A False Hope

The nature of our great democratic country is our unending desire to hold out hope for the future. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, we vowed that we would come back stronger and we did. After the 9/11 attacks, we vowed to wage an assault against global terrorism and we did. However, there are times when our hope is unfortunately supplanted by the cold hard truth. Since this a sports blog, I hope you are beginning to see where this is going. If you haven't made it that far yet, I'll just tell you because it bears repeating. The NBA lockout.

There are two sides to this story. The one that the league and the players are telling you and the one that is actually true. For months we have been led to believe that there was the potential for the deal. In my mind, I've seen it as a ticking timebomb waiting to explode. In July, we were somewhat worried about the prospect of an NBA season but players had been drafted and David Stern had still remained hopeful that a deal could be made. I'm not going to bore you with the month to month details but I'll just simply give the hint that NBA draftees still have not been signed. Why? Because we're in a @%$#ing lockout. And that's the truth.

There is a certain hypocrisy that is inherent in sports today that was not present a few decades ago. Owners and players will repeatedly tell you that they are putting on a show for their fans. That every time they take the court, the diamond, the rink, the gridiron, they are doing it to please and satisfy the fans. Unfortunately, as you and I both know, this is simply not true. Money is the root of all evil as is frequently said and it is ever present in this case as well. Do players and owners actually care about their fans? Yes. But not in the sense that you might think. You see, owners see fans as money. Each sucker that sits courtside at an NBA game at Madison Square Garden that is not named Spike Lee, is taking out a mortgage on their home just to pay to watch a measly 2.5 hour game. I think you get the idea. Players on the other hand, see fans as financial opportunities. There is what you might call a causal connection and relationship between players and fans. Players perform well on the court and fans buy their merchandise. Simple as that. Do something for me and I'll do something for you. Except the only party seeing a real return on that financial investment is the player. Does a fan really get any financial gain in buying Kobe Bryant's shoes? No. In fact, you would actually call it a financial loss. Kobe on the other hand gets a nice little percentage every single time you walk into a Footlocker and lace up in one of his shoes.

Of course the NBA is a business primarily and financially. Fans understand that just like the players and owners do. But when players and owners only care about renegotiating a 57-43 revenue split rather than getting on the court, then there's a real problem. America's in an economic recession which at this point is no real secret. So when owners are bellowing out that they're losing loads of money from their deep wallets to fund their multimillion dollar franchises, I tend to miss the point. You see where I'm going? Sports are supposed to be a pastime for our great nation. When things are rough, professional sports are supposed to be there as an aid to help us through the pain and suffering. A calm away from the storm. Especially in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. In that sense, there is a real human aspect to these players and owners. But when money and greed comes into play, that human aspect is always blurred in favor of profits and gains. I'm not suggesting that the NBA will be defunct forever. Of course it'll come back one day and the hope will be that it is stronger than it was before. But until they tap into the human aspect of the game, the pastime ideologies and the real reason they play the game, a promising end to the NBA lockout will be a false hope. There is hope for the future. It's just being blurred at the moment.