COLUMN: NBA lockout, litigation becoming ridiculous for fans everywhere
The NBA and its players remain unable to reach a lockout-ending agreement, and now the NBA has officially canceled all scheduled games through Dec. 15.
The players have filed two antitrust lawsuits against the NBA and its owners, which leaves us to ask ourselves “What’s going to happen next in this never-ending saga of owners vs. players?”
A familiar phrase in a Red Jumpsuit Apparatus song says, “If you wait around forever you will surely drown.” The NBA is drowning, and it looks like nothing is going to save it.
The continued obstinacy from both sides is absolutely appalling. After 141 days of the lockout, the two sides appear no closer than when the lockout first began. If anything, they appear to be further apart.
And for those out there who think that these “negotiations” have been going on just since the lockout began, you are sadly mistaken. ESPN reported Nov. 15 that as early as 2007, NBA Commissioner David Stern “met with union negotiators.”
Here we are almost five years later and still no agreement has been reached. Fan or not, you almost feel like both these sides deserve to go what they’re going through.
Don’t you think that if they were really that concerned about getting things worked out they would’ve met sooner than they did?
The league began its lockout on July 1, why didn’t it start meeting then? If players really were that concerned about losing their paychecks and their careers, don’t you think they could’ve postponed their summer vacations for a couple weeks to get everything worked out? Nope.
Instead they waited until it was too late, and now it looks like the whole season is going down the drain. Imagining the league even getting 50 games like they did in 1999 seems unrealistic at this point. Now it seems it’s destined to follow the NHL and miss a whole season like in 2004-2005.
I find it hard to believe that just 13 years after the 1998-99 lockout, which caused such severe damage for the NBA, the league is now in a more dire position than it was then.
Are you okay with that David Stern? You’re willing to throw away all the momentum that you’d picked up in the last 5 years, with some of the most exciting regular and post-seasons ever? You’re willing to lose fan, after fan, after fan over 2 percent in revenue sharing? You’re willing to stop the league from playing, when it has arguably the most talented group of players in its history?
Instead of worrying about whether the players deserve their 52 percent, instead of the 51 or 50 percent of revenue sharing that the owners offered isn’t the issue anymore.
It’s not about a hard salary cap or not. It’s not about what’s best for the league as a whole. It’s not about what’s best for the large-market and small-market teams, or what’s best for the fans.
“If there’s not a basketball season,” NBA attorney David Boies said, “responsibility for that lies in one place and one place only, and that is the NBA and the NBA owners, because they’re the ones who are keeping the players from playing.”
Now it’s come down to who’s right and who’s wrong. For the players it’s the owners fault, and for the owners it’s the player’s fault.
In the end that philosophy and that argument isn’t going to get you anywhere.
In order for any organization to be successful, compromises and concessions have to be made. It’s not about who’s right but what’s right for the organization. It’s about what is going to keep this thing going 10, 15 and 20 years from now. It doesn’t take a college degree to figure that out, good thing since there aren’t too many of those in the NBA.
Alas, it looks like compromise is not going to be the case. It looks to indeed be a “nuclear winter,” as Stern said. It’s going to be deadly for the NBA, its owners and its players. If that’s the case, so be it. If the lockout of 1998-99 didn’t speak loud enough, then maybe this one can finally do the trick.
The NBA used to be the place “where amazing happens.” This season it looks like it’s going to be the place where nothing happens.
– Spencer Wright is a sophomore majoring in broadcast journalism. He supports Manchester United and hopes to live long enough to watch the Cubs win a World Series. Send any comments to eliason.wright3@aggiemail.usu.edu.