NBA Lockout Ends: Winners and Losers

Don’t adjust your monitors, folks, you’re reading that headline correctly. The NBA lockout is over!

With the NFL and college football in the latter stages of their seasons, the pressure to get a deal done for the NBA reached its breaking point. That’s how you get a deal done.

Now that the tentative deal is in place, it’s important that we analyze who won in this battle and who came out with the shortest straw.

While there may only be 66 games in the current season, that’s way more than anyone thought we’d get. Let’s get ready for some NBA basketball!

Winner: David Stern

After leading the charge against the Players Union, David Stern threatened the season time after time. A lost season would have been an epic failure.

Not only does David Stern look like the savior of the NBA, he gets to keep his role as dictator of all things he looks upon.

Loser: Billy Hunter

Throughout this process, Players Union director Billy Hunter has looked weak. Unlike DeMaurice Smith in the NFL CBA negotiating who always came off as in control, Billy Hunter has looked like a dog riding shotgun in a car.

The sudden end looks like a surrender from the players, but at least the players get something out of the deal; they can fire Billy Hunter now.

Winners: The Fans

Through the agonizing days and weeks with no hoops to look forward to, the fans stood ready for the moment to jump right back on the NBA bandwagon.

Add the return date of NBA games as Christmas Day and you have the recipe for a sports miracle. The long wait is over for the NBA fans. It’s time to celebrate what should be a wild, shortened offseason.

Losers: NHL

While the NBA was away, the NHL was doing its best to play. While it wasn’t doing much better, the NHL was definitely gaining more viewers in time slots where they regularly are facing off against NBA games.

The lockout catapulted the NHL toward the front of ESPN, and the return of the NBA will relegate it back to a three-minute segment with Barry Melrose.

Winners: Christmas Day

Spending time with family is overrated, that fact is almost certainly statistically accurate. Without the NBA and their Christmas games, we’d be forced to watch a Christmas story for the fourth time in a row.

The NBA gives Christmas meaning. Like football on Thanksgiving.

Losers: ESPN Legal Analysts

Until we have more labor unrest in the sports world, it’s time to wrap up the ESPN legal analysts and stow them in the vaults. No more legal jargon, just basketball.

If these gentlemen were that great of lawyers, why are they working for ESPN?

Winners: Lawyers

When do the lawyers ever lose?

Losers: College Basketball

With the NBA at its stalemate and hope looking bleak, NBA fans turned to college basketball to fill the void. It felt good, but it wasn’t the same.

Fans can go back to worshipping the stars of the NBA and forget about college hoops until March shows up and brackets are handed out.

Winners: Old Players

When players like Chauncey Billups or Derek Fisher get into the later stages of the season and the playoffs, they will have at least 16 games less on their battered bodies.

Any help they can get will be appreciated because there are plenty of players living on borrowed NBA time right now.

Losers: Dwight Howard

Dwight Howard can’t handle the media. The man turns into a crybaby that always feels he is being picked on. It’s fantastic.

The shortened offseason and regular season will feature more awkward questions and scenarios than Howard can't handle. I expect a complete emotional breakdown.

Winners: Rookies

With no NBA, the rookies that were just drafted could not sign their lucrative deals enabling them to mismanage their money.

Now that the checks will be in the mail sooner rather than later, the Cadillac dealerships have been put on notice.

Losers: Soccer and Tennis

This goes for any sport that was hoping to steal the NFL fans once they had no football to watch, but mainly soccer and tennis. The dream is over.

Fans were almost forced to try and enjoy other sports, but thanks goodness the lockout was lifted before that happened.

Winners: Kris Humphries

People know who he is. They didn’t before.

Case closed.

Losers: Minnesota Timberwolves

They still suck. No lockout will ever change that.

KAHN!!!!

Winners: Charles Barkley

The nights that have passed without the whimsical words of Charles Barkley to caress my ear have been too many. I need me some Sir Charles.

Every time the man speaks, it’s comedy gold. Add Barkley to any announce team and it will instantly be entertaining.

Losers: Big Spending Teams

The new CBA will have to be agreed upon by the owners, but some may not be so happy about that.

With the new CBA in place, the higher-spending teams will have to pay even more in luxury tax this season. That may be a wrinkle they’re not comfortable with.

Winners: TNT Network

TNT has become the home of basketball over the past few seasons, and they are as excited to have the sport back as anyone.

Think of the millions upon millions of dollars they were losing showing Law and Order instead of NBA basketball.

Losers: Prime-Time Free Agents

With the higher luxury task, the long-term projects will be that teams will spend less on contracts to make up for the increase in luxury tax.

While it may not hurt Dwight Howard and Chris Paul, it will hurt the free agents towards the end of this collective bargaining agreement.

Winners: The Media

The media needs stories to pay the bills, and if the NBA has a plethora of anything, its stories.

With parody at every turn and personalities to build a sport around, there may be no more happy a group than the NBA writers.

Losers: Basketball-Hating Girlfriends and Wives

Since the news of the NBA lockout being lifted, I have planned a fantasy basketball draft, bought NBA 2K12 and locked the cable box on NBA TV.

While she may want to watch Dancing with the Stars or whatever they watch, she better relax and enjoy Kevin Durant dancing around defenses. There will be no high fives for you.

Check back for more on the National Basketball Association as it comes, and check out Bleacher Report’s NBA page to get your fill of all things basketball.

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