It is officially Thanksgiving, and there is lots to be thankful for. However, during the down times, one of the escapes we look to, the NBA, is currently not on. Unfortunately, it may not be on until February, if at all this season.
Personally, I believe if an agreement is not made by the middle of the January, perhaps the entire season should be lost. At that point, the most games you would get would be 40/team, and millions in revenue and ads would already be lost. Plus there would be much more risk for injury due to lack of conditioning and being around your teammates. Look how many injuries have occurred in the NFL this year due to their lockout. They only lost 1 preseason game, but they lost out on the proper conditioning and coaching that keeps players in better shape. Plus this is professional basketball. Many players are already talking about going overseas to play ball. The NBA is in trouble indeed.
It is definitely a sad state of affairs. The NBA is at a peak moment of excitement, unseen since the 90s when Michael Jordan's Bulls dominated the decade. Since then, the Western Conference with Kobe Bryant's Lakers, The Dallas Mavs, Spurs, have been on the forefront. The past few seasons, teams such as the Celtics, Heat, Bulls, Magic, and even the Miami Heat with LeBron James and Dwayne Wade, have made the league balanced and much more exciting. Now we may miss out on that because of greed. Greed, plain and simple, by owners and players alike.
David Stern has performed an admirable job of building the NBA's image into a clean, competitive one. But now he may have to build from scratch. For those reading this that don't fully understand the lockout, here it is in a nutshell. It is the millionaires (players) versus the billionaires ( owners) . Thus far, both sides are greedy and can't reach middle ground on an equal share of team revenue. Something will have to give. But when?
Chris Rock made a joke in the 90s about being rich and being wealthy. Shaq, Kobe, and those are rich. But those billionaire owners such as Mark Cuban of the defending champion Dallas Mavericks are wealthy billionaires. And they write the lucrative checks to these pro players.
What both sides fail to realize is that even more money is being lost by continuing to postpone games. We're approaching the time where the much anticipated Christmas Day matchups are coming, and the All-Star game in February. The Christmas matchups obviously will not occur unless an agreement is met soon, and the All-Star game could be as late as April, just like in 1998-99, also a lockout season.
Now I will still watch the NBA, play fantasy basketball and be a fan even with a reduced schedule. But I honestly look forward to 2012, when the NBA starts slowly returning to the fine, exciting league it once was.
Happy Thanksgiving and I'm thankful for all that read my posts!
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