Weekend High Five:

• Several sources are reporting that Shack Harris is in line to join the Lions’ front office as the personnel specialist. (Dave Birkett from the Oakland Press blogs that “a person close to Harris said suggestions he could soon be a Lion ‘are not untrue.’”) Harris left the Jaguars at the end of the season; here’s an end-of-season wrap-up interview he did with a Jags beat reporter. And here’s a feature ESPN did in 2007 about Harris’ playing career.
• And lest you fret about hiring a guy who recently ended his tenure as another team’s VP of player personnel on a sour note, please see this depressing (from a Lions’ fan’s perspective) story about Pittsburgh’s Ron Hughes, whom the Lions fired in order to bring in Matt Millen.
• Sign Larry Foote this offseason, maybe along with Albert Haynesworth, and a personnel guy could look like a genius. (Martin Mayhew will build this team through the draft and is unlikely to make a bunch of splashy free agent signings, but new defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham made a great point recently when he talked about the value of solid veterans as leaders to show the way for young players. So signing a couple of solid guys, especially to bulwark the Lions’ terrible defense, makes sense to me.)
• MSU senior guard Travis Walton is getting a lot of love this week. Here’s Joe Rexrode’s ode to Walton, followed by KJ’s. It’s nice to see Walton getting this respect, both for his own sake and because shut-down defenders are so valuable and underappreciated by fans. Walton’s mirror image, an All Big Ten-caliber scorer who struggled on defense, wouldn’t get nearly the grief from fans that Walton has.
• Sports Illustrated’s Steve Aschburner analyzes the state of the Pistons, and comes to a similar conclusion as Drew Sharp: this floundering team is hard to watch, in a wistful sort of way, even though Joe Dumars’ strategy seems sound as a long term approach.

Weekend schedule:

Saturday, Jan. 31:

• NHL: Detroit at Washington, 12:30pm (Fox Sports Detroit)
• College basketball: Michigan at Purdue, 1pm (CBS)

Sunday, Feb. 1:

• College basketball: Penn State at Michigan State, 12pm (BTN)
• NBA: Cleveland at Detroit, 2:30 (ABC)