Times are tough if you're a professional basketball player.  How on earth are you supposed to make do with your millions and millions of dollars?  Luckily, a couple of efforts have been made to reach out and educate these players on their impending financial struggles.

• A lockout handbook has been handed out at team meetings and it has the motto 'Hope for the best.  Prepare for the worst.'  What kind of sage advice does this magical book hold?

The NBA guide includes tips on how to handle household expenses such as mortgages and rents; suggestions not to purchase new cars, clothing and jewelry, or travel to gambling destinations such as Las Vegas and Atlantic City, New Jersey; and advice on communicating with wives, children, agents and entourages.

You don't say!  But wait, there's more:

"Clothing and jewelry often have little or no resale value, so if times get tough, you will not be able to liquidate it quickly," the handbook says in the section labeled "Clothing and Jewelry." "Instead of making large purchases in the next year, save the money you were going to spend on clothes and jewelry in a lockout fund to protect yourself and your loved ones."

Common sense in book form!

• Also, in the hopes of throwing down a life lesson by cracking eggs of wisdom to make an omelette of knowledge, the National Basketball Players' Association did the following:

After holding a meeting with the agents of players in which union representatives gave a crash course on the state of labor affairs leading into a Feb. 19 meeting with commissioner David Stern and most of the league’s owners, they held a separate, more exclusive, meeting inside the JW Marriott across from Staples Center with associates of some of the game’s biggest names. The group included brothers, cousins, and friends who double as associates of the players who were handpicked to attend by the players themselves, and at least one prominent agent was left bristling at the idea that these individuals were made part of the process and thereby legitimized as representatives.

...

The group met with NBPA head Billy Hunter and his team for approximately an hour. The following is a list of the attendees, as detailed for NBA Confidential by one of the participants.

1. Kevin Samples, cousin to Orlando’s Dwight Howard

2. Maverick Carter, associate of Miami’s LeBron James

3. C.J. Paul, brother to New Orleans’ Chris Paul (who is an executive vice president of the NBPA)

4. Matt Rosenberg , associate of Chicago’s Joakim Noah

5. Tony Durant, brother to Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant

6. Reggie Rose, brother to Chicago’s Derrick Rose

7. Lorne Clark, associate of the Clippers’ Blake Griffin

The real question is: where is Holger?  He'd be teaching them how to play the saxophone while doing handstands!

With the lockout looking more and more likely, expect the players to have more time to perfect their diving techniques as they prepare to swim in their vaults of money, just like Uncle Scrooge McDuck.

But in all seriousness, I hope a lockout doesn't happen :(

Sourcery

Hot source coming though!