SH Blog: Lowry wanted to be traded for much of the season, Woodson says he can win with any team

• Andre Iguodala hopes to return sooner than later from his hamstring injury, from The AP: “Andre Iguodala had a target date in mind to return from a right hamstring injury. The Golden State Warriors have a different one. “We’re in the same chapter,” Iguodala said after sitting out Thursday’s practice. “Not on the same page.” Iguodala is expected to miss his 11th straight game when the Warriors host the Houston Rockets on Friday night. He said he hopes to come back “really soon” but will leave the decision up to team trainers. “We’ve had some disagreements because some days you feel really good, but your body can trick yourself into thinking you feel all right but it’s not really there,” Iguodala said. “I guess the good thing is our strength and conditioning guy, he tore his hamstring this summer. He came back four times and tore it four times again. I guess I could listen to him because he’s been through it.”

• Jermaine O’Neal will undergo surgery on his injured wrist, according to The AP: “Golden State Warriors backup center Jermaine O’Neal is scheduled to have arthroscopic surgery on his right wrist Friday. The team said a timetable for O’Neal’s return will be announced following the procedure, which threatens to end his season – and possibly his career. The 35-year-old O’Neal is in his 18th NBA season and has had previous knee and wrist surgeries. The Warriors said O’Neal’s latest operation is ”to address a torn ligament in his right wrist.”

• Just as Kobe Bryant returns, the Los Angeles Lakers will lose Steve Blake for the foreseeable future, from Dave McMenamin of ESPN LA: “The Los Angeles Lakers are down to zero healthy point guards. Steve Blake is expected to miss at least six weeks with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, the team announced Thursday. The Lakers were already playing without Steve Nash (nerve root irritation) for the past 12 games and Jordan Farmar (hamstring tear) for the past three games. Blake had an MRI, which revealed the injury. He was hurt in the second half of the Lakers’ 116-111 road loss to the Washington Wizards on Nov. 26.”

• The West may be distinctly better than the East, but the East still prevails in ticket prices, from Jesse Lawrence of Huffington Post: “Although the Eastern Conference could be one of the worst conferences in league history, it continues to have higher secondary market prices for NBA tickets than the West. The average price on the secondary market to see a team in the East is $141 per seat versus $125 in the West. The biggest culprit of this ticket-price imbalance is the New York Knicks that lead the league in ticket prices with an average of $269, but are last or close to it in almost all on-the-court statistical categories. By comparison, the Spurs and the Trail Blazers, the two best teams in the West have an average price of $114.”

• Felton and Iman Shumpert are both injured for the Knicks. Unfortunately, Felton will miss much more time, from The AP: “The New York Knicks say point guardRaymond Felton is expected to miss two to three weeks with a strained left hamstring. Iman Shumpert, the other starting guard, is listed as day to day with a bruised left knee. Felton has been bothered by the hamstring for much of the season and the Knicks finally decided to shut him down Wednesday. He had an MRI exam Thursday to confirm the injury.

• Various players spoke of their very specific and strict diet to help their bodies be healthy, including Derrick Rose. An interesting piece by Ken Berger of CBSSports: “Rose didn’t go Paleo, per se, but he cut out most of the sugar and processed carbohydrates he’d been gorging himself on for most of his basketball career. “Sugar is one of the reasons that people don’t recover the way that they were supposed to, and I had surgery,” Rose said earlier this season. “So taking all that into consideration, I was just trying to put everything on my side, giving myself a chance to come back.”… “I’m a candy head,” Rose said. “Ever since I’ve been younger, I’ve been eating it. But for me to put my career first and be healthy while I’m out there, I had to put all that on hold.”

• Dirk Nowitzki took a shot at the Eastern Conference, from Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports: “If you look at the Western Conference, the quality so high. The teams are bunched up right there. We can beat each other every given night. It’s not like the Eastern Conference, where you just roll through,” said Nowitzki after a 95-93 loss to the Golden State Warriors. Just four of 15 teams in the West have losing records; the only East teams over .500 are the Indiana Pacers (19-3) and the Miami Heat (16-6). Nowitzki’s Mavericks (13-10) also have a better record than 13 of the East’s 15 teams despite sitting tied for eighth overall in the West. “We got to compete every night [in the West], especially if you want to win on the road. You’re going to be in a lot of close ones,” Nowitzki said.”

• Mike Woodson believes he can take any team and win, from Marc Berman of New York Post: “Mike Woodson gave his defense on why he should remain the Knicks coach, saying it’s too early to judge him, citing the flurry of minutes restrictions on key players and Tyson Chandler’s injury. Woodson also said he feels “as a coach I can take any team and win.’’… “I’m not trying to convince anyone,’’ Woodson said before the Knicks’ sixth victory of the season. “I’m trying to take our team as it is and do the best job we can do. We have had our struggles. I always thought as a coach, I can take any team and win. Sometimes that’s not realistic but that’s how I feel as a coach. When we step on the floor, I feel l could put them in position to win. Maybe I’m stubborn when I say that [but] that’s how I feel.’’

• He also expressed how frustrated he was about the injuries to Tyson Chandler and Raymond Felton, along with having to deal with minutes restrictions on players: “We got to get Tyson back and we got to see what our team really is about. I don’t know. We’ve had so many injuries coming out of the camp. I don’t know what this team is about. I wish we had a full deck and we were able to get our rotations down. I don’t know. We haven’t had an opportunity to experience that yet.’’… I’ve endured [minutes] restrictions on certain players. We went through that phase and starting to grow out of that. Guys couldn’t play back-to-back and not having Tyson. Raymond’s [Felton] been on and off. It’s just been tough to actually see what our team is really about. If we’re healthy, we’re a good team. We can compete at that level.’’

James Park is the chief blogger of Sheridan Hoops. You can find him on twitter @SheridanBlog.