Kyrie Irving is back to playing basketball.

The Pelicans have a shooting problem, not a Zion problem,

and using only NBA players, I select a presidential cabinet.

Hey, I'm Tasmellis, and this is what you need to know in the NBA for Wednesday, January 20th.

Kyrie Irving returned to Nets practice after missing the last seven games.

The reason he was gone, he said, quote, he had a lot of family and personal stuff going on.

He left it at that with the media, but did say he addressed it a little bit more in-depth with the organization and his team, which is the important part, of course.

From the outside looking in, seems like the organization is very understanding about his absence.

Seems like a very nice place to work, if you ask me. The absence did cost him nearly a million dollars. Okay, it was more like

$900,000. More like $860,000 if you want to be technical about it. I was just rounding up because it was a

little bit more dramatic. I guess I'm one of those ponds Kyrie Irving talked about in the media.

The $860,000 consisted of two games worth of salary after he was caught on video breaking quarantine

and $50,000 for violating protocol.

Back to basketball.

The Nets have a 57 game runway here with their new big three,

and it should start Wednesday versus Kyrie's old team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

James Hart, Kevin Durant, and Carrie Irving on the floor.

Speaking of games, there were two on Tuesday night.

First one consisted of the Utah Jazz, the hottest team in the NBA. The Jazz have won six in a row.

This one over the Pelicans. Donovan Mitchell had 28. Jordan Clarkson had 18, the leading six

man of the year candidate off the bench. It was also good to see Joe Ingalls back coming off

the bench for Utah. The Pelicans have an issue, and it's not Zion Williamson.

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