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Kurt Thomas could end up with Knicks, Bulls, Heat or Mavs

Kurt Thomas knows there is a good chance he could be playing on Christmas Day. He just doesn’t know where.

Thomas, the league’s oldest player at 39, could end up with the Knicks, Bulls, Heat or his hometown Dallas Mavericks.

“That’s the great thing about free agency,” Thomas said Monday. “A lot of things can happen. Teams have to make a decision on players but I also have a say in where I might end up.”

Thomas spent last season with the Chicago Bulls and the club is interested in re-signing the 6-9 forward/center.

— Reported by Frank Isola of the New York Daily News

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NBA amnesty clause will include protective bidding system

An expected windfall for NBA contending teams in search of affordable talent could wind up short-circuited by the league’s soon-to-be-approved collective-bargaining agreement.

The Sun Sentinel confirmed Sunday that instead of players being released under the league’s “amnesty” provision going directly to the open market, a bidding system has been put in place for teams operating below the league’s salary cap to add such players at a deep discount.

“That’s what the clause is in there for,” a party familiar with the impending process Sunday told the Sun Sentinel. “It’s so the Lakers can’t go in and scoop up all the players.”

Under the amnesty program, a team can waive a player in order to remove his salary from its salary cap and luxury tax, while still paying out the balance of that contract. It had been widely assumed that such players then would immediately hit the open market…

However, in an outline of the proposed collective-bargaining agreement obtained by the Sun Sentinel, the NBA instead has instituted “a modified waiver process” that would allow teams operating below the salary cap to “submit competing offers to assume some but not all of the player’s remaining contract…

“Some of it is still not 100-percent worked out,” a party familiar with the impending policy told the Sun Sentinel.

— Reported by Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Center Samuel Dalembert interested in Heat, Knicks, Rockets

The 6-foot-11 Dalembert is a free agent. And the Heat is high on his list for when the free agency signing period is expected to begin Dec. 9 following a five-month lockout.

“That would be fantastic,” Dalembert said in an interview Sunday night from Haiti with FOX Sports Florida about the possibility of joining Miami, which is where more than 50 of his relatives live and is about one hour south of his Boca Raton, Fla., home.

As for the volunteering part, it likely would require a big pay cut for Dalembert to join the Heat, which will be over the salary cap. Dalembert, who made $13.43 million last season for Sacramento, might have to sign for the $5 million mid-level exception…

Dalembert said he’s not going to “put my eggs all in one basket” regarding the Heat. So he also named New York and Houston as teams he will consider in free agency.

“It’s one of my options as well,” Dalembert said of New York, where he spent portions of the offseason working out with Elton Brand, once his teammate in Philadelphia. “It’s a building process. It can be similar to Miami when they get all the pieces together. It’s something that can work and they need a big (man)… (Amare Stoudemire) can go to a comfortable situation (if the Knicks get a quality center and Stoudemire can play less at center and more at his natural position of power forward).”

— Reported by Chris Tomasson of Fox Sports Florida

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Heat may waive Mike Miller

According to league sources, the Heat had planned to waive Miller and had let him know through back channels so he could prepare. This information was not all that secret — teams in need of shooters were already doing background research on Miller and considering bringing him in. Miller had a number of suitors when he was a free agent a year ago, including the Chicago Bulls.

He may not want to take his house off the market just yet, though. With the expected luxury-tax changes, the Heat still may end up waiving Miller with the amnesty clause before next season to allow them to free up enough space to use the mid-level exception again. But considering they will be paying Miller either way, they would much prefer to have him on the roster and see if offseason surgeries to his thumb and shoulder will allow him to return to his form from two years ago, when he was one of the best shooters in the league.

— Reported by Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com

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LeBron, Wade, Melo, CP3 set up 4-game Homecoming Tour

LeBron James, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony are going home — and bringing friends with them.

With no end to the NBA lockout in sight, the All-Star group is set to lead a four-game “Homecoming Tour,” starting with a matchup in James’ hometown of Akron, Ohio on Dec. 1, followed by a Dec. 4 game in New Orleans, a Dec. 7 game in Chicago and culminating with a Dec. 10 contest in East Rutherford, N.J.

James, Paul, Wade and Anthony are committed to play in all four games of the tour, which was announced early Monday. Proceeds from the tour — which will include events such as food drives, educational outreach programs and clinics in each city — will benefit the four headlining players’ charitable foundations, and tour sponsor Google Plus will stream each game live.

“It’ll be very neat,” Wade told The Associated Press. “First of all, this is something we talked about doing a long time ago as players. To have an opportunity to go to these different cities that we’re from, to bring basketball to them at a high level and also have a charitable component in each city and to be with the guys, it’ll be cool. It’s something we’re looking forward to.”

Tickets for the first three games go on sale Tuesday. Tickets for the East Rutherford game will be on sale Wednesday.

— Reported by the Associated Press

James, Wade and Bosh had initially been listed to participate in a world tour of NBA stars, which also was to include Paul and Anthony. That tour was to include stops in Puerto Rico, London, Macau and Australia before it was cancelled.

“It’s not anything that I’ve heard about since then,” Wade said, with the change of plans to a domestic tour. “I was excited about the opportunity to go, obviously to play basketball with some of my friends, some of the best players in the game, to travel to different places and given them kind of what we get over here, the excitement of the game. It’s unfortunate.”

Instead, the passports are off and the domestic games are on.

“You could see, I was there to the end,” Wade said. “I wasn’t going to pull out of it, I was going to keep going and I wanted to play.”

— Reported by Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Dwyane Wade will listen to overseas options, just in case

Dwyane Wade is ready to play basketball. Preferably in Miami.

And if that’s not an option, he’s preparing himself to start looking elsewhere.

Wade said Thursday that he has authorized agent Henry Thomas to listen to any viable offers that may be out there for him to play internationally this season — with the caveat that, until such time as all hope for an NBA season is gone, he won’t be signing any deal with any other club.

“I told my agent to just take a peek,” Wade said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It’s time. There’s a possibility that we’re not going to have a season. We’ve got to see what’s out there, what the possibilities are. I want to play competitive basketball this year. I’ve missed a year of basketball in my life before. I’m not trying to miss another. I don’t have too many years of basketball left.”

— Reported by Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press

Pat Riley anxious to get back to work

In his first expansive comments since the July 1 start of the NBA lockout, Miami Heat President Pat Riley said Friday he is anxious to get back to the business of basketball.

While banned by the league from commenting directly on the lockout, Riley, during a Heat-organized event in commemoration of Veterans Day at United States Southern Command headquarters, spoke of being poised to pick up where his team left off in last season’s NBA Finals.

“(We) have been in the office getting ready to hit the ground running, when we can,” he said after addressing military personnel and their families at the youth basketball clinic. “So, we’re ready to roll when everybody else is.”

The Heat had been scheduled to host the New Jersey Nets on Friday night at AmericanAirlines Arena. The NBA instead remains on indefinite hold, although Commissioner David Stern said Thursday night he is prepared for a Dec. 15 resumption of play and a 72-game schedule if the players accept the league’s latest offer, a proposition that remains very much in doubt.

— Reported by Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

LeBron, Durant set up flag football game

According to a Thursday afternoon post on James’ Twitter feed, the Miami Heat forward will be teaming up with Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant to host a flag football game on Nov. 30.

“Its all set people!” James wrote. “Nov.30th Team @Kingjames vs Team @KDTrey5 in Flag football. Its going down. Can’t wait.”

It’s not known where the game will be held, and it’s also unclear exactly who else will be participating, but you can bet it’ll be a star-studded cast.

The players’ announcement that a game will be played is hardly a surprise, however, as both have been testing out their football chops while the labor crisis gets resolved.

— Reported by Sam Gardner of Fox Sports Florida

Heat forward Mike Miller selling his home

The NBA lockout is real. So is amnesty. And for Mike Miller so is rehab from a pair of offseason surgeries.

So, yes, that is Miller’s Hillsboro Shores estate that recently was placed on the market for $9 million. And no, the Miami Heat forward is not looking to move. Or at least is hoping there is no need.

The veteran forward said Wednesday he is just taking stock of the current situation in both his career and the NBA. And that means taking stock of his 9,968-square-foot estate with the $180,000 in annual property taxes.

“It’s a couple of things,” Miller said. “Just preparing myself; never know what can happen.”

Among the expected provisions in the post-lockout NBA is an amnesty clause that would allow each team to remove one contract from its salary-cap and luxury-tax obligations, with that player still receiving his full salary upon his release.

— Reported by Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Sentencing set in Vegas for Antoine Walker casino debts

Bankrupt former NBA All-Star Antoine Walker is due before a state court judge in Nevada after pleading guilty in June to failing to repay some $750,000 in gambling debts to three Las Vegas casinos.

A prosecutor said the 35-year-old Walker is expected to be sentenced Thursday to probation and promise to repay the debts incurred in 2008 at the Planet Hollywood and Red Rock Casino Resort, and in January 2009 at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip.

— Reported by the Associated Press