Avatar has become the second-highest-grossing film ever, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The 3D epic has reportedly earned $1.14 billion at the international box office, topping previous No. 2 record-holder The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Avatar is Cameron’s first movie since 1997’s $1.8 billion-grossing Titanic. The lensman has now directed two of the only five films to join the Billion Dollar Club.
Taco Bell is encouraging people to choose items from their Drive-Thru Diet menu, consisting of Fresco-style choices with 9 grams or less of fat.
I should have seen this one coming, but I didn’t. I’m an advocate of taking your own lunch, but I suppose if you’re eating out anyway, it does make sense to choose items lower in fat. However, go to Taco Bell daily as a means to lose weight?
According to Taco Bell, Christine Dougherty did just that. The 27-year-old woman picked items from the restaurant’s Fresco menu up to eight times each week, and she lost 54 pounds over the course of two years. In the Taco Bell commercials, Dougherty says she lost about 2 pounds a month.
What’s the Fresco stuff? Instead of cheese and fatty sauces, you get items like onions, salsa, lettuce or tomatoes. There are seven choices, including a grilled steak soft taco with lettuce, tomatoes and salsa. The website for the diet even invites you to make a Frescolution pledge and send motivational e-cards.
I’m not at all convinced a fast-food restaurant should be in the business of promoting a diet, particularly one that encourages taking a shortcut with the drive-through. Every footstep counts, and fast-food restaurants often have shorter lines inside than for the drive-through.
Overall, the Taco Bell diet seems a bit gimmicky to me. Though I applaud Taco Bell’s efforts in offering lower-fat menu options, I don’t think we should be looking to the fast-food industry for diet help. Plus, does anyone really eat Taco Bell five to eight times a week like Dougherty? Some people may now choose Taco Bell thinking they’ll drop a bunch of weight just like Dougherty, without exercise. It’s possible to eat healthy without resorting to a fast-food menu, and exercise is important. Don’t let the marketing fool you.
If you’re dieting by Taco Bell alone, please comment to tell us how it’s going. Or, if you think I’m being too critical of the Drive-Thru Diet, I’d love to hear from you as well!
(Image via flickr.compujeramey)
Post from: Blisstree
I know you probably have snow on the ground. They’re calling for more here, too. However, I am spring cleaning in a state of complete denial. As part of my cleaning, I am doing a clean out. It doesn’t seem possible with the constant sorting and donating, but there is a ton of stuff just sitting in the way that we don’t even want. In fact, Kijiji.com says I probably have about 35 things that I never even use taking up space in my house. I would feel sad about that fact, but there’s another little piece of trivia they sent me. Those things I don’t use? They could be worth as much as $670 if I decide to sell them. I sort of skimmed over the amount, thinking it was nice, but selling stuff takes time. I’m so busy lately. I was thinking I’d just do another run to the thrift store when I saw that Kijiji had broken down what that much money could buy. How about 489 loaves of bread? No? 97 movie tickets? Still not worth it? 172 gallons of gas? Yeah, I thought so!
Think you don’t have anything sitting around that you don’t use? Then you are one of the 30 out of a hundred households that already got rid of the old TV set and that stereo you shoved into the corner of the garage.
Are you planning to get rid of your 35 items?
Photo: SXC
Post from: Blisstree
A couple years back, we condemned digital photo frames as the spam of CES—this year, in the wake of the Christmas of Kindle, every company has its own ebook reader. And that’s a bad thing.
There will soon be two kinds of happy ebook-reader owners. The people who paid a fair amount for a reputable ebook reader from one of the companies they already buy books from, and the people who spend like $50 on a no-name ebook reader that supports a lot of formats, who gets every book they can think of as a pirated copy over BitTorrent. Everyone else—both the buyers of tier-two ebook readers and the makers of them—are going to be screwed.
You know we have an ambivalent attitude about the big-name ebook readers. The Kindle is the best ebook reader you can buy right now, if you’re in the market, but it’s still hampered by a slow e-ink black-and-white display—not to mention a heavy reliance on Amazon’s own book sales operation, which bothers some people. We respect what Jeff Bezos and Amazon have done to teach the world about digital book reading, and we understand why Barnes & Noble has to get in this game in order to plan for the future—or simply survive.
But the introduction of e-ink-based readers by many big tech companies and a handful of feisty little ones threatens to sow confusion in the market place, encourage piracy, and screw over any company who gets in and then can’t really hack it against Kindle and Nook. And all of it will be a pointless exercise when long-lasting slates are a reality.
E-ink is an interim technology, a stopgap measure to keep our attention till we have full-color video tablets (slates?) whose batteries last for “days.” A flood in the market might ensure that everyone buys one by this coming Christmas, but it’ll become increasingly hard to distinguish the good from the bad, will emphasize cheap devices over quality of interface and service, and will render most people completely confused and off-put.
They will buy some $100 reader, then wonder why they can’t borrow books from their friend who has a Nook, or can’t get the same stuff that’s sold on the Kindle. While I assume most of these new ebook readers support the ePub standard, buyers will easily run into dead ends in the labyrinth of DRM (understandably) required by the publishing business.
Some of these people will give up on buying books altogether, even if they don’t stop reading. Yes, a flood of cheap e-ink readers will grow ebook piracy more than ebook sales.
In fact, cheap e-ink readers will essentially be targeted at people with libraries of pirated books, for people who read the fine print of file compatibility, and ignore all the wireless connectivity and insta-bookstore stuff that consumers are currently excited about. Many of you would say that’s not a bad thing, and I think piracy is as inevitable as publishers going digital—whether they like it or not.
The worst thing of all is that these ebooks will all struggle to get out the door (like so many ebook players “introduced” last fall), or will die on storeshelves, the stuff nobody wants. Price will move some units, for sure, but most of them will be also-rans, like so many MP3 players released this past decade that weren’t iPods.
Maybe this glut of ebook readers isn’t offensive to you—most of you don’t have to step over them on your way to cover 3D TVs that are also everywhere at this show—but there’s no reason for them, and the more we try to keep track of, the more annoyed we get. Your choices: Go Kindle, wait for a cheap-as-hell reader, pray for a slate, or buy a book. A real paper-and-ink book.
Crosley’s cool-looking portable turntable, the Revolution, is designed, oddly enough, for portable use. It runs on batteries, has a headphone jack, and is about as small as a turntable can get. Suck it, iPhone!
I really like the design of the Revolution; it’s not necessarily practical (and of course, serious vinyl fans will blanch—blanch!—at the unprotected record) but it’s definitely tiny and the price is right—only $150. It runs on battery power (they’ll probably go with rechargeable AA) or AC, has a USB out and a 3.5mm headphone jack (no RCA-out). It’s not really meant for your entertainment console, hooked up to a real stereo, but for a bedroom turntable it sounds really great. It also will feature software (probably made by a veeeery interesting partner that I’m not at liberty to name) that will identify and tag your vinyl-to-digital rips. The Revolution should be available in mid- to late-summer, for $150, in black at first and then in a variety of colors. [Crosley]
Earlier today, I hit up the Nvidia press event at CES. As expected, the newest Tegra chip was announced and then demonstrated. This ARM Cortex-A9 is poised to kick the mobile market up a notch or two, based on what I saw and heard. It’s a dual-core mobile chip with eight independent processors — Nvidia says that it offers 10 times the performance of a smartphone CPU, four times over the older Tegra and only uses 500 milliwatts of power. Testing on a 5″ tablet yielded 140 hours of music playback, while the same device can play 16 hours of high-definition video on a single charge. That certainly jives with the recurring theme of convenient computing, which Nvidia defines as portability with performance.
Specs and rhetoric aside, what does it mean in real world products?
Quite a bit from what was shown — so much so, that the new Tegra platform is timed perfectly with what they company is calling “the year of the tablet.” Based on the brief demos, we should see portable slates with long battery life and potent performance. One such tablet shown was running Android faster than any smartphone or MID that I’ve ever seen. And that includes the new Nexus One, which I’ve had a chance to play with for a short while. But the real strength of Nvidia products has always been in the graphical area, so I’m on a “wait and see” mission as far as browsing, web apps and such. As far as that graphics performance, Nvidia appears to deliver — a 1080p video stream at 10 Mbps played flawlessly on a Tegra tablet. I have little doubt that such a platform will excel at media playback for hours.
Other related developments include news about Adobe. The company’s cross-platform AIR product will be supported on Tegra, which opens up more opportunities for applications and digital magazines. Adding more appeal is support for high-quality 3D graphical gaming. Today I saw the potent Unreal Engine 3 running on a Tegra demo tablet, which opened my eyes to the likelihood of serious gaming on such devices. The entire tablet demo reminded me of the promise shown in that very first Origami Project video back in 2006: gaming, browsing and media consumption.
What’s different about today as compared to 2006 that make the “year of the tablet” claim more believable? ARM processing power has matured while battery needs have stayed reasonable, for one. Operating systems other than Windows have also gained acceptance, both by consumers and developers as well. The time is simply right for the old Origami concept to arrive — I saw it today on stage and I’m looking forward to seeing again on Saturday. I have some hands-on time scheduled with Nvidia to give you a closer look at the Tegra powered products you’ll be seeing later this year.
You wouldn’t think a third party could clone a Nintendo product and then make it better, but Nyko may have done that with the Wand+.
I mean, let’s face it. Nintendo has grown greedy and lazy, and it’s no more apparent than how they gave us Wii MotionPlus as an adapter on the Wiimote. The dongle is fine for backward compatibility, welcome even, but they’re double-dipping on all new Wiimote buyers, making them purchase controllers AND Wii MotionPlus to play games.
In a balance of karma, Nintendo has been one-upped by a knockoff.
Nyko’s Wand+ integrates 1:1 motion (like you see in WiiMotion Plus) into the normal Wiimote formfactor. In your hand, it feels every bit as comfortable as a Wiimote (actually, I prefer it because of its rubber grip.) And playing Wii Sports Resort (table tennis) with the Wand+ today, it felt every bit as responsive/accurate as what Nintendo is crapping into our laps as an awkwardly attached accessory.
Further testing will be needed to determine whether or not the Wand+ is just as good as the original, but Nyko’s reps were pretty confident in the tech. We’ll test one more rigorously when they arrive for $40 in March, but until then, I’m just happy to see some company put a little external pressure on Nintendo.
One of the main reasons Federal Reserve policy makers have been able to keep monetary policy so stimulative in the face of an economic recovery is their steadfast confidence that inflation is, and will remain, quiescent.
But two new papers from the central bank challenge that outlook. One, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, warns price pressures may rise more quickly than thought in coming years. Another, from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, notes the uncertainty of the Fed’s framework for divining the nation’s inflationary potential.
What happens with inflation is always a key matter for the Fed. But in the current environment, tame price pressures and the expectation they’ll stay that way are even more important.
Low inflation gives the Fed considerable breathing room to keep interest rates low and provide other forms of support in an environment in which economic growth is tepid and halting. If price pressures were to accelerate, the central bank would likely have to respond with a tightening in policy, even if economy was ill-prepared to deal with that action–a choice it would rather not have to make.
The St. Louis Fed paper, written by bank economist Kevin Kliesen, sees inflation risks coming from several sources. One problem spot could be that the Fed misjudges the economy’s ability to create price pressures. It’s possible policy makers will misgauge the so-called output gap, which is the difference between the economy’s potential–its ability to growth without fueling inflation–and actual rates of growth. The wider the gap, the lower the economy’s likely level of inflation.
“The size of the output gap might be smaller than conventional wisdom might believe,” Kliesen wrote. “If so, those who foresee little risk to the near-term inflation outlook because of a large, persistent output gap may be too optimistic.”
He also warns the Fed’s current policy stance–interest rates are effectively set at zero percent, mortgage asset purchases continue until the end of the first quarter–may distort financial markets.
“Although low interest rates are a key part of the FOMC’s strategy to boost economic growth and cement the health of the economic recovery, there might still be a danger of inflating asset prices by encouraging investors and speculators to shift out of low-yield assets like Treasury securities into higher-yielding assets like commodity contracts or other tangible financial assets,” Kliesen noted.
And while it’s not part of the Fed’s portfolio, huge government budget deficits also pose a risk to a stable inflation environment, he wrote.
The St. Louis Fed economist’s anxiety over the output-gap issue is backed up by Thomas Lubik, an economist at the Richmond Fed. In his paper, Lubik warns “uncertainty” over the correct way to measure the gap makes this concept, as central bankers now understand it, “a potentially faulty gauge” for assessing the economic situation and guiding monetary policy. That increases the chance of policy leading to a bad outcome.
Some of the worries shown by the Fed economists extend to the policy-making level. In a speech Thursday, Kansas City Fed chief Thomas Hoenig reclaimed his role as the most aggressive advocate for undoing the current state of policy. He said he’d like to see policy tightened “sooner rather than later” lest the central bank let inflation bloom and allow overly-easy policy to distort financial markets.
For now, however, most of the central bank’s weight rests behind maintaining the status quo of low interest rates. While the economy appears to be recovering, there is even a reappraisal of Fed’s mortgage-buying program now. The program is scheduled to conclude at the end of the first quarter but some officials are now leaning toward keeping the effort alive longer, fearing the critical mortgage market may not yet be able to function properly without Fed support.
There is not much to say about this news except, wow, that was fast, NOT. This update must have been a planned release for maximum effect during CES.
Here is the change log:
OS Upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5
Updated drivers to support Global VZ Navigator
TouchFLO 3D Enhancements
Download:Here
Also available, after an unofficial leak, is the Windows Mobile 6.5 update to the HTC Ozone.
Changelog:
Upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5
Download:Here
Source:WME
Jay Leno is going back to late-night.
NBC is shutting down the primetime Jay Leno Show and moving their leading chin back to his old 11:30PM slot, TMZ reports. In September I said I wanted The Jay Leno Show to fail. Now it has. This is good news, for everybody.
Last fall, TIME called Jay Leno “the future of television.”
It wasn’t because he was particularly entertaining, or bold, or
revolutionary. He is really none of those things. But he was cheap. NBC was
striking out with all of its new (horrible) pilots — Knight Rider? Lipstick Jungle? My Own Worst Enemy? — and so its executives basically gave up on storytelling. Running Jay five nights a week would cost
less than a single hour of primetime drama. It was a cynical move. Fortunately, it didn’t even last the winter.
Why did it fail? Well, advertising immediately fell off a cliff.
NBC’s 10 p.m. advertising rates were down as much as 70 percent by
November. Viewership in the precious 18-49 demographic at 10 p.m. fell 45%
in two months. News affiliates were in revolt because their audiences
and ad revenue piggy-back on NBC’s 10 p.m. audience. The fish was rotting
from the head.
This move is awfully embarrassing PR for NBC. The network originally
defended the Leno move because he would be recording new episodes all
summer 2010 against re-runs. It’s 20-degrees outside right now in the
dead of winter and Leno experiment is six feet under. But something
else lives. It’s called … Good television. NBC should think about making some of that.
Here’s my thing – just started taking insulin three weeks ago. I agree, intellectually, that I need this to help bring everything under control. I hate it. I have to have my husband give me the shot because I just can’t do it. Still takes 10 minutes to prick my finger to take my readings everyday.
Though I have processed most of my issues it still ticks me off how the nurse seems to encourage this dominate my life. It doesn’t need to dominate my life. Perhaps this is petty of me. I know I have to take care of myself – and I do. I monitor my BG every morning, take my insulin, watch what I eat, etc.
Do I count carbs? No – I do not eat processed food (or very rarely at least) and we make most things from scratch. I feel too busy to try and calculate the carbs, starch, etc. I watch my portion size, use less salt, hardly ever eat bread and eat more veggies. I even gave up pop and juice because I know I did too much of that.
Taking insulin is making me hungrier and I hate that. Even after a good lunch less than 2 hours ago I feel hungry and I finished my nuts.
This whole thing irritates me. I want to be healthier and am working on that. I do not want this to define me.
Arrggh!
Selina
It was really refreshing to see Rogues Gallery’s collection for Fall/Winter. With Spring fast approaching, Alex Carleton’s nautical inspired line gets the warm weather treatment with a collection that mirrors life in American harbor towns. Expect soft cotton tees, light suits, polos, and light knits reminiscent of a New England style ever ready for whatever the Northeast weather brings.
Continue reading to view more images.
Source: PLTDME
The Queen spoofs Twilight!
Bridgestone announced today that it will supply its new Potenza S001 ultra high-performance sport tires to Ferrari for its new 458 Italia supercar.
“Bridgestone is privileged to have been selected by Ferrari as an official tyre supplier partner for the exciting new 458 Italia” said Mr Didier Schneider, Vice President Original Equipment, Bridgestone Europe. “Both Ferrari and Bridgestone compete to the highest of standards in Formula One, the pinnacle of single-seater racing where performance and safety are the ultimate goals. We are proud of this relationship, working both on the race track and on road car projects together.”
Bridgestone has developed ires for Ferrari since the 348 back in 1990. Many of Ferrari’s flagship models have been fitted with Bridgestone tires, including the 612 Scaglietti, the Enzo Ferrari and the Superamerica.
Refresher: Power comes from a mid-rear mounted 4.5L V8 producing 570-hp at 9,000 rpm with a maximum torque of 398 lb-ft at 6,000 rpm. Mated to a dual-clutch 7-speed F1 gearbox, 0 to 62 mph comes in just 3.4 seconds with a top speed of over 202 mph.
Ferrari 458 Italia:
– By: Kap Shah
Apart from the LG eXpo, a few other devices have been showcased at CES.
The GW550 has VPN support, a 2.4” QVGA (landscape) display, full QWERTY keyboard, A-GPS, Wi-Fi and a 3.2MP camera, running WM6.5 Standard.
The LG GM750 is similar to the original Samsung Omnia in design, and features a similar WQVGA touch screen, along with A-GPS, Wi-Fi and a 5MP camera. This is backed up by WM6.5 Professional and LGs S-Class UI.
Along with those WM devices, there are a few “dumb” phones and the LG GW990, on which there are very few details. It features a 4.8” screen and an Atom processor. Not much else is known, though LG says there’ll be more information later.
Apart from the device with no information, LGs WM6.5 devices seem fairly standard, and slightly low on the spec front.
Via BGR.
The Skylight is part netbook, part smartphone, and I’m pretty sure I could throw it 50 yards. The real question is if that makes it a game-changer or a novelty act.
The look and feel are certainly novel, if not novelty. The Skylight has an ultrathin clamshell design and weighs less than two pounds—it feels like a frisbee in your hand. It’s a sturdy build, though, and seems like it could handle being jostled around in your bag.
When you open the Skylight, you’re greeted by a screen of six “web gadgets” (apps, basically), that give you immediate access to services like photos, Firefox, YouTube, Gmail, etc. You can scroll through these, but there’s also a row of minimized web gadget icons at the bottom of the screen for easy, instant navigation.
Once you select the app you want to work in, it maximizes to two-thirds of the screen, keeping two other gadgets open to its right. The 10.1-inch hi-def display is more crisp and clear than most netbooks, and 720p video looks great. Unfortunately, the model we saw was running off of 3G, which made the playback hiccupy and the file slow to load.
The Skylight also comes equipped with a full island-style keyboard, which is a relief. Typing was smooth, and the trackpad was plenty big. Although it’s not multitouch, it does support two-finger scrolling.
The Skylight has its own 8GB memory kernel to keep things running, and a 4GB USB stick (upgradeable up to 16GB) on which you can store your content. The way they’ve integrated the stick is clever and unassuming; it sits flat above the keyboad, and can be easily lifted up and removed from the rest of the unit.
There’s not much in the way of ports, but the Skylight does have HDMI-out, which is great if you plan on storing movies on it. The Snapdragon processor is said to get 8 hours of battery life, but even if it’s half of that with HD playback (which is often the differential between listed battery life and actual), that’s more than enough to watch a movie or two on a long flight.
So what’s the hitch? Well, at the moment there are only a limited number of Skylight apps available to you, and most of those don’t gain anything by being on your smartbook instead of a smartphone or netbook. Lenovo’s going to open up the SDK soon, but until developers get a crack at maximizing the Skylight’s functionality, it won’t have much. It’ll have built-in Wi-Fi, but it also will rely on AT&T’s 3G network, which even in our demonstration wasn’t up to the challenge of streaming the type of hi-def video you’re going to want to.
There’s potential here, but it might be some time before the Skylight is ready to shine.
CBS Interactive says it will be adding a TV.com app to Boxee’s media center software in the coming weeks. But even though Boxee just got some serious validation from a major broadcaster, that doesn’t mean you’ll see licensed, full-length episodes of CSI: Miami or How I Met Your Mother on its TV.com app right away.
The new app will pull in user ratings, comments and other information from TV.com, and make it available to users to help them choose the things they’d like to watch. But it won’t have any video, according to CBS Interactive senior vice president and general manager Anthony Soohoo. Instead, he said the initial focus for the TV.com app will be on getting the company’s metadata onto the Boxee software and getting people used to using it.
But Soohoo said CBS Interactive might start integrating video assets into the app later. “This gets us working together on a formal basis. It starts an ongoing dialogue between us, as we learn more and become comfortable with each other,” Soohoo said.
While getting CBS to the table is a big deal, it’s worth noting that even if the broadcaster were to cooperate on adding video assets to the TV.com app, it’s likely that the content it would make available would be primarily short-form, promotional clips used to market its shows, rather than full-length episodes. While CBS distributes short-form clips widely through its CBS Audience Network, it has been stingy when distributing full-length content outside of CBS.com.
The announcement between CBS Interactive and Boxee comes as the media software company publicly released the beta version of its software. Users interested in playing with the new version, first demoed last month in New York, can download it from boxee.tv.
There’s a good chance that fantasy owners have seen the last of Gilbert Arenas(notes) this season.
• By now, you likely know that the Gilbert Arenas situation has escalated to an indefinite suspension by the league while the police investigation of the events is still underway. Arenas’ parting image is to the right. From The Washington Post:
"The possession of firearms by an NBA player in an NBA arena is a
matter of the utmost concern to us," Stern said. "Although it is clear
that the actions of Mr. Arenas will ultimately result in a substantial
suspension, and perhaps worse, his ongoing conduct has led me to
conclude that he is not currently fit to take the court in an NBA
game."Stern, who originally had said through the league that he would wait
until the police investigation concluded before taking action, decided
to act after Arenas playfully formed his hands into pistols and
pretended he was shooting his teammates as the Wizards huddled
courtside before their game against the 76ers in Philadelphia on
Tuesday night.
It seems likely that Arenas has played his last game of the current season and with the Wizards. There are plenty of directions to go with the discussion from there, but I’ll keep the focus on the fantasy impact for our purposes. Arenas’ owners should still wait for the specifics of his punishment to shake out here if they can afford to, but if an extended inactive stint removes your team from the playoff/championship picture, then it’s fine to make the move for an active player at this point.
The Wizards started Earl Boykins(notes) (19 minutes 10 points, 6 assists, 0 turnovers) and Nick Young(notes) (37 minutes, 14 points, 2 threes, 3 assists, 1 steal) in the backcourt Wednesday, with Randy Foye(notes) (29 minutes, 18 points, 2 threes) coming off the bench. Mike Miller(notes) is a matter of days away from a return, and I anticipate him moving ahead of Young in fairly short order. There are 96 minutes available at point and shooting guard in a given game: with everyone healthy (and regardless of specific role), I can see Miller and Foye pulling around 30, Boykins around 25, and Young getting the remainder. Here are the current per-30 minute averages for the four players on the season:
Miller: 10.2 pts, 1.5 3pt, 6.4 reb, 3.3 ast, 1.6 to, 0.9 stl
Foye: 12.9 pts, 1.2 3pt, 2.4 reb, 2.5 ast, 1.7 to, 0.7 stl
Boykins: 12.9 pts , 0.5 3pt, 2.3 reb, 5.2 ast, 1.8 to, 0.7 stl
Young: 13.1 pts, 1.2 3pt, 3 reb, 1 ast, 1 to, 0.7 stl
Miller deserves universal consideration, Foye is worth the speculative add in most formats, Boykins deserves a look in most leagues deeper than standard size, and Young is a Watch List candidate. Keep in mind that the Wizards will likely be looking to shake up their roster as the trade deadline approaches, particularly if they are able to relieve themselves of Arenas’ contract, so those roles could be subject to change in a month or so.
• Two days after Jim O’Brien said that Danny Granger(notes) was at least two weeks away, an AP report is saying that he’ll be back soon,
after practicing Wednesday and Thursday with no pain in his right
plantar fascia. Granger’s original timetable was four to six weeks for
an injury suffered on Dec. 5. Obviously nothing specific is known
at this point, but the fact that he did practice without pain is a very
good sign.
• A side-effect to Yi Jianlian’s(notes) strong play since his return? Brook Lopez(notes) has been losing a lot of his touches. Over
the past six games, Yi has averaged 20.3 points and 14.7 shot attempts,
while Lopez has averaged 14.3 points and 10.6 shot attempts. In the
first 28 games of the season, Lopez averaged 19.5 points on 14.6 shot
attempts. What’s also notable about Yi’s play – and this situation –
since his return is that he’s totaled two assists in 258 minutes of
playing time.
• Luol Deng’s(notes) fractured left thumb
is affecting his shot, as evidenced by his 13.5 points on 41-percent
shooting over the past six games. He’s still been contributing
otherwise, averaging 7.5 boards, 0.8 steals, and 1.2 blocks in the same
stretch. But he’s been held out of contact drills during team
practices and has been getting X-rays before every game since first
sustaining the injury (Dec. 21). This might be a good time for
risk-averse owners to at least shop Deng and see what his current
market value is – team doctors told him that the injury would heal on
its own in six to eight weeks … if he didn’t play.
• Things are coming to a head for Andre Miller(notes) in Portland. Reports are that he and Nate McMillan were involved in a shouting match
that lasted 25 minutes during Thursday’s practice. For what it’s worth,
team general manager Kevin Pritchard called the exchange "normal" and
said it could be "healthy." It’s not secret that Miller could be on the move, and this isn’t likely to hurt those chances.
• The Heat had a Wednesday deadline and opted to keep Carlos Arroyo(notes) on the roster for the remainder of the season, a move that takes a bit of the shine off Rafer Alston’s(notes) potential fantasy impact and should effectively end the potential for any kind of Mario Chalmers(notes) rebound during the current season.
• Kings updates: Tyreke
Evans’(notes) ankle is still not 100 percent. … Kevin Martin(notes) feels ready to
go, but his status won’t change before he meets with team doctors on
Tuesday. … Francisco Garcia(notes) has been practicing with the team but isn’t
likely to join the active rotation before the end of January.
• Nuggets Friday status updates: Chauncey Billups(notes) (groin)
and Nene Hilario(notes) (ankle) are probable, Carmelo Anthony(notes) (knee) and Ty
Lawson(notes) (ankle) are questionable, and Chris Andersen(notes) (ankle) is almost
certainly out.
• Other injury/status updates: Deron Williams’(notes) bruised/sprained right wrist is still giving him issues. He didn’t practice Thursday and is questionable for Friday’s game. … Pau Gasol’s(notes) hamstring is improving but he won’t play Friday. … A sore right shoulder kept Danio Gallinari out of contract drills Wednesday, but he will be in the starting lineup Thursday. … Kevin Love(notes) left Wednesday’s game with a left knee injury that looked bad at the time but was eventually diagnosed as just a bruise. … Troy Murphy(notes) (ankle) could return to the lineup on Friday.
—
Photos via Getty Images
