NBA Lockout: 5 Potential Consequences

At midnight on July 1st the NBA owners will initiate a lockout.  The season only ended a few weeks ago and next season is still months away.  The fans seem unconcerned. 

After all, we are currently enduring an NFL lockout.  Why worry when there seems to be so much time to work it out?  Prevailing thought is, however, that this will be an extended and bitter battle. 

The NBA owners claim that profits are down (or losses are up).  The players don't want to lose any of the ground (by ground I mean money) they have gained.  Both sides are digging in already. 

Once again the owners are on one side and the players are on another.  It's the fans in the crossfire who will be the biggest losers. 

Here are five potential consequences that a prolonged NBA holdout could have.

Hype vs. Reality

The NBA is driven by it's stars.  Today those stars are multimedia monoliths.  They act, they advertise, they are walking fashion shows, and tweet machines.  Urban popular culture revolves around what they eat, drink, say, do, and wear.  Each is his own cult of personality.

The reality is that many of todays NBA fans are no longer fans of the Heat, Magic, or Clippers but fans of King James, D-Wade, Superman (Dwight Howard), or Blake Griffin (yet to be nicknamed). 

It has come to the point that individual player's free agency choices even have their own nicknames.  LeBron James: "The Decision".

But what is left when these stars aren't seen on the court?  Do we really care what they eat, drink, say, do, and wear if they aren't on television displaying their world class athletic talents (and wearing the newest shoes that we must have)?  The stars will be missed more than the product.

Mass Exodus

The established NBA stars can probably afford to wait this negotiation out.  But those players don't make up the majority of the NBA.

So what do all the non-stars do?  Many of them will keep right on playing basketball.  They just won't do it in the U.S.  Josh Childress left the NBA a few years ago because he didn't like what he was being offered by the Atlanta Hawks (his NBA team).  Now imagine that there is no NBA.

It isn't just NBA players who can't afford to miss an entire season of pay though.  It's also the players coming out of college who have no NBA to play in.  If they don't see a light at the end of the tunnel European basketball is going to get inordinate influx of talent.

No NBA=More NHL

This past season the Stanley Cup playoffs exceeded the television rankings of the NBA playoffs in several major U.S. markets. 

Hockey certainly doesn't have the proliferation that basketball does in the U.S.  What it does have is an entertaining product, good officiating, and compelling match-ups.  Oh, and games that will be played.

Hockey won't pass basketball in national popularity but it will attract many new fans.  More frightening still (for the NBA) would be a better television deal for the NHL.

An NBA lockout might just scare the NHL owners and players enough to bring a swift resolution to their own looming CBA situation in the 2012-2013 season.

Overwhelming Apathy

If baseball's hallowed records are threatened by impropriety, Senators question the suspected athletes.  If the BCS is deemed unsatisfactory by the masses, Congressmen challenge and threaten.

A prolonged NBA lockout will result in a collective yawn.

Diehard fans will miss the games.  Fans will miss the stars.  Casual fans will turn to another sport.  And Congress will return to governance.

What won't happen?  People religiously checking their bleacherreport.com (or other news source) every morning hoping to find out that the lockout is over.

BRICK!

If you thought the Nets vs. Pistons or Rockets vs. Jazz were torturous to watch last season wait until you see the games following the lockout.

Fitness and skill will be an issue.  Whether the lockout lasts 20 games or a full season, the level of play when the NBA returns will not be pretty.  We can only hope that this doesn't also bring on a rash of pulled hamstrings and twisted ankles.

Mid-range jumpers, fundamentals and teamwork are already endangered species in the NBA.  An NBA lockout may push them to the brink of extinction.