Top 12 takeaways from NBA Buyout Season

After the trade deadline, it's Buyout Season, when NBA teams continue to shuffle their rosters in an attempt to tank and/or load up for the playoffs. As always, we have the bullet list of what You Need To Know...

12) The Knicks are letting go of the newly acquired Corey Brewer, seeing how he might be good at defense and show up the rest of the roster

11) Now that the Heat have landed a big-name player who doesn't play defense (Mike Bibby) or address their soft interior play, they have to be considered the favorite in the East

10) Tony Parker lost the rock-paper-scissors match with Manu Ginobili on which one would get hurt this year to ruin the Spurs' playoff chances

9) The Celtics landed Troy Murphy, a dirty white front court player with limited athleticism, because he's got enough hawttt and gritt and charactah to somehow be accepted by the true basketball fans of Celtic Nation

8) Rip Hamilton's effort to get back in the good graces of embattled coach John Kuester is much more important than the fact that he's old, not very good, overpaid and a team cancer

7) No one could have possibly foreseen that 35-year-old Chauncey Billups would suffer an injury after getting traded to an uptempo thin team with no bench and unreasonable fan expectations

6) The fact that Bibby gave up salary to join the Heat means that the inmates are running the asylum and ruining the league's competitive balance (unlike, say, that Murphy signing in Boston)

5) Oklahoma City signed center Kendrick Perkins to an extension before he even played a minute for them, because his photo at the team's initial shoot looked so, so sad

4) The Nets still haven't won with Deron Williams or signed him to a contract extension, which would be a big deal if anyone gave a damn aout the Nets

3) Al Thornton accepted a buyout deal from the Wizards, who have finally found something they can lead the league in

2) The Warriors are said to be in the market for Thornton, because anyone who couldn't play enough defense to stick with the Clippers or Wizards is a natural fit for them

1) The Lakers won their fifth in a row since the pre-All Star Game meltdown against the Cavs, proving that, sigh, they probably still care enough to flick the switch and win the league again