While Twitter’s servers remained intact, the response to the dunk (of the year?) was immense. In case you missed it, before we go further, you need to take a look:

But LeBron wasn’t the only basketball player to enjoy Griffin’s assault:

Even the NBA’s Twitter account weighed in on the subject by retweeting the following reactions to Griffin’s dunk:

The NBA Twitter even retweeted LeBron’s post. For some reason, however, when it came time to complain about how people embraced such an athletic feat, Kendrick Perkins lashed at out one person: LeBron James. Not only did Perkins try to put the onus of liking Griffin’s dunk on one person, he also waited about a week after the fact to bitch and moan about LeBron’s tweet.

But once he started complaining, he came through like a champ:

“You don’t see Kobe [Bryant] tweeting,” Perkins told Yahoo! Sports Tuesday. “You don’t see Michael Jordan tweeting.

“If you’re an elite player, plays like that don’t excite you. At the end of the day, the guys who are playing for the right reasons who are trying to win championships are not worrying about one play.

“They also are not tweeting about themselves talking about going down to No. 2. I just feel [James] is always looking for attention and he wants the world to like him.”

Perkins’ reaction is the same as the guy who gets beat up by 10 people, but only blames one person. Memo to the Oklahoma City center: If you don’t want LeBron James tweeting about you getting absolutely destroyed, don’t get absolutely destroyed. Maybe next time, instead of letting Griffin bring the sky down on your head, you’ll foul the heck out of him.

Whatever the case, if you do get dunked on again and Twitter explodes, it would be better if you sucked it up and simply waited for someone else to get smashed instead of complaining about it a week after the fact.

After he kicked the ball, relieving stress, he saw the err of his ways and approached the dazed audience member, apologizing for his mistake. Apologies aside, though, the referees decided to eject Rick from the game for his angry deed. According to one source, Rick later released an apology for his actions stating:

“I want to apologize to our franchise, Mark [Cuban], our fans,” Carlisle said after the game. “The incident where the ball got kicked into the stands — that can’t happen. My intent was not to kick it into the stands, I was trying to kick it to the referee, but I’m not a very good kicker. But, that can’t happen; the officials made the right call on that one. That’s a regrettable situation.”

The 2011 – 2012 NBA season is scheduled to tip-off on Christmas Day, and will feature a 66-game schedule.

The league’s commissioner, David Stern, said:

“We’ve reached a tentative understanding that is subject to a variety of approvals and very complex machinations … but we’re optimistic that that will all come to pass, and that the N.B.A. season will begin on Dec. 25, Christmas Day, with a tripleheader.”

As for the games, it’s likely the league will keep the matchups that were already on the schedule: the Boston Celtics at the Knicks, followed by the Miami Heat at the Dallas Mavericks and the Chicago Bulls at the Los Angeles Lakers.

Below is some of the reaction from NBA fans and players alike:

If you listen to NBA Commissioner David Stern, it’s the players fault. If you listen to the players, it’s the owners’ fault, and while that makes for entertaining arguments, it’s the fans who are actually losing here. Not the owners and not the players. Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop the Stern from throwing the players under the bus:

“The NBA’s terrible offer, and the Players Association’s response”

Which features perhaps the best take on the NBA lockout I’ve read, at least from a perspective of rationality:

These owners aren’t bullies. They’re apathetic. They’re uncaring about the thousands of lives they’re affecting just in their own region in terms of lost income. They’re certainly not concerned with the millions of fans that want NBA basketball back. They’re as greedy as anyone, haggling over ridiculous minor items after the Players Association has given in hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars worth of concessions. They can’t even throw the players a few bones, so to speak, in eliminating those relatively minor items while the players give in. And they’re geniuses in leaving the great unwashed to think, “50/50? Sounds about right.” [Emphasis added]

One wonders why Stern doesn’t address things like what the bold text points out when he’s blaming the players association for everything wrong in the NBA today? Another story for another day, apparently. Needless to say, once the players rejected the latest offer, Twitter blew up with tons of reaction, a lot of it from the players themselves.

The first one nails it perfectly:

So what does this mean going forward? Lost money and European contracts, apparently:

The sad thing is, in relation to professional sports, a quarter of a million dollars is almost chump change. Three cheers for hitting the genetic lottery, right? Perhaps this is bad of me, but one of the things I’m enjoying about the reaction are all the “hey, maybe my favorite player will respond to me on Twitter” tweets, or those “I have no idea about what’s going, but since everyone else is talking about the NBA, I should too,” posts, like so:

Um, Earl, I hate to break it to you, but Rondo has no more of an idea about when the lockout ends than you do. So what are all the players doing now that there won’t be pay-for-play basketball for the foreseeable future? Tweeting, apparently, and they don’t seem really supportive of the owners or Stern, either:

Some players are trying to figure out what to do with all this free time they have now, and it looks like college admissions will be going up around the country:

However, some are aiming a little lower:

Others are just mad their “I’m in the NBA” cache is temporarily not available:

What about Ron Artest? What’s he been up in the face of not being having the NBA? About what you’d expect:

In light of the “no NBA” idea, here’s something positive concerning the sport of basketball:

But I’ll end this laundry list of tweets with some much-needed perspective:

Any thoughts when/if we’ll be seeing the NBA again? Do you even want it to return? Let us know what you think.

Rick Fox speaking to WebProNews at the BlogWorld Expo about his passion for new media was one of these moments. Fox, who is known for his successful NBA, acting, and producing career, told us that he turned to the Internet because he wanted to tell his story.

He is currently working on a Web series called Off Season, which is a comedy based on a basketball player that is struggling to stay out of trouble. Fox told us he tried Hollywood but found that his standards and its standards didn’t match.

“What I realized rather quickly was that the Internet provided me the same opportunity that television provides or the movies provide… it’s a self-distribution model that is there for all of us if we’re passionate enough and persistent enough to bring our story to life,” said Fox.

Even though it’s not always easy to ‘make it big’ online, the opportunities and potential for success are much greater than they are offline. According to Fox, “we are all received online,” whether it is by one person or one million people.

“The thing about the Web is that viral effect that great content can have where, instantly, you can go from one minute sitting in your living room and ranting about something that just bothers you, and you find that 1 million other people out there in the world are bothered by the same thing,” he said.

Fox went on to say that the world’s perception of what entertainment is, isn’t really what people want to see. This is why John Doe is able to create a remix of a song and get more hits than the original song itself.

He believes that the future of the entertainment industry lies in the individuals that create content based on their point of view. For too long, people in high places have tried to dictate what society wants, but the Internet has changed this. Fox told us that the entertainment opportunities online would increase moving forward and that the people who have embraced the space early will go on to tell us who the next generation of entertainers will be.

“Those people that are brave enough to step out and have that persistence of speaking to 1-10 followers one day and [are] now speaking to 10 million people – these are the people that are going to be galvanizing communities and they are gonna curate content… and they’re gonna tell us what we should be focused on, and they’re gonna become the next generation of entertainers,” said Fox.

For 5 years, WebProNews has partnered with BlogWorld and New Media Expo, the world’s first and largest new media conference, in an effort to broadcast how new media can grow your business, brand, and audience. Stay tuned to WebProNews for much more exclusive coverage.

Stern, who indicated both sides “remain very, very apart on all issues,” has been taking something of a beating in the media, with the main point of contention being his preference for representing the owners’ interest and treating the players — and the fans — like they don’t matter. It appears as if Stern’s only concern is making sure his owners don’t lose money.

More from Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski:

Stern hinted that the owners’ proposals to the players might only get worse so they can recoup losses incurred by the cancellation of games. Many players have long expected the league would wait until the players started missing paychecks to see if the union would settle for a less favorable deal.

There’s much, much more from where that came from, but the bottom line is this, especially after you read what various “sources” have offered; that is, the owners — with David Stern at their backs — want the players to capitulate while giving little to nothing in return. From everything that’s being written, we, as fans, may not see NBA basketball for some time.

And the owners are happy with that, especially if they get what they want from the players.

As is the case, whenever something big like the cancellation of regular season games in a professional sport hits the wires, people, including the players, react. Of course, one of the more popular mediums for these reactions is Twitter, and after the announcement, many players took to their Twitter accounts to let the world know how they feel.

These NBA player tweets did not disappoint. Along with the previous “David Stern” Twitter trend, the reaction towards the NBA establishment is not favorable. First, a couple of highlights from the Stern trend. Unfortunately, some Twitter users have no idea how the “greater than” symbol works:

Unless these guys are on Stern’s side, which is possible, I suppose. The players, however, are not. Not at this time, anyway:

If you aren’t aware, Derek Fisher is the president of the National Basketball Players Association, meaning he’s the main representative of NBA players in these discussions. Reaction from the players continues:

Nash’s sentiment towards those who are employed by NBA teams for concessions and other duties has been echoed by many players:

If they weren’t apologizing to the employees who won’t be working, the players were either expressing their disappointment, clarifying misinformation, or simply apologizing to the fans for the cancellation announcement:

Even though the players seem to be united, it won’t make much difference to the owners who feel their basketball franchise should be a guarantee of massive profits, and are willing to sacrifice an entire season to get their way. It also appears as if the NBA players aren’t nearly as organized as the NFL union was, who, at this point, had already filed to decertify their union. As far as the NBA players union goes, besides a letter from a group of agents who mentioned the option of decertification — something they already backed off of — the players haven’t made such a move, one the owners apparently fear.

For those of you looking for an answer concerning the return of the NBA, sorry, you won’t find any here.

As it stands, the signs are pointing more and more to the 2011-12 season not happening anytime soon, regardless of how many times commissioner David Stern approves the release of preseason schedules — was that petty move an intentional slap in the face or simply accidental? — and with that realization, the NBA’s true reason for success, the fans, are getting louder with their backlash, especially now that training camps are not open.

The emptiness of various training camps was captured perfectly by The Basketball Jones blog, and such posts only help feed the growing dissension fans have towards the owners. It’s important to remember the owners are solely responsible for locked doors on NBA facilities, not the players.

Commissioner Stern deserves his share of the blame too, especially now that the only side he seems to care about is the owners’. While this article’s goal is to capture the reaction of NBA fans and players, an article written by Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski gives readers great insight as to where they should lay the blame:

All hell’s going to break loose on Manhattan’s East Side Tuesday, and David Stern has been asking for this agent uprising from the beginning of these labor talks. He’s been asking for the fight of his life, and maybe, the implosion of his sport when this should be a golden time. So, stop the preening, stop the end-zone dance and make those rich guys start to stare at their shoes again. For once, be the commissioner of the NBA, not just the owners. Enough’s enough, bully. [Emphasis added]

Apparently sensing the backlash towards the owners and Stern building, a few players took to Twitter to adeptly stir the pot and continue the fan revolt against the establishment empowering the lockout. One such player who experienced an incredible growth in popularity –Blake Griffin — spearheaded the Twitter responses with the following expertly-timed tweet:

Griffin’s blast was retweeted by Dwyane Wade, which helped spearhead the responses:

Other players joined in as well:

It’s unwise, however, to think the hardline owners who support the lockout, or David Stern for that matter, give one damn about public perception or what the players think. They just care about lining their pockets with as much dough — at the expense of players (you know, the reason the league exists at all?)– as they can.

Unfortunately, it sounds like it’s going to get a lot uglier before we have a resolution. That hasn’t stopped people from issuing common sense responses to the NBA nonsense, like the following:

Too bad the lockout supporters don’t care about the fans, otherwise, these talks would’ve progressed a long time ago.

Thoughts on potentially losing the NBA season? Will the league be able to recover if they shoot themselves in the foot so severely? Let us know what you think.

Recently, we saw that some NFL players like Ray Lewis and Desean Jackson have decided to take their football talents to Iowa to play in Taylor Lautner’s cornfield football league.

And other NFL stars Peyton and Eli Manning have been forced to take their quarterback talents to the mean streets as they fight crime as Football Cops in a blockbuster event brought to you by DirecTV.

What this next batch of stars are being forced to do is a little less exciting than those career options.

Posted on The Blake Griffin YouTube Channel, this video takes the form of an infomercial with stars of both locked-out leagues selling themselves for menial work like swatting flies on the ceiling, filing documents and reaching high-up items for old people.

The video stars Adrian Peterson, Ron Artest (or should we say Metta World Peace), Kevin Love and of course Blake Griffin. We have already seen what Blake Griffin has been doing since the NBA lockout was announced. Shortly after it became official, Blake tweeted a short video of him planking on a flat cart as it moved across the Clipper’s gym floor.

The video, entitled “Lockout Profession” is quite awesome. It’s nice to see that some of the professional athletes involved in these labor disputes have enough of a sense of humor to step back and laugh at themselves. Check it out below –

Besides $1 million fines for retweeting, another extreme can be found at NBA.com. Instead of images of current players, who apparently don’t exist as long as they are locked out, the site is filled with images of retired players from previous eras. Furthermore, team sites have been stripped down as well. A visit to any team site reveals a great deal of cheerleader images, which, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. The surprise, however, is just how far the NBA will to disavow the current crop NBA players. Did they cease to exist? Are they dead to the eyes of NBA owners until a new CBA is reached?

Clearly, that answer is a resounding yes.

Here are some screenshots of just how far the NBA is willing to go in an effort to divide the two sides even further, even if that’s not the intended result. Our first image takes us to the official site of the NBA. Notice the lack of any current players anywhere on this page:’

The same is true even for Dirk Nowitzki, the current king of the NBA, at least in regards to active players:

Click for bigger image

Over at the New York Times, Howard Beck offers some details, although, the NBA spokesperson responsible for the quotes offers little clarification. Thankfully, someone tries to:

“We do not think it is appropriate to be using video and photography of current players at this time,” said Mike Bass, an N.B.A. spokesman.

Gabe Feldman, the director of Tulane University’s sports law program, said there was no compelling legal reason to remove player images. He suggested the decision was “a symbolic move,” implying that the owners would not only shut down the league but would “stop promoting the players, too.”

To further the point made by Feldman, take a quick glance at the NFL’s official site. That league is also in lockout mode, but somehow, images of players are still available on the applicable pages.

Just ask Peyton Manning:

Last night, it was revealed that the stipulations of the NBA lockout means absolutely no contact between teams and players. Any violations of this edict could result in a $1 million fine:

Teams were told by the NBA front office that any violation will draw a $1 million fine and the possible loss of draft picks, league sources told [Ric] Bucher. The first warning was issued during the first round of the playoffs, two months before the lockout was implemented.

While all of that is well and good — in regards to grown men trying to figure out how to amicably split over $4 billion, the phrase “well and good” probably isn’t correct; “greed and arrogance” may be — the kicker, which also comes from Ric Bucher, is these stipulations apply to social media as well, especially Twitter:

That’s a great deal of jack just for reposting a message that consists of 140 characters (or less). In fact, it’s about $7142.86 a character, and that’s only if the 140-character limit was met. With that in mind, I’m surprised they are even allowed to follow players during this period of labor strife. It wouldn’t be the least bit surprising if David Stern, commissioner of the NBA, removed that right altogether, but, as Bucher’s tweet says, Stern is giving these apparently giving these coaches and general managers just enough rope to hang themselves. Someone has to pay for the losses some of the NBA teams are apparently taking.

Bucher’s Twitter has some more details about what is and isn’t allowed during the NBA lockout:

With word about the NFL lockout talks losing ground, there’s a growing chance that, in 2012, the NHL and Major League Baseball will be the only two professional leagues in operation, and that’s just sad.