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Texas baby gorilla going to Cincinnati Zoo February 18, 2013 14:24 EST
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A gorilla born at a South Texas zoo last month is headed to Ohio to be introduced to a troop at a zoo there because the baby's mother has been ignoring her.
Officials from the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville have been caring for the yet-unnamed western lowland gorilla born Jan. 29. She will be moved this week to the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, where experts hope she will bond with two adult female gorillas kept there.
The mother moved to the Gladys Porter Zoo in 2011 as part of an Association of Zoos and Aquariums species survival breeding plan. The mother was from the Pittsburg Zoo & PPG Aquarium but was on a breeding loan transfer from the Cincinnati Zoo.
A supporter of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez holds a heart-shaped placard with his image in Bolivar Square, where supporters gathered to celebrate his return, in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, Feb. 18, 2013. Chavez returned to Venezuela early Monday after more than two months of medical treatment in Cuba following cancer surgery. Vice President Nicolas Maduro said on television that Chavez arrived at 2:30 a.m. and was taken to the Carlos Arvelo Military Hospital in Caracas, where he will continue his treatment. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
A supporter of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez holds a heart-shaped placard with his image in Bolivar Square, where supporters gathered to celebrate his return, in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, Feb. 18, 2013. Chavez returned to Venezuela early Monday after more than two months of medical treatment in Cuba following cancer surgery. Vice President Nicolas Maduro said on television that Chavez arrived at 2:30 a.m. and was taken to the Carlos Arvelo Military Hospital in Caracas, where he will continue his treatment. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
A woman holds a painting of President Hugo Chavez as supporters gather around Bolivar square after his return to the country in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, Feb. 18, 2013. Chavez returned to Venezuela early Monday after more than two months of medical treatment in Cuba following cancer surgery. The government didn't offer an explanation as to why Chavez made his surprise return while he is undergoing other treatments that have not been specified.(AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Supporters gather in Bolivar square after President Hugo Chavez' return in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, Feb. 18, 2013. Chavez returned to Venezuela early Monday after more than two months of medical treatment in Cuba following cancer surgery. The government didn't offer an explanation as to why Chavez made his surprise return while he is undergoing other treatments that have not been specified.(AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
A woman reacts to the camera as supporters holding pictures gather in Bolivar square after President Hugo Chavez' return in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, Feb. 18, 2013. Chavez returned to Venezuela early Monday after more than two months of medical treatment in Cuba following cancer surgery. The government didn't offer an explanation as to why Chavez made his surprise return while he is undergoing other treatments that have not been specified.(AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
In this photo released Friday, Feb. 15, 2013 by Miraflores Presidential Press Office, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, center, poses for a photo with his daughters, Maria Gabriela, left, and Rosa Virginia at an unknown location in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013. Chavez remains in Havana undergoing unspecified treatments following his fourth cancer-related operation on Dec. 11. He has hasn't been seen or spoken publicly in more than two months. (AP Photo/Miraflores Presidential Press Office)
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) ? President Hugo Chavez returned to Venezuela early Monday after more than two months of treatment in Cuba following cancer surgery, his government said, triggering street celebrations by supporters who welcomed him home while he remained out of sight at Caracas' military hospital.
Chavez's return was announced in a series of three messages on his Twitter account, the first of them reading: "We've arrived once again in our Venezuelan homeland. Thank you, my God!! Thank you, beloved nation!! We will continue our treatment here."
They were the first messages to appear on Chavez's Twitter account since Nov. 1.
"I'm clinging to Christ and trusting in my doctors and nurses," another tweet on Chavez's account said. "Onward toward victory always!! We will live and we will triumph!!"
Vice President Nicolas Maduro said on television that Chavez arrived at 2:30 a.m. and was taken to the Dr. Carlos Arvelo Military Hospital in Caracas, where he will continue his treatment.
Chavez's announced return to Caracas came less than three days after the government released the first photos of the president in more than two months, showing images of him looking bloated and smiling alongside his daughters. The government didn't release any images of Chavez upon his arrival in Caracas, and unanswered questions remain about where he stands in a difficult and prolonged struggle with an undisclosed type of pelvic cancer.
Chavez was re-elected to a new six-year term in October, and his inauguration, originally scheduled for Jan. 10, was indefinitely postponed by lawmakers in a decision that the Supreme Court upheld despite complaints by the opposition. Some speculated that with Chavez back, he could finally be sworn in.
Government officials didn't address that possibility.
Maduro said Chavez has been in a "continuous battle" and that additional details will be provided about his condition later.
Hundreds of Chavez supporters celebrated his return in downtown Caracas, chanting his name and holding photos of the president in Bolivar Plaza. A man holding a megaphone boomed: "Our commander has returned!"
Supporters also celebrated outside the hospital, where a sign atop the building is adorned with a photo of Chavez. They held up a flag and a poster showing the president, and chanted: "We're all Chavez!"
Chavez's precise condition and the sort of cancer treatments he is undergoing remain a mystery, and speculation has grown recently that he may not be able to stay on as president.
Dr. Carlos Castro, scientific director of the Colombian League Against Cancer in Bogota, Colombia, said that given the government's accounts that Chavez is undergoing "complex" treatment, he thinks he likely will have to step down.
"Unfortunately, the cancer he has isn't going to go away, and he's returning to continue his battle. But I think he's conscious that he isn't going to win his fight against cancer, as much as he'd like to win it," Castro told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
The Venezuelan Constitution says that if a president dies or steps down, a new vote must be called and held within 30 days. Chavez raised that possibility before he left for Cuba in December by saying that if necessary, Maduro should run in a new vote and take his place.
Chavez's return could be used to give a boost to his would-be successor and gain time to "consolidate his alternative leader" ahead of a possible new presidential vote this year, said Luis Vicente Leon, a Venezuelan pollster and political analyst.
Leon told the AP that even if Chavez isn't seen in public, his presence will allow the government to keep up his emotional connection to his followers and rally support.
Even the state newspaper Correo del Orinoco referred to the possibility of a new election in its Monday edition. The top headline, published before Chavez's announced return, said a poll found Maduro would win a possible election.
Many in Cuba were taken by surprise by the news and wondered what it could mean about his health. The island nation depends on Venezuela for a steady flow of oil shipments.
"I hope he's truly getting better, but I doubt it because what he has is irreversible," said Mirta Blanco, a 67-year-old retiree. "Maybe they sent him back to die. I think that's going to be his exit. It's huge news, but I think it's terrible."
In a letter to Chavez that was read on Cuban state TV and radio, retired leader Fidel Castro said he was pleased that Chavez was able to return home.
"You learned much about life, Hugo, during those difficult days of suffering and sacrifice," Castro wrote. "Now that we will no longer have the privilege of receiving news of you every day, we will return to the kind of (written) correspondence we have used for years."
Colombian rebel negotiator Ivan Marquez, who has been in Havana for peace talks, also wished Chavez well.
The Venezuelan government didn't explain why Chavez made his surprise return on Monday. Government officials have in recent weeks said that it wasn't clear when the president's medical team would allow him to return to Venezuela, though they had said they hoped it would be soon.
The country's opposition, which has strongly criticized what it calls the undue influence of Cuba's leaders during Chavez's long absence, responded to the news saying that it's natural for the president to be back in his own country and that creating a "spectacle" with his return serves no useful purpose.
"The government should tell the truth and dedicate itself to working to confront Venezuelans' serious problems," the opposition coalition said in a statement. It cited problems such as violent crime, food shortages and soaring inflation.
The 58-year-old president hasn't spoken publicly since he left for Cuba on Dec. 10. He underwent his fourth cancer-related surgery on Dec. 11, and the government says that he is now breathing through a tracheal tube that makes talking difficult.
He has been receiving cancer treatment in Cuba on-and-off since June 2011. Chavez has said he has had tumors removed from his pelvic region and has undergone chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
___
Associated Press journalists Anne-Marie Garcia and Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cesar Garcia in Bogota, Colombia, and Vicente Marquez in Caracas contributed to this report.
Contact: Lee J. Siegel lee.siegel@utah.edu 801-581-8993 University of Utah
Secrets of Utah's Great Salt Lake powder skiing machine
SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 19, 2013 University of Utah researchers ran computer simulations to show that the snow-producing "lake effect" isn't always enough to cause heavy snowfall, but that mountains or other surrounding topography sometimes are necessary too.
The study is relevant not only to forecasting lake-effect storms near the Great Salt Lake, Sea of Japan, Black Sea and other mountainous regions, but also sheds light on how even gentle topography near the Great Lakes helps enhance lake-effect snowstorms, says the study's senior author, Jim Steenburgh, a professor of atmospheric sciences.
"It is going to help us with weather prediction helping forecasters recognize that in some lake-effect events, the mountains or hills can play an important role in triggering lake-effect snow bands" over large bodies of water, Steenburgh says.
The new study was published today in the American Meteorological Society journal Monthly Weather Review. Steenburgh co-authored the study with first author and University of Utah Ph.D. student Trevor Alcott, now at the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service.
Lake-effect snow's "negative impacts are in terms of snarling traffic and potentially closing schools," Steenburgh says, "And then there is the positive benefit for Utah skiers, which is a deep powder day that boosts our winter sports economy."
The lake effect occurs when a cold mass of air moves over a large body of warmer water, picking up moisture and heat to make the air mass rise and cool, ultimately dumping snow downwind. It already was known that lake-effect snowfall increases as the moist air rises over mountains. But the new study shows something new and different: mountains sometimes are essential to triggering the lake-effect over the lakes themselves.
"Most people recognize that mountains get more precipitation than lowlands because of moist air being lifted over the mountains," Steenburgh says. "Everybody recognizes that it plays a role in lake-effect storms. What we're showing here is a situation where the terrain is complicated there are multiple mountain barriers, not just one, and they affect the air flow in a way that influences the development of the lake-effect storm over the lake and lowlands, rather than just over the mountains."
He says weather forecast models now fail to adequately include the Wasatch Range, which runs north-to-south directly east of the Great Salt Lake and the Ogden-Salt Lake City-Provo metropolitan area. Forecast models also don't include northern mountains along the Nevada-Idaho-Utah border, located northwest and north of the Great Salt Lake, Salt Lake metropolitan area and Wasatch Range.
"That may be one of the reasons we struggle" in forecasting lake-effect storms in Utah's major cities, Steenburgh says.
Indeed, the new study shows that without the northern mountains, more cold and moist air would flow south from Idaho's Snake River Plain, pass over Utah's Great Salt Lake and drop much more snow on the Salt Lake City area and Wasatch Range than real lake-effect storms.
How Mountains Can Contribute to the Lake Effect
The new study examined a moderate lake-effect snowstorm that hit metropolitan Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Range on Oct. 26-27, 2010. Some Salt Lake Valley cities had no snow, while others got up to 6 inches. The Alta Ski Area in the Wasatch Range got 13 inches of fresh snow, although it hadn't yet opened for the season.
The researchers found three key mountain-related or "orographic" factors were necessary to produce the October 2010 lake-effect storm, and that in this storm, the lake-effect occurred only because of the interaction between the Great Salt Lake and surrounding mountains:
Air moving over northern-northwestern Utah's mountains warms and dries as it flows downslope to the south and southeast toward the Great Salt Lake. Without this warming and drying, the lake-effect from the Great Salt Lake would be even stronger, the study found. This warm, dry downslope flow is similar to what are known as Chinook winds on the east slope of the Rocky Mountains or foehn winds flowing off the Alps.
The northern mountain ranges deflect the south- and southeast-flowing cold air masses so they converge over the Great Salt Lake. As the air picks up heat and moisture from the lake, it warms, making land breezes blow onto the lake from its western and eastern shores. The convergence of air from the north, east and west makes the air rise and cool, producing lake-effect snow bands over the lake.
The Wasatch and Oquirrh ranges, which respectively form the east and west boundaries of the Salt Lake Valley, act as a big funnel, forcing air flowing south off the Great Salt Lake to move directly into the valley, further enhancing air convergence and snowfall.
Simulating the Lake Effect
Since 1998, the Great Salt Lake has helped generate from three to 20 lake-effect snowstorms each winter, most of them relatively small and affecting some areas but not others. The average is about a dozen lake-effect storms each winter, Steenburgh says. Lake-effect storms account for about 5 percent to 8 percent of the precipitation south and east of the Great Salt Lake from mid-September to mid-May.
"There is a rich spectrum of lake-effect snowstorms," Steenburgh says. "Some cover a wide area with light snowfall. Some organize into more intense snow bands that produce heavier snow over a smaller area. Over the Great Salt Lake, 20 percent of our lake-effect events are these narrow intense bands."
The Oct. 26-27, 2010 weather event "wasn't a huge snowstorm," but fell between the two extremes, he adds.
An earlier study by Steenburgh showed that a Great Salt Lake-effect storm on Dec. 7, 1998 really was the result of the lake effect alone, like many storms from the Great Lakes. But the new study showed that during the lake-effect storm on Oct. 26-27, 2010, something quite different happened: Lake-effect snows fell only because of a synergistic interaction among the Great Salt Lake and mountains downstream.
Alcott and Steenburgh used weather data and existing weather research software to construct a "control" computer simulation that closely mimicked the real 2010 storm by incorporating the effects of the Great Salt Lake and surrounding mountains. Then they reran the simulation multiple times, but with various aspects missing.
"We can play God with this model," Steenburgh says. "We can see what happens if the upstream terrain wasn't there, if the lake wasn't there, if the Wasatch Range wasn't there."
The simulations showed that the lake effect would not have happened in the storm were it not for both the lake and downstream mountains:
A "flat, no-lake" simulation removed the lake and all mountains, as if all the landscape around Salt Lake City was flat and empty. The result was no snowfall.
The "no-lake" simulation removed the Great Salt Lake, but included all the surrounding mountains. This produced 90 percent less snow than the simulation of the real storm.
A "flat" simulation included the Great Salt Lake but no mountains. The result was 94 percent less snow than the simulated actual storm.
The "Wasatch only" simulation included the lake and Wasatch Range, but not the northern Utah mountains or the Oquirrh and Stansbury ranges west of the Salt Lake Valley. It produced 27 percent less snow than the simulation of the real storm.
A "downstream only" simulation, which included the lake and the Wasatch and Oquirrh ranges downstream from the lake, but not the upstream mountains in northern Utah. The result was 61 percent more snowfall than the simulated real storm because, without the northern mountains, more moist and cold air moves south from Idaho directly to the Great Salt Lake.
###
University of Utah Communications 201 Presidents Circle, Room 308
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-9017 801-581-6773 fax: 801-585-3350
www.unews.utah.edu
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Lee J. Siegel lee.siegel@utah.edu 801-581-8993 University of Utah
Secrets of Utah's Great Salt Lake powder skiing machine
SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 19, 2013 University of Utah researchers ran computer simulations to show that the snow-producing "lake effect" isn't always enough to cause heavy snowfall, but that mountains or other surrounding topography sometimes are necessary too.
The study is relevant not only to forecasting lake-effect storms near the Great Salt Lake, Sea of Japan, Black Sea and other mountainous regions, but also sheds light on how even gentle topography near the Great Lakes helps enhance lake-effect snowstorms, says the study's senior author, Jim Steenburgh, a professor of atmospheric sciences.
"It is going to help us with weather prediction helping forecasters recognize that in some lake-effect events, the mountains or hills can play an important role in triggering lake-effect snow bands" over large bodies of water, Steenburgh says.
The new study was published today in the American Meteorological Society journal Monthly Weather Review. Steenburgh co-authored the study with first author and University of Utah Ph.D. student Trevor Alcott, now at the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service.
Lake-effect snow's "negative impacts are in terms of snarling traffic and potentially closing schools," Steenburgh says, "And then there is the positive benefit for Utah skiers, which is a deep powder day that boosts our winter sports economy."
The lake effect occurs when a cold mass of air moves over a large body of warmer water, picking up moisture and heat to make the air mass rise and cool, ultimately dumping snow downwind. It already was known that lake-effect snowfall increases as the moist air rises over mountains. But the new study shows something new and different: mountains sometimes are essential to triggering the lake-effect over the lakes themselves.
"Most people recognize that mountains get more precipitation than lowlands because of moist air being lifted over the mountains," Steenburgh says. "Everybody recognizes that it plays a role in lake-effect storms. What we're showing here is a situation where the terrain is complicated there are multiple mountain barriers, not just one, and they affect the air flow in a way that influences the development of the lake-effect storm over the lake and lowlands, rather than just over the mountains."
He says weather forecast models now fail to adequately include the Wasatch Range, which runs north-to-south directly east of the Great Salt Lake and the Ogden-Salt Lake City-Provo metropolitan area. Forecast models also don't include northern mountains along the Nevada-Idaho-Utah border, located northwest and north of the Great Salt Lake, Salt Lake metropolitan area and Wasatch Range.
"That may be one of the reasons we struggle" in forecasting lake-effect storms in Utah's major cities, Steenburgh says.
Indeed, the new study shows that without the northern mountains, more cold and moist air would flow south from Idaho's Snake River Plain, pass over Utah's Great Salt Lake and drop much more snow on the Salt Lake City area and Wasatch Range than real lake-effect storms.
How Mountains Can Contribute to the Lake Effect
The new study examined a moderate lake-effect snowstorm that hit metropolitan Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Range on Oct. 26-27, 2010. Some Salt Lake Valley cities had no snow, while others got up to 6 inches. The Alta Ski Area in the Wasatch Range got 13 inches of fresh snow, although it hadn't yet opened for the season.
The researchers found three key mountain-related or "orographic" factors were necessary to produce the October 2010 lake-effect storm, and that in this storm, the lake-effect occurred only because of the interaction between the Great Salt Lake and surrounding mountains:
Air moving over northern-northwestern Utah's mountains warms and dries as it flows downslope to the south and southeast toward the Great Salt Lake. Without this warming and drying, the lake-effect from the Great Salt Lake would be even stronger, the study found. This warm, dry downslope flow is similar to what are known as Chinook winds on the east slope of the Rocky Mountains or foehn winds flowing off the Alps.
The northern mountain ranges deflect the south- and southeast-flowing cold air masses so they converge over the Great Salt Lake. As the air picks up heat and moisture from the lake, it warms, making land breezes blow onto the lake from its western and eastern shores. The convergence of air from the north, east and west makes the air rise and cool, producing lake-effect snow bands over the lake.
The Wasatch and Oquirrh ranges, which respectively form the east and west boundaries of the Salt Lake Valley, act as a big funnel, forcing air flowing south off the Great Salt Lake to move directly into the valley, further enhancing air convergence and snowfall.
Simulating the Lake Effect
Since 1998, the Great Salt Lake has helped generate from three to 20 lake-effect snowstorms each winter, most of them relatively small and affecting some areas but not others. The average is about a dozen lake-effect storms each winter, Steenburgh says. Lake-effect storms account for about 5 percent to 8 percent of the precipitation south and east of the Great Salt Lake from mid-September to mid-May.
"There is a rich spectrum of lake-effect snowstorms," Steenburgh says. "Some cover a wide area with light snowfall. Some organize into more intense snow bands that produce heavier snow over a smaller area. Over the Great Salt Lake, 20 percent of our lake-effect events are these narrow intense bands."
The Oct. 26-27, 2010 weather event "wasn't a huge snowstorm," but fell between the two extremes, he adds.
An earlier study by Steenburgh showed that a Great Salt Lake-effect storm on Dec. 7, 1998 really was the result of the lake effect alone, like many storms from the Great Lakes. But the new study showed that during the lake-effect storm on Oct. 26-27, 2010, something quite different happened: Lake-effect snows fell only because of a synergistic interaction among the Great Salt Lake and mountains downstream.
Alcott and Steenburgh used weather data and existing weather research software to construct a "control" computer simulation that closely mimicked the real 2010 storm by incorporating the effects of the Great Salt Lake and surrounding mountains. Then they reran the simulation multiple times, but with various aspects missing.
"We can play God with this model," Steenburgh says. "We can see what happens if the upstream terrain wasn't there, if the lake wasn't there, if the Wasatch Range wasn't there."
The simulations showed that the lake effect would not have happened in the storm were it not for both the lake and downstream mountains:
A "flat, no-lake" simulation removed the lake and all mountains, as if all the landscape around Salt Lake City was flat and empty. The result was no snowfall.
The "no-lake" simulation removed the Great Salt Lake, but included all the surrounding mountains. This produced 90 percent less snow than the simulation of the real storm.
A "flat" simulation included the Great Salt Lake but no mountains. The result was 94 percent less snow than the simulated actual storm.
The "Wasatch only" simulation included the lake and Wasatch Range, but not the northern Utah mountains or the Oquirrh and Stansbury ranges west of the Salt Lake Valley. It produced 27 percent less snow than the simulation of the real storm.
A "downstream only" simulation, which included the lake and the Wasatch and Oquirrh ranges downstream from the lake, but not the upstream mountains in northern Utah. The result was 61 percent more snowfall than the simulated real storm because, without the northern mountains, more moist and cold air moves south from Idaho directly to the Great Salt Lake.
###
University of Utah Communications 201 Presidents Circle, Room 308
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-9017 801-581-6773 fax: 801-585-3350
www.unews.utah.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Southern University point guard Jameel Grace scored 24 points and the Jaguars held Alabama State to 31 percent shooting from the field to key Southern?s 58-49 SWAC victory against the Hornets in Baton Rouge on Saturday. The victory keeps the Jaguars (18-8, 12-2) in first place in the SWAC.
The game was close midway through the second half with Alabama State leading 38-37 with 11:20 to play. But Southern went on a 9-0 run to take a 46-38 lead with 6:43 to play after a 3-point play by Grace. Alabama State cut the lead to five twice after that but could get no closer.
Alabama State made only 21 of 67 shots from the field and 4 of 22 3-point shots. Southern, which was outrebounded 47-38, was good on 18 of 50 shots (36 percent) and 8 of 22 3-pointers. The Jaguars were 14 of 21 from the free throw line.
Malcolm Miller added 13 points and seven rebounds for Southern. The Hornets were led by Phillip Crawford with 22 points and 12 rebounds.
post from Spa Hotel on 17 February 2013 07:01:26 AM. ? Spa Hotel
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Read The Full Article: http://adiehardyankeesfan.blogspot.com/2013/02/hotel-spa-golf.html
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The NBA D-League All-Star Game is set to take place in Houston today which also signifies the unofficial end to the first half of the NBADL season. This season has lived up to expectations set forth by prior successful D-League seasons, and here are some of the more notable highlights that took place over the first half.
Heading into the 2012-2013 NBA D-League season, expectations were high due to the rather increasing success that the league has built for itself over the last decade. The league has more exposure than it has ever experienced in it's history, and is becoming one of the most exciting forms of minor league sports in the country. As the league continues to grow, so have the storylines in which there were plenty over the course of this season's first half. Here are some of the top storylines from the first half of the season.
Assignments, Assignments, and Even More Assignments
As it currently stands, there have been 127 assignments involving 53 players during the first half of the season. The record 67 assignments from a season ago has nearly been doubled by the midway point of this season. NBA teams have taken liberty in their ability to assign players with 2 years or less experience an unlimited number of times, allowing many of the NBA's future stars with an avenue to experience real live game play instead of riding the pine.
Some of the more notable assignment players so far include 2012 first round draft picks such as; Jeremy Lamb, Kendall Marshall, Royce White, Terrence Jones, Fab Melo, Jared Cunningham, Tony Wroten, Miles Plumlee, Arnett Moultrie, and Perry Jones. Second round draft pick assignment players include; Quincy Acy, Quincy Miller, Will Barton, Tyshawn Taylor, Doron Lamb, Kevin Murphy, Kris Joseph, Tornike Shengalia, Darius Johnson-Odom, and Robert Sacre.
Out of that list of players, many will go on to one day contribute meaningful minutes for their respective NBA teams, some arguably already have. Despite the utter confusion in keeping track of player movement throughout the season regarding assignments, both the NBA and NBA D-League will be better suited under this new set of assignment guidelines. Look for the trend to not only continue for the second half of this season, but for many seasons to follow.
The Royce White Saga
After being suspended for refusing a D-League assignment earlier this season along with extended disputes involving the Houston Rockets, White and the Rockets have seemingly found some common ground which has led to the first round draft pick participating in his first two contests prior the All-Star break. In what could of easily been a black mark for both White and perhaps the D-League itself, White's time in the NBADL has proved to be beneficial for both White and his team.
The young forward from Iowa State is averaging 6.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 4.0 assists in 19.0 minutes in his first two games. It remains to be seen if White's documented mental illness issues will hinder any part of his NBA D-League assignment, but so far it seems like he and the organization are committed to using this D-League stint to both of their benefits.
As White's minutes will likely increase in the second half of the season, it will be interesting to see how the Vipers progress as well. RGV is currently second overall in the D-League standings and boasts one of the most talented lineups in the league. Will White add or deter from their success already generated? The Houston Rockets organization have to come to embrace their D-League afilliate and it's capabilities more than any other NBA franchise, and with their concentrated attention to seek out the rewards of the system, it seems like the Royce White story has the makings to end in a positive manner.
Jamming Out In Bakersfield
The Bakersfield Jam have put together an excellent first half of the season, in which case head coach Will Voigt and his staff were rewarded by being selected to guide the Prospects team at the NBA D-League All-Star game. Voigt and his staff have been able to mix assignment player stints into their well-rounded roster wonderfully this season. The team has been perfect thus far in February, going 4-0 and have only dropped 3 of their last 16 games overall.
The reasons for the team's success has been due to their balanced roster leading them to an impressive high scoring offense along with steady defense. The Jam are currently ranked second overall in points scored averaging 106.2 points per game, and their team defense skills has placed them atop the league in opposing teams turnover total at 17.9.
The veteran leadership from Renaldo Major alongside the emergence of Jerel McNeal are also reasons for the Jam's first half success. McNeal is averaging 22.3 points and 5.3 assists over his last nine games, improving his season averages to 16.9 points and 5.0 assists. McNeal has really turned it on heading into the All-Star break, and if he can keep up the momentum that he has created for himself, the Jam will remain a dangerous matchup for teams.
Major has entered his fifth consecutive season in the NBA D-League and second season with the Jam as consistent and reliable as ever. Major is averaging 15.0 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 1.5 assists through 28 games, and is a big reason for the Jam's early success. At 30-years old, the former Fresno State Bulldog can be looked to for guidance out on the court, as his time as a professional has undoubtedly crafted him into the smart and dependable player that he has become.
Mix in the steady contributions from Brian Butch, Damion James, Adam Koch, James Nunnally, and the Jam have created a lineup that will likely keep them atop the standings through the second half of the season.
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Public release date: 18-Feb-2013
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