Larry Brown Sports

For those of you who have been wondering what exactly the NBA has been proposing to the players that has been so poorly-received, the league has a video that should help.  That is, of course, if you believe that the NBA would tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth in a public YouTube video.  For anyone who has DirecTV, this is probably a familiar act.  Believe me, I watched all the videos about Fox trying to rip off DirecTV and DirecTV trying to rip off Fox.  Someone must be lying.  With that in mind, it’s probably best to take this NBA Lockout video that I Am a GM passed along with a grain of salt:

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When the NBA’s best players start talking about playing overseas, it may be time to officially start worrying about the lockout.  As far as the public is concerned, there has been little to no progress made with the labor negotiations between the NBA and NBA Players Association.  Players have found a variety of activities to keep themselves occupied while David Stern continues to insult everyone.  Kevin Durant, who has been a big advocate of the players not getting cheated with the new deal, says he is almost ready to take his game overseas.

“I know it’s not a good one,” Durant said of the NBA’s proposal according to Yahoo! Sports. “It’s not the one that we want. …If it’s not a good deal, I don’t see why we should take it, especially this late.

“I’m right on the fence with playing overseas and I’m about to jump over.”

To this point Durant has only turned to flag football to keep himself busy during the lockout.  Obviously he could be completely bluffing and doing his best to nudge the talks in the right direction, but it would not be good for the NBA to have its best players signing contracts in Europe.  As Durant has already stated, the pickup games are getting old.  If a deal is not going to be reached and the season cannot be saved, players want to be able to join a legitimate league and play competitively to stay sharp.  With each day that passes, a shortened NBA season starts to look more and more like no NBA season.

Chest bump to Pro Basketball Talk for passing the story along.

Another day without NBA basketball. You know what that means?  More players finding ways to keep themselves busy.  Brian Cardinal, who was a role player on last season’s NBA champion Dallas Mavericks, has taken a position within his alma mater’s athletic department.  According to the Sporting News, Cardinal will be joining the Purdue athletic department as in intern until the lockout ends.

In addition to mentoring student-athletes with the John Purdue Club and John R. Wooden Leadership Institute, Cardinal will assist with event coordination on projects like the 2012 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament and Big Ten Wrestling Championships.

“It feels great to be coming home to Purdue,” Cardinal said. “I’ve always been proud to be a Boilermaker, and I’m excited to get in there and get to work.”

If there are any positives that can be taken from NBA games being cancelled, this is one of them. It’s nice to see players like Kyrie Irving and Nolan Smith return to their schools and give a little back to fans that gave them so much.  It’s also good to see players returning to school to continue their education while people like Cardinal work to improve the athletic departments that helped get them to where they are.  Not to mention, a 40-game NBA season would be awesome.

Fist pound to I Am A GM for the story.

Twitter nearly exploded late Monday when superstars Tim Tebow, LeBron James, and Dwight Howard all became part of the same conversation. When it comes to polarizing athletes in the world, it doesn’t get much bigger than Tebow or LeBron. Dwight’s not as controversial, but he has a strong presence on Twitter with 2.3 million followers.

Things started when Dwight, who is an active tweeter/social media guy, took a picture of himself Tebowing:

He accompanied the picture by saying “This [is] for Tebow lol. Good game boy.”

Tebow, who tweets infrequently, responded “lol appreciate the love Superman!”

Dwight upped the ante after that, telling Tebow “Keep up the good work. Despite all the haters you work hard you got heart and you got Jesus. You can’t lose.”

Tebow responded “thank you brother, will do! Jesus is above all else!”

It was after that when Tebow invited Dwight and LeBron to play for the Broncos.

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For someone like Ricky Rubio who is looking to adjust to life in the NBA, the lockout is probably particularly annoying.  Every player in the league has to find ways to keep themselves occupied and some even have to figure out how to manage their funds, but for a rookie who is new to America business as usual would be a plus.  According to the Star Tribune, Rubio has not had the chance to spend much time with his teammates over the offseason.

If he had a way to get a hold of them, it might be a different story.

“I would love to talk with all the guys, but I don’t have their number,” he said. “I will soon.”

Rubio was given quite the warm welcome from T-Wolves fans when arrived in Minnesota, but apparently he hasn’t done much bonding with the guys he’ll be playing with.  He did say that he played with a handful of teammates the week of the draft and spent some time working with other players to try to learn as much about NBA basketball that he can.  He should probably start sending a couple texts while he’s at it.

Nick Young made a bold statement Saturday evening after NBA labor negotiations ended with little progress. The Wizards guard was so upset he tweeted that he would no longer wear Michael Jordan shoes.

“I’m not wearing Jordans no more can’t believe what I just seen and heard from MJ,” he wrote.

Young is upset because Michael Jordan reportedly is leading a group of owners who refuse to give the players any more than 47% of basketball related income. Not only is Jordan making it extremely difficult for the sides to agree on a deal, he’s also proven to be a hypocrite now that he’s an owner rather than player.

Jordan said during the 1998-1999 lockout that NBA owners who couldn’t afford their teams should sell. When he was a player, he also fought against an offer from the owners he didn’t think was fair. “[David Stern] wouldn’t recommend that; he wouldn’t accept that deal from a business standpoint so why would he ask the players to do that?” he said at the time.

But now that he’s on the opposite side as an owner of a team losing money (the Charlotte Bobcats), Jordan doesn’t care about principles; he just wants the best deal for himself. A few players have called him a hypocrite as a result.

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Normally when people talk about the NBA lockout it’s to complain or talk about certain players’ sob stories from their days of unemployment and boredom. In other instances, we have seen players making good use of their time.  Guys like Anthony Randolph decided to go back to school while Gordon Hayward had some fun joining a video game league.  Two Duke alumni, Kyrie Irving and Nolan Smith, visited their alma mater on Tuesday night and brought some added excitement to a group that rarely needs it — the Cameron Crazies.  Check out this video from DukeBluePlanet that The Dagger shared with us:

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