(AP photo by Dino Vournas, SF Chronicle, 10/04/04)

Nervous Nellie shall no longer have Mike Dunleavy (above) and Troy Murphy to kick around. The underachieving duo, along with Ike Diogu and Keith McLeod, are bound for Indy in exchange for Al Harrington, Stephen Jackson, Saurunas Jasikevicius and Josh Powell according to ESPN.

(UPDATE : sage summation by The Feed’s Josh Alper, who wonders “what’s Indiana thinking?” unless taking on Dunleavy and Murphy’s huge deals is a precursor to another swap.)

In another WWL.com item, the Tru Warier celebrated Monday’s loss to the Knicks by promising Chris Sheridan, “When the end of the season comes, we’ll surprise a lot of people with our playoff position and how we’re looking,” along with professing his confidence that Pistons fans won’t try to shower him with beer when Sacramento visits Auburn Hills this weekend (“”I can’t see that happening again. I just think that was a once-in-a-lifetime thing,”).

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Ira Winderman spoke with the Heat’s Antoine Walker regarding the sensitive topic of ‘Toine’s physical fitness. One of the game’s most unrepentant jackers, conveniently, changes the subject.

In his three games since returning from a four-game stint on the inactive list due to violations of the team’s conditioning policies, reserve forward Antoine Walker is 15 of 29 from the field, 9 of 17 on 3-pointers and averaging 13 points. Walker downplays the mandate to lose body fat. Instead, he cites the return to the leather ball. “The leather ball is a little lighter, a little different. I like it a lot better,” he said.