JaVale McGee has earned a reputation for committing marvelously foolish acts. Normally, those acts are played out on the basketball court, and result in loud, demonstrative misses, turnovers, or goaltendings. But yesterday, McGee transcended boundaries, proving that his propensity for boneheaded mistakes extends to the bargaining table, as well.

The 7-footer told a horde of media members that a few players in yesterday’s union meeting were ready to fold. Not exactly the best tactic when you’re trying to negotiate for the best deal against 30 money-hungry owners. McGee later tweeted that he never said anyone was ready to fold, and that the media “always wanna turn it!” But he forgot that reporters actually record their interviews, and some media members even take videos.

Oh, JaVale. Don’t ever change.

Derek Fisher later denied McGee’s claims of players ready to fold.

“The person that spent the least amount of time in the room can’t make that statement,” Fisher said of McGee, who left the meeting early for unknown reasons. “He’s in no position to make that statement on behalf of the group. It’s obviously fair in negotiations of this magnitude that we’re going to have guys who have different opinions because we have guys in different positions.”

More important things came out of yesterday’s meeting than McGee’s ill-advised negotiating, um, strategy. Billy Hunter told the assembled media he is ready to engage in battle with David Stern if that’s what the union needs.

“Well I think it can only get worse for both of us,” Hunter said in response to a question about the owners’ future offers worsening over time because of the losses. “If somebody is pointing a gun at my head, I’m going to point one back at him. That door doesn’t swing one way. It’s not just the players that are going to suffer if there are games lost. What (Stern) has failed to reveal to you is the amount of economic damage they’re going to suffer as a consequence. He points out the players will lose $170 million every two weeks. The owners will lose the same … amount, coupled with any damage that their franchises sustained as a consequence. The pain is mutual.”

Players association vice president Maurice Evans spoke about the damage that would be done to the NBA if the lockout extends for a full season or beyond, alluding to the concept that the players gain leverage the longer the lockout extends.

“As they want to inflict these self-inflicted wounds, the gash is only going to get bigger, franchise values are going to decimate,” Evans said. “Best-case scenario — when we ran the numbers — 2023 is when they would recover [financially] and get back to where we are with BRI (basketball-related income) if we lost an entire season. So continuing to threaten that it’s a season and that it’s two years is only going to further damage your business. Again, that’s not even speaking for individual owners and what they stand to lose. Not every owner would be able to, again, come out of this lockout. There would be some contraction, potentially, if they want to lock us out for a year or longer.”

And Hunter fired one last bullet at David Stern and the NBA when he brought up contraction, after Fisher called Stern’s latest deadline “arbitrary, with no other purpose than to sway player sentiment.”

“If everybody begins to dig into their respective positions, then I think the league will be decimated. It took us five years to recover from the 1998 lockout and there’s probability that we may never recover [from this lockout],” Hunter told ESPN before Friday’s sit-down with players. “I think there will be some teams that won’t survive. Particularly if the season gets shut down, there will be teams that will not be around next year.”

Hunter singled out the Sacramento Kings as a franchise that may fall victim to “forced contraction.”

The comments were meant to show solidarity and strength, which was all well and good. But next time, Fisher and Hunter might want to think about misplacing McGee’s invitation.

“It got lost in the mail,” ought to work just fine.

No need to put your nightlights on, folks. No need to crack your bedroom door open, keep the hallway lights on, check to make sure nothing scary is in your closet, make sure your parents are nearby, or hide under your covers.

David Stern is making threats again. But they’re emptier than ever.

The big, bad wolf is huffing and puffing and he claims he might just bring the whole NBA down. He says the NBA will cancel games through Christmas if a deal is not reached by Tuesday. He says the season “is really going to potentially escape from us” if a deal is not made by Tuesday, because “we potentially spiral into situations where the worsening offers on both sides make it even harder for the parties to make a deal.”

And his threats don’t just stop at this season. If the lockout extends through the whole season, some players have reportedly testified that Stern and the NBA will hire replacement players for next year.

Yeah, that’s right. Stern’s threatening to bring in Shane Falco and company to replace Lebron James. But don’t let him fool you into thinking that’s a power move. As Chris Sheridan opines, it sounds like Stern’s getting desperate. For the first time since the labor talks began, the players have a little leverage. Commissioner Stern is cracking, folks, and his threats hold very little weight.

Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher are finally playing their cards right. Hell, maybe they had us fooled and they’ve been playing their cards right all along. The NBA owners finally need a deal as badly as the players do.

The NBA is a league run by its stars. Without Lebron James, Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki, fans don’t pay hundreds of dollars for tickets, they don’t buy jerseys and they don’t buy t-shirts. You don’t see very many people running around with Joey Graham jerseys, or Avery Bradley signature shoes. Bring in Scottie Reynolds, Bo McCaleb and whatever other replacement players the NBA is threatening to sign, and you think anyone would watch? People might pay five or six bucks to watch a host of former college stars compete against each other — say, Ed Cota, Trajan Langdon, Scoonie Penn, Ademola Okulaja and Toby Bailey vs. Kevin Pittsnogle, Salim Stoudamire, Mike Gansey, Gerry McNamara and the O’Bannon brothers. But would anyone shell out a hundred bucks a night, 41 games per season to watch that quality of play? There’s a reason none of those guys made it in the NBA. They just weren’t good enough.

NBA owners are no dummies — okay, maybe some of them are, but even Glen Taylor knows the state of the NBA game is golden. Teams made more revenue last year than ever before, because the league has never had more storylines or stars. Losing a season diminishes or destroys all those good vibrations. Losing a season pisses off the borderline fans and lowers ratings, which in turn decreases sponsorship money, which in turn thins owners pockets. Getting a deal done now is in everyone’s best interests.

Do NBA owners need to drastically modify the league’s economic system? Yes, they do. But the players are already willing to sacrifice at least 4% of their BRI share. They’ve proven they’re also willing to miss games, even a season, if the NBA wants to keep reaching into players pockets. If the players continue to stand their ground and the NBA owners are smart, the owners will acquiesce to the players demands and take a deal similar to the one the players are offering.

The players were always willing to negotiate. The owners haven’t been. Now we’ve reached a point where the players have stood their ground, the owners have realized winning in a bloodbath won’t be so easy after all, and it’s time to get down to business and crack out a deal. That would be the intelligent thing to do, for all parties involved.

Then again, you can’t count on the intelligent thing being done. Not with these guys.

Yes, this alley-oop pass from Rajon Rondo to Kenneth Faried was ridiculous. Yes, I’m excited to be writing about a real life basketball play rather than a make-believe deadline David Stern pulled out of his you-know-what. Yes, the announcer — “I’ve gotta see it again. I’ve gotta see it again! Oh, and the dunk. Onions!” — was almost as awesome as the play.

But who in the world are Rondo and Faried playing? It looks like my college alumni game, not an All-Star exhibition that should be featuring NBA players. Either that, or it looks like a beer league softball team won some kind of lottery and got to try its hand against Rondo and the Kentucky All-Stars.

The Kentucky “Big Blue All-Stars” were playing the Union College Bulldogs — yes, that’s right, the Division II Union College Bulldogs, and beat them 125-104. Union spends most of its time trying to defeat teams like Milligan College, Alice Loyd College and Bluefield College, finishing .500 last season, and then, oh yeah, why don’t they try to stop Rajon Rondo and DeMarcus Cousins?

No matter what, that’s a sick pass. But if Rajon Rondo ever gets hurt while playing an exhibition game against the freaking Union College Bulldogs, I’m personally marching to David Stern’s house and becoming an arsonist. If Wyc Grousbeck isn’t going to protect his assets, somebody has to do it.

I’m busy today with other, work-related, things — yes, a couple people have actually been dumb enough to employ me — but I still need to address Paul Pierce’s birthday. Jermaine O’Neal and Doc Rivers (not to mention Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, whose team hopefully loses this Sunday) were also born on October 13, but Pierce holds a place in my heart above even Doc.

So on the 34th anniversary of Pierce’s birth, I’d like to remind everyone how far Pierce has come. Back when Pierce butted heads with coaches, spatted with teammates, lost his cool at the worst times and occasionally went to press conferences with a bandage over his head — back when Bob Ryan called Pierce’s flagrant foul against Jamaal Tinsley in a 2005 playoff game against Indiana “the single most unforgivable, untimely, stupid, and flat-out selfish on-court act in the history of the Celtics” – who ever would have expected Pierce to grow into a selfless teammate, a true leader, and one of the few NBA superstars who cared enough to represent the players union at labor negotiations?

Sure, Pierce still settles for occasional ill-advised stepback jumpers at the end of close games. He sometimes takes a few plays off, I wish he would rebound more consistently, and his ability to grow facial hair leaves a lot to be desired. But he’s come 180 degrees from that day against Indiana, from the time when it was semi-reasonable for Celtics fans to hope Pierce would be traded. He was immature, a little bit of a gunner, a loose cannon. And now he’s matured into Paul Pierce, The Captain, the star who reshaped his game for the good of his team, the Celtic who grew in Boston perhaps more than any other.

I’ve written about my favorite Pierce moment before, but let me do it once more. It isn’t a game-winning shot. It isn’t him holding up a trophy. It isn’t him scoring 38 points and out-dueling Kobe Bryant in the ’08 Finals.

Against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game Seven of the Eastern Conference Semifinals that same year, Pierce toed the foul line with 7.9 seconds left. The Celtics led 95-92 and realistically would seal the win if Pierce made one of two foul shots. Pierce had already scored 39 points and held his own in a mano-a-mano matchup against Lebron James. Just one make, and his Celtics would head to the Eastern Conference Finals to play the Detroit Pistons. The TD Garden crowd waited anxiously.

The first shot wasn’t one of Pierce’s best. Maybe a little overeager, he put more power behind the shot than he would have liked. It hit the back rim hard, and had no chance to fall through the hoop. But it bounced straight up, then fell straight down. Later, Pierce would say the ghost of Red Auerbach guided it through the rim.

The free throw was good, the Celtics were moving on, and Paul Pierce stood at the foul line, his face adorned with a smile so big, so wide, so genuine, that it could only come from someone who treaded water in defeat for so long, someone who cherished every second of his team’s revival because he knew how badly it beat where he came from, because he knew how difficult championship opportunities can be to come by.

Happy birthday, Truth. We love you, my man, even if you’re locked out.

(Sorry Jermaine. I know you had nightmares about this one.)

I think it’s safe to say Billy Hunter prepared NBA players for the worst. Amare Stoudemire is already discussing what he will do if the lockout last one or two years: He will band with other players and they’ll start their own league. (New York Post)

“If we don’t go to Europe, we’re going to start our own league, that’s how I see it,” the Knicks forward said. “It’s very serious. It’s a matter of us strategically coming up with a plan, a blueprint and putting it together. So we’ll see how this lockout goes. If it goes one or two years, we’ve got to start our own league.” …

“We want to play NBA basketball but if it doesn’t happen, what are we going to do?” Stoudemire said. “We can’t just sit around and not do anything. We’ve got to figure out ways now to play basketball at a high level against top competition and have fun doing it, so that’s the next step.”

If the players ever did start a league, which seems like Antoine Walker’s hypothetical four-pointer (an incredibly long shot), just like the lockout lasting one or two years seems like a long shot, they would have to do it right. The Impact Basketball League was supposed to be relatively competitive, featuring all NBA players and former NBA players. But, well, it devolved into this: Sebastian Telfair and WNBA player Cappie Pondexter effectively playing one-on-one while the four other competitors all picked their wedgies.

The new league would need coaches, training camps, and probably general managers. It would practices every day, refs (established ones), and it would need money to advertise. It would need stats to be kept, a national TV deal, and a number of owners (or one enormously rich owner) with the money to pay all the players, unless the players wanted to share all the ownership stake themselves and tie their salaries to the league’s profits.

Bill Simmons and Jay Caspian Kang wrote a fun column earlier this offseason about how they envisioned a players-led league would look. Of course, the whole thing’s probably as preposterous as the thought of Sasha Pavlovic winning MVP next year. But Amare brought up the idea, so I figured I would entertain it.

Did you think the NBA actually wanted to preserve its full season? Think again. All the labor discussions to this point were barely even posturing.

“I’m convinced that this was just all part of the plan,” Billy Hunter told Ken Berger after the NBA canceled the first two weeks of its regular season. Great. Glad you guys made an honest effort. I’m really happy to be such a big fan, now. Really. Let me just go extend my season tickets for another year.

Oh, yeah. I can’t afford season tickets. I make $10 an hour or $50 per story, depending on which job I’m working, meaning I make about $350 per week, or $18,200 per year, or a mere $455,404 less than the lowest-paid NBA player, or approximately $1.5 billion less than Dan Gilbert’s worth. I live in my parents’ basement, and sometimes, I drink water at bars because I don’t have any money. But really, I’d love to buy NBA season tickets if I could. These guys definitely deserve my cash.

The lost regular season games were “pre-ordained,” one source told Berger. “All of this could have been solved so easily with any amount of effort,” the person said. The NBA has canceled two weeks of the regular season without any negotiating effort whatsoever, without any thoughts about the fans, and oh, yeah, by the way, when the league comes back, please buy NBA League Pass and tickets and merchandise because the NBA needs your support.

Peace sign up, index finger down. Think about it if you don’t get it right away.

Admittedly, sadly, I’ll be on the front line of NBA fans as soon as the lockout ends. I’m addicted. I’ll be the one watching NBA League Pass until the wee hours of the morning because the Timberwolves seem ridiculously entertaining. I’ll be the one wearing my Celtics shirt, rocking my Celtics hat, donning my NBA socks and sagging my Celtics shorts with a shamrock on them. But if I want to get David Stern in a steel cage match and give him the People’s Elbow until he cries uncle — and I’m the biggest NBA fan this side of Clipper Darrell — imagine what Joe Schmo who watches twelve games a year thinks.

We are missing games because millionaires and billionaires cannot properly split the largest revenues in NBA history. We are here because 22 nitwit owners can’t make money despite the aforementioned revenue records. We are here because dysfunctional owners like Glen Taylor want a system that allows dysfunctional franchises to compete. We are here because NBA players are the highest-paid of all professional athletes and want to preserve that status. We are here because David Stern told Billy Hunter two years ago that his owners needed a slew of concessions, and Billy Hunter effectively told him, “Go f*** yourself. We’ll miss one or two years before we give up that much.” We are here because this lockout was always destined to extend into the season, because these millionaires and billionaires don’t make enough money as it is.

“We made, in our view, concession after concession,” Stern said. Ah, yes. You never stopped offering more, Stern. You’re like Santa Claus, just bringing your sack of gifts around and offering presents to the players daily. I’m surprised you haven’t been sainted yet.

Seriously, Stern, take your “concessions” and shove them you know where. You want concessions? Check out the stadium workers losing hours. Look at the Boston Celtics ballboy who uses tips from the players to help pay his way through college. Hell, you can even take the case of the 24-year old blogger who doesn’t have enough money to move out of his parents house, but will take one week’s paycheck to attend a game at the Boston Garden.

If I wasn’t such an addict, I’d turn on the NBA right now. So go, Joe Schmo, go now, go before the NBA can reach its fat, grimy hands into your pocket one more time, and never look back.