You think the Lakers will retire Shaquille O'Neal's jersey? With bridges burned in Orlando and Miami, not much to show for his time in Phoenix, and twilight years in Cleveland ... O'Neal has the chance to become the greatest NBA player ever to not have his jersey retired. So, if Gilbert Arenas won't entertain us with off-court wit ... who will? The Spurs drafted, in DeJuan Blair, a player who grabbed a greater percentage of offensive rebounds than some teams. Blair, by himself, was a better offensive rebounder than Colorado was all together. The thing is, the Spurs are the worst offensive rebounding team in large part because they don't stick around to grab them, preferring instead to get back on defense. So ... how will Popovich play Blair? Something to watch. Little Amare Stoudemire. NCAA, if you're looking for an example of somebody who came to college for the basketball, but stayed for the academics ... here's your guy. Portland owner Paul Allen -- who knew? -- has just survived a profound health scare. Mike Dunleavy says he homebrewed what we now call effective field goal percentage in contract negotiations during his playing days. Video of Hakeem Olajuwon working out with Hasheem Thabeet and just a little time with Kobe Bryant. What a contrast in students for Olajuwon, huh? Maybe the most gifted and fluid offensive wing force in the modern NBA, compared to a big man whose offense, some scouts say, doesn't even belong in the NBA. The NBA offered some referees $575,000 to retire. First significant injury of the season: Bull Aaron Gray. Tyreke Evans has been sitting, too, although no word that it's serious. Shooting 3s from the corner: A good idea. NBA TV's Real Training Camp focused on the Denver Nuggets, and Roundball Mining Company's Jeremy has insight: "J.R. Smith is traditionally a slow starter, and in past Real Training Camps he has not had good shooting performances. Today he was on fire. In fact, I do not remember seeing him miss a shot. J.R. will be out the first seven games of the season, but hopefully when he comes back for game eight he will be shooting like he did today." Assessing the Thunder's depth chart, which is confusing thanks to multiple players who play multiple positions. The Bucks had a crisis last season: No one could hit a 3. Jeremy of Bucksketball: "But the Bucks have taken steps to rectify the situation, right? Supposedly. Don't get me wrong, the Bucks have done a thing or two this off season designed to rectify the three point shooting problem, I'm just not certain I'm buying all the moves. They've brought on Carlos Delfino, an alleged shooter; Ersan Ilyasova, a possible shooter; and will be bringing back a healthy Michael Redd, a slightly overrated shooter. In the process of adding (and re-adding in Redd's case) these three the Bucks managed to lose one of their best shooters from last year in Charlie Villanueva ..." RapsFan of RaptorsRepublic on Bryan Colangelo: "We all read between the lines, that BC swung for the fences this summer and put together what he thought was a solid team that improved over last season (and to a degree I do share this sentiment), but when he actually came out said the goal is 50 wins, wow. You would have hoped he learned his lesson from last season's claim that this was the most talented team he has assembled in Toronto, and managed expectations. He went the other direction, and what that has done is fuse most fans, and the media to a degree, with a new sense of optimism." Brandon Roy tells Benjamin Golliver of BlazersEdge about the sneaky defense the Blazers are working on: "It's a man defense but it's that we're so tight and we're helping so much it appears that it's a zone just to throw the opponent off." Charles Barkley says Twitter is for losers. Ron Artest, comic book character.