This week’s quick roundup of the player performances around the world during the last few days includes discussion about Hasheem Thabeet’s two assists, Aleksandr Marić’s monster game, Von Wafer’s European adventure, Darius Songaila’s sharp-shooting, FIBA chooses the wild cards, Danilo Gallinari off the bench and more. Discuss the NBA in our forum.

• It was a good night for Hasheem Thabeet. After 19 games, and 200 minutes of play, Thabeet finally registered his first assist of his NBA career when he passed for two assists in a win over the Miami Heat. The 7-3 center also played a career-high 20 minutes and blocked a career high 5 shots in that game.

• A week after Olympicos severed ties with Von Wafer, head coach Panagiotis Giannakis speaks out, says that Wafer wasn’t up for the challenge: “Von Wafer had a totally different philosophy than ours and could not adapt to the philosophy of the team.” said Giannakis. “If someone is not up for it even to try, then he better stop doing it alltogether. It makes the rest of the (players) nervous.” See the full piece at Talkbasket.

• Lebron James farts! He’s human!

• After a perfect 6-6 shooting in a loss to the Mavericks last night, New Orleans’ Darius Songaila has shot 72.5% from the field in the last seven games; hitting 29/40 from the field. For the season, the 6-9 Lithuanian is hitting 55% of his shots.

• Good thing the Mavericks had J.J. Barea last night as German superstar Dirk Nowitzki scored a season-low 10 points. However the 6-0 guard from Puerto Rico scored 19 points in the first half in their eventual win over the New Orleans Hornets. Barea hit 10-13 shots and ended the game with just 23 points. His career-high is 26 points.

• FIBA announced the four final countries for the 2010 World Cup of basketball. Germany, Lebanon, Lithuania, and Russia each failed to qualify through their regional championships, but the international federation decided that these four nations would best represent basketball competitively and economically.

• No surprise that Australian-born Serbian Aleksandr Marić was the Euroleague’s MVP for week seven. The 7-0 center registered an amazing 49 performance index ranking, leading Partizan Belgrade to a win over Efes Pilsen. The 25-year old scored 34 points, mostly on putbacks and dunks, and pulled in 16 rebounds.

• Danilo Gallinari missed one game recently because of a sore arm and sat out the game in which the Knicks upset the Atlanta Hawks 114-107. When the 6-10 Italian returned the next game, he found himself coming off the bench. The Knicks have won four straight, three with Gallinari off the bench, and five out of six. If the Knicks can continue even a sniff of that success, look for Gallinari to keep coming off the pine.