The NBA is in full lockout mode while all parties are trying to find some common ground in the hopes there will be an upcoming season.

So while the parties try to hash out a new CBA, Atlanta Hawks' Joe Johnson seems to be enjoying the summer off by flexing his vocal chords at a karaoke bar in Arkansas with his rendition of Jodeci's "Come and talk to me."

According to the report, Johnson wasn't that bad of a singer but I will let you be the judge.

So while many NBA players might be considering taking their talents overseas, Johnson would appear to have another career avenue to look into if the lockout kills the entire upcoming season.

Though I doubt Johnson is worried about losing games or a paycheck, the Hawks did give him a 119 million dollar contract. Money well spent Hawks!

When David Stern travels around the NBA, he is often met with boos. For better or worse, many basketball fans see Stern as working against the fans in representing the owner's interests. He is often blamed for perceived poor officiating and something resembling an unfair playing field skewed toward the big markets.

These accusations are not new against league commissioners. Red Auerbach always thought the commissioner favored New York over Boston... even while he was winning championships with ease.

The commissioner is representing a lot of interests as the face of the league.

There have only been four commissioners in the league's history. David Stern has certainly stood on the shoulders of giants, but he has also taken the NBA to new heights. Many of his accomplishments have a negative to stand against it. And for Stern 's impact on the league to truly receive veneration from league historians and fans, he may have one more thing he must accomplish:

Avoid losing the 2011-12 season.

Stern has already lost the majority of one season in his tenure as commissioner of the NBA. And he cannot afford to lose any part of another one. Not if he cares about his legacy as the NBA's commissioner. And by all reports, he does. If you believe Ian O'Connor of ESPN New York, it is something he cares very deeply about.

Stern has fought off a lot of bad in his time as commissioner. As much as Larry O'Brien (who had to clean up a league decimated by constant fighting and drug abuse), Walter Kennedy (who had to expand the league and simply keep it alive) and Maurice Podoloff (who negotiated the merger between the BAA and NBL to form the NBA in 1949), Stern's issues have been more complex and have sent the sport to unprecedented highs as well as some pretty deep lows.

Should the NBA lockout extend into the regular season, this Kobe Bryant led barnstorming tour through China that's been discussed could prove to be a welcomed distraction for hoops junkies everywhere.  It's an interesting enough concept in any basketball climate, but played amidst the backdrop of an NBA work stoppage the potential for significant interest is certainly maximized.  China is crazy for basketball these days, and anybody who gets a BBM from Kobe inquiring about their interest in teaming up would be crazy not to at least consider making the trip. 

In this proposed context, while barnstorming through Asia like the outlaw version of the Dream Team, Team Mamba would be the only show in the NBA Universe.  The opportunity for each player to strengthen his individual position as an overseas pitchmen is huge, and might be too enticing for any of the league's top stars to pass up.  The possibility alone is said to have Amar'e Stoudemire looking for somebody to insure his $100 million deal with the Knicks so he can make the trip.  This from Frank Isola at The New York Daily News:

Amar'e Stoudemire would consider joining Kobe Bryant's barnstorming tour through China if the NBA lockout extends into the regular season. According to a person close to the Knicks' All-Star power forward, Stoudemire would only play if he can be insured in case of injury. The Knicks signed Stoudemire last summer to five-year, $100-million contract despite being unable to get the contract insured because Stoudemire has a pre-existing knee problem and has had surgery for a detached retina. After Stoudemire signed, he honored the Knicks' request to withdraw from the U.S. national team in order to rest his body for the upcoming season. Stoudemire also suffered a back injury prior to Game 2 of the Knicks' first-round series with Boston in April and is still not 100%.

While there is no guarantee that there will be a 2011-2012 NBA season due to the current labour situation, there is a hope that both sides will be able to come to some sort of resolution without losing the entire year. If we are so lucky, it will be interesting to see how the rookies respond to the situation. Usually they get to play in the Vegas Summer League and get to know some of their teammates, but this year they will be on their own to stay in shape until the season starts and will be thrown into the fire once the games start up again.

So here is a look at the first year players, the odds of them winning the Rookie of the Year award, and a breakdown of the role that they will have with their new teams.  If nothing else, they will still be rookies in 2012.

Jan Vesly – Washington Wizards (10/1)

While he is best known for the kiss that his girlfriend laid on him after his name was announced by David Stern, but Vesly brings a style of game that should translate well to the North American game. He is long and athletic and has drawn outlandish comparisons to Blake Griffin already. He should start over Rashard Lewis, and could fill the box score from day one.

Kyrie Irving – Cleveland Cavaliers (8/1)

The first overall pick will have to work for playing time in Cleveland. Baron Davis, Ramon Sessions and Daniel Gibson are not exactly the most imposing figures in front of Kyrie, but he will still have to fight at first to get enough time on the court to have an impact. Once Baron gets inevitably injured, we will see the true point guard skills that made Irving the top pick in this years draft.

Jimmer Fredette – Sacramento Kings (6/1)

We all know that Jimmer is a volume shooter, and he will get the chance to play alongside another one in Tyreke Evans. The two of them could form one of the most defensively inept backcourts in the league, but also one of the highest scoring ones. If Tyreke struggles with injuries again this season, Jimmer could be a dark horse ROY candidate, as he will surely not think twice about putting up upwards of twenty shots a game, no matter how many go in.

In 1998, the owners faced a similar broken system. There was a soft salary cap in place, but Larry Bird rights enabled teams to sign players to ridiculous contracts. Shaquille O'Neal netted an 88 percent pay increase off his rookie contract in signing a nine-year, $172 million contract with the Lakers in 1996. A 22-year-old Kevin Garnett had just netted a five-year, $126 million deal just before the lockout commenced.

Much like in the current labor situation, owners are looking for more cost certainty. The big difference this time around might be how the players are handling.

Antawn Jamison, who was a rookie during the lockout-shortened 1999 season, said the players are much more prepared for the challenges a lockout imposes this time around than they were in 1998. The spectre of the 1998 lockout is hanging over both sides and even with no agreement both sides are very aware of the pitfalls the lockout more than 10 years ago created.

"I think in '98-99, we didn't think it would be a long, drawn out process," Jamison said to the Associated Press. "Just the unity, the guys understanding what we're facing and what we're up against is totally different than what it was when I first got into the league."

Jamison noted that in 1998 players and owners were saying one thing to each other and often doing another. That kind of combativeness really made fans turn on the league. It did not help that millionaire players also played the "woe is me" card behind some famous comments from then union-president Patrick Ewing.

There should not be any of that this time around.

The superstar members of the Miami Heat are not going to let a lockout get in the way of their summer time tradition of embarrassing young children in drills. 

Last summer at the Nike World Basketball Festival in New York, it was Dwyane Wade who repeatedly blocked and taunted children(with some help from Chris Paul).  Well, now it's LeBron James' turn to get into the action.  

LeBron showed up at a basketball camp to talk to the kids and, as usually happens at a camp, everyone lined up for a game of knockout.  LeBron joined in the fun and, in the face of elimination (at the :38 mark) he flies in, dunks on a kid, and then knocks him down.

Nice of LeBron to go pick the kid right up and not sit there as everyone in the camp points and laughs at him, isn't it?  

The NBA lockout is on. For Stephen Jackson though it may have started a little early.

Jackson vented his frustrations over how his tenure in Charlotte ended when he finally showed up in Milwaukee (before he was not allowed to have contact with his new team after last night).

The Bobcats finished three games out of the Playoffs and were in the race to earn a second straight postseason into the final weeks. But Charlotte shut down its top player and left itself out of the playoff race. 

"The last 10 games, I could have played," Jackson said. "But they shut me down. The team shut me down. So I kind of assumed they didn't want to make the playoffs."

That certainly reveals some look into what the owners were doing entering the lockout. Michael Jordan and the Bobcats were in the nether world of just making the playoffs but not sucking enough to get a good lottery pick. They ended up with Kemba Walker and traded Jackson to Milwaukee and got the draft rights for Bismack Biyomba from Sacramento in return.

Jackson was not kept from working out in team facilities or from traveling with the team or contacting coach Paul Silas. He was not literally locked out. But with his team in the playoff hunt, the Bobcats just shut him down.

That hardly seems like the action of an owner whose team is losing money and might need the extra injection a playoff appearance can bring. Of course, it is also the difference between the No. 9 pick and the No. 15 pick in the draft. That can be a pretty big difference (although I think Kawhi Leonard is a very good player).

Jackson, who averaged 18.5 points per game but shot just 41.1 percent from the floor, said he got the feeling the Bobcats were building to win three years from now and that he did not really fit into that plan at age 33. That strategy certainly would explain why the Bobcats traded for more draft picks and rid themselves of an aging high-usage player like Jackson.

And it is not like Jackson's claim may not have cause. He scored just three points on 1-for-4 shooting. Maybe he really was hurting or maybe he could have gone and played well to try and get Charlotte to the postseason. We will never know.

But typically we do see teams sell out to make the postseason -- especially when money is needed. And it is not like the Bobcats are a cost-heavy team -- they currently have the 20th highest payroll in the league. I would imagine another postseason appearance (even another sweep in the first round) would have helped build the franchise's profile. It is not like Jackson was going anywhere to be traded anyway.

This story about Stephen Jackson shows more of the contradictions in the owner's claims. Everything has to be viewed through the lens of the lockout right now. And this just feels like the Bobcats were straight up tanking to claim bigger losses at the bargaining table (not to say that they actually did).

This kind of a story has to be disappointing for Bobcats fans. They experienced their first postseason two years ago and seemed close to getting to another. They did not even try, it seems, to get to the 2011 Playoffs and are now in a rebuilding project. This kind of disconnect between the fans and how teams go about their business might just be the real problem that needs solving in the new collective bargaining agreement.

Photo via DayLife.com.

The NBA lockout is officially here.  

Billionaire owners are crying poverty, claiming they can't make ends meet because player salaries are flying out of control, and thus taking away the game we love so dearly.  Never mind that many of the owners claims can be dismissed with a simple "well, you wouldn't be in this situation if you hired competent people who made better decisions."  The simple fact is that some of these guys may not be losing as much money as they'd like you to think. 

Deadspin pulled back the curtain a bit on the creative accounting behind owning a sports franchise.  They obtained financial documents for the New Jersey Nets from 2003-2006.  In 2004, the Nets showed a nearly $28 million loss.

That $27.6 million net loss looks bad, but, as you'll see, it's an illusion — a trick of accounting, one practiced by every sports franchise with the full blessing of American tax law and one we should keep in mind whenever an owner pleads poverty.

"Anyone who quotes profits of a baseball club is missing the point," Paul Beeston once said (at the time he was a Blue Jays vice president). "Under generally accepted accounting principles, I can turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss and I could get every national accounting firm to agree with me." 

So how did they do it?

The first thing to do is toss out that $25 million loss, says Rodney Fort, a sports economist at the University of Michigan. That's not a real loss. That's house money. The Nets didn't have to write any checks for $25 million. What that $25 million represents is the amount by which Nets owners reduced their tax obligation under something called a roster depreciation allowance, or RDA.

Bear with me now. The RDA dates back to 1959, and was maybe Bill Veeck's biggest hustle in a long lifetime of hustles. Veeck argued to the IRS that professional athletes, once they've been paid for, "waste away" like livestock. Therefore a sports team's roster, like a farmer's cattle or an office copy machine or a new Volvo, is a depreciable asset.

The piece continues with the explanation of how teams write off the "depreciation"of their team.  But basically the tax law allows teams, every year, to plug in a number that represents the wasting away of its players... even though there is no such thing.  There are other write-offs allowed as well.  It's no different than writing off the interest you paid on your mortgage every year.  And we all know how much we all try to find every little thing to write off our personal taxes.  This, while on a much, MUCH, larger scale, is no different.

Before I continue, let's be clear here:  This is not to say every NBA team that reports a loss actually made money.  I'm sure there are NBA teams that report losses that are losing money.  Maybe some are in bad shape.  But there is no doubt that every team is using every possible accounting trick available to cut down what they show for profits or turn gains into paper losses.  And since these are the official financial documents, these are the numbers the owners use in their negotiations. 

Of course, the players aren't stupid.  They know the tricks too.  So it's not like NBA owners will dupe the union with their reported losses.  But their public stance is the current system is so broken that its continuation would lead to the league's financial ruin.  What this report shows is the league's numbers can be made to look worse than the really are.  And just like anything from any side in this fight over billions of dollars, there is usually a difference between what is said publicly and reality.  Take everything you hear during this lockout with a grain of salt.

A lot of people considered this year's draft to be among the weakest in recent memory. And the lockout had something to do with it. Some big name college players pulled out of the draft to shield themselves from the league's uncertain future. That enabled some players to climb up the draft board -- like, say Bismack Biyombo or Tristan Thompson.

There are some very very good players that will be available in the 2012 NBA Draft. You can hear David Kahn salivating already... and then immediately trading that desire for a tweener forward who should be playing power forward but wants to play small forward.

Who are these players that will warm the hearts of such perennial lottery teams like the Clippers, Timberwolves, Kings, Bobcats, Wizards and Raptors? Time to begin scouting and figure out who the NBA stars of tomorrow are. Sam Amico of FoxSportsOhio, NBADraft.net, DraftExpress and Chad Ford have gotten a head start on analyzing the top players eligible for the 2012 Draft.

A few things you will notice... lots of freshmen are high on scout's draft boards early in the process and there are few international prospects or upperclassmen. As the season goes on though, expect more international players and upperclassmen to climb draft boards as their play merits them a closer look. This is just a sampling of the top players eligible for the 2012 Draft.

Jared Sullinger, Soph. Ohio State: Sullinger was the presumptive number one pick after taking Ohio State by storm as a freshman. He seemed to be the most complete player (especially as a freshman) with huge upside. He still has a pretty rudimentary post game and needs to improve his rebounding. But this is exactly the type of nitpicking Sullinger is going to suffer through his sophomore year and that might cause him to drop a few spots on draft boards. Sullinger is going to take on an even bigger role at Ohio State next year with a bevy of seniors graduating. That will put the spotlight squarely on him and we will see how he performs.

Harrison Barnes, Soph. North Carolina: Barnes was the presumptive number one pick entering the season and had an up-and-down year at North Carolina. He was very underwhelming in his initial games at Chapel Hill and the hype seemed to die down. Then he picked his game up, averaging 21.5 points per game in his final 10 games, never dipping below 15 points in that stretch and dropping 40 points in a game against Clemson. Barnes is going to have to show more consistency his sophomore year, but he is definitely in the running for the top pick of 2012.

Anthony Davis, Fresh. Kentucky: Just about every early early mock draft has this incoming freshman as the top player on their draft boards. The 6-foot-10 power forward from Chicago is surely going to be a terror in the SEC and you can already see scouts projecting him out to be something incredible. He is athletic and big and those two things always drive NBA teams crazy. Of course, like Barnes, you do not want to get too far ahead of yourself. He has to prove himself at the next level ... or just enough like Kyrie Irving did.

The Cleveland Cavaliers and Sacramento Kings snuck-in one last order of business before the NBA goes into lockout-mode in 10 hours.  The Cavs sent promising young big man JJ Hickson to the Sacramento Kings for swing-man Omri Casspi and a heavily protected first round pick. 

You could call this a bit of a breakout season for Hickson, taking advantage of starting and more playing time to average nearly 14 points and 9 rebounds.  But his jump in scoring this past season was a product of taking a lot more shots, and from further away.  His field goal attempts nearly doubled (from 6.4 in '09-'10 to 11.7 last season).  He took a lot more shots from mid-range (1.4 per game in '09-'10, 4.2 per game from 10-23 feet last season).  Meanwhile his shooting percentage dropped from 55.4% to 45.8%.  

The Cavaliers obviously think highly of fourth pick Tristan Thompson.  He was clearly drafted as Hickson's replacement, though he's obviously not ready to handle the same burden.  Thompson is not going to step into the league and drop 14 points a game.  But he will defend and get out on the break.  He'll have to use his athleticism to score until he can develop a back-to-the-basket game.

Omri Casspi will be looked at to pick up some of the scoring slack from Cleveland's perspective.  Casspi's offense primarily came from long-range last season.  His 37.2% clip put him in the same class as Paul Pierce, Toney Douglas and Sasha Vujacic last season.  He scored only 8.6 ppg after averaging 10.3 ppg in his rookie season.  That can be attributed to taking fewer shots 9 feet and in (2.4 per game last season, 3.9 in '09-'10).  Casspi will likely step into Anthony Parker's role off the bench as Antawn Jamison's back up.  

In Sacramento, Hickson has a chance to slide right into the starting power forward role.  DeMarcus Cousins and Jason Thompson are both nearly 7 feet tall so they can both play center.  Of course, the Kings don't HAVE to start him at the four, but it's a possibility.  They could choose to play Hickson off the bench, keep him at about 25-30 minutes a game, and be the guy that maybe helps carry the second unit offensively.  If he's playing along side Jimmer Fredette on the second unit, he can try to use that extra space Fredette's shooting can create to take better shots.  

Here's the protection breakdown of the pick, according to ESPN's Marc Stein

Protected 1-to-14 in 2012, 1-to-13 in 2013, 1-to-12 in 2014, 1-to-10 from 2015-2017

In the end, not an earth-shattering deal for either side.  The Kings get a decent player who, if he finds any consistency, can be pretty good.  The Cavs are showing some faith in their draft pick and they get a wing player who can hit from long range.  With some more time and the right usage, Casspi can help the Cavs off the bench.  They also get a pick that they might be able to use as a trade chip down the line.  

Photos: AP/Getty Images