ELItorial: Hubris abounds as lockout continues

By Nola Breglio

At the recently opened NBA team store on 52nd Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, you can buy a rhinestone-studded basketball purse for $1,800. Or, you can buy 14-carat gold Los Angeles Lakers cuff links for $1,200, the perfect finishing touch to a romantic evening out on the town. Twenty blocks downtown at Madison Square Garden, though, you won't be able to buy a six-dollar hot dog, and sit down to watch professional basketball. No eight-dollar cotton candy for anyone--at least not until January. And just in case you were hoping that the players and owners might be close to a compromise, Players' Union Director Billy Hunter and the NBA Lockout All-Stars want to assure you that no agreement is in sight.

In a recent statement, Hunter asserted, "I don't see any possibility at all of reaching an agreement this week, and I can't say how long it will be. I want to get that message out there." Thanks, Billy, for the friendly update--it really put a charge into my day. Thanks for letting us all know there's no hope on the horizon.

The NBA regular season had been slated to begin on Tues., Nov. 3; when those opening games were not played, for the first time ever, NBA games were cancelled due toa labor dispute. The future of this season looks bleak--the first month has officially been cancelled, and league Commissioner David Stern has said that a 50-game season would be the absolute shortest he would sanction. The season has already been shortened from 82 to 68 games. Even if an agreement were reached tomorrow, with over 150 players lacking guaranteed contracts, a three to four week signing period would be necessary before play could commence. Unless an agreement is reached before early January, the 1998-99 NBA season is all but over.

Curiously, no one involved with the lockout seems all that upset about the possibility of a lost season. NBA players are treating the lockout like an unexpected series of snow days. Shaquille O'Neal's fourth rap album, Respect, is due in stores any day. Michael Jordan just won $50,000 in a lawsuit (just in case you're curious, that's almost 10 times less than he made per game last season). And Karl Malone, well, he's having the time of his life hosting a radio show in Los Angeles. He recently raved, "This is something I'm just loving the heck out of."

It seems that from the start, all involved parties were ready for the long haul. In the middle of June, top league brass were whispering "January" under their breath and shaking their heads. Has Stern's charmed league spun out of control? The so-called promotional genius gloated in 1994 when baseball sunk to an all-time low with a strike-shortened season. The trendy NBA reaped the benefits and claimed some of baseball's disillusioned fans. Ah, but what a difference four years makes: now Stern is the one twitching in his seat as no one can stop talking about baseball's dream season.

No labor negotiations were held between Thurs., Aug. 6 and Wed., Sept. 23--nearly two months passed and neither owners nor players lifted a finger to initiate discussion. Lush summer vacation destinations might have just proved too tempting to forgo in favor of the bargaining table. From the beginning, January was the target date for resumption of play--but why? Players stand to lose in excess of $400 million dollars during the work stoppage; owners will lose at least as much. And the fans--at least the ones that aren't already sickened by the endless talk of "splitting the pie"--lose the enjoyment of the start of the season. Did this waste have to happen? When will it end?

Hunter maintained, "At the boiling point, when people realize basketball is going to take a hit, then rationality will set in and we'll have a deal." So, the brilliant conclusion is that negotiators need to lose their senses before they can be regained. There's a vintage piece of modern day sports philosophy to treasure. The league needs to come to the brink of complete cancellation in order for everyone to remember that sports are actually supposed to be entertainment, not business. But then again, in seems that in the '90s, sports fans know as much legalese as strategy.

On that note, I think pretty soon I'm going to have to take Larry Bird Exception to what basketball is doing to its fans. I'm getting awfully close to my boiling point. Whether negotiators have realized it yet or not, basketball has already taken a huge hit, and wherever their rationality has gone, they'd better find it as soon as they possibly can. The NBA is getting dangerously close to hubris. And though players and owners can't seem to find time in their busy schedules to meet with each other more than once a week, or once a month for that matter, I sure can find time in mine to find another sport to watch. And I'll wager that fans aren't exactly breaking down the doors of the NBA store to get at that rhinestone-studded basketball purse, either.

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