American McCarver

Put your NBA fantasy league on the back burner and your tweets about how much you hate LeBron James on hold (that may just apply to me) because David Stern announced the league has canceled the first two weeks of the season.

What a shame. Really. The sinking ship of the National Basketball Association - the league with at least four teams in financial trouble — is about to capsize and we’re left wondering, whose side do we take? Is this a lesser of two evils thing? You’ve got owners who have a recent history of handing out ludicrous contracts, creating a league economy where players expect extravagant deals, and players who are crying that a five million dollar per average player isn’t enough. They want seven.

Let me cry for you, as my current work union is negotiating a new contract that will give us 0% pay raise the next two years and 1% the year after. That’s with furloughs.

So while I’m not a big fan of sports league owners who dangle enormous amounts of money, bonuses and perks in front of their players, nor am I a fan of people who play sports for a living crying that they are underpaid by two million dollars a year.

I know what you’re thinking. It’s the principle of the thing. It’s the mini-economics within the league that have nothing to do with the economics of reality. It’s about standards that have been set and keeping up with them. I get all that. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.

See, what I think about when I see the NBA has canceled its first two weeks and it looks like the entire season is in jeopardy is this: What about everyone else who works for the NBA, the individual teams and the arenas? What about the guy who sells beer to section 250 in Madison Square Garden? What about the lady who takes tickets at Time Warner Arena? What about the restaurant workers at local establishments that depend on NBA games for business? Security personnel? Oh god, what about the Knick City Dancers? There will be layoffs. There will be that many more people standing in America’s already overcrowded unemployment line.

Point is, there are a lot of people besides Bentley driving basketball players and mansion dwelling owners who stand to lose something. Both the players and owners will bitch and moan about the money they are losing and they’ll talk to the press in sound bites about hard salary caps and luxury taxes, but none of them are going to be wondering how to pay the heating bill this winter.

There are no sympathetic characters in this story of sports, money and collective bargaining. You don’t sit here and root for one side or the other to be victorious in their battle. You just wait and hope - as a fan - for the season to eventually get underway.

Then again, if you’re a Sacramento Kings fan like myself, maybe a cancellation of the season is a thing to be thankful for.