Joe Johnson is kind of the indie-pick of the 2010 Free Agency Summer of Doom. While the first names vomited out in stories about his summer's available class are LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amar'e Stoudemire (maybe, maybe not), Johnson is often discussed as the guy you can get if you don't get one of the biggies you can get Johnson and still have an All-Star acquisition.

The critics talk about his age (29 this summer), the percentage of possessions he uses, (17th in players playing 30+ minutes in usage), and that he's not a truly elite player. Which is why many feel that you can get Johnson for solid value and then pick up another star. After all, that paradigm's been gaining steam what with the conversations about Wade and James attempting to play together. Why get one superstar when you can have two?

Joe Johnson, for one, isn't getting wrapped up in all that nonsense.

A storm is expected to drop a record two and a half feet of snow on the Washington, DC area today, which is more than enough to ground air traffic and make flying into the area an impossibility. As a result, Saturday night's game between the Wizards and the Hawks that was scheduled to take place at the Verizon Center has been postponed.

The Wizards played in Orlando on Friday and the Hawks were at home in Atlanta, and neither team was going to be able to make it into the DC area in time for tonight's game. A make-up date for the contest has not yet been set.

The last time an NBA game was postponed because of the weather was on Jan. 13, 2007, when the Hornets' flight was unable to make it to Milwaukee in time for a game against the Bucks.

If the playoffs began today, the Thunder would be in the conversation. Kevin Durant is within percentage points of leading the league in scoring, and has led his team to wins over the previously red-hot Nuggets and Hawks in the past week. As such, Oklahoma City finds themselves moving all the way up to the six spot in this week's Rankings.

The Cavaliers, of course, are still on top, but there was plenty of movement otherwise. Read on to see where your favorites ended up this week.

Ben Wallace made minor history Tuesday night, becoming just the 17th player in NBA history to record 2,000 blocks in his career.

He's in rare company, though he has been for awhile -- he didn't actually climb any spots on the all-time leaderboard but merely put more distance between himself and Theo Ratliff, who ranks 18th in league history with 1,918 rejections.

Even so, pretty round numbers are easy milestones to recognize, and at 35 years old (and two seasons after most had given up on him), it's as good a time as any to heap praise on Wallace for his consistent dominance on defense.

Undrafted and ignored out of college, Wallace has carved out a niche among the all-time greats by relentlessly committing to doing the dirty work. While other players on the league's all-time rejections list have relied upon unworldly height, Wallace, generously listed at 6-foot-9, simply outworked the competition: no one above him on the leaderboard stands shorter than 6-10. You know the phrase "he's a giant among men?" Wallace is just a man among giants, but he gets the job done like few others.

As luck would have it, on the same night that Wallace became the shortest player in history to tally 2,000 blocks, 24-year-old Josh Smith became the youngest in history to block 1,000. Like Wallace, Smith is also listed at 6-9, and at his current pace has an excellent chance someday not merely to replace Wallace as the shortest of the best but to etch his name near the very top without any qualifiers.

Sound presumptuous? It shouldn't. When Wallace was Smith's age, he hadn't even tallied 100 blocks for his career, let alone 1,000. After five and a half seasons, Smith already ranks 77th all-time in blocked shots. Barring injury, he could play another decade, if not longer, and when you consider he's averaged more blocks per game in his career (2.36) than the likes of Tim Duncan, Shaquille O'Neal and Bill Walton, it's suddenly not so far-fetched to imagine we may be watching a future Hall of Famer at work -- even if he's not (yet) an All-Star.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- After watching a weekend round-robin of Boston-Atlanta-Orlando -- three of the four Eastern Conference contenders -- one thing has become increasingly clear in this race:

These guys are all just playing for second.

That Cavaliers-Lakers NBA Finals that everyone wanted -- but didn't get -- last June is coming this time. Even with more than 30 regular season games and six weeks of playoffs remaining, it's hard now to imagine 2010 turning out any other way.

The Cavs and Lakers are on a delightfully unavoidable collision course. The standings don't lie.

There is nobody in the West within five wins of the Lakers. And the Cavs are six wins better than anyone in the East.

"Nobody in the East is playing close to the level Cleveland is at right now,'' said Magic coach Stan Van Gundy on Saturday night. "We've got a long way to go -- and funny things can happen in a series -- but if you're talking about who's playing at the highest level, it's clearly Cleveland.''

In late twenties, Russian theorist Vladimir Propp boldly proclaimed that there were only seven kinds of stories. Actually, it wasn't that bold a proclamation; Propp was only talking about folktales, and if you try to use his constructs anywhere else, they fall apart quick fast. Still, the basic idea is a meaty one, the kind of thing that makes you want to take another at Gilgamesh, Beowulf ... or the 2010 NBA All-Stars.

For starters, you've got the perennials, folks like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, and Carmelo Anthony. These are also on each year's MVP shortlist, possible Hall of Famers, and the players synonymous with the NBA at this moment. Steve Nash, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Allen Iverson are legends on their way off into the sunset. Kevin Durant and Brandon Roy will be taking their place.

Paul Pierce and Pau Gasol are excellent players who benefit from being on powerhouse teams; Deron Williams and Joe Johnson are underrated stars who will finish their careers with a decent number of appearances, denied top billing in part because their teams aren't usually contending. Derrick Rose and Rajon Rondo are young and exciting but with futures cloudy in the magic eight ball. Zach Randolph and Gerald Wallace have come knockin' before, and this time finally earned entry. The East needed another center, and Al Horford's been crucial to the Hawks.That's actually eight types, but you get the point.

Then there's Josh Smith, the spring-loaded Hawks forward who was conspicuously absent from yesterday's reserves. It's not just that Smith is deserving of a spot on the East squad -- he would have been a new kind of All-Star.

For the most part, the coaches got it right while selecting the 2010 All-Star reserves. But no matter how many deserving players get in, there are always a few who were on the fringe that could just have easily made the team. In no particular order, here's our list of notable names that may have a reason to feel snubbed.

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Chris Kaman (Clippers): Kaman is having his best year as a pro, averaging 20.2 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks per game. But the team he plays for is abysmal (seriously, how do you lose to a Nets team playing without Devin Harris by 16 points?), and that seemed to factor heavily in this year's selection of reserves. As noted by Eric Freeman over at The Baseline, every player on the reserves came from a team with a winning record. And unfortunately for Kaman, his Clippers don't fall into that category.

Chauncey Billups (Nuggets): Let's get this out of the way right now: Billups is an All-Star. The Nuggets are on fire, and there's no way they play at that level without Chauncey running the show. The problem he faced was too much talent at the guard spot in the Western Conference. With Chris Paul and Deron Williams locks to get in, and Brandon Roy almost singlehandedly keeping the Blazers afloat through their rash of injuries, he had to get in, too. But Roy has missed six of the last seven games with a hamstring injury, and if it remains serious enough to keep him sidelined for All-Star weekend, look for Billups to get the call as his replacement.

The Cavaliers remain on top in this week's rankings -- the same spot that they've held for the last month. So that's not exactly news at this point. The recent surge from the Jazz? Now that's worth talking about.

Utah made the biggest leap, moving all the way up from 12 to number three. And they did so impressively, by winning eight of their last nine, with road wins over Dallas and San Antonio, along with the home buzzer-beater over the top-ranked Cavs.

As for everyone else? Read on to find out where your favorites landed this week.

The Cavaliers' loss to the Jazz at the buzzer wasn't necessarily enough to drop them from the top spot, but the Lakers have gotten back to their winning ways -- and do have the best record in the league -- so L.A. and Cleveland sit at 1. and 1A. atop this week's rankings.

You may want to keep any animosity you're feeling over this development in check, though, at least for a day or so. The Lakers and Cavs will settle it on the court in Cleveland on Thursday, with bragging rights for the remainder of the season undoubtedly of monumental importance to both teams.

As for everyone else? Read on to find out where your favorites landed this week.

We have no problem wondering if LeBron James might end up the greatest ever, or comparing the 2003 draft to 1984's bumper crop. But basketball is a team sport. You'd think that the evolution of the team game, and the players who might play a role in that, would be front and center in discussions of the NBA. (Please, spare me your "it's a one-on-one playground mess" comments.)

Good luck finding that scouting report that predicts a player "will be a member of a new kind of team." Not even post-Shane Battier do you get this kind of language. With all the talk about rebuilding, and nation-building, and how to put together a dynasty for LeBron, it seems high time for a chance. The Celtics and Lakers lucked into those teams, and the Cavs' acquisition of Shaquille O'Neal squelched any hopes they had of letting Bron dictate their identity. Suggestions that James join Mike D'Antoni's Knicks have never really been taken seriously; their sole credibility comes from the possibility of another superstar joining him.

And yet Monday's Thunder-Hawks tilt featured two organizations on the cutting edge. The approach? Stockpile athletic, versatile lottery talent, fill in the gaps with vets and find a way to make the pieces fit. Simply put, it's the first sustainable model for Future Team since Shaq killed the SSOL Suns.