When Delonte West tweeted about submitting an application to Home Depot, I decided not to post the “news.” Without confirmation otherwise, I figured West’s tweet was a prank. After all, West is the same person who rapped about KFC and called himself The Golden Panther throughout one entire interview.

But West was serious about the Home Depot application, or at least he says he was. (ESPN TrueHoop)

Earlier this week, West tweeted that he was applying for a job at Home Depot, and the seven-year vet says that’s not the only retail job he’s looking into.

“I actually might have work with Sam’s [Club], BJ’s, selling knives,” West said. “That’s pretty cool too. I get a microphone and everything.”

He would get a microphone at Sam’s, but Home Depot might offer more perks.

“You gotta get with it, do something that you love,” West said. “I’m an architect, I was an art major. At Home Depot, I get free discount on hammers and nails.”

Maybe it’s time for the NBA lockout to end.

NBA agents have never been more important.

That statement sounds bold, I know. But in addition to negotiating contracts for their players, agents now hold serious power in the labor battle and, if they’re good at what they do, help players plan financially for a period when the players will have limited, if any, income.

Agents must determine whether the player would benefit from playing overseas, and if the answer is yes, agents negotiate a contract that is hopefully A) fair to the player, and B) contains an opt out clause for when the NBA season returns.

If the player decides to stay in the United States or the player has not yet gone overseas, the agent plays a part in setting up an offseason/lockout workout plan. JaJuan Johnson’s agent Kevin Bradbury, for example, advised Johnson not to sign overseas before pushing Johnson to work out with Tim Grover in Chicago. (Boston Globe)

Bradbury said Johnson will not struggle financially because good agents knew the lockout was coming and planned accordingly. For now, according to the Globe, Johnson and fellow Celtics rookie E’Twaun Moore are living off trading card deals and advances from their agents. If the lockout persists through the entire season, Bradbury said, Johnson will still be okay.

In addition to sound financial planning, Johnson’s offseason hopefully includes drinking nineteen protein shakes per day, eating enough calories to feed a small country, and living in the weight room. I would love to see him return to the court with Ben Wallace’s physique and Kimbo Slice’s mentality. Okay, so that’s not likely. I’ll settle for Johnson reporting to camp in good enough shape that a stiff wind won’t blow him over.

In the meantime, like the rest of his draft classmates, Johnson will rely heavily on his agent’s advice and even his agent’s money. For better or worse, agents now matter as much as they ever have.

When Dee Brown first saw his daughter play basketball, he thought she was “one of the worst players I’d ever seen.” Tell us how you really feel, Dee.

But Lexie Brown wanted to play the game that made her father famous, so her father began teaching her in an unorthodox fashion.

“”No games, just training,” he said. “Now she’s very skilled, she’s very quick and she understands the game.”

Brown has become one of the top female basketball players in the country, and, among daughters of former Celtics, she’s not alone. Xavier McDaniel’s daughter Xylina and Pervis Ellison’s daughter Aja are both near the top of their high school class. Randy Moss’ daughter Sydney — whose outside jump shot is presumably straight cash, homie — is also rated among the nation’s top 50 players.

The talented tro of Celtics daughters were discussed in a Wall Street Journal article about daughters of famous athletes who are now making their names on the hardwood. That topic is interesting and all, but I’m more intrigued that Lexie Brown almost beat her father Dee in a one-on-one game. She said she missed an open layup that would have dispatched her father.

“I blew it,” she said. “I’ll get him eventually.”

She must be good, because Dee Brown can still play. Not like he used to, of course — he’s 42 years old now, so I doubt he’s going to dunk with his eyes closed any time soon, nor would he average 15.6 points if he played in the NBA. But I covered the Springfield Armor last season and Dee scrimmaged against the team during one practice I attended. Playing against Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds, Louisville’s Jerry Smith and Oklahoma State’s JamesOn Curry, Brown held his own.

He didn’t destroy the D-League competition like he might have in his prime, but Brown scored a bunch of buckets. He then ran out of gas like most slightly-out-of-shape, well-past-their-prime players do, but for the first six or seven minutes of the scrimmage, Brown was the best player on the court. He even dunked at one point. Okay, so the dunk was during a stoppage in play. Still, watching a 6’1, 42-year old former slam dunk champion throw one down felt like it must feel like to watch an aged Nolan Ryan chuck an 86-MPH fastball — he doesn’t bring it like he used to, but damn, was that still impressive.

I’m glad Dee can still dunk — it would be embarrassing if Pervis Ellison’s daughter could dunk and Mr. Reebok Pump couldn’t. Aja Ellison is a 6’3 sophomore who can already throw it down. “And Aja’s dunk was legitimate,” said Pervis, just in case you were questioning its validity. “There are some obvious genetics at work here,” said Aja’s high school coach. Hopefully, those genetics don’t mean she is destined to become the WNBA’s number one pick, have one completely random 20-10 season, then fade to black almost immediately afterward.

Some famous parents desire to shield their children from the fame and let them grow up without the spotlight. Not Xavier McDaniel.

“Pressure is what you make of it,” he said. “Like I tell my son, ‘It don’t matter if you want to say you want to be your own person. You’re still going to be compared to me.’ It’s the same thing I told my daughter: ‘Either you relish it or they’ll gobble you up.’”

I would write more about McDaniel’s daughter Xylina, who was described as “the most ferocious player in the gymnasium,” or the other famous daughters excelling in basketball. But every time I think about Xavier McDaniel, I think about the documentary Larry Bird: A Basketball Legend, when a still-in-awe McDaniel describes one of Bird’s top trash-talking moments.

“He said, ‘I’m going to get [the ball] right here and I’m going to shoot it in your face,” recalled McDaniel. And then, of course, Bird did. “He came out at about that exact spot,” said McDaniel, “and shot a shot right in my face.”

But the Celtics legend wasn’t done talking.

“He was like, ‘I didn’t mean to leave two seconds on the clock. He wanted to shoot it with zero seconds on the clock,” said McDaniel. “I went back to the sideline like, ‘Damn.’ ”

The Celtics preseason schedule — aka a list of games that have 0.00002% chance of being played — came out yesterday. Just in case:

Oct. 10 vs. Philadelphia 76ers at Dunkin Donuts Center (Providence, R.I.), 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 15 at N.Y. Knicks at Times Union Center (Albany, N.Y.), 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 16 at Toronto Raptors at Air Canada Centre (Toronto), 6 p.m.
Oct. 19 at Philadelphia 76ers at Mullins Center (Amherst, Mass.), 7 p.m.
Oct. 21 vs. Toronto Raptors at TD Garden, 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 22 vs. N.Y. Knicks at XL Center (Hartford, Conn.), 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 24 at New Jersey Nets at Prudential Center (Newark, N.J.), 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 26 vs. New Jersey Nets at TD Garden, 7:30 p.m.

I normally head to the Mullins Center whenever the Celtics play there, but, well, call me a skeptic.

X’s and O’s matter. If Joe Hockey Player was hired to coach an NBA team, he would inevitably struggle, not knowing how to teach help side defense, not understanding the concept of a pindown screen, not wise enough to utilize his five players in a scheme that suits them.

Personality matters too. Think about John Kuester, known as an offensive genius for much of his professional career. Kuester’s first head coaching gig ended underneath a pile of dog crap — his players staged a mutiny in the middle of the season, Richard Hamilton was suspended (more or less) for no known reason, and the Pistons went 57-107 in Kuester’s two seasons. Sure, the record was at least partially due to lacking talent, but Kuester’s abrasive style and unbelievable lack of communication (he reportedly refused to tell Hamilton why he was not playing) managed to alienate an entire locker room in less than two full seasons. When his own team did not want to play for him, Kuester’s X’s and O’s, lauded for years, meant nothing.

Doc Rivers knows his X’s and O’s — Sebastian Pruiti, who watches more game tape than any human being not formally associated with the NBA, selected Rivers as the one coach he would want to draw up a last-second play.

But Dave Cowens believes Doc’s personality is his strongest suit. (ESPN Boston)

“Doc’s a great guy, and he’s smart. He’s a tough guy. When he talks, [the players] listen. They know he’s telling them the truth, and really, players respect that. They respect a guy that’s got the knowledge and he tells them the truth. Because they know a lot about the game, too. They’re not just learning it. They’ve been through five-, six-, seven-hundred games as a pro, as a college player, [and] high school player. So they’ve been around a lot of locker room talks and chalk talks and things like that. So, they understand. And he has a good way with the players, and I think the veterans really respect him, and they’ve got some strong character veterans and that just feeds down to the other guys that play on the team.”

Rivers certainly has faults. He rarely (if ever) trusts rookies, chokes the confidence out of certain bench players (Nate Robinson comes to mind as a prime example), and damn it, I often wish he could teach his squad how to rebound and provide a more consistent effort. But the players know Doc will be straight up with them. Even the ones who dislike Doc have to respect that.

No matter what you think of Barack Obama’s political philosophies, he is a powerful man. So powerful, writes Shaquille O’Neal in his new book, that a single Obama diss talked Rajon Rondo off his game last season. (SB Nation)

In early March some of the guys went to the museum of Fine Arts for a fund-raiser and got to hang with President Barack Obama. Everyone was a little bit in awe. The President turns to Ray, points at Rondo, and says, “Hey, Ray, why don’t you teach this kid how to shoot?” Everyone starts laughing.

KG told me he saw the look on Rondo’s face and the kid was devastated, embarrassed. Dissed by the President, even though I’m sure Obama didn’t mean any harm. Rondo smiled and went along with all of it, but KG told me he could see it in his eyes.

[...]

The next day Rondo shot the ball horribly. He stopped taking shots after that. He’s so sensitive. I think it was a real jolt to hear the outside perception of a basketball fan who happens to be the President of the United States. It messed with his mind. I’m sure of it.

It should be “a real jolt” for Rondo to hear that people think he has a suspect jumper in the same way it was “a real jolt” for me to hear that Brian Scalabrine has never won the NBA MVP. Obama’s opinion wasn’t exactly shocking.

It’s difficult to believe Rondo, who returned from a Willis McGahee elbow in eight minutes, would allow Obama far enough into his head that he lost confidence in his shooting (assuming, you know, Rondo ever had any confidence in the first place). Rondo hears about his bad shooting every day. Reporters ask him questions about his shooting all the time, I’m sure Doc Rivers mentions it quite often, and I bet Rondo’s teammates give him crap about it too.

Maybe it’s different to hear it from the President. Maybe Shaq’s right. Or maybe Shaq’s stretching the truth in hopes of selling more copies of his new book.