5 Reasons Why the NBA Lockout Is Stupid

I love the NBA. It's a great league to watch, and a great league to bet on. NBA games are fun to go to as well. Despite all the happy feelings though, I am incredibly frustrated with the league and their total and utter stupidity. This lockout is beyond ridiculous and they seem determined to drag it on forever.

It's exhausting.

There are all sorts of reasons why this is the most ridiculous labor struggle we have seen in sports—and that's really saying something. Here are five of the more significant ones.

No One Really Cares

When there was the prospect of a lost NFL season hanging over our heads it was as if the world was spinning in the wrong direction. The entire country seemed deflated—and I don't even think I'm exaggerating. The NFL is king, and it really matters. The NBA doesn't really matter to the same extent.

I haven't talked to anyone who really believes that the season will start on time—and few people think that there will be a season at all. There is no real sense of panic or hand-wringing over that—at least not outside of the hardcore NBA fans.

Sports fans didn't know what they were going to do if the NFL season was interrupted. I get the real sense that the average sports fan has already moved on from the NBA. They will have football, the baseball playoffs and hockey to get them through the fall and early winter; then college basketball and hockey in the spring.

The NBA will be missed, but not to a huge extent.

Any league that would decide that they should take a full year off when they are in a reasonably tenuous fan position is ridiculous. You could argue that the NHL did the same thing and got away with it, but they have only really recovered in hockey markets, and they did it at a time when people weren't nearly as tired of labor issues as they are now.

Neither Side Is Sympathetic

In the NFL most could be sympathetic to one side or the other. You could either feel that the owners deserved a better, more secure return for their massive investments, or you could feel for the players looking to protect their health and maximize their earning potential during the short time they are able to sacrifice their bodies for our enjoyment. The players were also—at least on some level—fighting for the players that came before them.

It's much harder to find something to be sympathetic about in this lockout. The players basically want to keep living the high life that they have been living, and the owners want to make much more money—though they have a hard time proving that they are losing as much as they say they are.

It's Not a Typical Business

The owners try to make us feel sorry for them because they aren't making enough money. They really aren't successful at convincing us, however.

If a real business needs a new building, executives have to figure out how to pay for it—not wait for the government to pay for it. Most real-world businesses, unlike the NBA, don't have millions of loyal fans who will faithfully support the business pretty much regardless of how overpriced things are or how underwhelming their performance is. If a real business was performing as badly financially as the owners claim they are, the values of the businesses would be horrible.

That's certainly not the case here—as the sale price of marginal teams like Detroit and Sacramento recently have shown. The fact of the matter is that owning an NBA team is far more about ego than investment, so the argument that we should care how well they are doing financially just doesn't hold any water.

No one is forcing anyone to buy an NBA team, and every time one sells there is no shortage of people willing to step up and buy one.

The Players Have Options

Part of what made the NFL lockout powerful for the owners was that they were the only game in town. If players want to play football, they need the NFL—unless they want to play for spare change in the CFL or AFL.

NBA stars have shown that they don't need the NBA nearly as much. Many have foreign deals already lined up, and more are sure to follow as time passes. They can make big money playing abroad, and they can sell more of their shoes and expand their brands at the same time.

There won't be nearly the desperation from the players, and they don't feel a lot of incentive to give up what they already have, so leverage—a key factor in a lockout—is in short supply.

We've Been Here Before

The one good thing about the NFL lockout was that it really felt like if they got things taken care of this time they would be tying up a long-term deal. It also felt like it was okay to be doing this overhaul because it had been a while.

The NBA has been through these labor issues, lockouts and cancelled games before, and it doesn't feel like they learned anything. They have a salary cap that is essentially meaningless, the league is no better established than they were last time around and the arguments and complaints from both sides seem eerily similar.

This is a sequel of a movie that no one liked the first time around.