With the pressure of working out a 'Melo deal and getting out of their losing funk constantly looming, the New Jersey Nets seem like a team disoriented, trying desperately to find their way.

Kwame Brown was cooked before he even had a chance.

Yesterday afternoon, the New Jersey Nets announced that for the 2011-12 NBA season, they would be entering into a single affiliate partnership with the D-League's Springfield Armor.

It was either Day 1 of training camp or Media Day for a lot of NBA teams yesterday, and the biggest story lines were easy to point out.

Almost every year heading into the playoffs, the Dallas Mavericks are among the favorites to contend for the big prize.

Ever since he first emerged on the basketball scene as a promising teenager, Derrick Favors has been, as they say in the industry, "an adidas guy.

Words.

Pretty much every wing player -- i.

With HBO's new season of "Hard Knocks" premiering August 11 -- and focusing on the New York Jets -- the show has been a big topic of conversation in the Dime office and NYC in general.

While there is still a very, very slim hope LeBron chooses the Nets, it appears incredibly unlikely especially considering that they signed Travis Outlaw for $35 million today.

Before LeBron James causes a party in one city and breaks hearts in five others, the teams still in pursuit of the NBA's biggest star are undoubtedly vying for one last audience with LBJ before he goes live on-air at 9 p.

When Mike Brown was fired over a little over a month ago, I listed Tom Thibodeau, Larry Brown and Avery Johnson as the three coaches the Cavaliers should pursue for their head coaching vacancy.

With NBA free agency now officially underway, teams are either still frantically preparing or currently delivering their pitches to potential signees.

In the biggest free-agency bonanza to ever hit the NBA, LeBron James is the first domino that has to fall before everyone else figures out their next move.

Almost every single NBA mock draft has the Nets taking Derrick Favors, with some recently putting Wesley Johnson into the No.

Hope.

As much as we were all hoping the 2010 NBA Finals would be different from the '08 version -- at the very least, so it'd be more competitive -- things are starting to unravel like a movie we saw two years ago: Kobe Bryant vs. The Green Goblins.

We're getting toward that time of the NBA offseason (at least for the 28 teams not playing) where every potential hint is blown out of proportion and it's hard to decipher rumors from legit reports.

If the New Jersey Nets don't have a reality TV show next season, somebody either dropped the ball or was just afraid to pull the trigger.

Trust, you won't find anybody on the Celtics complaining about the NBA Finals 2-3-2 format.