NBA Lockout: Picking a Halloween Costume for the Major Players

There are three things on my mind right now, folks.  One is the World Series, as the baseball season is winding down and the Cardinals are on top (they'll probably have won by the time I finish this).  The other two are the NBA lockout and Halloween.

For those of you out of the know, Halloween here in my humble little corner of the world is kind of a big deal (not to sound pretentious or anything), as tens of thousands of people crowd just a few blocks of uptown Athens, Ohio in a drunken, jubilant stupor.

The population of the city can literally double overnight.

Naturally, it's a love of mine akin to basketball, and the amount of time I spend obsessing about it when it comes around each year is nearly equal to the amount of time I spend obsessing about basketball (OK, so it's not that close, but I do obsess about it quite a bit).

So, with the NBA lockout ongoing at this point, I've decided to help out the biggest villains in the basketball world right now pick out a Halloween costume so they can head out tomorrow night and celebrate with me if they so please. 

Kevin Garnett

Suggested Costume: Biff Tannen

Kevin Garnett put on his bully hat early on in the lockout talks, much like he's done on the court over the past few years.

Garnett came into the negotiation room (for some reason) and was a distraction from the beginning. He started demanding that Billy Hunter and the Players Association stop making concessions to the owners.

They did, and talks stopped from that point out for the day.

Like Biff, Garnett knew nothing of what he was doing.  His outrageous behavior halted talks and perhaps prolonged the lockout just a bit longer, which in the end is going to be disastrous for the players.

Biff picked on Marty McFly and things ended up terrible for him down the road (he ended up washing cars for a living).

Garnett just needed to make like a tree and get out of here.

Blazers Owner Paul Allen

Suggested Costume: Silent Bob

By now, most of you lockout fiends have heard the story of Paul Allen's silent treatment of the Players Association a week ago.

For those of you who haven't, what happened in a nutshell is Allen was the one that told the players at last Thursday's meeting that they would not go any higher than a 50/50 revenue split.

The players saw this as an intimidation tactic, and rather than butting heads with him and walking out they suggested they talk about system issues and move back to the BRI after that was all settled.

Allen stared back in silence.

Throw a wig and a backwards baseball cap on him, throw a pillow under his shirt and you have a Silent Bob.

The Media

Suggested Costume: Baby Birds

There are times when the media is made out to be villains, and sometimes it is legitimate, but right now we should all feel bad for those poor saps sitting in hotel room lobbies, or worse, out on the streets in New York waiting for any bit of news.

They sit around for hours on end, and more recently have had to do so for 10, 12 or 14 hours just to hear that talks have broken up and that the gap between the two sides is still very large.

The media would help if they could, but all they can do is sit there and wait to gobble up every bit of information to digest and send out to the world.

Sure, they have their opinions, but who is going to listen to a baby bird?

George Cohen

Suggested Costume: Lord Monckton

Lord Monckton may or may not be Sacha Baron Cohen's latest creation of a character, and if he isn't then this dude is pretty crazy on his own.  

Basically, he's a guy promenading around pretending to be (or actually is) an expert who goes about issuing ridiculous solutions to problems, trolling (or actually legitimately conversing with) politicians and media in the process.

George Cohen was supposed to be the best thing possible for the progress of the lockout (and maybe he was), and he seemed to help some, but he did nothing compared to the reputation that proceeded him.

He decided to split after a week of meetings with the players and owners, leaving them at each others throats.

Either way, I'm confused.

Derek Fisher

Suggested Costume: William Wallace

From the point of view of the Scottish (the NBPA) William Wallace is a god-like figure ever since the movie Braveheart.

However, the portrayal of William Wallace would be the real life William Wallace for Derek Fisher, not the one that was portrayed in Braveheart.

Wallace was a man who was doing what he thought was right for his people, but in the end he committed many acts that we would consider war crimes today.  Fisher is the leader of the players, and he thinks he is doing right by them, but in the end by not striking a deal early, they may end up being worse off than they were had he accepted a deal a month ago, or even yesterday.

In the end, Wallace was hanged, his genitals were cut off, his intestines were pulled out (he was still alive through all of this) until he was finally beheaded.

However, centuries later he was portrayed as a leader of righteous rebels against tyranny, and in a way, Derek Fisher is, he just didn't take the best steps to get the best deal.

Adam Silver

Suggested Costume: Demonios

For those of you scratching your heads, you aren't alone.  I had to search up and down, high and low for the name of this fellow, but for those of you who watch South Park, you'll know who I'm talking about.

Demonios is basically Satan's assistant in the "My Super Sweet 16" episode of South Park.

For those of you curious, he's the guy at the beginning of this video with the scar across his face.

He works with Satan to get exactly what he want's and he's the one that has to calm Satan down when he gets an Acura cake instead of a Ferarri cake.  Sound a bit like Adam Silver to you?

Billy Hunter

Suggested Costume: Colonel George Taylor

For those of you who don't know, George Taylor was the captain of the ship in Planet of the Apes (the 1968 version played by Charlton Heston).

He was the leader of a small group of people who thought they had stumbled upon a planet ruled by apes, and led the fight to get his crew free and return to Earth.

Little did he and the rest of his crew know, they had absolutely no bargaining power, as they were back on Earth to begin with, only it was now ruled by, "Damned, dirty apes." 

David Stern

Suggested Costume: Jigsaw

Made famous from the Saw series, Jigsaw was the man behind the murder.  He was constantly pushing the people in the movies to their limit, seeing what they would do to survive. 

He was incredibly cerebral and he made it so things would get much worse for his victims (the players) before they would get better.  The longer they waited to perform some horrifying, painful stunt, the worse it got for them.

If they waited too long they would die, and it was no skin off his nose.  If the players wait too long to budge on the BRI split, Stern will kill the season, and it won't bother him or the owners one way or the other, so long as they get what they want.

If you are one of those "twitterers," you can follow me @JDorsey33.