Oh, yay. Another new basketball tour in some place I’ve never been, highlighted by stars who should be playing in the NBA rather than messing around in exhibitions, which I can’t even watch on TV.

I’m sick of the NBA lockout, and I’m sick of exhibition games popping up left and right. But Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo are reportedly among more than a dozen stars expected to participate in the biggest NBA lockout exhibition tour ever, and they’ll reportedly get paid between six figures and $1 million for their efforts.

Kevin Garnett is also considering whether to join the tour. Insert your “he’ll just [expletive] the tour up” joke here _____. (ESPN)

In a trip that could resemble Team USA’s takeover of the world stage at the 2008 Beijing Games, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Derrick Rose, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Amare Stoudemire, Chris Bosh, Rajon Rondo, Blake Griffin, Russell Westbrook, Carlos Boozer, Paul Pierce and Kevin Love are among the players expected to participate. Kevin Durant and Kevin Garnett, among a few others, are also contemplating joining the tour.

Atlanta business mogul Calvin Darden has been putting the tour together with the players’ agents for nearly three months. He has already obtained signed contracts from Bryant, Wade, Bosh, Griffin, Rondo and Pierce. Sources say he’s hoping to complete the rest of the agreements, along with insurance requirements, over the next few days.

Even so, sources warned that the tour has not yet been finalized and there’s still a chance it could unravel.

The tour, scheduled to begin Oct. 30 and end Nov. 9, will make stops in Puerto Rico, London, Macau, and Australia. Each game will be staged in an arena that holds at least 15,000 fans. Two games each will be played at sites in London and Australia. …

While Darden’s business record is impressive, his family has endured controversy. His son, Cal Darden Jr., recently spent nearly four years in prison after pleading guilty to five counts of grand larceny and scheme to defraud.

The 36-year-old Darden Jr., once a high-rolling stockbroker on Wall Street, was convicted of defrauding 11 victims of roughly $7 million. In addition to stealing money from securities firms, he was convicted of bilking $300,000 from former NBA star Latrell Sprewell and $950,000 from rap star Nelly.

Though Darden Jr. will have no more than a minor role in the tour, several sources said Darden Sr. has been very open with the involved parties about his son’s legal issues and that they do not foresee them causing a problem. Darden Jr.’s main role has been putting together the charitable component of the tour.

This is exactly what I want Rondo and Pierce doing. Risking their bodies to play six games in faraway countries, games organized by a media mogul whose son, also playing a role in the tour, is a convicted felon known for defrauding 11 victims of roughly $7 million. To be fair, even if he bilks $300,000 from any of the barnstorming stars, Calvin Darden, Jr. is probably not any worse to work for than Donald Sterling.  Plus, who doesn’t want a convicted felon handling the charitable component of the biggest tour in NBA lockout history?

Seriously, this isn’t how this year is supposed to go. I’m supposed to be rooting for the Celtics to somehow beat the Heat, not praying for Rondo and Pierce to stay healthy while playing in Macau. For the love of Bill Sharman, NBA owners and players association, please come to an agreement.

This video would make me more excited for JaJuan Johnson’s pro prospects, if I didn’t know two things:

1) exhibition league basketball turns every defender into Gerald Green

and

2) Jeff Green never reminded anyone of Bruce Bowen, even during his finest moments

But still, a couple positives (which we already knew) can be taken from this video. Firstly, JaJuan Johnson is 6 feet, 11 inches tall and shoots from way above his head. He also has a soft touch from outside. That means his shot is both difficult to block and also (fairly) accurate. Plus, Johnson can move. He isn’t some stiff who will come off the bench, waddle down the court, shoot outside jumpers and otherwise look like a statue. He has a 38-inch vertical, people. That’s the same as Hakim Warrick, in case you need a point of reference.

All of which means I’m reasonably excited for the JaJuan Johnson era. Even if seeing him abuse Jeff Green in a summer league exhibition did nothing but rekindle old feelings of disgust toward Green.

(h/t Red’s Army)

NBA owners and players have had since July to negotiate a new labor deal to end the NBA lockout. Really, the two sides began negotiations two years ago, at least according to Billy Hunter. Yet Kevin Garnett went to five hours worth of meetings and reportedly [expletived] everything up.

This fight has grown nastier, more personal, in the past weeks. Privately, management insists that everything changed when the Boston Celtics’ Kevin Garnett walked into the negotiating room on Oct. 4. The owners knew it wouldn’t go well when Garnett started glowering across the table, sources said, like the league lawyers, owners and officials were opponents at the center jump. He was defiant, determined and downright ornery. He was K.G. Everyone knew Hunter had to cede to the wishes of the stars, and the stars demanded that the players stop making concessions to the owners.

As one league official said, “We were making progress, until Garnett [expletive] everything up.”

In other words, as one league official said, “Billy Hunter was ready to completely cave into Stern’s demands, ready to hand Stern the keys to his house and Ferrari, 50% of BRI, his first-born child and his limited edition Boy Meets World DVD set, until Garnett started glowering across the table and assured the players would not accept a bum deal.”

Seriously, though. If Kevin Garnett being Kevin Garnett at one single meeting can cause progress to come to a swift end, maybe there wasn’t so much progress after all. It sounds like a lot of owners are conveniently blaming Garnett to hide the fact that they’re trying to give the players a swirly after taking their lunch money. This lockout will continue until one of two things happens:

1) the players, missing their paychecks, decide to crumble

or

2) the owners, knowing they’re huge assholes, decide to put the subs in the game and settle for a 20-point win instead of a 40-point blowout

In case you were wondering, the two sides were scheduled to meet for a mediating session with George Cohen today at 10 a.m. But not everyone’s convinced the session will help.

But can a mediator swoop in and smooth out two years of bickering in one day?

Attorney Jay Krupin, chair of EpsteinBeckerGreen’s national labor practice in Washington, doesn’t think so — unless the players are prepared to concede on some issues.

“If the players want to get back on the court, then this is a great time for them to try to show that they’re willing to make some type of compromise, and I think that’s what it is,” he said. “This is an opportunity to really determine whether or not the players are willing to make concessions. I think the owners are willing to walk away without concessions, so if the players really want to make concessions when they meet, that has to be expressed to the mediator.

“If that happens, then the burden turns to the NBA to say, ‘All right, you’ll be willing to make some concessions; now we’re willing to talk.’ If they’re not willing to make concessions, then the mediation would just go on for the day and it’ll let the NBA know that they probably have to cancel, go through Christmas and maybe even the rest of the season.”

Here’s how I expect the mediating session to go:

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.

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.