Giving grades is fun, if only for the opportunity to quote one of our heroes.

That would be George Costanza.

SECOND-QUARTER FOCUS

1. In Denver, the question is obvious: Will Dan Issel last long enough to be featured in our next quarter report? 2. In San Antonio, over the next month-plus, the Spurs have two games each against Milwaukee, Dallas, New Jersey and the Lakers (Jan. 19 and 25). Some good tests, in other words. 3. In Houston, the Rockets think Steve Francis will be back from his bout with plantar fasciitis by the end of the calendar year. Of course, with the playoffs probably an impossibility already, all that can do is lower the Rockets' lottery odds for a top-three pick. 4. In Memphis, coach Sidney Lowe will inevitably be blamed for another grisly season. The Midwest is generally good for job security -- five of the NBA's seven longest coaching tenures emanate from this division -- but Lowe has no chance to impress with Wright and Dickerson out. 5. In Utah, the Jazz has only two February home games because of the Olympics. So success in January, with homestands of five and four games, is crucial. — Marc Stein

Leave it to Le George to explain to demanding moms and dads out there why there's nothing wrong with a C. "Right in that meaty part of the curve," he calls it.

"Not showing off," George goes on, and "not falling behind."

By George's standards, then, you'd have to say the Midwest Division is on the showy side. There are two teams in the A range just over a quarter into the season, and another in the Bs and on the ascent.

Here is how ESPN.com grades the Midwest teams after 20-plus games (records through games of Dec. 19):

Minnesota Timberwolves (16-8)
Hey, got this one right. Minny, my sleeper team at Halloween, roared to a 16-5 start on the strength of two extended win streaks (five and six games) and a reputation for playing the sort of zone defense that makes Dick Vitale ooze. As such, it seems that the West's consensus Fab Four is actually a fivesome, adding the Wolves to the Lakers, Spurs, Kings and Mavs.

Except …

Except for the fact that the Wolves just lost a home-and-home to the Mavs, then followed it up with a loss to New Jersey, for their first mini-crisis of the season. Can't be overlooked that Minny didn't have Terrell Brandon for Tuesday's rematch with the Mavs at the Tarzhay, but the Wolves did have a 22-point lead that wasn't big enough. So pay attention to the response. We'll see if the Wolves believe they're as good as their quarter-pole record.

Look at their personnel and, truth is, there's no reason why they shouldn't believe it. Wally Szczerbiak is proving to be the No. 2 scoring option he insisted he could be, having converted to two-guard, and he's more than surviving defensively with help from the matchup zone. Joe Smith's impact has been right there with Wally's, and Brandon, with his knees cooperating, racked up 65 assists to four turnovers during the six-game streak. There's a bench there now, too, and vintage Kevin Garnett and Flip Saunders don't hurt, either.

What would help? Try free throws. The Wolves average less than 20 a game, a shame considering they make 80 percent of them as a squad. If they continue at this pace, they'll set a new NBA record low for free throws; Milwaukee averaged 20.6 per game in 1972-73.
Grade: A-.

San Antonio Spurs (19-4)
Far as we know, the only games you can win are the ones on the schedule. So it's tough for any Spurs lover to be too dissatisfied with the season's first fourth. They've only lost four times, have an eight-game win streak working and have a rookie point guard who's the envy of almost every team that picked above San Antonio in the first round of June draft. Which is to say: Just about every team.

But …

The main uncertainty about the Spurs coming into camp was their psyche: Could they recover, mentally, from the humiliation of being swept by the Laker team they had broomed two springs before? The early evidence is positive, except for the fact that even the Spurs themselves have questioned just how good they are right now. This from Gregg Popovich, supporting the thesis: "I'm thrilled we have the record we have, but I don't think it means what it says."

That's because the Spurs haven't beaten anyone of consequence during the best start in franchise history and haven't been great at holding leads. They've also somehow managed to avoid Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, Chris Webber, Steve Francis and Shareef Abdur-Rahim in recent games because of injury, with Vince Carter limping out of a game last week in the second quarter.

There's no denying Duncan is off to the best start of his career (he's even making free throws, 80 percent of them). Or that Parker and Terry Porter form solid two-ply TP at the point (San Antonio is 16-2 since Parker became a starter). Or that Steve Smith (61.5 percent on threes) and defensive stopper Bruce Bowen more than add up to a solitary Derek Anderson. Eventually, though, Les Spurs are going to have to topple a fellow heavyweight. They're 0-2 against the Kings, home and away, both sans Webber.
Grade: A-.

Dallas Mavericks (16-9)
Mark Cuban hasn't been fined a cent yet, hard as he's tried, and there are a few other Mavs who haven't quite recaptured last season's form. Juwan Howard, after a solid start, has scored less than 10 points in six of the past eight games, even though the Karl Malone trade rumors have been muffled and despite being reinstated to the starting lineup. Shawn Bradley, meanwhile, finds himself in disfavor for the first time in his Dallas career, to the point that Don Nelson refuses to play a hobbled Bradley or put him on the injured list.

Things could be a lot worse, though. After a couple three-game losing streaks, the rest of the Mavericks seem to be finding themselves, judging by a home-and-home sweep of Minnesota. Steve Nash is playing All-Star ball, Dirk Nowitzki is right there with him and Michael Finley, Dallas' only acknowledged All-Star, shook a mini-slump of his own by hitting the Wolves with 56 in the two games. The Mavs' Big Three is as good as anyone's, maybe the league's best trio.

The concern is the bench, which prevents Dallas from being as feared as San Antonio and Sacramento. Depth, size and toughness, for all Cuban's riches, are still lacking here. So, how far can they go? Depends.

For starters, depends on the trade everyone expects Cuban and Nelson to eventually make for someone impactful. Also depends on Tim Hardaway and Energy Eduardo Najera. Tim Bug has left a woeful November behind to show signs of becoming a handy sixth man, as evidenced by the two game-sealing daggers he dropped on the Wolves on Tuesday. Hardaway and Najera are the bench right now. More than the Mavs had last month, but they'll need more than that to get back to Round 2 of the playoffs.
Grade: B.

Utah Jazz (12-14)
To borrow a line from one of our favorite scribes, no longer is anyone whispering about the Jazz getting old. They're there and everyone can see it. Jerry Sloan and Larry Miller don't even try to hide it any more, voluntarily inserting the O word into scores of quotes lately. Thus the decline so many of us have predicted, albeit predicted several seasons ago, is finally underway. Salt Lake's faithful must know it, too, because the Delta Center doesn't get full for anyone any more, not even the Lakers.

Mind you, as always with the Jazz, they're never quite as cooked as outsiders suggest. Utah scarcely won a game in the opening month, still reeling from that blown 2-0 playoff lead against the Mavs, lurching out to a 5-9 start, sinking near the bottom of the league in team defense ... but promptly hushed all the Karl Malone trade tattle with a 6-4 response. While far from the usual 50-win pace we expect from these guys, it's clear that StocktontoMalone and the ever-improving Donyell Marshall ain't a shabby trio in their own right.

The problem has been what's around them: Not much. Bryon Russell got off to a slow start, then got hurt, and "marquee signing" John Amaechi has somehow done less in the middle than Greg Ostertag. Andrei Kirilenko has actually been in Parker's class among rookies, but team problems with defense and turnovers -- both very uncharacteristic -- have kept Utah below .500.

So long as Mail and Stock are around, refusing to miss any games, the Jazz figures to make a run at No. 8. But that's beneath them, really, which is why a Malone deal will eventually have to be entertained. The future -- having one, that is -- depends on it.
Grade: C.

Memphis Grizzlies (5-19)
To score the first 30-win season in franchise history, the Grizz needed everything to break right. Instead, some actual traces of talent have been offset by all the breakdowns: Michael Dickerson is out with a freakish long-term leg injury, Lorenzen Wright is also sidelined long-term (knee) and Bryant Reeves will probably never play again (back).

So why watch them? Especially if the good people of Memphis (home attendance is 14,396) seem only mildly interested? Besides the nightly highlight-reel submissions from Jason Williams, Pau Gasol is a good reason to give a look. It's a tough spot for a foreign kid who wasn't even a franchise player in the Spanish League - career average at Barcelona: 7.8 ppg -- but check out the Grizz numbers: 15.4 points and 7.7 rebounds and 50.5 percent shooting.

Make all the jokes you want (and we do) about Pau going to the perfect team for a guy missing an L in his name. Trust us when we say Atlanta ain't laughing. The Hawks, reminded every day that they drafted Jamaal Tinsley and then gave him away to Indiana, now have to face up to the fact that the Shareef Abdur-Rahim trade might not have been the outright steal it seemed in June.
Grade: D+.

Denver Nuggets (9-15)
When they lost Antonio McDyess to injury before the season started, it figured that the Nuggets wouldn't be mentioned much -- at least until April and the probable firing of Dan Issel. Who knew? To the contrary, they've been very newsy Nuggets, even before Issel regrettably hissed at that heckler.

Raef LaFrentz didn't get a contract extension, sparking a flurry of trade rumors because he's the best 1998 draftee who hasn't been re-upped by his current team. Nick Van Exel asked to be traded, in spite of his All-Star start, saying he can no longer stomach losing. McDyess followed that bombshell by suggesting that he would bolt in free agency in the summer of 2003 if Van Exel was dealt. Oh, yeah: J.R. Rider, before all that, had a Nuggets career that lasted 10 games before finally forcing his way onto the waiver wire.

Then came last week's Issel incident, which has now created a lasting PR eyesore to go with all the bad GM-ing on Issel's watch. The sports public is generally forgiving, and Issel is an institution in the Rocky Mountains, but he was in trouble before any of this ... unless you forgot that little mutiny this time last season. Or the fact that Kiki Vandeweghe was brought in to take over Issel's front-office chores, after little mishaps like drafting LaFrentz over Vince Carter and paying $43 million to Tariq Abdul-Wahad.

The presumption among those close to the controversy, since it erupted, was that Issel would resign before his scheduled return to the bench Saturday, using the time away from the team to negotiate a buyout with owner Stan Kroenke in exchange for Issel's voluntarily farewell. Issel insists that he wants to try to stay and right things, but, clearly, that scenario would be a temporary stay. A coaching change is coming, sooner rather than later, and there's something else we can say with certainty: Vandeweghe isn't a rookie GM any more, after all he has endured these first few months.
Grade: D.

Houston Rockets (7-19)
Way back in 1982-83, when they were trying to lose games on purpose to get Ralph Sampson in the draft, the Rockets never dropped 14 in a row. They also probably never had a week as bad as last week, when, in succession: Hakeem Olajuwon accused Houston management of being disloyal, Mo Taylor popped into the news from the injured list to receive a five-game drug suspension and our beloved Stevie Franchise (sorry, Steve Francis) commemorated loss No. 13 in a row with an arrest for DWI early the following morning.

Francis, of course, is also hurt, along with Glen Rice and Kenny Thomas and Cuttino Mobley. Even with Mobley gamely playing on two bad ankles, that is a bit much to give away for a team that was trying to do the impossible at full strength. The impossible being a march to the playoffs on the shoulders of guards Francis and Mobley, with no Olajuwon or Taylor to help and new rules that make it harder to get the little guys in isolation.

Finding a bright spot amid all this mayhem is kind of like finding fans at the Compaq Center. Not easy. On one hand, all the youngsters Houston has should be benefiting from the extra court time created by all the injuries, but Eddie Griffin and Terence Morris are breaking in rather slowly. Oscar Torres, the heretofore unknown Venezuelan, is actually the Rockets' best rookie.

So ...

Rockets fans might have to wait until June for that bright spot, since this probably isn't the worst time to be a bad team. The 2002 Draft might actually have some impact players in it, if Duke's Jason Williams and Chinese center Yao Ming and Dajuan Wagner (the best hooper in Memphis) declare.
Grade: Incomplete (what else?).

Marc Stein, who covers the NBA for The Dallas Morning News, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.