Former Duke Blue Devil Shane Battier is one of the smartest, most articulate guys in the NBA. So at Rockets shootaround Tuesday, I asked Battier if there's anything distinctive about this season. His reply involved what he calls "the rising NBA middle 487 2009-02-16T15:13:46-05:00 Observations: NBA's 'middle class' rising, says Battier 30441 --- [] 2010-01-13T00:16:00-05:00 1433 Dayton Daily News http://www.charlotteobserver.com/292/index.rss 3 10 2010-02-09T16:15:16-05:00 http://www.charlotteobserver.com/bobcats/story/1177215.html