Western Conference Insider: Reunions all around

This past Wednesday, Marcus Camby was standing out beyond the three-point arc with the ball in his hands, the clock ticking down in the fourth quarter and his Clippers team down by one point to his old Nuggets team.

Instead of swinging the ball to his wide-open teammate Eric Gordon who had it going with 24 points on that night, Camby elected to pull the trigger on a three of his own. It was the only three-pointer the 6-foot-11 Camby had attempted all season and it fell short, giving Denver the 106-105 victory.

If he's playing the Charlotte Bobcats, he swings the ball to Gordon. If he's playing the Oklahoma City Thunder, he swings the ball to Gordon. But against the Nuggets, a team he played six seasons for and earned Defensive Player of the Year as a member of in 2006-07? He's taking the shot, even if he's only made 13 threes in his 13-year career.

"That's storybook right there," Carmelo Anthony said. "If that went in it would be a storybook ending."

It was the most dramatic chapter of what unofficially was known as Reunion Week for the league, as Camby played the Nuggets; the Knicks and Warriors met for the first time since the recent Jamal Crawford-Al Harrington deal; the Heat played in Phoenix for the first time since last season's Shaquille O'Neal-Shawn Marion trade; and Shaun Livingston returned to Los Angeles with the Heat after spending the first four years of his career with the Clippers.

(The week before served as a nice precursor, as the Clips played against Elton Brand in Philadelphia and Kevin Garnett played in a Celtics uniform for the first time in Minnesota.)

Camby approached the Denver bench before tipoff to greet his former coaching staff.

"I just told [George Karl] it was good to see him," Camby said. "I didn't really get a chance to talk to him in the previous two [preseason] games. Tonight was the first time I actually saw him since I got traded. It was nothing personal with coach. Coach wasn't the one who made the decision to trade me. I understand the nature of the business. I never had any grudges towards George."

Apparently a little trash talking ensued. When I asked Karl what Camby's message was, the Denver coach started chuckling immediately.

"I just said I respected him and I wanted to wish him success," Karl said. "We joked around a little bit, I won't tell you what he said."

Two days later the Heat played in Phoenix and Marion received a hearty ovation from the crowd that cheered him for the first nine years of his career.

When I approached Marion about this story on Saturday after the Heat lost to the Clippers and explained to him that he was just one of a handful of guys going against his former team, his first response was, "Yeah, but I won."

Good point. Marion contributed 10 points, nine rebounds and six assists in Miami's 107-92 win in Phoenix.

"It was different," Marion said. "It was strange. I spent basically my whole career up until now there. It was an emotional trip. I have a lot of memories there, but at the same time, I'm a Miami Heat player now so I have to move on and put it behind me."

On Saturday there were two more reunions with Crawford racking up 21 and 10 to Harrington's 36 and 12 at the scoring fiesta at the Garden, won by the Knicks 138-125 and Livingston returned to STAPLES Center, even though he didn't get in the game.

Livingston said he intended to spend more time with the Clippers training staff who worked with him on his knee rehabilitation rather than the players because, "this is a new team right here."

Only Chris Kaman, Paul Davis and Al Thornton remain on the team from a year ago.

Have Flash, Will Travel

Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy puts Miami's Dwyane Wade in a "class above the rest" along with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant as the best players in the league right now, but Wade's ball handling caused Dunleavy to link the Heat star to a big time scorer from the league's past.

"His ability to carry the ball right now, he's getting away with that," Dunleavy said. "He [carries] left to right, right to left, but he just does it fast so nobody sees it, I guess.

"Bernard King was the first to carry the ball and get away with it. If you remember [King] coming on a fastbreak on the left-hand side of the floor, he'd be dribbling with his right hand and he'd come hard and on his last dribble he'd palm it to get to the rim with it. It was kind of a power move that he took on his last dribble. I was like, 'Wow, OK, you can get away with that?' I tried to do that after that."

Not So Golden

The Warriors are 5-12 after a winless Eastern Conference road trip extended their losing streak to six games. Golden State head coach Don Nelson is OK with calling this season a rebuilding year.

"It's a situation where we have a year in which we're probably not going to be a playoff team, we're going to build for the future, and see who we want to carry along with us for the next, hopefully, number of good years," Nelson said. "But this probably won't be one of them."

"[Rebuilding] is part of the process. It happens with every team sooner or later."

Ten of the 16 players listed on the Warriors roster page have two years experience or less in the league. Golden State also carries five rookies, two of whom (Richard Hendrix, DeMarcus Nelson) have been already assigned to the D-League's Bakersfield Jam.

"I think part of the reason I got an extension this year is that our ownership knows that it's not going to be the best year this year, and they wanted me to feel free to do what's best for the franchise and not worry too much about winning a couple of extra games. We want to win, there's no question. We want to play the right way, but we realize that we're probably not going to get a lot of wins this year."

"It's kind of exciting to watch them grow, but there will be a lot of losses. I'm 68 years old and I've been around a long time. And I'm going to say it the way it is, if I can."

JET In Sixth Gear

Jason Terry has been the starting lead guard on a Mavericks team that was two wins away from an NBA championship and another Dallas squad that won 67 games in the regular season, but whatever clout that gives him hasn't prevented him from embracing his role off the bench this season.

"He's been able to give us a real scoring punch off the bench," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said in Los Angeles on Friday. "The great thing about him is he's willing to do whatever to help us try and win. By having him come off the bench we can keep his minutes reasonable and still have a real weapon. It's great for the soul of our team to have a guy that's that unselfish when it comes to that kind of stuff."

Terry is averaging a career best 20.1 points per game and his rebounds, assists and steals averages are all up from last season when he split time between a starter and reserve role.

Another Mavericks note: Jerry Stackhouse, who has already voiced his displeasure with Carlisle's system and lack of opportunities for the 14-year veteran, did not travel with the team on its road trip over the weekend.

"He's not on this trip," Carlisle said. "He had a treatment for his foot which requires him to stay off his feet for a couple days. That's about all I know about it."

This could suggest that a trade is imminent as the Warriors shut Al Harrington's season down with a similar sudden injury until they could find a suitor in the Knicks to facilitate a deal.