Quick Hits....

"Maybe the players feel differently, but I think we're going to grow as a basketball team and grow as an organization from a trip like this. You're together a lot more because there's a lot of stuff to do" -- Nets coach Kenny Atkinson, on the team's two upcoming games this week in Mexico City (NEWSDAY, 12/6).

"I earned my chops by appearing on the local CBS morning news show in upstate New York … and talking with callers about the NFL on the local ESPN radio as 'the professor'" -- Princeton professor and CNN political analyst Julian Zelizer, on catching the journalism bug early in his career (POLITICO.com, 12/6).