NBA Lockout: Casual Fans Aren't Missing NBA's Galaxy of Stars
The NBA season is supposed to be headed into its third night tonight and all we have to show for it are 16 cancelled games, with three more to be added to that list tonight.
Instead, we got teased by negotiations that seemed to be heading somewhere about a week ago, only to dramatically break down. The players walked out of the talks after the owners brought their proposal for a 50-50 split of basketball-related income back to the table.
The players are digging in for 52 percent but now the palace intrigue has turned inward.
National Basketball Players Association president Derek Fisher is fighting off allegations that he has been secretly dealing with NBA commissioner David Stern and Stern's right-hand man, deputy commissioner Adam Silver. Those rumors accuse Fisher of promising to deliver the league its coveted 50-50 deal.
Fisher sent a letter to the union membership earlier this week denying those claims and participated in a conference call with the union's executive committee Wednesday night.
If Fisher has gone rogue, he's wrong to have done so and there should be consequences. But he's doing it for the right reasons.
The players aren't getting 52 percent. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
The economics of the league and the country in general are vastly different in 2011 than they were when the last deal with reached in 1999.
Perhaps the players were too busy running their offensive sets and going hand-down, man-down on the defensive end to notice how many fans in NBA arenas over the last three seasons were disguised as empty seats.
I'm usually the last guy to be a sympathizer with the owners because the only time these guys ever claim sports is a business is during union negotiations. Owning a professional sports franchise is about as much of a business as a Lamborghini is an "investment." Bull. They're toys designed to make you look cool when you're hanging out with the other rich kids.
So I wouldn't say I'm exactly sympathetic with management this time around, either, but I'm also enough of a pragmatist to know they will end up getting what they want.
Kevin Garnett has been talking tough about the union needing to stand firm. But then again, Garnett (or his representatives) was smart enough to defer some of his recent salary into a rainy-day fund. So while many of his union brethren haven't seen a paycheck since April, Garnett's got a fresh supply of cash rolling in at regular intervals.
It's a lot easier to be Norma Rae when you don't have to worry about missing a mortgage payment. I'm just sayin'.
On the other hand, the owners aren't exactly without culpability in all of this. By refusing to entertain any notion of revenue sharing, the owners are being perceived as wanting their labor force to bear that burden for them.
Oddly enough, this is OK with most fans—you know, those people who are a lot closer to being labor force than they are owner.
If I have learned anything at all from "2011: The Year of the Lockout," it is this: There is a surprisingly large number of fans who love the game...but hate the players.
I don't mean "dislike." I mean a full-blown, foaming-at-the-mouth, rabid hatred. The jealousy over losing the genetics lottery is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
That's another bad sign for NBA players, who mistakenly expended a lot of effort trying to win fan support they were never, ever going to get.
So stop with the disingenuous chants and tweets of "let us play" and just admit—for once—that, yeah, it is all about the money.
I like the NBA, but I've never loved it, so I'm one of those casual fans only peripherally aware that it's not here right now.
The risk for the league—players and owners alike—is that if they're gone too long, those casual fans might not miss them even when they're supposed to, such as when it should be playoff time next spring.
