Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel reports (via blog):

If past NBA lockout history is any guidepost to the present, the city of Orlando should know around mid-December whether the 2012 all-star game will be played at Amway Center — or cancelled.

In the last lockout, the league cancelled the Feb. 14 1999 all-star game scheduled in Philadelphia on Dec. 9, 1998.

This year’s game is set a little later — Feb. 26 at the Amway Center in downtown Orlando.

So it could be that if this lockout continues, eating up regular-season games, the league likely will cancel Orlando’s game around Dec. 15.

The NBA salvaged a 50-game season in 1998-99, with games beginning in early February.

Bloomberg News reports:

Tate George, a former player for the National Basketball Association’s New Jersey Nets and Milwaukee Bucks, was charged with running a $2 million Ponzi scheme that targeted ex-professional athletes.

George, 43, raised more than $2 million for his company, The George Group, after telling investors his real-estate development portfolio was worth $500 million, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation complaint accusing him of wire fraud.

“In reality, The George Group had virtually no income generating operations,” U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman in Newark, New Jersey, said in a statement today.

George used the money he raised to pay early investors in his company and to fund living expenses such as mortgage and child-support payments, restaurant meals, clothing and gas, according to the FBI complaint. George faces as long as 20 years in prison for the scheme, which prosecutors said began in 2005.

He surrendered to the FBI today and appeared in federal court in Newark, wearing a light-green suit and handcuffs.

The NBA announced today that player training camps for the 2011-12 season have been postponed indefinitely because a new collective bargaining agreement has not been reached with the National Basketball Players Association. Training camps were scheduled to open on October 3.

In addition, the league canceled all preseason games scheduled from October 9 through October 15.

“We have regretfully reached the point on the calendar where we are not able to open training camps on time and need to cancel the first week of preseason games,” said NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver.  “We will make further decisions as warranted.”

Read NBA fan reaction or share your views in this basketball forum topic.