NBA Essentials: Beware Travis Diener’s Spicy Meatballs

NBA Essentials provides the must-see links, quotes and videos of the day.

* "[Roy Hibbert]'s sitting next to Travis [Diener], which I find very interesting. You have to watch Travis because he can be very tricky on flights. Roy has an expensive bag he uses as a carry-on and on our last flight from Boston, Travis thought it would be a good idea to hide a meatball in it. Now, this was not a meatball in tin foil or anything but a meatball with pasta sauce and parmesan cheese on it. Roy was not amused, to say the least." -- Troy Murphy's blog, via Indy Cornrows.

* Last year [Nate] Robinson was playing Madden online against teammate Mardy Collins-since traded to the Clippers-and losing badly. Robinson paused the game, drove 10 minutes to Collins's home, barged through the door and unplugged Collins's console so the loss wouldn't count against his record." -- Sports Illustrated, via P&T.

* Kevin Love on dinner at Mr. Chow: "I was like, excuse my French, what the [expletive] is this all about?" -- Yahoo! Sports.

* Charlie Villanueva explains the nuance of the term "personal computer" when applied to IBM-based machines versus Macs.

* "Once you're in the position of an employer angling in the media to make an employee look bad ... the situation is plainly beyond toxic. It would be a victory for the Bulls to tell the world their long contract guy -- in my brief exposure to him a truly stellar human -- is a dud? What? Who wins there? Is there a plan to win? If a team is, you know, a team, wouldn't they want to make Luol Deng look good?" -- TrueHoop.

* A Brooklyn summer league in which you must pass a literary (not literacy, literary) test to join. Via GalleyCat.