A jet carrying the Detroit Pistons landed safely at Houston’s Hobby Airport late Monday afternoon after an alert was issued regarding the plane’s landing gear, myFOXhouston.com reported.

According to the Houston Airport System, there was concern over the jet’s left side landing gear hydraulics.

The entire team was on board the plane ahead of Tuesday night’s game against the Rockets at Houston’s Toyota Center, WDIV Detroit reported. They were later transported by bus to their hotel.

There were no reported injuries among the 44 passengers on board, Houston’s khou.com reported.

Emergency vehicles surrounded the plane as it landed but they were not needed. (FOX News)

It’s never good to hear about any plane having problem like this but it gains so much more news when it involves a sports team, professional or amateur. That’s unfortunate but it’s good to hear everyone’s alright.

Now can the Pistons use this as a wake up call?

On the play, his man Tayshaun Prince got caught up in a pick at the three point line which freed Anthony along the baseline. Greg Monroe tried to come over on help defense but it was already to late as Melo was in the air on route to slamming one home.

@KCJHoop: Rip has cleared waivers. Sounds like he’ll be at #Bulls practice on Thursday after 2/$10M deal is finalized.

I’m thinking Rip is going to have a nice rebound year in 2012. Last season he averaged only 14.1 points per game, the second worst average of his career. With him starting and in the Chicago offense he’ll be closer to his career average of 17.7. The reason being they need a guy who can hit shots from the outside to open up room for Derrick Rose.

What he’ll enjoy even more is that members of the Bulls want him on the team, especially his friend Carlos Boozer.

“He always has been a great competitor and winner,” Boozer said. “If he did come, that would be a great addition. I’ve admired his game for a long time.” (Chicago Tribune)

“Viktor Bychkov, general director of BC Khimki, said the club will not renew the agreement with their American small forward Austin Daye. The 23-year-old player of the NBA’s Detroit Pistons had signed a two-month contract, which now expired. ‘The club will not renew the agreement with Austin Daye. The position of our club is to consider seriously players from the NBA, if we are sure the player can sign a contract until the end of the season, not until the end of the lockout,’ Bychkov said as quoted by RIA Novosti.” (via Slam)

The club made the decision for a pretty good reason. Much like the teams in China they want players who are going to stick around for the entire season, not leave as soon as the NBA lockout ends. It’s a novel idea since BC Khimki is a pretty damn good team, so they want guys who can perform and stick around.

You notice I said perform? Daye never made much of an impact for the team, while other NBA players like Timofey Mozgov and Chris Quinn have. So my thinking is the team just decided to cut ties with a guy who wasn’t going to see much action.

Wallace at the age of 35, averaged 28.6 minutes per game in 2009-10 and led the team with averages of 8.7 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game. Those aren’t great numbers but pretty damn solid for a part time big man. I’ve got no doubts that he’ll continue to start for the Pistons but don’t expect for him to play more then 25 to 30 minutes a game. Any more then that they could wear the big man out.

Unfortunately for the Pistons I don’t see this move helping them find their way back into the playoffs. They simply didn’t make any additions to make their 27-55 team any more competitive.

The drafting of Greg Monroe at number nine will help but won’t be enough to put them over the top. If anything it should be fun watching Monroe and Wallace play together, the elder should be a pretty solid mentor for the youngster.

So let’s first start off with last years Slam Dunk winner, New York Knicks Nate Robinson. He’s been in coach Mike D’Antoni’s doghouse barely getting on the court but yesterday he got plenty of action and took advantage of it. Robinson will be back to defend his crown and wasted no time getting the hype going.

Loose balls create some of the best dunks in the NBA, but in the Sacramento Kings / Charlotte Bobcats game last night a dunk was created by some impressive loose ball acrobatics. Kevin Martin started it all with a steal, then came the bouncing ball and then an easy Jason Thompson dunk.

The Nets are pretty bad but Courtney Lee can definitely provide a spark when he wants. On this play the Los Angeles Clippers for some reason decided to help cover someone without the ball, leaving Lee and the rock all by himself. So what else would someone do? Take the rock and drive the lane for an easy dunk.

NBATV’s Dunk of the Night came from the Thunder’s Jeff Green and this one time I can’t really argue with their choice. Josh Smith of the Hawks was guarding him at mid-court and still gotten taken all the way to the hoop and jammed on. Smith never even left the hip of Green. Sick.

Jerryd Bayless of the Portland Trailblazers had a pretty easy alley-oop that was dialed up from long range. Andre Miller was about half way between the midcourt and three point line, and threw a line drive pass up to Bayless who snuck behind the Wizards defense.

Now this next play took place in the Los Angeles Lakers and Orlando Magic game, it’s not quite a dunk but more of an attempted dunk. Shannon Brown decided to take it to the hole and go up against one Dwight Howard, that’s usually not a good idea. Maybe Brown was feeling a little bigger then he actually is as he was named to the 2010 Slam Dunk contest as well. Yea, Howard got called for the foul but it was still embarrassing for Brown nonetheless.

With the current economy money is playing a major role in this years draft. There are actually numerous teams looking to trade out of the first round. Looking to avoid the guaranteed contract. I’d have to say I don’t like the reasoning one bit. It’s bad enough that in Major League Baseball, the best players usually don’t get drafted where they should because of sign ability concerns. But this is now hitting the NBA?

Not wanting to pay contracts is one of the biggest things I hate about the baseball draft. Now we have NBA teams who want out of the draft so they don’t have to pay guys who might not be an immediate help. It’s pretty annoying, but for a team like the Pistons could it be smart?

The 15th pick in last years draft was Robin Lopez by the Phoenix Suns, he made $1.6 million last season. That’s a decent amount for a rookie who may never see the court. Remember the Pistons were bounced in the first round by the Cleveland Cavaliers but weren’t far from being an Eastern Conference contender. They had made six straight NBA Eastern Conference Finals before missing the playoffs this year. So it’s not like they are a bad team.

In fact, the Pistons had health issues most of the year and were maybe one or two players away from being a contender. Team president Joe Dumars knows this and is looking for ways to get the team back there.

The Pistons have a lot of cap room this offseason approximately $20 million. If they can dump that first round pick for a second round or a future first, they can theoretically save themselves an additional $1.6 million (the amount of Lopez’s deal last year). So Detroit could have just under $22 million in cap space for free agency or trade.

That’s a lot of money for a team that only needs to get a little bit of help to reach its goals. Unfortunately for them they aren’t the only team looking to trade down.

The Chicago Sun-Times lists a few options the Bulls may consider. They include, Tyrone Corbin of the Utah Jazz, Tom Thibodeau of the Boston Celtics, Michael Curry of the Detroit Pistons and Brian Shaw of the Los Angeles Lakers. One of them Tyrone Corbin has already been scheduled for an interview. Personally, I feel that out of those guys only 2 are really viable options. They are Corbin and Thibodeau. Let’s look at both guys.

Tyrone Corbin – Utah Jazz. First, Corbin is a fairly local guy after playing his college ball at DePaul. Corbin played for 15 seasons in the NBA, and has now coached for 4, this was his 3rd season as an assistant coach on Jerry Sloan’s staff. Corbin has been noted as an up-and-coming coach, but not quite yet on the hot assistants list. ”I’d love to be a head coach in this league someday,” he said. ”I’m just going to continue with this team and see where it takes me.”

Currently, Corbin has been given some responsibilities of preparing scouting reports for certain teams. But his main role with the team is to work with the Utah big man, which would be very beneficial to the Bulls. With youngsters Joakim Noah, Aaron Gray, Andres Nocioni and Tyrus Thomas the team could really use a coach who has considerable experience playing in the post, something Corbin has.

Tom Thibodeau – Boston Celtics. This guy is a defensive wizard. And a defensive mindset is something this young team needs. The Bulls ranked 16th in the NBA this past season in points allowed, giving up just over 100 a game. Team’s with Thibodeau as an assistant coach have finished in the Top 10 defensively in 14 of his 17 seasons as a coach. This past year was his first with the Celtics, and the team improved considerably. The Celtics finished 2nd in team defense after being 18th the previous year, and gave up 9 less points per game. True, they added some pretty big pieces to the roster, but the coaches mindset and game plans also come in to play. The Bulls can score and as the youngsters get better their totals will go up, if they can get anything resembling a defense they could be a force in the Eastern Conference.

Both coaches have the most pluses in my eyes. But then again, I’m not a big fan of the NBA, so what do I know! If one of the these two coaches do get the job thou, they’ll have plenty of young guns to work with.

If anyone’s wondering why Avery Johnson wants to take a year off the answer is pretty simple. He had 3 years left on his contract with the Dallas Mavericks. So essentially he can sit back beach side for the next 3 years and Mark Cuban would be forced to still pay him $12 million.