NBA Lockout: David Stern and Derek Fisher Give Hope for a Season

With the NBA in the depths of its second lockout during David Stern's tenure as commissioner, there are many questions about when it will end and what effects it would have on the league.

In the beginning of this lockout, optimism from anybody but the commissioner himself was definitely rare. 

That's due mostly to the results of the lockout back in 1998 and the major differences in opinion that the players and the league have had over the new collective bargaining agreement.

Back in 1998, Stern made the owners look good as the players union was rampant with disagreements and the players themselves were having trouble without a steady paycheck coming in.

Stern and the owners didn't want to miss any games in the season (as that would obviously lose them money), but they did what they had to to get the deal they wanted.

A series of missteps by NBPA President Patrick Ewing and his words, “Sure, we make a lot of money, but we spend a lot, too,” made the public view the players as just as greedy as the owners, making them indifferent to the lockout.

This led to the downturn in attendance and ratings once the lockout ended.

Basically what happened to end the lockout was Stern set a deadline of January 7 to make a deal.

The players came around January 6 to make a deal and Stern was instantly relieved that he didn't have to completely cancel the season.

At the time, it seemed that Stern was the victor of the negotiations.

But neither side wants that now and that is starting to get obvious. As the NBA started their lockout, the public was in full swing relief mode as the NFL was starting to end theirs.

That allowed Stern to talk tough for the past two months to assert his dominance, showing the players that he was prepared to battle.

As the public is getting into the football season, Stern and the NBA have seen the lockout start to take center stage and have heard the public complaints and the pundit's jeers.

People don't want a long lockout, obviously, and neither do the owners or players, so meetings have started to take a foothold.

Now that Derek Fisher is the NBPA President, and because he was around the last time there was a lockout (he was one of the little people in the league, making just over double the minimum salary in the year the league was locked out), the players seem to have solid leadership.

Fisher may very well come out to be the savior of this season because he is one of the most down-to-earth and realistic men in the league.

He knows what it's like to be one of the fringe players in the league and he knows what it's like to reel in that big paycheck.

In his years in the league, he has seen Michael Jordan come and go twice.  He saw the popularity of the sport rise to become the sport that has the biggest effect on culture.

He saw players like Antoine Walker and Allen Iverson run out of money before they ran out of talent.

Basically, he's been around long enough to not only know the problems and strengths of the league, but also the ins and outs.

Plus, the NBPA still has Billy Hunter as the Executive Director of the Players Association. He was just two years into his tenure with the NBPA the first time he went through a lockout.

Hunter went head-to-head with Stern once before and seeing each other again at the bargaining table should speed things up.

They each know how the other operates and they both know what it's like to lose part of a season.

The owners and players met once before the end of August and at that point it seemed like the owners gave an offer of everything they wanted, from which the players just stormed away.

The players and owners laid low for a while, careful to make it known that they were upset, but not saying things to put the public against them.

They finally met again with the owners last week in a series of meetings.

Meetings were held for lengthy periods of time as both the heads of the NBPA and the commissioner and his advisers had a sense of urgency.

Now players and owners are planning a meeting for next Tuesday where they will meet in bigger groups to decide whether a deal will be discussed more in depth or if talks continue to center around demands.

I think Stern has realized that he doesn't want to go down as the guy who made the league miss games twice because of a lockout and may be a bit softer than he was back in 1998.

I'm not sure if I yet believe that the two are ready to make a deal and get the season going on time. 

I still think that the NBA misses a handful of games but the idea of losing the entire season, which has been a popular assessment, doesn't seem likely.