No NBA Before Christmas - Does Anyone Care?

Derek Fisher, president of the players' association.    
Photo: Seth Wenig/AP

NBA players have rejected a "final" proposal from team owners this week, and in case that wasn't enough to put a dagger in any hopes for professional basketball in 2011, the players also decided to disband their union, the National Basketball Players Association. The move to end the union comes as negotiations have gone absolutely nowhere in recent months, and it allows players to sue the NBA individually under anti-trust laws.

According to David Stern, commissioner of the NBA, a "nuclear winter is coming." I understand this statement, inasmuch as the commissioner is attempting to characterize the move by players to disband the union as the "nuclear option," a devastating decision, the fallout from which cannot be easily undone.

But really? A nuclear winter? Could that be a modest overstatement? I doubt the cancellation of the 2011-2012 NBA season will precipitate months, or years even, of reduced sunshine, and I'm fairly certain that the earth's atmosphere will not be filled with soot and smoke and ash because there won't be professional basketball for a year.

There is, of course, be a significant financial impact to a canceled season, including $4 billion in "basketball income" lost for NBA owners and players. There will also be a dark wintry melancholy in a few smaller NBA markets that don't have other professional sports franchises to rally around. I feel bad for the folks in Oklahoma City and Memphis, and in my beloved San Antonio, where the superstars can hardly afford to age another year. And consider the wretched souls in Indianapolis who will suffer like no others, as there will be no Pacers basketball to erase the memories of the 2011 Colts season.

As for me, I think the NBA season lasts too long anyway. If they insist on dragging the playoffs out through the month of June, then I say, let them start the season sometime around the first week of February. In fact, now that I think about it, that's the perfect time for the season to begin. If there is no NBA in February and March, during the period between football's Superbowl and baseball's Opening Day, I may be forced to watch hockey. Then again, there's always tennis.