Saturday Notes

John Hollinger will supposedly show his "face"

• Avery Johnson asked Dirk Nowitzki to step up and take an all-around leadership role in September. Apparently a little spat with Devin Harris over a missed defensive assignment yesterday is a positive first step. Sure, it's nice to see Nowitzki publicly chewing out a teammate, though he's done it before to Erick Dampier and Jason Terry. Calling that a sign of positive leadership is like complementing Atlanta on getting a decent point guard. They've had one before, but they're still not a playoff team.

• Rasheed Wallace picks up his third technical in as many pre-season games. Someone tell Sheed that technical fouls aren't a hall-worthy record.

• Still on the Pistons, Flip Saunders is after Jason Maxiell to improve his defensive rebounding. The way he phrased it, however, sounds awkward. "I tell him every day and Joe (Dumars) tells him every day, he's got to defensive rebound. If he can't defensive rebound, then he really hurts himself." Got to "defensive rebound?" Tell Rip Hamilton he's "got to points," and you're all set to go this year, coach.

• Henry Abbott of TrueHoop is having his very own Broadway extravaganza, and plans on interviewing David Thorpe and John Hollinger at ESPN Zone. It sounds like a whole bunch of fun, but I don't really believe that Hollinger will show, for the same reason that Carl Everett would never go to a museum with dinosaur fossils. I just don't think John Hollinger exists; at least he's not human. As far as I can tell, he's more like the Master Control Program from Tron.