The expectation for the Golden State Warriors in the Monta Ellis kerfuffle was to lay down a light punishment or no punishment at all. NBA teams aren't in the business of pissing off their best players for dumb but largely benign mistakes. For every Ellis, I have no doubt dozens of ballers ride motorcycles, snowboard, base jump, run with scissors, microwave floppy disks and do other assorted silly things which could fall under behavior clauses in their contracts. Basically, there's little to gain in terms of material benefit or future deterrence in slapping Ellis with a punishment. Ellis will stop riding mopeds whether you punish him or not. Punishing Ellis isn't likely to make an impression on Anthony Randolph, though.

The Warriors disagree. Tim Kawakami reports the team has suspended Ellis without pay for 30 games. The guard expected to be out a few months, and would likely miss 30 games regardless. But the fine comes out heavy, almost $3 million. That's about 28% of this year's pay. (The Lakers took 10% of Vlad Radmanovic's cash when he injured himself snowboarding and lied to the team about it.) For a cat who'd only made minimum second-round scale money up to this point, that hurts.

Kawakami notes Ellis isn't around to answer questions, which leaves open the possibility Ellis and his camp aren't on board with this. It wouldn't be a stretch to imagine Ellis' agent working with the franchise to come up with the right "statement" to protect Golden State's stature while keeping the guard from losing too much. Based on the size of the fine and the lack of an Ellis presence in Oakland right now, it does not appear to be the case that Monta's camp is cool with this penalty.

(It's all worth noting that a Kawakami column from last week quoted Don Nelson and Chris Mullin as appearing to stand against significant punishment. The decision on the $3 million penalty came from team president Robert Rowell, Mullin's boss.)

The Knights of the FanHouse Roundtable have assembled to consider the NBA in '08-09. In this dispatch, we discuss the bottom half of the Western Conference. On Thursday, we'll look higher. Be sure to also check out the hub of our NBA Preview activity.

Ziller: I think we all expect Memphis and Oklahoma City to grace the bottom of the standings. Everyone would agree Sacramento's absolute best-case scenario would be challenging for the eighth seed. There are 12 more Western Conference teams. Do they all have legitimate chances to make the playoffs? Which ones have the highest likelihood of joining the troika of suck at the bottom of the West?

Matt Moore:These questions are always hard for me because I always like the bad teams more than the good teams.

Well I for one think that the Grizzlies will be much bett ... sigh. Yeah, thirty wins. Sigh. Some day, Grizz. Some day.

Okay, let's get one thing clear. If there was a ten-point scale from stable to complete implosion, the Nuggets are at Spinal Tap. It goes to eleven. Superstar small forward with off-court distractions, expiring contract worth more than most financial firms are now worth in an aging superstar guard, no interior defense and a coach that looks like he just wants it all to end? Yeah, his team is over like snap bracelets. Unless this team gets a significant upgrade at multiple positions off a sucker team wanting AI, this could be an utter disaster.

If there's one guy who was left twisting in the wind this summer after Baron Davis took off for L.A. and Monta Ellis threw his newly $66-million-extended body off a moped, it was Stephen Jackson. Jackson was just as much a part of the free-wheeling Warriors that knocked off the Mavericks in '07 as Davis and Ellis. And while other people have received huge deals and have been the focus of conversations with Don Nelson and Chris Mullin, Jackson has been quiet, only asking occasionally, "Hey, what about me?"

The good news is that some things are turning up S-Jax. On top of all the charity work he's been doing and the likelihood that Jackson will be more prominently featured in the offense, it turns out Jackson had his grill fixed a few weeks ago. The Examiner reports that Jackson had plastic surgery to fix his gap-tooth and all the other damage that was caused by a rather nasty run-in a few years ago that featured "gun-play" and Jackson getting run over by a car.

But now Jackson has a new look to go with a constantly maturing attitude that's always been strong in the locker room but lacked restraint outside of it. Jackson's new and improved proactive disposition has to be music to the ears of a Warriors franchise in desperate need of positive leadership.

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Yesterday we had the overview; today we have the predictions. The Pacific Division appears to be no better than a two-team race, with a third team potentially in the mix, and the last two teams, well, finishing in last. Let's start things off in the cellar and work our way up, shall we?

The Los Angeles Clippers (again, regal) are going to have a tough go of it due to the enormous drop off in talent they have between their starting lineup and the players coming off the bench. In fact, if you want a visual of said drop off, go watch this, and pretend the guy jumping off the building is falling in the space between the talent of the Clippers' starting players and that of their bench players. And the parachute not opening represents the gigantic FAIL that the Clippers can expect this season anytime the bench takes the floor to try and hold onto a lead. It's not going to be pretty, folks.

Up north where the Golden State Warriors play, it won't be pretty either, at least for the first few months of the season. That's because their best player (apologies, Mr. Maggette) decided to engage in low-speed moped riding during the off-season (this still amazes me ... the moped = injury part), which will lead to his absence from the lineup, and an unavoidably bad start for the Warriors.

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A season ago, the Pacific Division was able to send just two of its teams to the playoffs, but one of them went all the way to the Finals. And while that's not likely to change this season -- at least the part about the two playoff teams -- each club definitely has its share of intriguing story lines.

Let's start off in Los Angeles, where the Lakers' playoff run last season took place with one of the team's key components on the sidelines. There are always many stories in Laker-land, but a lot of the team's fans seem to be most interested in this one: With the return of Andrew Bynum, do the Lakers have a shot to win 70 games?

Despite the recent flood of positive Andrew Bynum stories hitting the L.A. papers lately (seriously, his P.R. machine is working overtime), I'm not convinced that his addition to the lineup automatically makes the Lakers unstoppable. There's the whole thing about figuring out how to co-exist with Pau Gasol, and how Lamar Odom will perform (likely) playing further away from the basket. When you add in the fact that even if the team was capable of winning 70 games, there's really no motivation to do so, unless someone else is on the same ridiculous pace and it would mean home court advantage.

The legend of Anthony Randolph should be a key narrative over the next few years, mostly because of the hypermaniacal combination of skills and weaknesses. Marcus Thompson II of the San Jose Mercury News (via GSoM) offers another tale for the archives of Randolph lore.

During summer league, Warriors rookie forward Anthony Randolph was in a room full of NBA hopefuls listening to league representatives introduce them to their new careers. As an icebreaker, each player answered a question: what did they hope to achieve as a player? ...

Some longed to just make the roster. Randolph, his answer was unique and changed the tenor of the entire icebreaker. "I want to be one of the best to ever play the game," he said with the straightest face and the most matter-of-fact tone he could manage.

The beautiful thing about the art of basketball: Randolph could be scion or sideshow, and we won't know until he hits the court. His college data represents a jumble of contradictions (he can score but not shoot, rebound and block but not defend, drop a dime but not handle the ball). Who are we to laugh at steadfast self-confidence in the face of innumerable questions about his future?

Missing Monta Ellis is a drain on the interest in the Warriors for most folks. But if it means we get to peel Randolph back a bit, everything will be alright.

Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel (via Peninsula is Mightier) reports resolution in the odyssey to find Shaun Livingston an NBA home. Livingston will apparently sign a two-year contract with Miami, and expects to play later this season.

If it seems Livingston has received a ton of press considering the low likelihood he'll be a difference-maker this season, it's because he has. But that's all owed to the remarkable potential he showed in spurts through the 2006-07 season with the Clippers. He's young, skilled and dynamic. Why wouldn't folks place a small bet on him? That's what the Heat have done here.

If he can help this year, all the bigger reason for Miami to reel him in. The Heat currently have Chris Quinn, Mario Chalmers and Marcus Banks at the point. Quinn and Banks could be acceptable back-ups and last-string starters. Chalmers is a rookie who might be a very poor man's Mike Bibby someday. None of these guys, at this point, could be starters on a contending team. Livingston doesn't meet that threshold either, but he has the potential to in the near future if he recovers decently. With little on the line, it's a good acquisition. And in few other locales (Golden State, New York) will Livingston have a bigger opportunity to earn minutes than in Miami.

NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. Dallas Morning News. Rick Carlisle wants his Mavericks to be a team of jerks. "'How do you get guys to be nasty? Well, I think hating the opponent is a start,' Carlisle said." I wonder if this means the annual Nowitzki-Nash gala is off?

2. Gelf Magazine. "Why stat-heads and scouts need to kiss and make up to advance the sweet science of the NBA." (That's half of a self-link.)

3. Indy Cornrows. Someone out there is willing to defend Jamaal Tinsley and explain why he's in a feud with Jim O'Brien. That someone is ... Peter Vescey.

4. Associated Press, via GSoM. The Warriors are getting rid of mascot Thunder because of Clay Bennett's swag-jack. Team Robert Rovell reveals Thunder might get ditched in China next week.

5. Los Angeles Times. Wait, Lamar Odom is going to L.A.'s point guard now?

6. Fast Break. Meanwhile in Oakland, Don Nelson can't decide who will man the one for the Warriors.

NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. Dallas Morning News. Josh Howard loves this country. In case you thought otherwise.

2. South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Pat Riley turns his evil sights on the Miami front office; Randy Pfund retires.

3. NBA.com. Gilbert Arenas may have gotten engaged, but he wasn't the one on his knee.

4. Bergen Record. Eddy Curry shows up to media day dressed like a pregnant woman, apparently not in good shape (even by Eddy Curry standards).

5. LA Times. Great read on the development of Andrew Bynum.

6. The Sporting Blog. The situation in Golden State is becoming unstable, as Chris Mullin looks to be on his way out.

Now that the speculation has ended, and the truth is out about how Monta Ellis hurt himself, the question that arises is, should the team do anything about it? It's a bit of a tricky predicament. On the one hand, Monta's your team's franchise player now, so maybe you want to tread lightly and not do anything to start a rift between your $66M dollar man and the organization.

On the other hand, you can't pretend that your star player didn't blatantly ignore the conditions of his contract, and as a result, sustain an injury that will keep him out for a minimum of the first two months of the season. That aggression cannot stand, man! Or can it?

There's some thinking in the Bay Area that says the Warriors should do nothing, for fear of Ellis carrying a grudge that could end up ruining the franchise, Chris Webber-style. But non-action by the franchise sets a bad precedent, and sends the wrong message that they'll let players slide when they do something that they know damn well they shouldn't be doing.

I'm not saying that the Warriors should fine Ellis something crazy like 10% of his contract, as the Lakers eventually did when Vladimir Radmanovic decided to go on a little snowboarding trip. But they have to do something. A small "slap on the wrist" fine and a stern (lowercase "s") statement through the media would do the trick. Just enough to let Ellis and the team know that the organization won't tolerate these kinds of actions from their players, but not enough to damage their relationship with the new face of the franchise.