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Much of the owners' case in the current NBA lockout battle rests on the idea that players are overpaid, which cuts into franchise profits and threatens the league as a solvent business. Because of an absurd contract that will end up paying $118 million over six years, current Washington Wizards forward Rashard Lewis has become the poster boy for lavishly compensated basketball players around the country. He was a good player treated like a superstar because he happened to become a free agent at the right time, and that's a state of affairs that can't continue.

Of course, being overpaid isn't the same as being greedy. In fact, Lewis is perfectly willing to sacrifice some of his salary if it ends up helping out the league as a whole. From Michael Lee for The Washington Post (via SB Nation):

He could lose some or all of that money, depending on how long the lockout lasts, but the veteran forward fully supports the players' union and plans to do whatever it takes to ensure that future generations of NBA players can experience the same benefits past veterans fought for in the last labor dispute.

"I'm willing to sacrifice my salary to get a fair deal," Lewis said after playing a game with Washington Wizards teammates John Wall, Jordan Crawford and JaVale McGee here at the Impact Basketball Competitive Training Series. "It's only fair." [...]

"Talk to the owner. He gave me the deal," Lewis said. "When it comes to contracts, the players aren't sitting there negotiating that contract. I'm sitting at home and my agent calls me, saying, 'I got a max on the table.' I'm not going to sit there and say, 'Naw, that's too much. Go out there and negotiate $20 or $30 [million] less.' "

"I thought my agent did a good job of negotiating my contract, and at the time I was coming out of Seattle, averaging 23 points, playing well. It was perfect timing for me," Lewis continued. "At the same time, I understand the owners don't want to overpay players, but you've got to do better negotiating. Try your best to save money."

Lewis is making an argument here that makes intuitive sense: If someone offers you the maximum amount of money for your services, you are going to sign that contract. That's not a greedy argument -- it's just an obvious decision to make. People like money, because it allows you to purchase goods and services while gaining a measure of security for the future. I'm pretty sure that's the first you learn in Economics 101.

As every sane basketball fan knows, Miami Heat forward LeBron James is corporate swine who would rather make a profit than teach children the benefit of proper eating habits and exercise. As such, he recently teamed up with McDonald's for a set of new ads built around their annual Monopoly giveaway game.

Usually, these sorts of ads present the compensated celebrity endorser as an everyday guy who just likes to eat processed chicken with regular pals at his local convenient-service restaurant. LeBron's a special case, though, because most people familiar with his work currently think he's an arrogant jerk who can't be bothered to think about the lives of real Americans. He cannot mingle with the masses because they want no part of him.

The solution is simple: self-deprecation. In this commercial, LBJ sits at a McDonald's table alone as a kindly announcer notes that the odds of LeBron James winning seven championships (you know, the claim he made at last summer's foolish Miami welcome party) are 1 in "oh silly disembodied voice, LeBron would really like you to stop ribbing about that comment because we are all friends here." Thankfully, anyone who participates in this fun game will have a 1-in-4 chance to win a free order of fries. Have you tasted those things? They are like tater cocaine.

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One of the great pleasures of modern NBA fandom is having the opportunity to watch TNT's "Inside the NBA" crew spend several hours on TV every Thursday. Whereas every other studio team in sports broadcasting engages in the kind of forced banter that only a focus group could love, Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith (and now Shaquille O'Neal, unless he screws everything up) feel fresh, like three friends hanging out watching a basketball game. In an artificial medium, they seem remarkably genuine.

Barkley has always been the biggest draw; he's a larger than life figure whose opinions drive a lot of discussion about the league. He's so popular, in fact, that Rolling Stone recently named him one of the 11 best characters on the small screen. Here's what Matt Taibbi had to say about the Round Mound of Profound:

Sports programming is one of America's great bastions of slavish conformity, ball-washing and non-thought, a place where a star athlete is commended for blindly following, in no particular order, his coach, his owner and the president of the United States. But into this world TNT thrust Charles Bark­ley, who spices up forgettable midseason games with politically incorrect gibes ("You still owe me 40 acres and a mule — I've been waiting on that a long damn time") and self-deprecating gags (his halftime footrace against 67-year-old referee Dick Bavetta during the 2007 All-Star Game was one of the funniest sports highlights of the new century). Unlike every other sportscaster in the corporate-sponsored TV universe, Barkley doesn't even pretend to care about most of the games, and sometimes he'll even openly bash the product. ("We better not be doing the Bulls this year," he once groused. "Man, they suck! Bunch of high school kids with $70 million contracts.") In the history of gazillionaire athletes, Barkley is alone with Muhammad Ali in having both the gift of speaking his mind and the sense of humor to match. Owing to his Parkinson's disease, we never got to experience the great second career in television commentary that should have belonged to Ali. But we did get Sir Charles, one of the few true things on the air today.

Taibbi's commentary is pretty much right on as it applies to Barkley the personality. He's unafraid of sacrificing various sacred cows, both in the broader culture and basketball itself, and deserves credit for speaking his mind. If more commentators had his lack of filter, we'd all find sports television more tolerable than it often is.

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The NBA is lacking for stories right now. To help fill the void, BDL's Eric Freeman is watching and analyzing each performance by Los Angeles Lakers forward Metta World Peace (neé Ron Artest) on the ABC hit "Dancing with the Stars." He had never watched a single episode of the series before this season.

Well, this feature was certainly short-lived. After only one round of dances, Metta World Peace and his partner Peta Murgatroyd were eliminated from "Dancing with the Stars," earning the lowest portion of votes alongside fellow at-risk pairs led by famous person Rob Kardashian and howling banshee Nancy Grace. In part, this loss was deserved -- World Peace barely paid attention to his choreography and appeared to believe that the cha-cha-cha was a dance dependent on mugging and jumping in the air. On the other hand, Elisabetta Canalis and Chaz Bono were worse, yet apparently hold enough of the audience's curiosity to escape a first-week exit.

As the line between celebrities and athletes become increasingly blurry, more basketball players have popped up on the website and TV show of the popular gossipmongers TMZ. Typically, these players are your typical blog fodder like Ron Artest, Lamar Odom and LeBron James. Those guys drive traffic and viewers, so they show up on a site that cares about little other than improving their ad rates.

Earl Watson has never been considered a fan favorite: He's a backup point guard whose offensive game veers towards soul-crushing. So it comes as something of a shock to see him appear in the TMZ video above. To make things even weirder, the TMZ crew acts as if Watson is a household name, when in reality that paparazzo who found him was probably waiting for a more gossip-friendly player like Watson's former UCLA teammate Baron Davis to show up.

Whatever the case, Watson's interrogator tried to make the best of it, with the 10-year veteran seeming happy to have been noticed by someone who isn't

Warning: Video contains NSFW language.

Several weeks ago, Blake Griffin hit the newswire for an accomplishment that had nothing to do with dunks. Like many young professionals with no plans for the summer, Griffin decided to take an internship, specifically with the Internet humor website Funny or Die. Sure, most interns don't also make millions of dollars per year, but how else is a kid going to break into the comedy world? Open mic nights are for the weak.

Now, Funny or Die has taken us inside Griffin's time with the company with this spoof of the HBO Sports series "24/7." It's fitfully funny, although probably a little too dependent on stock "interns get treated like human garbage" humor. Still, there are some nice bits, including the part where Griffin learns how to use a phone.

It also must have been a real thrill for the league's most exciting player. That's because, towards the end, Griffin gets to perform with the man who is quite clearly his comedy inspiration, Will Ferrell.

The NBA is lacking for stories right now. To help fill the void, BDL's Eric Freeman is watching and analyzing each performance by Los Angeles Lakers forward Metta World Peace (neé Ron Artest) on the ABC hit "Dancing with the Stars." He had never watched a single episode of the series before this season.

"Dancing with the Stars" has no idea what to do with Metta World Peace. For one thing, they won't even call him by his real name, instead opting for "Ron Artest" in the hope that he'll provide some sort of name recognition for sports fans who don't usually watch a dancing competition geared towards middle-aged and elderly women.

This tactic completely misunderstands the appeal of MWP -- he's less a man's man than a giant goofball who has overcome a history of violent outbursts to become a happier person without sacrificing the best aspects of his personality. He's a success story and a curiosity at once, not a symbol of pure masculine swagger. If Artest sticks around for a while, the show's producers will need to understand why he's fascinating if they want to turn his presence into the spectacle it deserves to be.

Analysis of the routine, its connection to basketball, and the judges' scores follows after the jump.

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Four weeks ago, we brought you the news of Kevin Durant's first starring role in a movie. No details had been released, though; so far all we know is that it was the story of a kindly young man who teams up with a troupe of boy scouts to rid a small town of ornery gang members by using the healing power of basketball. It's a great idea that is entirely original. (Also, I cribbed it from the episode of "Walker Texas Ranger" I am watching this very minute.)

Luckily, we now know the general plot of the film, now named "Switch" (not to be confused with the 1991 Jimmy Smits/Ellen Barkin classic) and it sounds thrilling. From a casting notice (via EOB):

Synopsis: In a magical twist, Kevin Durant switches all of his basketball-playing skills with an enthusiastic young fan who becomes the star of his high school team…and leaving Durant and the Thunder helpless. With the playoffs approaching, they need to discover what it is that brought them together before the early end to the Thunder's season.

Start engraving the Oscars now, Hollywood. With John Whitesell ("Big Momma's House 2") directing, this flick is going to be a huge hit. I just hope Fandango doesn't crash from the demand.