William C. Rhoden of The New York Times: Philadelphia tied a team record Wednesday -- one set by the infamous 1972-73 team -- with its 15th straight loss to open the season. It wasn’t all bad: The 76ers threw a scare into the visiting Nets before their youth was exposed down the stretch in crucial mistakes that led to a 99-91 loss. With the Mavericks (11-5) and the Spurs (10-4) in town for the next two games, there is no end to the losing in sight. The 76ers’ leadership group, controlled by a private equity veteran and a general manager devoted to analytics, will continue to embrace an approach to competition that relies on numbers rather than intuition. But those numbers have no way of recording the long-term damage being done to the basketball soul of Philadelphia. The numbers do, however, speak for themselves: 0-15.

Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe: Avery Bradley is third on the Celtics in scoring, averaging a career-high 14.1 points per game, yet he has attempted only 11 free throws this season and none in the past five games. Bradley, the starting shooting guard, who has played 369 minutes through 12 games, is tied for 247th out of 420 players in attempts. A shooting guard who doesn’t get to the free throw line is an issue for a team that’s 29th in the league at 19.3 attempts per game. The Celtics would like for Bradley to get easier points, but the question is how. He is a jump shooter whose strength is not dribble penetration. “We need him to get to the foul line more,” Stevens said. “I think the interesting part is his free throws have come on jump shots, so they haven’t come on drives.”

Mike Ganter of the Toronto Sun: On Thursday, for instance, it was brought to a handful of Raptors’ players attentions that ESPN’s John Hollinger’s playoff odds had the Raptors 100% certain to get in and a league-best 41% to win the title. The odds are pure mathematical progressions based on what they have accomplished to date. But none of those asked wanted any part of it. “I’m not putting any credence in that,” Dwane Caseysaid. “That’s good for fans and for whoever else, but our job is to go out (Friday) night and compete against a very good Dallas team that is coming in and shooting the ball at an extremely high rate with a Hall of Fame scorer. We have our work cut out for us. I didn’t even know that stat until (another writer) mentioned it a few minutes ago.” Casey was then asked if it at least made him smile hearing those numbers. Casey again rejected even the notion of a compliment. “No, not at all,” Casey said a little more forcefully. “None whatsoever. I live in reality and all I know is we have a tough game (Friday) night.” Taking criticism when you’re struggling is hard. But what we’re finding out lately is that too much positive feedback is equally unwanted. DeMar DeRozan, who joined teammate Greivis Vasquez as the leader of Toronto’s second unit was being scrummed by a growing number of media deciding to show up for Raptors practices these days, cut in when Vasquez was being asked about the ESPN playoff forecast. “We don’t care about nothing ESPN says, honestly,” DeRozan said. “We don’t care. I don’t have a problem with Hollinger, but nobody here cares what anybody else is saying. We care about anybody who has this Raptors jersey on. Everything else don’t even matter.”

Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times: In turning down the Bulls’ take-it-or-leave-it contract extension at the end of October, Jimmy Butler said he was “gambling on myself." Guess who’s winning? According to a source, Butler turned down a four-year, $40 million-plus offer from the Bulls. After watching Klay Thompson get the max four-year, $70 million contract from the Warriors, Butler was willing to test the market as a restricted free agent and force the Bulls to make the tough decision. Through the first 15 games, he’s averaging a team-high 21.6 points and 1.62 steals to go along with 6.1 rebounds and 3.2 assists. He’s well on his way to stardom. Just don’t tell Butler. “I’m not a star," Butler said. “I’m a good role player on a really, really good team, a really, really deep team. I like being a role player. Star has never been next to Jimmy Butler’s name. It never will be. I’ll always be an under-the-radar dawg." Yeah, sure.

Bill Glauber of the Journal Sentinel: The Bucks are bringing new life back to the Bradley Center. The team is on the rebound, fueled by exciting young players and backed by new ownership. It's early in the marathon NBA season, but something of a rebirth is clearly underway with the Bucks franchise. You can see it and hear it in ways great and small, both inside and outside the arena. At times last season, when the Bucks won only 15 games, you couldn't even give away tickets. Now, scalpers say there is a growing trade, buying seats below face value and selling them for a few dollars more. Nobody will get rich, but at least it's a start. At local bars and restaurants like Buck Bradley's on N. Old World 3rd St. and Major Goolsby's on W. Kilbourn Ave., they're bringing on extra bartenders and wait staff to serve fans, even on weeknights.

Bob Finnan of The News-Herald: If Kyrie Irving continues to make strides on the defensive end, he could garner All-NBA honors at the end of the season. That’s been the one part of his game that’s been lacking in the first three seasons of his career. Blatt said the coaching staff has challenged Irving to improve on defense. Then he spent the summer playing for Team USA in the FIBA World Cup in Spain. The defensive principles of head coach Mike Krzyzewski and assistants Monty Williams and Tom Thibodeau must have rubbed off on him. “He’s carried on what he did in the summer with Coach K,” Cavaliers forward LeBron James said. “It all starts with the head of the snake, Kyrie Irving.”

Bob Cooney of the Philadelphia Daily News: While there hasn't been much to be excited about this season when it comes to the 76ers, many have expressed a lot of interest in what seems to be the team's impending signing of forward Furkan Aldemir, the 6-9 forward who terminated his contract in Turkey earlier this week and said he is ready to come to the NBA. His rights were acquired by the Sixers in 2013 in a trade with the Houston Rockets and he has been playing overseas since. A source said the other day that "it could be a couple of days or a couple of weeks" before any kind of an agreement is reached, paving the way for the 230-pounder to make his debut with the 0-15 Sixers. While fans are looking for the tiniest morsel of hope for this dreadful team, Furkan isn't it. According to a scout in the NBA, he is a "marginal NBA player." ... He's considered a very good rebounder in that league, but really doesn't possess many more talents that will be good in the NBA. ... When asked if Aldemir was comparable to anyone in the NBA, none of the scouts I talked to could really give an example. I then posed this: "Could he be as good an NBA player as, say, Lavoy Allen?" The one response I got that wasn't no: "If he could get himself to be as good as Lavoy Allen, that would be a very big improvement for him."

Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic: The Suns are posing an early threat on the NBA team record for single-season free-throw percentage. Through 16 games, the Suns have made 82.9 percent of their free throws. The league record is 83.2 by the 1989-90 Celtics with Larry Bird at 93 percent. The Suns nearly have three 90 percent shooters in Thomas (90.9), Len (90.5) and Green (88.9). Thomas has made 48 free throws in a row, nine off the franchise record. The team clip is ahead of the franchise record of 80.8, set in 2006-07.

Aaron Falk of The Salt Lake Tribune: Utah’s 24.3 bench points per game are the third fewest in the NBA. Utah’s opponents, meanwhile, are averaging more than 31.68 points per contest. With so much invested in their young starting five, the Jazz must obviously rely heavily on their first unit when it comes to putting up points. And Snyder has often rested the team’s top scorer, Gordon Hayward, earlier than other starters in the first quarter so he can help stabilize a bench-heavy lineup later. Bench scoring, of course, isn’t the end all, be all. The Houston Rockets have averaged fewer points off the bench than the Jazz. Utah, meanwhile, beat the Knicks despite seeing their reserves outscored 39-20. And the Jazz lost to the Hawks earlier this month with a 17-15 edge in bench production. But production from the second unit certainly doesn’t hurt. Utah’s bench has equaled or outscored its opponents five times this year. In three of those games, the Jazz have won. The Jazz are also hopeful that the return of rookie forward Rodney Hood will help. The No. 23 pick in the June draft has missed the team’s past 10 games with a right foot injury, and Jazz officials say he may not be re-evaluated for another two weeks.

Terry Foster of The Detroit News: Legendary Pistons coach Chuck Daly often sent a short but powerful message to budding superstar Dennis Rodman during the Bad Boys' reign of terror. "Don't think," he'd bark to Rodman. "Don't think. Just play." In time Rodman became one of the most instinctive players in the NBA. He ran the floor, was strong, could defend any position and scored off of offensive rebounds and broken plays. He won defensive player of the year honors and was one of the game's best rebounders. Andre Drummond, the current Pistons prodigy, is similar. Don't think Andre. Just play the game.

Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News: Brandan Wright made three of his seven shots Wednesday against New York. This is significant because it’s the first time since April that Wright hasn’t made at least half of his shots in a regular-season game for the Mavericks. His streak of 18 games in a row shooting at least 50 percent or better ended against the Knicks. That broke Rolando Blackman’s club record of 15 consecutive games in the 1984 season. Wright still leads the NBA at a ridiculous 77.2 percent from the field. His strategy hasn’t changed all season. He just tries to make everything he shoots. “That’s the plan,” he said. If he could keep up this outrageous pace, Wright would shatter the NBA record for field goal percentage in a season, owned since 1972-73 by Wilt Chamberlain, who made 72.7 percent of his shots that season.

Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald: Plus/minus statistics shouldn’t be overstated, but it’s interesting that the Heat has played better with Napier and Ennis on the floor than with virtually anybody else. Miami has outscored teams by 24 with Napier playing, best on the team. (Starter Norris Cole, conversely, is a minus-40). Ennis and Josh McRoberts are tied for second at plus 22. With Napier, NBA people believe that isn’t a coincidence. “He’s definitely a starting point guard longterm,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said this week. “He’s not just a backup. This is a temporary role I think.”