TNT announced plans Tuesday to open its 2011-12 NBA regular-season broadcast schedule Nov. 1 with a double-header featuring the defending champion Dallas Mavericks playing the Chicago Bulls, and the L.A. Lakers playing the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The network also trumpeted the fact that often-easygoing -- but sometimes not so much -- former NBA big man Shaquille O'Neal will be adding to the delicate chemistry of the popular Charles Barkley, Kenny "The Jet" Smith and Ernie Johnson in the "NBA on TNT" studio in Atlanta.
But don't look for any of it to happen Nov. 1.
Unlike the National Football League, which appears close to bridging what had been all along a fairly narrow collective bargaining chasm between players and owners, the NBA appears nowhere near close to ending its player lockout in time for the start of the regular season.
NBA owners locked out their players July 1, and there have been no negotiations since that time.
The forces of brinksmanship should bring both sides back to the bargaining table right before team training camps are set to open in the fall. But with league owners trying to bring way down the revenue share of the players -- currently at around 57 percent -- there's a lot to figure out.
Could the NBA lose an entire season? Well, the owners are being egged on by their National Hockey League brethren, who are telling them it was financially worth it for them when they drew a hard line with their players and lost the 2004-05 NHL season. (Although, if you look at the hit TV ratings for pro hockey took at that time, you might second-guess that notion.)
Meanwhile, top NBA players are now openly pondering playing overseas.
In any event, the games will be back at some point (won't they?), and Shaq will be in the studio for TNT's pregame, halftime and postgame coverage when they do.
The Emmy-winning "NBA on TNT" has been one of the most successful sports-TV blends of ex-jock banter and analysis over the last decade, with Johnson, Smith and Barkley humorously busting each other's chops as they break down the games.
O'Neal, over a 19-year sure-to-be Hall of Fame playing career, certainly showed a playful, creative side with the media, dishing out quips while thinking up playful nicknames for himself and his peers. In fact, Shaq could, off the cuff, throw out a moniker for a peer one time in a postgame interview, and it would stick for decades -- like when he called Vince Carter "Half Man, Half Amazing" or when he referred to Tim Duncan as "The Big Fundemental."
He also showed a dark side and a tendency to take himself pretty seriously, trashing former teammates and coaches on numerous occasions when he left a team, and sometimes when he was still there.
Casual fans know all about his feud with Lakers star Kobe Bryant when he was in L.A.,
