Good thing we had to take down those uniform leaks last month -- Minnesota changed its jersey after Kevin Love had modelled it. I wish I could say the new version (as can be seen at ShopWolves.com, via Canis Hoopus) is better, but umm ... I bet it will be a hit with St. Paul's six-year-old boy demo!

Of course, the Wolves will have trouble selling jerseys to anyone but six-year-olds regardless of odd designs. Love, Al Jefferson and Mike Miller aren't exactly street prophets, and anyone who wants a Rashad McCants shirt bought one last year.

I think the real crime of this particular uniform is all the side panel action. Most of the league has backed off of busy trim in favor of sharp simplicity. These trees -- and the Grinch's ski slope on the shorts -- constitute the opposite of sharp simplicity.

Thankfully, it's nowhere near the disaster those Dallas hefty-bags were. Mavericks '03, you remain atop the Worst NBA Jerseys Ever list. Congrats.

NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. Hipster Runoff, via T.K. When I think of hipsters, I most definitely think of the Spurs.

2. Blazer's Edge. Will Greg Oden win Rookie of the Year?

3. The Sporting Blog. Josh Smith: "You're nothing without a good point guard." Take that, Tyronn Lue!

4. Wages of Wins Journal. Minnesota could win 30 games without Kevin Garnett for the first time ever. Progress!

5. Ball Don't Lie. Actual North Dakotan press headline: "Wade Keeps Dwyaneing His Shots." Next up: "Michael Keeps Redding His Otis" and "Mike Keep Krzyzewskiing His Rotation."

6. Cuzoogle. The un-PC Spanish Basketball Federation sets its targets on Germany.

The NBA had a rookie photo shoot on Tuesday, which you can read about at TrueHoop and NBA.com. As TrueHoop relays, the league was super secretive about the new jerseys for three NBA teams -- so secretive the reps for those squads had to cover up in between photos.

But somehow, official NBA photographer Getty Images released some of the embargoed images on its website.

Notes from a trip to the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas.

Kevin Love looked like the real deal in Las Vegas, manhandling the competition en route to averaging a league-high 13.5 boards a game. He would have finished with more, too, had he not played just 18 minutes in his final game due to a sore left Achilles. Wearing a bag of ice on his shoulder and on his left foot after Saturday's game, Love talked with me about what he needs to work for the rest of the summer.

Matt Watson: Has this experience meet your expectations?

Kevin Love: I adjusted pretty well. I still need to pick up on a lot of defensive aspects of the game, but other than that, I rebounded the ball well, shot the ball pretty well from the field and got to know a couple of my teammates I'm going to play with next year. So overall I think it was successful. I just need to ice my ankle a little bit and I'll be fine.

MW: Was there anything that now you know you have to work on a little bit more?

KL: Definitely the defense. I think that as every rookie would say, the biggest thing they have to improve on is the defense. That's going to have to be key for me before training camp and getting ready for the regular season.

Notes from a trip to the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas.

A couple of days ago, I wrote that the player who impressed me the most in the Las Vegas Summer League was Kevin Love. After examining more evidence, I'd like to re-phrase that.

I still think that Love is the most NBA-ready prospect I've seen -- and I'll go so far as to say that he's my early pick for Rookie of the Year -- but Jerryd Bayless has been flat-out electric. He had the crowd in awe as he put up 36 points in a close game last night, including 17 in the final quarter.

All in all, he's averaged 29.8 points in four games. He warmed up for today's game with his teammates, but he's spent most of the game sitting on the sidelines with his hand wrapped in ice. (It's nothing serious -- an MRI was negative -- but after being named to the USA Select Team that will scrimmage against Team USA over the next few days, he could use the rest.)

Bayless was awarded the T-Mobile NBA Summer League Top Rookie trophy before tonight's game, which, judging by the way he filled the bucket, is an honor I completely endorse.

Notes from a trip to the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas.

Pops Mensah-Bonsu is an insane athlete who attacks the rim like it insulted his mother. Unfortunately, guys like that with dreams of playing in the NBA are a dime a dozen, which is why he spent most of 2006-07 in the D-League (winning All-Star MVP honors along the way) and last season in Italy.

He's already agreed to a contract to play in Spain next year, but in a last-ditch effort to keep his NBA dream alive he's here in Las Vegas playing for Minnesota's summer league team. In three games, he's averaged 12 points and 4.7 boards in 23 minutes a game. I talked with Pops after his first game with the T'Wolves on Thursday about what his future holds and what his first impressions were of his summer league teammates.

Matt Watson: I was just reading that you signed with a team in Spain. What's going on with that?

Pops: I signed with a team in Spain a few days ago but they gave me an NBA out until July 22nd, so that's why I'm playing with the Timberwolves. If I get signed or picked up by an NBA team, they won't have to buy me out over there. I have until the 22nd to get signed. Hopefully that works out. If not, I have no problem going back to Spain.

Notes from a trip to the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas.

Of all the players performing down here at Summer League, the guy who's impressed me the most has been Kevin Love -- and it's not even close.

He's getting an easy 20 points a game, which I suppose was expected, but he's been an absolute beast on the boards getting 15 a game. (And all the people who want to pretend he's "unathletic" just because he's big and white? Ridiculous. He's not going to keep up with a guy half his size, but he can get above the rim when he needs to.)

More than that, though, his overall awareness is leaps and bounds better than most of the guys he's sharing the floor with. I've heard people talk about his outlet passes in the past, and to be honest, I never really understood what the big deal is. But to see it in person, to see the way he can stand underneath the basket and hit a teammate streaking down the court in stride is amazing. He's like a quarterback leading a wide receiver down the field.

But hey, I'm just some blogger, don't take my opinion, take that of the coaching staff. When Jerry Sichting, the T'Wolves' summer league coach, was asked after yesterday's game if he ever saw a big man pass like Love, the first name he mentioned was none other than Larry Bird. "I remember one time we had Parrish at the other end of the floor with a guard, and he just turned and threw it so high it almost hit the scoreboard, came right down," said Sichting. "I mean. I'm not comparing him to Larry Bird, but he has the same instincts in terms of [seeing] 94 feet of the floor."

Via The700Level, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports a rumored deal between Philadelphia and Minnesota has gone down, sending Beautiful Calvin Booth, Rodney Carney and a pick to the Wolves for nothing but a $2.8 million trade exception. The real prize for Philly general manager Ed Stefanski: even more salary cap breathing room to chase someone like Elton Brand or Josh Smith. Here's Woj:

Getting Carney and Booth off the cap gives the Sixers the chance to offer a starting salary of approximately $14 million a season.

If Atlanta wasn't going to match a contract starting at $11 million for Smith (a disputed rumor), will they even be able to play a straight face if the Sixers offer something like a flat $13 million per year, five-year contract? Or, Philadelphia could go big in year one -- $14.75 million is the max for a four-year veteran, but Stefanski expects to have $14 million as stated above -- and taper the contract down to $12 million by the final year.

For Brand, the 76ers could now offer about five years, $80 million ... which is right in the middle of the Clippers' ($70 million) and Warriors' ($90 million) offers. Watson wrote about the expanded interest in Brand last night; now, that interest has a feasible outlet.

Shockingly, not everyone in Memphis thought trading Kevin Love, Mike Miller, and taking on more bad salary -- all for the services of O.J. Mayo -- was a good idea, reports Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Minnesota czar Kevin McHale discusses the feeling he got from the Grizzlies when finalizing the negotiations.

"I really had a feeling there was a huge contingency in Memphis who didn't want to do it. In fact, I know that. They told me that."

Oh come on! Why wouldn't you want to add another would-be point guard to your bloated backcourt, as well as Antoine Freaking Walker and Marko Jaric in exchange for your biggest trade chip and a stud-to-be 19-year-old power forward?

To be honest, as simply awful as this deal is for Memphis, it's no great shakes for Minnesota either. For all the hubbub around the summer of 2010, exactly who among the holy trinity of LeBron, Wade and Bosh will be knocking down McHale's door to join what will then be the worst defensive team in the league? Half the league plans on having cap space in two years; Minnesota is not remotely going to be an attractive option.

And if Miller was the hinge to this deal for the Wolves, but the deal was made with the summer of '10 in mind ... doesn't it matter that Miller's contract expires in 2010! There's a strong chance that a) Miller and the hypothetical 2010 superstar never play together, or b) you'll be offering a 30-year-old MiMi a fat six-year contract in 2010. HMMM.

I liked Mayo on the Wolves and Love on the Grizzlies a lot more than I like the current situation.

All the time we spent fretting over who the Timberwolves would take with the third overall pick (hey, you spend five hours live blogging the entire NBA draft and you're allowed to come up with headlines like that too, okay?) is all for naught because of a deal that broke shortly after the draft.

Minnesota and the Memphis Grizzlies have apparently made a monster swap -- a far bigger deal than that new Minny logo -- that revolves around their two first round picks. The Timberwolves will receive the draft rights of Kevin Love, Brian Cardinal, Jason Collins and Mike Miller. In exchange, the Grizz will receive O.J. Mayo, Marko Jaric, Antoine Walker and Greg Buckner.

Obviously, Mayo and Love are the two big components in this deal. Kevin McHale has made no secret of his Love-love leading up to the draft, but knew he had to take Mayo in the third slot, because of their draft position. However, the addition of Miller is pretty ridiculous, as is the dumping of Jaric's contract (although the loss of his ladyfriend Lima certainly hurts).

For the Grizzlies, they get Mayo, of course, and he could be a pretty nice shooting guard addition beside Mike Conley in the backcourt. The Grizzlies have also been trying to dump Cardinal's contract ever since they gave their last good tradable piece away moved Pau Gasol to the Lakers. Buckner, Collins and Walker are essentially throw-ins to make everything work.