else to workout?” Good point.

Oh, and Batista never said a word, because he was talking on his Treo. And he had a huge acoustic guitar in a case at his feet, which I guess he travels with all the time. Matt, maybe you can send him some acoustic CDs.

The other highlight of the weekend was after the game on Sunday, when I was gathering up my stuff and preparing to go from the press section to the locker rooms, and I saw a tall guy in the stands that I thought I recognized, so I went over to him and sure enough…it was Nantambu Willingham. Talked to him for a while and got all his contact info. He has a house outside Atlanta and still plays professionally overseas. He said I appeared to have hit “a growth spurt” since high school. I told him I thought it was just that he cut that tremendous flattop he used to have.