Peep Show

Houston Rockets: Yao Ming may not be able to get much taller. But he can get a bit meaner. "He just needs to become more aggressive," said Patrick Ewing in the New York Times. "Right now, he's too gentle. He's like a gentle giant. He's got to be more physical and aggressive. Instead of waiting, he needs to just take it. Show his dominance. Use his size, and just take it." But at least one unnamed official wondered if that was even possible. "If he ever gets a mean streak in him, look out," said an Eastern Conference official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But his culture and his background might not allow that. If he can get that, wow! If he gets that mean streak, he's fighting Shaq in there."

Los Angeles Clippers: Head coach Mike Dunleavy is sorry that Corey Maggette received a two-game suspension for his altercation with Net forward Kenyon Martin. But is he sorry that Maggette got in the altercation in the first place? "No, hell no," Dunleavy said in the Philadelphia Daily News. "I think the rule is one that needs to be reviewed. [Maggette] can't not go back at Martin. As much as I don't want to lose a player, I couldn't tell a guy to do something I wouldn't do. If he fired at me like that, I would've done the same thing. It might not be the right thing to do...If he gets you and [you don't respond], you've got every other guy in the league looking maybe to take a shot at you. [Maggette] said, 'I feel bad, I'm letting you down.' I said I was surprised it was two games. I understand what happened. I'm certainly not holding it against him."

Detroit Pistons: The second pick of the latest draft has finally found a role with his new team. "I worry about Darko," Larry Brown said in the Detroit Free Press. "Sometimes they're not all Carmelo (Anthony), or LeBron (James) or Kevin Garnett. It's tough for me. I'll give you an example: Throughout my career, late in a game, if we got a lead or were down, I've always taken a rookie and put him in the game -- 20 seconds, 30 seconds -- so Allen Iverson or David Thompson or Eric Snow get a hand. We're up six points with a minute to go and you know the game isn't over, but people are yelling, 'Put in Darko.' I put in Darko the other night to get Ben (Wallace) a hand, because he's the only rookie on my bench. I try to get him in with 1:30 left, and he took so long to take his stuff off I was going to pull him back. But because I wanted to get Ben a hand, and the way he reacted, I put him in. I know people thought I was trying to embarrass him." And of that wasn't enough, Brown made it even clearer. "Especially with the success Carmelo has had, and LeBron has had, and Wade and Ford and Bosh. Even if we were a lottery team and he was playing, he wouldn't have the success these guys are having. That's not a knock on him. It's simply because he's a lot younger. . . . He didn't play a lot in Europe. He didn't play a lot of minutes for his team. That's what people don't understand -- is that he wasn't in the elite European League, either."

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