According to Rafael Uehara — a “managing figure of The Basketball Post, contributor at EuroLeague Adventures and unemployed dude,” according to his Twitter page — Avery Bradley will soon be released from Hapoel Jerusalem of Israel. (via Red’s Army)

I don’t know whether this report is accurate. After all, Uehara is just some “unemployed dude” making comments on Twitter. But it would make sense.

Bradley has played one game for Hapoel Jerusalem, notching 25 minutes but contributing only seven points (on 1-6 shooting), zero assists, one rebound, two steals and four turnovers. He’s probably making more money than most players on the team, considering his NBA status, and he just shot a blank in game one. Many overseas teams are famous for their lack of patience, but really, the point is this: Hapoel Jerusalem can pay Avery Bradley big money, and he may or may not deserve it. Or they can cut him and sign someone else to a far more manageable deal, and probably get very similar production.

NBA players heading overseas are seeing this: the back end NBA players are entirely replaceable. Trade Avery Bradley, Sasha Pavlovic, Carlos Arroyo, Troy Murphy, Luke Harangody and Semih Erden for six of the top D-League players and there would hardly be any difference. Trade them for six of the top Spanish players and you’d probably improve the Celtics. Just being from the NBA doesn’t mean anything once you get overseas.

I spoke to Josh Jones this weekend, a very talented former Division III player (Husson) trying out for the Springfield Armor.

Asked whether it was difficult for him to adjust to competing against Division I talent, he said, “At first it was intimidating. But then I realized we’re all grown men out here. It doesn’t matter where we went to college. It doesn’t matter what team we played for last. It’s all about who can play.”

Avery Bradley and other NBAers overseas are starting to learn the same lesson. True, they can all play. But compared to replacement players of similar value, some NBAers just aren’t worth the money.

(This column was fueled by a piece Adrian Wojnarowski wrote yesterday about Kevin Garnett’s unselfishness during this lockout. It’s a great read, so go read it.)

Let Kevin Garnett be unselfish. Let him rally his colleagues and urge them not to cave into the league’s demands, even though Garnett personally would benefit if the players caved. Let him rally the union in solidarity and lead his peers into a better deal, even if that means missing games. Let him care more about the NBA’s future than his own self-interest. Let him risk $21.2 million so Avery Bradley, JaJuan Johnson and Jimmer Fredette can receive fair contracts a few years from now. Let Garnett do all that, and respect him for it.

But I’m not joining him. I want the lockout to end and I wanted it to end three months ago. Not just for me, for NBA fans everywhere, for the success of my website, for Tuesday nights when I’d rather not watch baseball, for mornings I would prefer not to view a top ten plays filled with hockey saves and only hockey saves, or for the hoards of NBA employees whose jobs have been slashed because millionaires and billionaires won’t settle on a labor deal. I certainly want the lockout to end for all the previous reasons. But I also want the lockout to end for the Boston Celtics.

One last chance. That’s been a repeating chorus for years now, but this year, that chorus makes more sense than ever. The Celtics looked older than ever while losing to the Miami Heat. Garnett and Ray Allen have one year left on their contracts. The Celtics have only three players signed beyond the upcoming season. Danny Ainge will have many more reasons to blow up the Big Three nucleus after this year than he will have to keep the nucleus together for 2012 and beyond.

All of which means we might have just one more year to watch Ray Allen spot up on the perimeter, his legs bent, ready to spring from the floor, his eyes set on the rim, his body squared perfectly toward his target, the flawless cock of his wrist and the follow through covered in gold and the resulting swish. We might have just one more year to watch Rajon Rondo run the pick-and-roll with Garnett, to see Garnett knowingly slip the pick, bee-line for the rim and rise to catch Rondo’s pass, floating down from the rafters so Garnett can secure it and slam it into the hoop. Or to watch Garnett pound his chest and mutter a stream of obscenities directed to nobody and everybody all at once, to watch his eyes that could stare a hole straight through the Great Wall of China, to see his focus and determination and know he wants to win more than many people want anything at all. Or to watch Garnett and Paul Pierce’s joint press conferences, the way they play off each other like they were best friends since childhood. Or to watch Allen interviewed at his locker, always impeccably dressed, always willing to answer questions longer than anyone else, as classy as a top-notch country club. Or to see the C’s in the playoffs, bloody and battered, fighting desperately to outlast a younger, fresher team, and knowing, win or lose, this is a Celtics team to have pride in.

A year from now, the Celtics organization could be almost anywhere. Rebuilding around Rajon Rondo with young players and draft picks. Hoping Jeff Green pans out. Following Dwight Howard to the NBA Finals. Trying to relive the glory days after resigning Garnett and Allen to smaller contracts. The Celtics’ future is cloudier and less predictable than a lightning storm.

Yet Wyc Grousbeck is reportedly one of the hard-line owners willing to risk this entire season. Garnett is clamoring for players to hold out until they get the right deal. Pierce is joining Garnett at the meetings and likely echoing his sentiments. I get why they’re doing it — Grousbeck wants more money, Garnett and Pierce want to ensure the fair treatment of NBA players for years to come.

But if Garnett isn’t going to be selfish, I will. I want this lockout to end. For the Boston Celtics, and yes, of course, for me.

Rajon Rondo and JaJuan Johnson are reportedly among several players working out at the University of Kentucky, where the Oklahoma City Thunder are holding a a Nazr Mohammed-organized training camp of sorts.

Avery Bradley is nearing a deal to play for Hapoel Jerusalem of the Israel Premier League until the NBA lockout ends. (Yahoo! Sports)

Boston Celtics guard Avery Bradley is nearing a deal to play with Hapoel Jerusalem during the NBA lockout, sources told Yahoo! Sports.

A formal agreement could be reached as soon as this week that would allow Bradley to return to the NBA if the league-imposed lockout ends during Hapoel’s season.

After failing to complete a deal with Memphis Grizzlies guard Greivis Vasquez last week, Hapoel turned its attention to signing Bradley. For Bradley, a 20-year-old who turned pro after one season at the University of Texas, the chance to play meaningful minutes in the competitive Israel Premier League is a lure.

Some other players you might know who play for Hapoel Jerusalem: Luke Jackson, D.J. Strawberry, Jarvis Varnado and Mizrahi Moshe.

Rule number one of overseas signings: any time an NBA player is the backup plan to signing Greivis Vasquez, that player needs a lot of work on his game. Bradley will get that work in Israel if the lockout does not end soon, where he would theoretically play against the likes of Jordan Farmar, Jon Scheyer, Jeremy Pargo and, um, Lior Eliyahu, among others.

The key thing for Bradley is improvement. Whether he spends the rest of the lockout practicing two-ball dribbling drills in an empty gym and shooting 1,000 jumpers a day, or whether he spends that time playing 20-25 minutes per night in the Israeli League, Bradley just needs to get better.

Mostly due to the city’s history of racial inequality, partially due to cold and snowy winters, the Boston Celtics have never signed a truly significant free agent. Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Larry Bird, Paul Pierce, John Havlicek, Dave Cowens, Kevin McHale — name a Celtics superstar and he was acquired via trade or through the draft.

The most important free agent signing in franchise history was probably Don Nelson; before he became a zany, successful and entirely unpredictable coach, Nelson was a key figure, albeit a role player, on five Celtics championship teams. But even Nelson came to Boston with little fanfare and few other options — the year before joining the Celtics, Nellie averaged 2.4 points per game for the Los Angeles Lakers. And with the Celtics, he never averaged more than 15.4 points, 27.4 minutes, or 7.3 rebounds. The most important free agent acquisition in the history of the NBA’s winningest franchise never made a single All-Star game.

But Boston’s free agent luck might be changing. According to Stephen Jackson, players are beginning to look at Boston differently than ever before.

“When I first got in the league, I would never have thought about Boston. Ever,” Jackson told ESPN the Magazine’s Ric Bucher. “The way they embraced KG was a big part of changing that.”

The Celtics also have a coach, and a black one at that, known for treating his players well. The Boston players begged Doc Rivers to stay every time rumors flew saying he might take a leave of absence, according to Bucher.

“That’s a big piece of it,” one agent told Bucher. “They’d run through a wall for him.”

As the Celtics attempt to transition from the Big Three era to the “Rondo and whoever else” era, becoming major players in the free agent market has never been more important. The Celtics currently have only three players under contract for the 2012-12 season. That means Danny Ainge will have millions of dollars to play with in the summer of 2012, but convincing Dwight Howard or any other marquee free agent to sign in Boston will mean erasing five decades worth of free agent whiffs. And if Ainge does fail to upgrade the team through free agency, the Celtics could begin a long rebuilding process, one that could revive painful memories of Ricky Davis, Gerald Green and Sebastian Telfair. Either that, or Ainge could settle for second-tier free agents and the Celtics could become mired in what I will call “The Antoine Walker Zone,” where the Celtics make the playoffs every year but never have a chance to contend for a championship.

In his piece, Bucher discussed the possibility of a Jeff Green-Paul Pierce-Rajon Rondo core.

“A nucleus of Green, Rondo and Pierce ‘is definitely a playoff team, especially in the East,’ says an Eastern Conference executive who spoke on a condition of anonymity because the league has a $1 million gag order on its employees during the current lockout,” wrote Bucher.

But the playoffs are not supposed to be the end, not for the Boston Celtics, winners of 17 championships, but the means to the end. The Celtics are supposed to fight for championships, not resign themselves to mediocrity. The Antoine Walker era produced many memorable moments — banked three-pointers to win games, a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals, shimmies and shakes galore– but the era that came after it, the Gerald Green era, was more beneficial to winning a title than anything Walker ever accomplished in Boston. With Walker, the Celtics were stuck in quick sand, not going anywhere fast, pretending to make moves that would result in a championship but never really inching any closer. But after gutting the team and rebuilding with young talent (err, if you can call it talent), the Celtics were able to trade assets, contracts and draft picks to acquire the Big Three and bring Boston its 17th title.

In the summer of 2012, when Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen become free agents, Danny Ainge might have a choice to make: sign second-tier free agents and maintain a semblance of competitive mediocrity, or gut the entire roster and attempt to rebuild through draft picks and trades.

Or maybe, if the Celtics get lucky, if Stephen Jackson’s sentiments are shared by the rest of the NBA, or at least by the marquee free agents of 2012, the Celtics could skip the rebuilding process and simply reload.

What say you, Dwight?