“We had certainly hoped it would never come to this,” said Commissioner David Stern.

Really?  Maybe you hoped it wouldn’t, but you pretty much guaranteed it would.  As Billy Hunter, executive director of the players’ union, put it, this was “preordained.”    ”We probably need to miss a few games for them to be convinced there is resolve among the players,” Hunter added.

I’m not a collective bargaining expert, but I can offer the following highly technical summary of negotiations thus far:  The owners and the players are still really far apart.  Players and owners are talking a lot, in very serious voices, about hard cap v soft cap, revenue sharing, Larry Bird exceptions, luxury taxes, other stuff about money, more money stuff, players want money, owners prefer to keep money, etc etc oh my god make it stop.

This lockout has been going on for over 100 days. And yet? No one seems to care. Football is exciting and going gangbusters (Lions 5-0? Say what?)  Hockey has started back up (did I ever imagine I’d one day consider hockey a more exciting and marketable sport in the US than basketball? No I did not, and yet here we are.)  And we always have college basketball, where people actually play defense and seem to care about being on a team instead of just showing off their individual skills.

So maybe I’m biased, because *I* certainly don’t care, but from where I sit? Take all the time you need, NBA dudes. No one really seems to miss you anyway.

In one way or the other, basketball has touched most of our lives, whether it be shooting some hoops with a loved one or a great player stepping onto the world stage and becoming a household name. But what many of us remember is playing a little one-on-one with our dads and wanting to relive that experience with our own children by having a basketball hoop installed. Either that or like many kids, yours love to play basketball and a well installed hoop can keep a child entertained for hours and even years.

I’m not saying, “Don’t you want to get your child away from you?” Not at all. I’m just saying that other than an XBOX, shooting baskets is still the one thing a child can do on his/her own, with friends, and be fine with it either way. I haven’t seen a child outside in years. I thought we might have stopped making them.

To me, nothing is sadder than pulling on a street and seeing a basketball hoop laying on its side. I typically stare at the house and think, “What could possibly be going on in there where they could let that happen?” Then I look away in disgust. You’ve seen what I’m talking about.

Then other times, you see one of those awesome in-ground basketball hoops or a professionally roof-mounted basketball goal and you think, “those people thought about the future.” These things take a beating and need to be done correctly. That’s why if you’re going to do it, call Pro Dunk Hoops. They’ve thought of everything.

For instance, If you have a small child, he or she is probably going to grow.  This process can take up to 18 years (I looked it up).  The people at Pro Dunk Hoops have also figured this out. They know that not only do you need a hoop that grows with your child, but also needs to be durable enough to withstand the elements and the constant beating a backboard can take, especially when a grown man like me lowers it to eight feet and jams it with authority before hanging on the rim and screaming, “I’m the King! I’m the King!” That’s why they offer a height adjustable in-ground basketball hoop that’s designed for your children, but durable enough for my adult shenanigans. They even have a lifetime warranty.

The point of all this is that if you’re going to install a basketball goal, do it right. Have the professionals install it, guarantee it and make sure it’s done safely. Family owned and operated since 1984, Pro Dunk Hoops offers fixed height in-ground basketball goals, adjustable height in-ground basketball goals and roof mounted basketball goals that are made to last, installed by experts and will never, ever be on their side, unless a lot of other stuff at your house is also on its side, in which case you’ve got bigger problems than playing basketball.

Image courtesy of Chapparal on Flickr, used under Creative Commons.

Yes. Sarah Palin allegedly had sex with a basketball player when she was a sports reporter in Alaska in the years of aught-something.

Beer me.

Here is Exhibit A, Glen Rice, looking happy.

:

That is not Sarah Palin in those teensy shorts. That is his former wife Cristina Fernandez-Rice.

She stood on things to pretend she was tall, sometimes, too. Also there was a fan in that room, and they greased him up to put him in those bad, bad jeans.

Those images are also from a site called Baller Wives, so you know, there’s that.

(Getting some air, BRB.)

Okay so basically those jeans (who lets a guy wear those jeans????) made me forget my hypothesis or thesis or topic sentence here. Damn you, Internet.

Cristina Fernandez Rice does not give a damn.

Cristy is @CubanRice on Twitter, if you’d like to add that follow to your repertoire.

So okay, Sarah Palin is now an also-ran political lightning rod wild card. Glen Rice is doing something somewhere, after getting the requisite NBA star arrest for going after a dude who was (I am not making this up) trapped in his wife’s closet. Cristina, now Cristy Fernandez Rice, was featured on the Real Housewives of Miami, and Glen was most recently known as the owner and head of G-Force Fights, based out of Miami, Florida.

Sarah Palin allegedly hooked up with Mr. Rice, who, it must be said, may not be unappealing, jeanless. It is now seven thousand years past the date when that happened, one must undoubtedly assume, awkwardly, at some sort of media meet and greet. I mean, really? How many years ago was this? They could have had sex in pilgrim times, for our purposes here. Also, neither were married at the time. And yes, Sarah Palin, she of the “Todd is gone for months, nay years, at a time,” and “Yes, my daughter had a baby and isn’t married but what? So? (And really. What? So?) is a big old abstinence proponent. But y’all know what they say about do as I say and not as I do.

And please, to be clear, it’s not that I’m supporting you booking a flight to Miami in the interests of hooking up with Glen Rice. MMA is a rough world. You don’t need that kind of trouble. I look out for you. I really do.

I think my favorite quote about this story is that it’s too outlandishly random not to be true, with she “hauled his ass down” a close second. Hi National Enquirer, and also every other news outlet everywhere now.

Thankfully for Rice he was the all-time leading scorer at the University of Michigan, because keeping that at the top of your score card above sex with Sarah Palin? Good call.

Just know that I — still — blame John McCain. For everything.

I mean I really hope he does, and we only have to wait until September 19 or thereabouts to find out. That’s when Ron — not yet legally renamed Metta World Peace, due to some outstanding traffic warrants — will join the likes of Nancy Grace, Chaz Bono and Ricki Lake, and make his debut on Dancing With the Stars.

I am an eternally hopeful soul, but this is the somewhat disappointing first image that appeared when I googled “Ron Artest Dancing”

Sad. No soft shoe to be had, anywhere, just that terrible, terrible Lakers…caftan?…that David Arquette is wearing. I hope Courteney Cox got that in the settlement.

ANYway, Ron is the first of the NBA stars — and the other athlete this season, along with soccer player Hope Solos — to join his NFL peers in their attempts to make a little coin and occupy their time during an off-season and protracted potential lockout. Remember Ocho at the rodeo? Hines Ward showing up on DWTS too? No? I know. I try to forget it too. Except for this. Never forget.

Ron Artest aka World Peace denied his Dancing turn just the day before, saying he was working on his new single (PS Ron would like you to “cop his new single”) and besides, he couldn’t rock the gear.

I just can’t dance. They asked me, but I just didn’t feel comfortable wearing a leotard.

Ron also had an offer from the Cheshire Jets to play ball in England, while waiting to find out if he and his peers would make jillions or merely squillions more dollars than the average person come wintertime. However, his daughter Diamond, a cancer survivor, asked him to do Dancing With the Stars instead, and he said okay, because he is clearly not a hard-hearted sort when it comes to his little girl. He indicates that he will donate any potential earnings to cancer research.

At first it was not appealing. I did not want to do it. I don’t dance and all of the dressing up and everything, but my daughter Diamond was like, Daddy, you should do it.

That means that no matter what I see on my tv in a few weeks, Ron did a good thing. He is also going to have a very busy early fall, because he says that he will indeed pay his parking tickets, change his name, and have the celebratory name-change barbecue on September 16 like he originally planned.

I’ll pay them off. I didn’t take classes on how to pay parking tickets. I’m taking classes. Anything you don’t know, you have to learn in college. Just don’t park at meters you’re not supposed to park at.

Ron Artest. Buddha. Same difference. And given my memory of him diving into the stands to beat up that fan several years ago? I think he’s probably going to be just fine in the grace department. I’m just going to suggest we all set some goals for September, because I don’t know about you, but so far this guy is running circles around me.

(Check this space. This may be too appealing not to liveblog. Just saying.)

That’s right, NBA players are smarter now and learning lessons from the past. You won’t hear any more complaining about $75,000 car insurance bills or the outrageous expenditures associated with partying, Mercedes maintenance bills and… golden accessories. Nope. Derek Fisher has issued a handbook explaining to the players that people without money hate it when people with money complain about not having any.

This phenomenon dates back to when people began exchanging shiny things for food and IKEA furniture, and the one who accumulated the most shiny things would sit on his shiny pile and complain about having to always guard this massive pile of shiny stuff. “A burden” he would call it.

This enraged the people without shiny stuff, so he hired some people to protect himself, took on a lot of overhead, called himself “King” and took everyone else’s money to maintain his lavish empire. And so began the endless feud between the haves and have-nots.

Then we all start thinking, “It would take me a million years to make what you make, and my job isn’t fun AT ALL. What do you do all day?” We then might say things like, “What is it again that you do for $14 million per year? You… get to play ball? What’s the catch? Are you on fire when you play? Do the games take place in a cactus field that’s loaded with land mines? Are you playing against the Mexican drug cartels? Can you fly or time travel?”

The answer is “no” to all of the above and why we hate hearing about people who make millions to do something they love (that also happens to be a game) while complaining about making too little, especially right now. This is why Derek Fisher gave out the handbook, so people like Dwyane Wade won’t make jokes about filing for unemployment after making 15 million dollars last year. In his defense, I don’t believe the handbook was out yet.

As you can tell, I have no opinion on the subject. I think it’s great when a seasoned veteran tries to teach the younger players lessons like, “Making sure the public doesn’t think you’re a spoiled asshole” and “Having the bartender pour your Cristal into a Miller can” and shit like that. The key is in that even though you wipe your ass with fifty dollar bills, pretend that you still use toilet paper. Just like everyone else.

The players won’t actually lose anything until November and only if the lockout isn’t resolved. Until then, you might expect to run into NBA stars at places like TJ Maxx, Applebee’s and The Dollar Tree to show us how much they are suffering. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Kia Sol became their preferred mode of transportation, and as one player recently joked, they will now have to “buy items in bulk.”  It’s so funny because that’s the way I do it, and I’m totally poor. They’re finally relating to me AND I LOVE IT.

I don’t know about you, but my perception of this whole thing has completely changed. These are regular joes getting shafted by the man. And the thought of them having to cut back… well, I’m getting all teary-eyed and weepy, almost like I just pulled a “The Notebook” and “Old Yeller’” marathon.

It reminds me of the mine workers, or migrant field workers… or the countless children working in sweatshops across the globe. I’m smelling a super pop-star collaboration here. Bono? Are you listening? We can call it, “NBAID” and get the whole crew together. John Mellencamp (I would have never dropped Cougar, by the way), Neil Young,  Lady GaGa (is that how you spell it?)… I’m talking everyone. Who would not come out for this? Only those without souls, that’s who.

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Reports indicate that Crittenton fired shots from a sport-utility vehicle, perhaps intended to hit two men walking with Jones, as retaliation for an April robbery. Jones was struck in the leg, and died in surgery.

There is a warrant for Crittenton’s arrest, but he has not turned himself in. He was reportedly in “the L.A. area” over the weekend, and the FBI is assisting with the case.

While still a Wizard, Crittenton was involved in a firearm dispute with teammate Gilbert Arenas. Crittenton went to court on the related misdemeanor gun charge, and both were suspended for the rest of the season. Crittenton tried to start over with the Charlotte Bobcats, but they released him last October after two weeks, with no room for another point guard.

Arenas tweeted and deleted the following this weekend:

“I really wanna say sumthing but I wont becuz theirs a dead women involved…”

Good call, Gilbert.

Following his issues with the Wizards, Crittenton seemed in the right spot to turn things around. Plagued by ankle injuries, he landed with the Dakota Wizards in the NBA Development League. Last October, he said:

Use wisdom in everything and just don’t get caught up in foolishness and nonsense and crazy people around you. It was a bad decision on both ends and we’re trying to move forward with our careers and our lives.

Shooting to injure or kill never makes any sense, and even less when a guy with talent and opportunity chooses actions like this. Whatever the reasons may be, none of them are good. If Javaris Crittenton is responsible for the death of this woman, it’s a shame that he chose the opposite of wisdom. He really didn’t need to do that.

So it’s no surprise that the Tennessee Lady Vols basketball coach is as determined and forthright off the court, announcing her diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease at the start of the new school year — and only telling her players as soon as she knew the remaining two were off the court in China and back in Knoxville.

Summitt, 59, learned that she had Alzheimer’s disease after many tests at the Mayo Clinic in May. She said that troubling issues with her memory last season that caused her to lose her confidence and concerned her enough that she wouldn’t meet with players individually, motivated her to seek answers. The tests that can clinically diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and its related dementia indicated that Summitt had the “mild, early-onset” variety of the disease.

Denial ruled the summer, Summitt said, but as it wore on, she realized that she needed to talk to her players and her Tennessee administration. More importantly for her, she says that she came to a certain kind of terms with her condition that allowed her to move forward with her life.

The upshot out of Tennessee this week: Summitt will continue to work. She will remain at the helm of the Lady Vols, with the tactical and personal support of a team of assistants who have been at her side for decades. She will remain the coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team, and she will take care of herself as best as she can.

Summitt’s close friend Sally Jenkins wrote a lovely, understated, and quietly sad piece about her in the Washington Post, that left me thinking that as much as I don’t think I’d have the strength to write such a story about my best friend, at the same time I’d like to be the only one to do it, and I can only hope I’d find the strength and the grace at the appointed time. Jenkins said that talking about the situation had been a good, if painful thing, for everyone involved:

Over the last few days, with the clarity of her diagnosis and decision to go public, Summitt has recovered her confidence. More often than not, it is she who comforts others, as usual. Her staff have grief-stretched looks around their eyes, and seem quietly destroyed under their skins. Every so often you find one of them has ducked into her laundry room to weep. It’s Summitt who puts her arms around them and talks quietly into their ear. “I don’t want you worrying about me,” she says. Strong has always been her natural, preferred state.

Alzheimer’s disease is a demon. It’s a brain plaque from hell that erodes valleys in the cerebral cortex, kills neurons, disrupts synapses, and therefore robs individuals of their intellectual capacity. It steals likewise from families and friends, causing the person they love to change before their eyes (sometimes slowly, sometimes not.) I worked with people with dementia and their families for six years, when I was a very young, very green counselor, right out of graduate school. I went into their homes, heard their stories, absorbed their fears and profound need for answers, and in return I gave them the best advice I had about how to navigate this often-terrifying period in their lives. I immersed myself in Alzheimer’s, learned all that I could, knowing even then that I’d never have enough information, no matter how many research studies I memorized (and I memorized a lot.)

I also spent countless hours with people with Alzheimer’s, of all stages.They told me their fears, they told me I was full of shit and that it was really 1946, so shut the hell up. They revolted against the artificial schedule of long-term care, and wondered after their (sometimes dead) parents, siblings, and much-younger spouses. During this time I worked with a relative handful of early-onset patients, as obscure as Summitt as prominent, and their spouses, kids, and even sometimes parents. They were the roughest cases. These were people usually in the prime of their lives, ready to transition to golden years after decades of working and raising families, when their brains revolted and got them lost coming home from work or unable to complete a crossword puzzle. One of my clients was an elementary school teacher who, like Summitt, did brain puzzles and complicated step aerobic routines during the day while her husband was at work, to work her brain and try to stave off the deterioration the doctors said was imminent.

I told her she was working too hard. I told her that it wasn’t her fault, not any of this, and she did it anyway. She was a brilliant badass, and I always, inappropriately, unprofessionally, wanted to hold her in my arms. I can say the same about Pat Summitt.

What I’m taking away from this more than a decade after my own experience, and knowing what I know about the continuing stigma against Alzheimer’s, the fear and confusion that it causes, is Pat Summitt’s utter courage in speaking this aloud, not just with her loved ones or with her employers, but in the public sphere. She, quite frankly, could have worked a deal. Early stage Alzheimer’s (as best as it can be understood in terms of timeframe) can last for years — frequently not as long in early-onset, where it has seemed in my very limited experience to take hold and move more quicky, but still, years. She could have shown up courtside for at least another season and not disclosed this very personal information. She chose to be open, to approach this differently. And this sports writer thinks that’s pretty cool.

The Lady Vols don’t open until November 1. I’m marking it on my calendar now. Best of luck for a great year, Coach Summitt.

Wait, that sounds familiar.

Didn’t that exact same thing just happen in the NFL?

This is like watching “The Hangover and The Hangover 2″ back to back.

But with fewer dick jokes.

Listen NBA, if this is your way of generating new interest in your product it isn’t working. I think the LOLcats said it best when they said

Holy hell, people. I love basketball and I don’t care. Scrap the NBA and start over with players that I want to root for.

If the NFL lockout taught us anything it is that training camp isn’t lucrative. I guess that means the NBA will collective bargain the crap out of something about two weeks before October 9th. That is when the preseason begins. Next off-season I could really do without all of the drama. Or at least more dramatic drama. This is like “Waiting for Godot” without the wit or poignancy.

At least we have football to distract us. At least they have interesting new story lines.

It’s tough to be a reporter, truth-to-power, taking a stand in the face of adversity and all that.  And sometimes you need to dispel egregious misconceptions.  Sometimes, you need to point out that the emperor has no clothes.  You have to stand in the face of a thousand dissenting voices and yell, “NO!  This shall not stand!”  Let not the ocean of opposition drown you out.  You must defy all those who would silence you.  Thank God we have men such as these.  Thank God for Brian Windhorst.

I am shocked – shocked to find out things aren’t what we’ve been told they are here.  Contrary to the the scuttlebutt on Cleveland, turns out IT SUCKS!  Oh, wait, what?  How can that be? Didn’t I just hear Joakim Noah saying it was his favorite road city?

No?  I feel so deceived.  Every day we’re all bombarded with how great it is here and how shit doesn’t catch on fire and Drew Carey, blah, blah.

But — holy fuck — was I misled.  Now I find out it’s actually a gigantic putrid asshole?  Damn what would I have done without the intrepid Brian Windhorst?  What with all the jokes about how ridiculously great Cleveland is, one is almost forced to believe it the best place on earth.  I distinctly remember that not once did I hear anyone suggest LeBron’s “the decision” was based on the fact that no one would ever want to live in Cleveland by choice.

Now, almost a year later, he springs it on us.  I’m glad he was finally able to muster the courage.  I have to think his job is now on the line. But he’s taken the risk for us.  He’s revealed the truth despite the obvious peril it exposes him to. While I appreciate that, it’s almost too much to take.  Next thing you know he’ll be telling us it’s a BAD idea to put pictures of your cock on twitter.  (No jinx!)

Finally, the whole thing makes a lot more sense.  It was only a year ago Windhorst was saying LeBron “had blood on his hands” for his performance in the playoffs and that 2010 would be a “permanent mark” on his career.  Now we find out LeBron was just so distracted by the declining population in northeast Ohio that he forgot to make baskets!  His concern for our economic well-being was so great he had to shoot foul shots left-handed in order to demonstrate the backwardness and corruption rampant in Cuyahoga County!  It may have APPEARED he was standing idly by as his team fell apart, but in actuality he was busy drawing up ways to reconfigure the tax structure to attract new businesses.  I take back all the bad things I said about you, LeBron.  It’s shameful I was unable to solve this mystery myself when everything was right there in front of my face.

So carry on, Brian Windhorst.  Shine your beacon of truth wherever the dark shadows of deceit would obscure our vision.

Image: Clevescene.com

I couldn’t do it by myself against that team. I apologize for the way it happened, but I knew this opportunity was once in a lifetime.

LeBron was light on the specifics. I venture what LeBron meant to say was he was sorry it wasn’t easy. He’s sorry that he had to work for it. That he needed to get better at mid-range jumpers. That his defense had to improve. That he had to pass to guys who could potentially miss. He’s sorry that he never tried to bring anyone to the team. That he refused to commit to the franchise for more than a
few years at time thereby putting them in perpetual “win now” mode and crippling any chance at long-term stability. He’s sorry the
team gave him everything he ever asked for and, in retrospect, coddled him far too much. He’s sorry he’s immature. He’s only
25 after all.

Most of all, he’s sorry the world wants him to earn it. His birthright may have been an incredible ability to play basketball, but a ring is promised to no man. I think LeBron half-expected David Stern to hand him the Larry O’Brien trophy on draft night. “Oh, need to play some games first?” He’s sorry that even such massive talent, such blinding speed and awesome raw power couldn’t show up, throw down a few dunks and walk away with a championship every year.

Ken Levine / Getty Images

There’s an iconic photo of Michael Jordan hugging his first championship trophy, openly weeping, indubitably reflecting on all the hard work he’d done over his then 7-year career and the preceding decades. He probably thought about the back-breaking work of building a team from nothing to the ultimate winner. The countless hours spent toiling through the playoffs with less than ideal teammates. In the end, there was no doubt he alone was the consummate champion – a singular winner.

So, LeBron is sorry. Well, I’m sorry too. I’m sorry that should LeBron shed his own tears in the coming weeks they won’t mean quite the same thing.