Austin Daye of the Pistons Is Worried About NBA Lockout: 4 Reasons He Should Be

Recently I was reading an article in a local Detroit paper about how Detroit Pistons forward Austin Daye was worried about the NBA lockout.

First, I was struck by how refreshing it was to read intelligent words associated with Daye. Daye has largely been a disappointment thus far in Detroit, mainly because of his immaturity on and off the court.

But the second thing that struck me about Daye and other player's comments over the past week has been just how naive they appear to be. NBA players are under the assumption that they have bargaining power. They see the NFL lockout, and they know that the fans are behind the players. They really think that they will come out okay after all is said and done.

But if you really look at this NBA lockout, it is clear that the owners have all the power, and it will likely be a long and difficult road ahead for the players.

This thing is going to get ugly, and the players are going to lose this battle. Here are a few reasons why the players are not nearly worried enough about this ordeal.

The NBA Is Not the NFL

The NFL lockout is mercifully going to end soon. It has to. There is just too much money involved and the fans are really starting to get upset.

NFL fans are almost 100 percent behind the players. They view them as underpaid gladiators that are going to live out their post-career lives as brainless, punched-out shells of their former selves.

The NFL players have non-guaranteed contracts, yet play the most physically dangerous of the four major sports. And every year there is yet another tragic tale of a retired player dealing with the side effects of their brutal career.

But the NBA is not viewed the same way as the NFL by fans. The public is not going to side with the players.

For better or worse, NBA players are viewed as a combination of Ron Artest and LeBron James. They are perceived as whining, lazy thugs that care little about the history of the sport or the fans and just want to get paid.

They are seen as incredibly overpaid and each year there is yet another story of a former player that earned millions of dollars that is now broke due to their extravagant lifestyle.

When the public is dealing with 9.1 percent unemployment rate, they do not want to hear about someone blowing $80 million playing a game.

And while the public missed the NFL immediately, they likely won't miss the NBA until after March Madness. So without the public outcry, the players have very little leverage.

The Proposed Changes Make Sense

Fitting with the public relations aspect of things, the plans that the owners have for the league are really quite appropriate.

The owners want a hard salary cap, much lower and shorter salaries, and depending on who you talk to, a franchise tag.

Let's start with the franchise tag. What was the most controversial thing to happen with the league this year? Without a doubt, it was LeBron James' "Decision 2010". In one fell swoop, James turned himself into a pariah by publicly shunning an entire state that was already reeling from the economy and declared that he would be "taking [his] talents to South Beach". Those six words will hang over his head like "Mission Accomplished" did with the junior Bush and "I did not have sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky" did with Bill Clinton.

The perceived problem that the NBA has that was amplified by James and his spectacle was the idea that teams have no way of holding onto their talent. All of the other sports have ways to keep their players for a longer time. This gives teams a chance to truly develop their talent and collect the fruit of their investments.

With a franchise tag, a team can truly build around a player and keep that player properly compensated.

The only problem with this franchise tag in basketball is the fact that it is too easy for a player to quit on his team. In football, a player can fake an injury, but pride usually takes over. Once they are in the game, they have to play hard or they will get physically hurt.

In basketball, we have seen countless players "dogging it" without real physical danger.

As a result, this could be an issue that is dropped by the owners.

The second proposed change has to do with salaries. NBA salaries are arguably the most bloated of all of sports. They are long albatrosses that hang around a franchise's neck, effectively dooming a team if they make a bad decision.

Sure, the owners only have themselves to blame for this, but they need to fix this in order to remain a solvent league. Reportedly, upwards of 20 teams lost money last year, and that really shouldn't happen in a sport like basketball.

Smaller and shorter salaries will give teams more flexibility and will keep players hungry. How many times have we seen a player get paid and then promptly become strictly a perimeter player that completely loses their drive and hunger?

The last proposed change is a hard salary cap. This will make the league more competitive from top to bottom, much like the NFL. Parity doesn't have to be a bad word, especially in markets that are less glorified than Miami.

Right now, the NBA is heading towards baseball's current model where only a handful of teams truly compete each year, and we don't need another sport in that mold.

One of the reasons that the NFL is so successful is because every market thinks they could have a chance from year to year.

The Owners Have All the Leverage

NBA players are rich, but so many of them do not budget their money properly. Is it more so in this sport than others? Maybe, but it is impossible to know for sure.

However, there are definitely more stories involving bankrupt NBA players than there are baseball or football players. So there is probably some truth to that.

The players think they can wait this out. Maybe some can. But most can't.

The owners, however, can. If it is true that more teams lose than make it, an extended lockout makes all the sense in the world.

NBA owners are insured, so they will not lose more money by sitting out a season. Additionally, most of them have other business ventures, and the NBA is more of a status possession. These guys are billionaires, not millionaires, so why wouldn't they pull the plug on a losing investment?

And like I said before, the fans won't be beating up the owners to ramp up the pressure because the public will by and large be unaffected by this lockout until next spring.

So the owners can sit back and wait for the players to scream "uncle", even if it takes 10 years!

What's more, NBA commissioner David Stern is not NFL commish Roger Goodell. Goodell was visibly shaken by the boos during the NFL Draft. Stern laughed at the same type of reception. He could care less, and this will keep him from pressuring the owners to relent.

This leads me to another, more inherent reason for the lockout and a reason for pessimism.

NBA Fans Are Improperly Constructed

Overall, this is going to get ugly, and it really is too bad. I love the NBA, but this isn't the NBA that I grew up with. And the way it has changed is not for the better.

A lot of the problems the league brought upon itself. Stern really is at the center of this since it goes back to the 1980's and a fundamental flaw in his marketing of the league.

Stern saw the success of the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers and decided that that was exclusively because of the stars and not the teams.

He thought that the way to market the league was by showing off the individual stars, not the greatness of the teams they played for.

So he trumpeted Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan vs. Charles Barkley. He opened up the league rules to allow for free-flowing players that hopped from team to team, leaving franchises in shambles.

More so, he changed the rules so that teams like San Antonio and Detroit would be the exception, not the rule, with their concepts of team ball and amazing defense. In his eyes, this would bring in casual fans that yearn for open-court dunks and big-name stars.

As a result of this fundamental marketing flaw, you have a fanbase that only cares about specific players, not teams. And once those players retire, so too the fans.

Take two different fan arcs for example. Say someone is built to love Allen Iverson. They follow Iverson from team to team, never having any type of loyalty to anything or anybody besides Iverson. So when Iverson retires, the fan likely moves on.

This fan's career arc is about 10-15 years.

Now say someone is built to love a team like my beloved Pistons. They root for the team through thick and thin, through each player that is developed and sent packing. They live a long, full life rooting for their team, and most likely, pass that love to their offspring. I have countless friends that are third or fourth-generation Pistons fans.

In all honesty, this fan's career arc is unlimited. It could theoretically last as long as the team does, which could be over 100 years!

So the NBA fans will not be clamoring for the lockout to end because they are constructed incorrectly, and they will more than likely lose interest, regardless of whether or not there are games.

The saddest thing about this whole mess is that it could have been solved years ago with proper management and foresight.

But this lockout will not be over any time soon, and the players had better get ready to make a deal before they lose everything.