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.

Reports indicate that the NBA’s next Collective Bargaining Agreement — whenever it’s agreed upon — will include an amnesty clause that will allow NBA teams to release one player, pay his salary, take no luxury tax liability, and erase that player’s salary for salary cap purposes.

The clause will obviously help certain teams — Orlando will certainly enjoy seeing Gilbert Arenas leave town, the Wizards will likely tell Rashard Lewis not to let the door hit him on the way out, and Portland could decide to cut Brandon Roy (and his balky knees) to conserve $15 million worth of cap space per season — and could also benefit other teams more subtly. The Heat, for example, would stand to be a desired location for any overpaid stars released under the amnesty requirement. Imagine Lebron James and Dwyane Wade flanked by Brandon Roy, assuming that Roy can still run up and down the court.

But the Boston Celtics will have more trouble taking advantage of the amnesty clause. With Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen on the last legs of their careers, the Celtics are no longer a top destination for veterans looking to piggyback their way to a ring. They also have no clear candidates to be released using the clause. Even if the Celtics released Kevin Garnett (and the $21 million left on his contract), that would leave them with more than $51 million of salary in 2011-12. That would likely put them just under the salary cap, and it would be difficult to replace Garnett’s production without having more money to spend. Ditto goes for Ray Allen, whose two-year, $20 million also expires after the 2011-12 season. Jermaine O’Neal, who will make $6.2 million next season in his contract’s final year, also would seem to be safe from being released under the provision: after all, he is currently Boston’s only center.

The Celtics could choose to release Paul Pierce to free Pierce’s $47 million for the next three seasons, clearing even more salary space for the summer of 2012. But that doesn’t make sense for a variety of different reasons. Before even elaborating on how cold it would be to release Pierce, who has played his entire career to date in Boston, Pierce just finished arguably the most efficient season of his career and it would be difficult to replace his varied talents in the free agent market. Additionally, for the 2011-12 season (assuming one happens), the Celtics would be hamstrung by the same lack of cap space even after releasing Pierce. If they are serious about contending once more with the current core (or twice more, if you see an empty glass and call it half-full), releasing anybody on the current roster does not make sense.

Only Avery Bradley, Rajon Rondo and Pierce are on the books after the 2011-12 campaign. We’ve already discussed Pierce, Rondo is one of the league’s best bargains, and Bradley is still on his (inexpensive) rookie contract.

Likely, the Celtics would decline to use the amnesty clause, and instead enter the 2011-12 season with the same nucleus that has guided them the past four years, if only because the team has no natural amnesty candidates.

Jermaine O’Neal isn’t necessarily afraid that a hard salary cap would beget smaller contracts, although that’s part of it. Mostly, O’Neal fears that a hard salary cap would irrevocably harm NBA basketball as we know it, leading to a selfish league where the middle class no longer exists and teammates are competing against each other for millions.

“Taking out the mid-level (exception to the salary cap) is going to ruin our game,” O’Neal told USA Today. “It’s going to individualize our game so much. Basketball is based off a system. Everybody is given a role in the game. It’s not just everybody running up and down. We have some really good mid-level players in our league, borderline All-Star players. If you’re going to say, basically, we’re going to roll back salaries and we’re going to give two of the top players on the team the top deals and take out the mid-tier and let everybody else fend for the $1 million, $2 million, $3 million (shakes his head). … Doing that is going to make guys go for their own. It really is.”

A hard cap would inevitably shrink the NBA’s middle-class, if not make it disappear. Even with salary cuts and a hard cap, superstars will get paid — they sell the most tickets, they sell the most merchandise, and they win the most games. Which means the middle class, like O’Neal fears, would take the brunt of the owners’ proposed changes. A hard cap would also likely force owners (or at least competent owners) to reevaluate their stance regarding borderline stars like Gilbert Arenas, Joe Johnson and Rashard Lewis, who were never quite superstars but were certainly paid as if they were.

Owners say a hard cap is essential to promote parity. The Los Angeles Lakers, armed with many millions of revenue, accumulated $91 million of payroll last season to field the best team possible. The New Orleans Hornets spent $48 million. The difference makes parity in the NBA, under its current rules, difficult if not impossible. Small markets have a difficult time spending Lakers money because, well, that money just doesn’t exist. It’s possible to succeed in a smaller market without an owner diving too deep into his own pockets — look at the Oklahoma City Thunder. But it’s almost impossible to replicate the Thunder’s success. They A) made a series of near-perfect personnel moves to reach their current perch near the NBA’s peak, including lucking into Kevin Durant, choosing Russell Westbrook higher than anyone expected, and watching idly as James Harden became a stud, and B) will need to open their wallets to continue competing once Westbrook and Harden finish their rookie contracts. Success won’t always come cheap, and parity has been a problem in the NBA for a long time.

But the players don’t see why the burden of parity is being thrust on their shoulders. Parity could just as easily be sought by implementing a revenue-sharing program that takes away at least some of the inherent advantages of bigger markets. If the Lakers, Celtics, Knicks and other large-market teams shared a percentage of their television and sponsorship money, the playing field could presumably be leveled off without instituting a hard cap. Especially considering that the players are willing to give back hundreds of millions of dollars worth of salary, they feel that owners need to make some concessions of their own to help change the (admittedly broken) NBA system.

Meanwhile, Jerry Buss is on board with revenue sharing. Yes, Jerry Buss, the owner who has the most to lose from sharing revenues, the owners whose Lakers team makes bushels of money and uses a large portion of that money to field championship-caliber teams almost every season, to spend on players other, less-financially successful teams cannot afford. Buss is also on board with a hard cap, but the players, at least for now, swear they will not accept one.  (OC Register)

“A team like the Lakers with well over $100 million in payroll and Sacramento at 45, that’s not an acceptable alternative for us,” Stern said. “That can’t be the outcome that we agree to.”

As much as Buss loves his rum and Coke, he has held a Molotov cocktail with the NBA’s limited revenue sharing and soft salary cap. It has allowed Buss and his minority investors to make a lot of money and feel comfortable spending a ton of it on great players others can’t afford.

But dramatically increased revenue sharing will inhibit the Lakers’ spending. A hard cap will flat-out prevent the Lakers from spending. It’s lose-lose when Buss is 77 years old and determined to come from behind the Boston Celtics in total championships, 17-16.

Yet the Lakers have accepted it. Why?

For the greater good.

And you can’t play in a league of your own anyway. However much he leads his unfettered, playboy lifestyle – his latest summer vacation to enjoy was through Europe – Buss is married to these other NBA owners, for better or worse.

So with their days of shopping alone on Rodeo Drive ending, the Lakers intend to go out gracefully – and loyally to Stern, for whom Buss has always had an appreciation.

The many specifics of revenue sharing still need to be worked out – and progress is expected on that front Thursday in the NBA’s board of governors meeting in Dallas – but Buss is fully accepting that his pockets will be where most of the grabs go. He’s hopeful the revenue-sharing system leaves him some protection, but wherever the details of the sharing and capping go, Buss considers himself – bottom line – a team player on the owners’ side.

A revenue sharing system could be just what the NBA needs to end this lockout, to offer a semblance of financial parity and help assure that most or all franchises will return to profitable business. The players have offered their own concessions — at least for now, they are willing to accept either a hard cap or salary cutbacks, but not both — and now it is the owners’ turn to negotiate in good faith. David Stern has taken a hard stance in the negotiations so far, and the prevalent thought is that he is waiting for the players to cave, waiting to crush the players underneath the league’s leverage.

But maybe he is just waiting for the owners to budge, and maybe Jerry Buss is leading the way, and maybe the league can find some common ground after all, and maybe Jermaine O’Neal won’t have to worry about players becoming too selfish, because the owners have finally started to look in the mirror and realize that the broken system involves them, too.

Last season, the terms “comfortable”, “offensively” and “Avery Bradley” could only be used in the same sentence two different ways:

1) Avery Bradley was not comfortable offensively, or even close.

2) Offensively, Avery Bradley was as comfortable as a 400-lb. man riding a kiddie roller coaster.

But yesterday after Bradley played in the Impact Basketball League, A. Sherrod Blakely praised the young Celtic. There is now a third way to include the terms comfortable, offensively and Avery Bradley in the same sentence.

Avery Bradley — By far his best game of the week, Bradley looked very comfortable offensively before finishing with 20 points and four assists.

The Impact League doesn’t have the world’s best competition — other point guards include Damon Jones, who last played when Sasha Pavlovic was a legitimate starting small forward, and the level of play can perhaps best be described by a one-on-one duel that erupted yesterday… between JaVale McGee and Mareese Speights. But Bradley is using the league like his very first NBA Summer League. He missed summer league (and training camp) last season, so these seemingly half-organized pickup games could actually be an important step in his development. Sometimes, players just need to know they belong.

I sense that Bradley developed some confidence issues last season, and nobody could blame him. He was a raw, 20-year old rookie with only one college season under his belt, and not even a truly successful one  – in his sole college campaign, Bradley averaged only 11 points and 2 assists. It was natural for Bradley to be overwhelmed by the competition, the dazzling array of Hall of Famers in his locker room, and the new playbook he needed to learn without the assistance of a training camp.

But the time for being starstruck is over. Year two needs to be a major step up for Bradley. He should feel more comfort. He should know the plays. He should start to show signs of progress. Nobody expects Bradley to become an All-Star overnight. But it would be nice to occasionally see the existence of a few vital signs.

Avery Bradley just wants to improve, whether he does that in the Las Vegas, Boston, or somewhere overseas. With the NBA lockout potentially extending into the regular season, Bradley will give serious thought to playing in another country. Whatever is best for his development. (CSNNE)

Still, there’s no way to ignore the impact of not having an NBA season will have on younger players like Boston’s Avery Bradley.

Heading into this third season, Bradley is more concerned with being somewhere – anywhere – working on his game.

“If going overseas is going to be good for me, that’s what I’m going to do,” Bradley told Comcast SportsNet New England. “If I can improve my game overseas, that’s what I’m going to do.”

Bradley needs reps. He needs playing time. He needs to have the ball in his hands, running an offense, accruing experience that can only come from top-notch competition, rather than NBA garbage time.

But he also needs gym time to fill in the holes in his game. Bradley has all the physical tools of a successful point guard. Vertical leap? Check. Quickness? Check. Strength? Size? Check, Check. But right now, he has million dollar athleticism and five dollar skills.

Should Bradley sign overseas to get playing time? Stay in the States to work on his handle and jump shot? As long as he’s working hard and living in the gym, good things will happen. Based on all indications, Bradley is a humble, hungry young player who has nothing against hard work. He’ll get better.

But how much better will determine whether he has a role in Boston’s rotation next year and beyond.

P.S. – Bradley scored 14 points to go along with 5 assists in the Impact Basketball League yesterday. That would be phenomenal if Bradley did that in an NBA game, but then you hear about Josh Selby, who scored 42 points yesterday, or Kyle Lowry, who contributed 18 points and 20 assists, or Dahntay Jones, currently averaging 29 points per game, and you realize stats are easier to come by in summer league.

Jermaine O’Neal played limited minutes and added 6 points and 7 rebounds. I guess stats weren’t much easier to come by for him.

At some point last season — maybe it was when he returned from injury, or when he started protecting the basket like it was his only daughter, or when I learned he swatted shots and grabbed rebounds all with a broken wrist — Jermaine O’Neal won his way into my heart. His body wasn’t built for this anymore, it wasn’t built for 82 game schedules and back-to-back games and bumping and grinding in the low post, but O’Neal proved himself to be tough, a winner, a player who would give until his body wouldn’t let him give anymore.

The body is still the issue, and  it could keep him from playing further than this next season. In an interview with CSNNE, O’Neal admitted he will likely retire after the 2011-’12 season. (CSNNE)

Jermaine O’Neal told CSNNE.com that, barring an unexpected change of heart, which he says is unlikely, this will be his last season. …

“I’m going into my 16th year, so I know my time is near,” O’Neal said. “I know someday the ball is going to go flat; you have to plan for life after basketball and that’s what I have been doing.” …

“I have a 5-year-old son and a 12-year-old girl,” he said. “They want to spend a lot of time with Daddy. At this point in my career, it doesn’t make sense to go overseas and play for half-a-season. I want to be able to be ready and be fully prepared mentally and physically for what may be my last season.” …

“You never say never, but like I said earlier, my kids are getting older,” he said. “The only thing left that I want to do in this league is win a championship. That’s why I came to Boston last year, because I felt this was the best place for me to do that: Win a championship.”

O’Neal is not the first Celtic to be linked to possible retirement — Kevin Garnett said he can see the end of his career approaching, Ray Allen, 36 years old though aging quite slowly, likely won’t be around for too much longer, and Paul Pierce, though younger than Garnett and Allen, is already on the down slope of his Hall of Fame career. There will be an exodus of retirements within the next handful of years, and the Celtics will transform into the unrecognizable, a team devoid of the Big Three and reliant on Rajon Rondo — and hopefully another All-Star or two — to light the path into the future.

After admitting his plan to retire, O’Neal noted that only one goal remains unaccomplished on his career checklist: winning an NBA championship.

“For me now, it’s not about scoring or statistics,” O’Neal said. “I’ve proven that I can score in this league, do a lot of good things. For me now, it’s all about winning, being part of a winner. That’s my motivation.”

Perhaps he’s delusional to consider the Celtics championship contenders. They were smacked around by the Heat last season, they have just seven players on a roster that’s already over the salary cap, eight if you count E’Twaun Moore, whose contract is not guaranteed, and most significantly, the core that led Boston back to relevance, the core that won one championship and came minutes from another, is one year older. The NBA landscape is passing the Big Three Boston Celtics by; if they did not pass the Eastern Conference torch to the Miami Heat last season, Lebron James ripped it from their wrinkly fingers and battered them over the head with it.

But there’s always hope. What if Kevin Garnett returns just as mobile as he was last season? What if Ray Allen continues to stiff-arm the aging process? What if Paul Pierce holds his slow decline to a crawl? What if the Celtics re-sign Delonte West, fill out the rest of their bench with shooters, rebounders and knowledgeable defenders, and somehow, improbably, miraculously, arrive at the playoffs without a list of injuries longer than this column?

If everything goes right, if Danny Ainge makes the right moves, if the Big Three remain near the top of their games, if Jermaine O’Neal and the rest of his teammates somehow coax health out of bodies that aren’t necessarily built for this anymore, this 82 games of grinding and bumping and bruising and running and jumping, then the Celtics have a shot at winning a championship. Then O’Neal could retire on top, and the slew of retirements to follow in the coming years would be less painful.

If only everything goes right.