Bird Feed: Bavcic Trade Official and Other Wednesday Stories

Hey! Look who it is. Happy Wednesday, happy January.

Some quick links to get me back in it:

- As Oleh noted yesterday, the rights to Edin Bavcic were moved in the Tyshawn Taylor deal, and that trade is now official:

New Orleans obtained the rights to Bavcic in a trade in 2012 in which Jarrett Jackson was sent to the Golden State Warriors and Darryl Watkins to the Philadelphia 76ers.

Bavcic, 29, is averaging 7.4 points and 5.7 rebounds in the Greek League. He was a second-round pick of the Toronto Raptors in 2006 but has played his entire career in Europe.

- Yesterday, Monty Williams didn't share too much about where Taylor slots in moving forward:

``In the next couple of days, I'll have more to talk about as far as that trade is concern,'' Williams said. ``Once I get more information, I've known about it for a couple of days. But we'll get more information if there is a role to be played.''

- And finally, Jimmy Smith takes a look at Anthony Davis vis a vis the contending field for reserve All-Star big men:

That means Davis will be battling for a spot against equally deserving players such as Minnesota's Kevin Love, Portland's LaMarcus Aldridge, Sacramento's Cousins, San Antonio's Tim Duncan, and Golden State's Andre Iguodala and David Lee, not to mention old-timers Dirk Nowitzki of Dallas and Pau Gasol of the Lakers.

Davis' candidacy - likely as a reserve "wild card" - this week was endorsed by one of the most learned NBA writers in the country, Zach Lowe, a man who watches every second of every game - thanks to League Pass - and who thoughtfully spelled out Davis' worthiness, along with that of Cousins.

"Davis and Cousins are interesting candidates, especially in relation to (Detroit's Andre) Drummond's All-Star case," Lowe wrote on Grandland.com. "All three are big men manning the middle for awful defenses, a black mark that could disqualify all of them. But Cousins and Davis offer more diverse portfolios.

- Oh, and one more. Here's Kobe Bryant being an old man, yelling at everyone to get off his lawn:

"I like the contact," Bryant said. "As a defensive player, if you enjoy playing defense, that's what you want. You want to be able to put your hands on a guy. You want to be able to hand check a little bit. The truth is, it makes the game [where] players have to be more skillful. Nowadays, literally anybody can get out there and get to the basket and you can't touch anybody. Back then, if guys put their hands on you, you had to have the skill to be able to go both ways, change direction, post up, you had to have a mid-range game because you didn't want to go all the way to the basket because you would get knocked ass over tea kettle. So I think playing the game back then required much more skill."

<snip>

Is there any chance the league could revert back to the no harm, no foul ways of the 1980s?

"Kids might be a little too sensitive for that nowadays," Bryant said with a smirk.