LARNED — The music is playing. Don’t get caught without a chair to sit down in when it stops.  
That music is the free agency music that has the NBA’s brightest stars playing the game.
The most notable of those “willing to dance” is LeBron James of the Miami Heat.
He has told the Heat bigwigs that he wants to be a free agent and shop around.
Don’t take that to heart that he won’t be a member of the Heat next year.
This whole game of musical chairs is about money. “You want to dance with me, you’ve gotta pay me!”
Mike Tyson, an unlikely source, is a big LeBron fan.
Iron Mike says LeBron gets criticized for not winning championships, but that it is not his fault.
Says Mike, “The Spurs have done a lot for the history of basketball. They won because they deserved to win, not because of what LeBron didn’t do.”
Gee, maybe the guy is smarter than I gave him credit for!
Toss Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks and Kevin Love of the Minnesota Timberwolves into the musical chair game and it is enough to cause general managers in the NBA to lose their hair.
Don’t be too surprised to see Anthony and James simply trade teams. Anthony to the Heat and James to the Knicks.
Pair Kevin Love with either of them and you are a leg up in this musical chairs game.
Meanwhile, the Spurs will just keep on being ... well ... the Spurs!
Kansas’ Bill Self weighed in on the Spurs and his close friendship with R.C. Buford, the general manager of the NBA champions: “I’m happy for the entire organization. They are ‘first class’ and they play at a level I don’t think we’ve seen very many NBA teams play at. I plan to point out to my KU players how the champs moved the basketball without it sticking to their hands.”
Start the music!
We need to see if some shrewd general manager can slide a chair under enough big stars to put together a team that is good enough to challenge that bunch from San Antonio.
...
Meanwhile, another game of musical chairs goes on in collegiate sports world.
The game of who can spend the most money on new facilities until, finally, some schools says, “we’re out of money!”
Kansas University is removing the running track from around their football field at Memorial Stadium and installing all-new artificial turf.  
Meanwhile, Kansas State announces plans to replace the video boards and sound system inside Bramlage Coliseum to the tune of $2.4 million.
You can say “ditto” on almost every major college campus in the United States.  
Spend and improve or get left behind.
It is a veritable race to see which school can create the Taj  Mahal of college sports facilities.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Big Ten Conference head Jim Delany said the idea of paying players would wreck college sports, end the Rose Bowl and get teams kicked out of the Big Ten Conference.  
He stated that college sports would be “irreparably damaged” in many ways if a century-old tradition is breached by paying college athletes.
 
Of course, many Big Ten programs HAVE paid players to play, they just tried to hide it and not admit it!
If you pay money ON the table instead of UNDER the table, does that make a difference?
SPORTS ... The Toy Department of human life!
 
Charles Tabler is a contributing writer from Larned.