The NBA players union is ready to decertify, and could begin the process as early as Friday. If the players do not accept the owners’ revised proposal, expect this negotiation (can I call it a negotiation if neither side really does much negotiating?) to get uglier than the form on Kevin Martin’s jump shot. (CBS Sports)

Another outcome likely will begin to unfold Friday before the union even decides whether to accept the proposal — and would continue to progress regardless of the outcome of next week’s player rep meeting: Agents dissatisfied with the deal the union has negotiated and the intransigence of league negotiators already have more than 200 signatures on decertification petitions which are ready to be submitted to the National Labor Relations Board requesting a vote to dissolve the union, according to a person familiar with the plans.

Such a move would threaten to torpedo whatever support there is among the union membership to approve the owners’ offer, and if it resulted in the players deciding not to vote on the proposal or voting it down, could throw the 2 1-2 year negotiations into the chaos of an anti-trust lawsuit — virtually guaranteeing that the 2011-12 season would be lost.

Regardless of whether the owners moved on many key issues (and reports say they didn’t budge much from their last offer), the players must consider accepting the proposal. Yes, the owners are predatory creatures designed to suck the players’ blood. Yes, the players have lost this “negotiation,” if you can call it that, by a landslide. Yes, free agency might be slightly restricted and the cap would remain hard-ish, or at least a lot harder than it used to. But the alternative is scary: the owners will cut back their offer, causing a long legal battle during which the players will use a tactic that, according to Ken Berger, hasn’t worked in the history of professional sports.

Right now, the players can either pass to Joel Anthony posting up, allow Rajon Rondo to launch a three pointer, or bring Bruce Bowen out of retirement to run an isolation play. In other words, the options are not good.

After the Miami Heat’s loss to the Dallas Mavericks yesterday, the Heat staged a players-only meeting. Lebron James said he and his teammates aired their thoughts about the team’s 9-8 start. Chris Bosh told Yahoo!, “We were just looking at each other and being honest.”

They were honest? Well, the truth hurts. The following account of last night’s meeting may or may not be fabricated.

*****

Bosh: “First, guys, I just want to apologize. I know I’m not who you thought I was. I’m a little bit of a fraud.”

Joel Anthony: “I want to apologize, too. I’m not a fraud, but I am a thief. The pay me $18 million and I can barely make a layup. Also, I’m a 6’9 center who averages 3.1 rebounds per game and has no chance defending a halfway-decent big man.”

Dwyane Wade: “Fall down seven times, stand up eight. And after you stand up that eighth time, make sure you surround yourself with superstars who make you play worse.”

Bosh: “Are you calling me a superstar?”

Wade: “Ah, right. I meant ‘surround yourself with a superstar’ — singular — ‘who makes you play worse.”

Bosh: “Alright, that’s more like it.”

Lebron: “What should I do, Dwyane? Should I shoulder-bump Erik Spoelstra? Should I call Mo Williams and tell him I’m sorry? Should I be who you want me to be?”

Carlos Arroyo: “What are you guys all upset about? This season’s going perfectly. I’m shooting 61.9 [bleeping] percent from three-point range!”

Udonis Haslem: “Oh, Carlos.You clowns are a whole bunch of studio gangsters.”

Eddie House (giving himself the middle finger): “I told everyone before the season, middle finger to all the haters. And I’m a hater — I HATE playing with you bums.”

Erick Dampier: “Never fear, Erick Dampier is here! I am your savior!”

Lebron: “Ericka, we’re only speaking the truth in this meeting.”

Dampier: “Oh. Well, in that case, at least I’m better than Joel Anthony.”

Anthony: “Touche.”

Lebron: “What should we do? Should we fire Spoelstra? Should we beg Riley to return to the bench? Should we just clear the deck and start over? What should we do?”

Haslem: “I vote fire Spoelstra.”

Wade: “Yeah, me too.”

Team (in chorus, except Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who remains quiet): “Fi-re Spoel-stra! Fi-re Spoel-stra! Fi-re Spoel-stra!”

Lebron: “Big Z, what’s wrong? Do you actually want Spoelstra to stay?”

Ilgauskas: “God no! Who would want that? I’m just worried by a comparison I’ve heard a lot recently. I don’t look like Voldemort from Harry Potter, do I?”

[Team remains quiet]

Ilgauskas: “Guys?”

[Silence remains]

Ilgauskas: “GUYS?”

Wade: “So, umm, we’ve decided to fire Spoelstra. We’re making progress. The next step: learning how to play together.”

Lebron: “I don’t want to play with you anymore. Playing with you is like playing getting the kiss of death from a dementor. It just sucks the life right out of me. I miss Anderson Varejao and Anthony Parker, and Mo Williams. And I don’t want to be a point guard. And I don’t want to be a power forward. And I don’t want to play 44 minutes against the Boston Celtics. I just want to laugh and have fun. Is that too much to ask for?”

Bosh: “Yeah, this isn’t what I bargained for either. [Bosh pauses, thinking about what the season was supposed to bring.] Maybe I should have stayed in Toronto.”

Wade: “Yeah, that would have been better. Then we could have picked up Carlos Boozer, or kept Michael Beasley, or actually signed a point guard who’s worth a damn.”

Arroyo: “But I’m shooting 61.9% from threes!”

Wade: “File one under ‘fluke’.”

Mario Chalmers: “I’m not half bad, Dwyane.”

Wade: “No offense, Mario, but this is for players only.”

Lebron: “What should we do? Should we remind you we’ve never done this before? Should we pretend we still have confidence in each other? Should we tell you we don’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the 1996 Bulls? Hi, Mike. [Lebron winks, eats a Ballpark Frank.] What should we do?”

Wade: “We should hope Pat Riley has answers.”

Udonis Haslem: “No, guys. I’ve got a better idea. Voldemo– I mean, Zydrunas: We need the elder wand.”

In a weird way, the Celtics lend a helping hand to their most talented Eastern Conference opponents. In a weird way, the Celtics offer the Miami Heat pointers. In a weird way, they tutor their rivals.

I’m not saying they do it overtly. Paul Pierce doesn’t phone Lebron James and tell him how to execute Pierce’s famed stepback jumper. Ray Allen isn’t going to email Dwyane Wade the proper jumpshot form. Rajon Rondo won’t sit down with Carlos Arroyo and explain how to run an offense. Kevin Garnett doesn’t text Chris Bosh the meaning of the word “defense.” And I can’t imagine Shaq taking Joel Anthony under his wing to teach him how to put the ball in the basket.

But the Celtics laid the blueprint for how a three-pronged group of All-Stars can join together and, in their first season, win a championship. They showed that chemistry can be formed instantly, that egos can be shoved aside for a team’s good. That a team doesn’t necessarily need a single go-to guy down the stretch, that three options (and now, four) can be even more successful. They showed that the offense will take care of itself, and that defense is where teams win games. In short, the Celtics have spent three years demonstrating everything the Heat need to prove.

Chris Bosh told NBA.com’s David Aldridge that the Heat already look to the Celtics for inspiration.

“A lot of people’s concerns is, ‘is the ball big enough?,’ ” Bosh said. ” ‘Are there gonna be enough shots for everybody?’ To be quite frank, I remember ’07, and people were asking the same thing about the Celtics their first year (with Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce), and they came out and showed people how to really play team basketball, and how superstars can come together for the team.

“We’re gonna have to do that same thing … we’re gonna have to set screens for each other, have each other’s back on defense. It’s so many other parts of the game where we have to play well and sacrifice for each other, other than offense.”

A lot of people, including the Celtics’ Big Three, point out that the Heat’s Three Amigos are in different points of their careers than Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen were in 2007. James, Wade and Bosh are younger and haven’t finished compiling individual accolades. They are accustomed to setting the world on fire with statistics, not passing up open shots to get talented teammates involved. They have each spent their careers accomplishing feats and winning games mostly by themselves. Playing with such a stacked deck will be different, new, and perhaps overwhelming at times. But if used correctly, that stacked deck is an advantage against any team in the league.

Erik Spoelstra understands that winning games will come down to far more than talent, and told as much to the Miami Herald.

“A lot of the things that we want to stress this year have nothing to do with X’s and O’s and strategy, but it’s how we manage adversity and how we deal with tough times, how we stick together as a family and how we sacrifice for each other and how we hold each other accountable,” Spoelstra said. “All those things immediately get tested when you’re on the road, and especially in a tough environment like Boston.”

That sounds a lot like Ubuntu, right?

If the Heat want to learn how to successfully fuse their stable of stars, they should peer across the court tonight. And then they should take notes.

Back in the day, my 2nd-grade teacher used to ask me what kind of learner I was. “Do you learn by seeing and hearing, or by doing?” she asked me every day. She must have asked me a million times, but my response was always the same: “Is it time for recess yet?”

I think we finally decided that I learned by doing (even though I never could figure out how to color within the lines), but it’s clear that the Charlotte Bobcats’ Derrick Brown is a visual learner. I’ll now describe the steps to visual learning.

1. Watch somebody else’s actions

2. Sort out the good and the bad

After a visual learner watches someone else’s actions, he does two things. First, he adopts whatever the person he observed did well. In this case, Brown liked Henderson’s decision-making. If Joel Anthony is trailing you on a fast break, Brown figured, you might as well try to dunk the basketball.

Next, a visual learner must discard whatever the person he observed did poorly. In this case, Brown saw Henderson get his shot tossed against the backboard. If Joel Anthony is trailing you on a fast break, Brown realized, be sure not to get humiliated by the NBA’s worst starting center.

And then Brown thought to himself, Wow, Anthony’s even worse than Darko.

3. Use what you’ve learned

Finally, we get to see the fruits of Brown’s learning. Dunk you very much.

One of the worst signings? I think not.

Britt Robson ranked the Jermaine O’Neal signing among the worst moves of the offseason. Really? (Sports Illustrated)

After O’Neal shot 9-of-44 from the field (20.5 percent) and was outplayed by the Celtics’ big men in Miami’s first-round playoff loss last season, Boston GM Danny Ainge was impressed enough to fork over the full mid-level exception for the 14-year veteran. As O’Neal moves to the slag heap side of the team’s pile of proud veterans with bad wheels, one wonders why the Celtics didn’t make a run at Juwan Howard, or spend the mid-level money on a pair or even trio of playoff-tested vets — a million or two apiece for Joe Smith, Kurt Thomas and Fabricio Oberto — or maybe even force the Heat to match mid-level money on restricted free agent Joel Anthony, who was better at defending the paint than O’Neal for Miami last season and subsequently re-signed with the Heat for $18 million over five years.

With Rasheed Wallace set to retire and Kendrick Perkins recovering from knee surgery the first part of the season, staunch defense down low should be the priority. Playoff clanks aside, O’Neal shot a career-best 52.9 percent during the regular season and had his highest scoring (13.6) and rebounding (6.9) averages in three years. But his blocked shots (1.4) were his fewest in 10 years, and if he, Glen Davis and perhaps Brian Scalabrine (a free agent who hopes to return) are supposed to hold down the fort until Perkins returns, there could be some more playoff series on the road for Boston next year.

So first Robson advises that the O’Neal signing was terrible, even though he had a pretty damn good year last year. THEN he mentions that the Celtics would have been better off using their mid-level exception on signing Joe Smith, Kurt Thomas and/or Fabricio Oberto (when those are all minimum guys they could probably sign anyway). THEN he tops it all off by suggesting that the Celtics also would have been better off offering the entire mid-level to Joel Anthony, who happens to be pretty horrendous at basketball. Memo to NBA owners: Don’t ever consider Britt Robson for a GM position.

It's all smiles for these three for now.

Ira Winderman, reporter for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, reports that the Heat’s roster is a lot closer to being finalized than we think. Here is Winderman’s list of the 15 players he expects to play for the Miami Heat next season: Read more »