NBA Lockout: The Bright Side If NBA Players Actually Started Their Own League

Former players union director Billy Hunter, bless his little heart, recently floated the idea that if the lockout results in a cancelled season, the players could explore the possibility of starting a new league by themselves.

We have two words for this in basketball; it's called an air ball.

The very idea that a gaggle of athletes with no business training could build an independent league from the ground up—let alone run it smoothly—is beyond laughable. As if their incidental exposure to the business side of basketball qualifies them to organize and mobilize the incalculable resources to make that happen.

It also displays the players' disrespect and ignorance of their lockout adversaries' jobs. Apparently, running an NBA team requires no specific skill; just put on a game, print some tickets, open some concession stands and boom, money happens. The people currently in charge went to college essentially for the mixers.

Plus, the players have been in the boardroom, so surely they're ready for the realities of contract negotiations. After all, who knows better than the players, what transigent chaps the players can be.

Among other apparently moot points; planning, marketing, merchandising, syndication, logistics, scouting, scheduling, politics and a raw investment of vast amounts of time and money. These things will just take care of themselves.

But Logic, you're no doubt saying, don't you realize they can simply pay people to run the league for them?

Yes the players certainly could pool their variously sized wallets, simply grease a multi-billion-dollar machine with money and watch it run itself. The genius of it is, nobody has ever been brilliant enough to do that in a field they know nothing about.

What's that, conveniently-timed imaginary voice? They have? So, it worked out well then...

Hello? Oh, right... it generally didn't.

See, it's one thing to finance and oversee, it's quite another to set something in motion and forget it. Plus, being basketball players and unlikely to become full-time owners, they'll be entrenched in the workings of their league beyond trickling down dollars from a front office. It behooves them not to just drift with their surroundings off the court.

Setting aside the idiotic glibness of this would be plan, let's assume for a moment that it did become a reality—without running into the ground after five months. What would this XBA mean for us basketball fans, and for the sport in general?

As far as the fans are concerned, some of us are avowed purists, but most of the younger fanbase is made up of people trained by pop culture to be fickle and go for whatever is flashy.

And if there's one thing a league owned by these players is guaranteed to be, it's flashy. So one suspects that the YouTube generation would be just fine with whatever final product was put in front of them. Purists and nostalgics need not apply.

Plus, call me crazy, but I have a feeling this hypothetical players league would have far fewer teams in it, if they expect to put on the stellar show they probably envision. So, goodbye small markets, you won't be missed.

If they envision killing the NBA via attrition and inheriting their undivided fanbase, many fans would surely have other ideas. Some would convert to college ball full-time, while others might turn from the televised game completely.

It does seem fans would be left out in the cold either way; their only option for pro-level ball either a strange-looking, slapped-together NBA-surrogate moored in commercialism rather than tradition, or a potentially talent-starved NBA.

So what's the bright side? Actually, depending on how much of a purist you are, you may be thrilled to realize something. Personally, I would root for a players' league if it meant no more Miami Heat to threaten the books.

LeBron, Wade, and whatever third wheel they pick after the dispersal draft, will then be free to steamroll this new league at will and write their own record books. This will thus leave the NBA's distinguished history books untouched by the mega-team era, which just isn't predicated on the same competitive principles.

As it stands now, the Heat are on their way to multiple championships and untold amounts of additional records and accolades along the way, which promises to bump many far more praiseworthy names out of the books.

Eventually, between Miami and any other multi-headed super-beasts that emerge in the future, the one-time heroics that made the NBA such a storied league could make way for the inflated output of teams specifically built to avoid the level of competition the current standards faced.

The result? Historic achievements with no meaning or gravitas whatsoever. Imagine, if they decided to remake Mount Rushmore in the likenesses of Reagan, Clinton, George W. and Lady Gaga.

This new league could develop its own history, within its own context, away from the greats we know and respect. Teams would be free to score 140 points nightly, go on 50-game win streaks and go 80-2, without denying the NBA's heroes their spot atop the books.

If we can suspend disbelief long enough to entertain the thought of the players taking over the business of pro ball entirely, the possibilities range from a mild—if clumsy success—to a cataclysmic failure that could permanently stick a fork in the public's interest in pro hoops. Your guess is as good as mine.

Having indulged this adorable Hunter pipe dream, allow me to reiterate that nobody in their right mind would think it was possible. But, I should also mention my number one reason for disliking the Heat is the threat they pose to the records of players I consider more worthy of holding them.

So this hypothetical players league, and subsequently the probable death of the NBA, has a very bright silver lining for some people; it preserves NBA lore.