Here’s a quick list of the worst things an athlete can do with his money during or after his professional career:

1. Fund an energy drink business
2. Make a mobile gaming app

“Get divorced because you can’t stop sleeping with strippers” is a solid number three. Anyway, free agent point guard Baron Davis tore is MCL and ACL in a Knicks game back in May, so he’s used a chunk of that 12-month recovery time to spearhead Getting Buckets, a … ugh, mobile gaming app that features basketball players doing basketball things, but nobody actually playing basketball. Not too late to make Getting Buckets an energy drink, Baron.

Getting Buckets is first gaming app from 5 Balloons Interactive, a collaboration between NBA basketball player and businessman Baron Davis and 15 year interactive entertainment producer, Sean O’Brien, which includes Baron, Steve Nash, Rajon Rondo, Brandon Jennings and Candace Parker. It is a 3D endless runner like you have never seen before routed in the sport and culture of basketball.

Because it’s routed in the sport and culture of basketball, Getting Buckets lets your character be a basketball player and hold a basketball while running down a city street, doing power slides under construction barriers, jumping over cars and collecting orange cans with ‘No Fear’ eyes on them forever for no reason. I thought they were cheeseburgers at first. Can I just put on a headband and play the race states in Battletoads instead?

I don’t write for Gamma Squad and have no real qualifications to talk about video games beyond “I’ve played a lot of them because I haven’t ever been cool”, but man, when did everything start looking like a shitty thing to do between rolls in Mario Party? Getting Buckets doesn’t need a junction system or class upgrades or whatever, but it’s 2012, guys. Our phones can do so much more than “Mario sliding down an incline and jumping to get coins, but non-stop until you put it down”.

And for the record, my favorite endless-runner is Wind Waker.

[h/t Sportress Of Blogitude]

I’m a big sucker for fan art – well, appropriate fan art – and that’s why I’ve been pounding my desk all morning over the news that the world’s biggest patent troll is going after Etsy’s new $40 million investment. But while soulless thieves are going after the sources of the Internet’s showcases for art and inspiration, they’ll thankfully never be able to crush the actual artists. At least not yet. I’m sure they’ll find a way eventually.

My Internet Artist of the Day of the Week goes to the guys at Double Scribble, a Tumblr site devoted to NBA fan art.

Double Scribble is the lovechild of basketball and art; two of Nick Kastner and Mike McGrath’s favorite things in the world. From the coldest, murkiest depths of Cleveland, OH (and now to some extent, some obscure part of North Carolina) Nick and Mike have forged a blog out of blood, sweat and tears in their unwavering vision to provide you, the viewer, with a never ending source of basketball related art.

And it’s pretty awesome. I’ve been shuffling back and forth through its archives since a friend emailed the link last week and there is just a ton of great artwork on this site that has really inspired me to consider re-launching my web comic series, “The Erotic Adventures of a Sports Blogger.” Spoiler alert: it’s sad and gross.

After the jump, I’ve included many of my favorite efforts of Double Scribble’s authors, but I encourage you to check out the submissions that they’ve posted from other artists as well. It’s a highly recommended worm hole to limit your productivity today.

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Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal examined the NBA lockout from the “well, what the hell are they gonna do without jobs and money?” perspective, and I was pretty excited because I don’t think enough media outlets are asking that important question. A lot of the players don’t have the money to keep living in the manner which they’ve grown accustomed to, and too many of them don’t have the educational background to shift gears and find another job. And it’s not like any of them can make the jump to commentating.

So what are the league’s popular personalities up to? Well, Michael Beasley has been practicing ballet as his teammate Kevin Love has been playing beach volleyball. We already know that Delonte West is working at a furniture store – and how that hasn’t translated to a reality show is baffling me – while journeyman letdown Drew Gooden is purchasing multiple Wingstop franchises. Wingstop boasts that is has “taken chicken wings to a whole new level,” which I assume means that you eat them out of a woman’s cleavage, because otherwise a chicken wing is a chicken wing. But I digress.

The story focused on Cleveland Cavaliers eventual tradee Baron Davis, who says that us average American males are embarrassing him, because we just don’t know how to dress, and he’s telling us that in his new documentary film, American Schlub. Finally, someone other than my mom wants to lay my outfit out.

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Well it’s official. As of 12:01 AM ET, the NBA is locked out. We knew it was coming so there was no shocking revelation, but it’s still a pretty empty feeling for fans when they realize that their favorite athletes aren’t going to be suiting up anytime soon. Especially NBA players since this lockout just looks so damn bad. Take the above image, for example. That was NBA.com at 12:02 last night, a clear sign to fans and players that the league means only business. Of course the site is almost back to a normal template, as opposed to “Baby’s First Blog”, but at the very least it was a brief message to everybody to get comfortable, because this thing isn’t going anywhere.

I woke up to an email from the Orlando Magic this morning, thanking me for being a season ticket holder and assuring me that they’re doing everything within their power to end this lockout soon. As I read it, all I could picture was Gilbert Arenas planking on a gigantic pile of money and Dwight Howard doing backflips off of jet skis. And, of course, the Magic charged me for my tickets today, so that was a good feeling. But as a fan of the game, this just sucks. For some reason I’m bothered by this lockout considerably more than the NFL lockout, and I think that it’s because I know that the NFL will get its sh*t together very soon and start operating business as usual. The NBA, though, is in some deep, deep crap. Like I wrote yesterday, the players and owners are $7 billion apart on a new CBA. Does anyone really think that Players Association President Derek Fisher and the NBAPA are going to roll over and give up the anchor-esque mid-level and max contracts that got us to where we are today? Hell no. So buckle up, friends. This thing is gonna get nasty.

In the meantime, as I love to do, I perused the Twitterverse to check up on some of the NBA’s bigger names and… well, there wasn’t as much chatter as I expected. But I pulled some of the better responses to the lockout from last night and this morning in case you missed it.

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This video popped up in a few places late yesterday, but it was on a media player the size of a postage stamp.  Now you can actually see NBA point guards Steve Nash and Baron Davis in a trailer that's a spoof of Step Brothers that doesn't really spoof Step Brothers at all.  It's just Baron and Nash wearing ugly clothes and doing silly things — which is entertaining and rare enough in its own right. I mean, do you think LeBron Jame would wear a Cosby sweater and ride a tandem bike? 

Well, yes.  He would.  But only if it was while shooting Nike commercial that he was getting a million dollars for.  I think the trailer here is slightly less corporate.

St. Andrew's Net is With Leather's daily link dump. Pets get linked dumps when they eat tinsel during the holidays. Incidentally, that makes a good ornament for an adversary's home.

• SportsbyBrooks introduces the blogosphere to the 3BA, which is basketball for people who hate basketball. Kind of like how Tailor James is a woman for guys who hate women they can actually get with.
• In the world of freak baseball injuries, a foul pop-up takes out a fan's nose on Busted Coverage and Geoff Jenkins gets a shoulder full of broken bat on The Fightins'. Those are the sort of thing that makes a weekend of shut-in masturbation seem sensible.
• Machochip likens a new Adidas logo to that of the German SS. Asked for comments, former Nazis in Argentina said, "Shhhhh! Stop blowing our cover!"
• Barstool Sports presents Baron Davis and Steve Nash on a tandem bike. Because sitting on a seesaw while eating ice cream cones would've been too kitschy. 
• Chris Cooley's wife shows her beau support in classic T-shirt fashion on D.C. Sports Bog. Even though hot pants would have been more appropriate. 

Send your submissions for Saint Andrew's Net to withleather@gmail.com.