NBA Lockout: NBA Stars Need to Take Lead Role in Labor Negotiations

Why aren't NBA stars more involved in the recent labor negotiations?

This is a question that I find myself asking on a consistent basis, and I've yet to find a satisfying answer.

While I do understand that certain big-name players have offseason commitments that prevents them from attending every bargaining session to date, the sporadic and sparse attendance among the league's most recognizable names is a downright disturbing trend.

While Monday's marathon meeting was ongoing between the owners and the NBPA, Steve Nash set Twitter ablaze with his insightful comments that were articulated with careful clarity.

Perhaps his most illustrative remark was the one that was the easiest to interpret for anybody reading.

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The players are negotiating to take less money & let's be clear that's not going to lower ticket prices, it just lines the owners pockets

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Right on.

This is the type of message that should have been verbalized and vocalized by a number of prominent players, not just one.

Rather than tweets of "Let Us Play" and an attempt to mount a hash-tag rally for an 11th hour PR campaign, it would be much more effective to be both seen and heard by the owners currently locking them out of work.

It's not just about the stars showing up and sitting in. It's so much more than that.

We know that the players want to play. That's the message that they have made clear.

What hasn't been clear to most casual fans throughout the process is their actual position in the negotiating process.

Commissioner David Stern has been called a lot of different things throughout this frustrating ordeal, but nobody is confused about where the owners are coming from.

A master of the media and crafting public perception to fit his guidelines exactly, Stern has been extraordinarily careful in choosing what rhetoric he uses when prompted by media members as to the status of negotiations.

So where have the players been?

Reggie Miller had some interesting comments when discussing the current lockout and drew a comparison back to the 1998-99 lockout for comparative purposes.

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Michael Jordan supposedly had just retired. When we all got there, there was Michael Jordan getting ready to face off with some of the owners and the commissioner and he almost got into a shouting argument with the late, great Abe Pollin.

Jordan was going at Commissioner Stern and Pollin talking about if you keep writing these bad checks to these bad players maybe you need to give up ownership of your team. Michael Jordan was, and still is, the greatest basketball player ever and he was stepping up for the players. I have wished all along that Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony and others would step up.

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NBPA President Derek Fisher is a tactful negotiator, a great leader and is one of the most well-spoken professional athletes I've ever had the pleasure of listening to for an extended period of time.

But if the players are really going to stand united in their effort to play basketball at any point in the foreseeable future, it's time to listen to Mr. Miller.

Demand accountability from the owners signing off on these bloated deals, point out the fact that a new Collective Bargaining Agreement is essentially needed because the owners have to protect themselves from their own idiocy, and tell the people the players' side of the story.

It's a version that's long gone untold, but one that needs to be heard in order to achieve real progress between both sides.

Take the argument to where it will be heard with its most clarity.

Directly to the billionaires clamoring for fatter wallets.