NBA’s Timing Is on Fans’ Side

Not wanting to be left behind, the Sport of the ‘80s--professional basketball--has finally chosen to dabble in the Sport of the ‘90s--the major league labor lockout/walkout.

It had to happen some time, although the timing of this third professional sports work stoppage of the last 11 months raises new questions about the nature of professional sports work stoppages.

For instance, is it a work stoppage when the gates are locked after the work is done?

Didn’t the work stop weeks ago, when the Rockets stopped the Magic?

Doesn’t there first have to be work in order for the work to be stopped?

Can you stop non-work?

(Of course you can. For years, the procedure has been known as “Monday morning.”)

Why lock the players out now?

With family vacations and lucrative card-signing shows at stake, wouldn’t locking them in make better bargaining sense?

Is there some unseen advantage the owners can gain by shutting down the summer leagues and placing a freeze on all official business, such as the signing and trading of players?

Why couldn’t this freeze have happened Wednesday, immediately after the drafting of Antonio McDyess, Clipper fans want to know.

Or before the draft, Ed O’Bannon wants to know.

Or a month ago, effectively locking the Rockets out of the O-rena, Orlando Magic fans would like to know.

As I say, the timing here is very peculiar.

Nobody wins and nobody loses when nobody is playing games that can be canceled by a labor stare down. Yes, there will be no Lakers, no Bulls, no Suns, no Raptors in the weeks ahead. Tell us something we don’t know. Schedule says: Games stop in June, start up again in November. As for July, August, September and October . . . who cares?

Commissioner David Stern and the NBA board of governors have delivered what may be a first in the history of labor negotiations--the no-risk lockout. When baseball struck last year, it anted up the biggest prize it had--the World Series. When hockey called for a lockout, it placed the first half of its regular season on the poker table, and the all-star game, and the growth potential available to National Pastime No. 4 in lieu of a baseball postseason and World Series.

Big risks were taken.

Big defeats were endured.

Stern and the NBA union watched this self-immolation from the sidelines last fall and promptly agreed to sanction a no-strike, no-lockout pledge to preserve their regular season and playoffs. And the NBA was loudly lauded as visionary and revolutionary, the one league that had its head on straight.

A week-and-a-half ago, Stern and the union reached another agreement--on a six-year collective bargaining contract that didn’t eliminate the salary cap, but raised it from $15 million to $23 million; reduced the college draft from two rounds to one; and created a wage scale for rookies. Not a perfect system, but a startlingly expedient compromise.

A solution was at hand. Stern and union executive director Simon Gourdine readied for another round of deep bows.

But then the agents got ahold of the document. Don’t you hate it when that happens? They grabbed it, sliced it, diced it, put a yellow marker to the fine print and jabbed an elbow into Michael Jordan’s rib cage. Get a load of this, O Exalted De Facto Ruler Of The Planet.

Jordan read and shook his head.

A one-round draft is better for the players than a two-round draft--but not as good as a no-round draft.

A $23-million salary cap is better for the players than a $15-million cap--but what’s this stuff about a luxury tax on teams that sign their own free agents at a price that pushes them above the salary cap?

Within seconds, Jordan was phoning and faxing Dream Team members and word spread faster than a Shaquille O’Neal taco ad campaign: The Man says the deal is bogus. The Man allows you to play in his league. We know we can count on your support.

Jubilant accord today, hellbent anarchy tomorrow. Soon, the air was filled with talk of union decertification and threats of lawsuits and a new maverick players union. The current players union fizzled into no union at all, with the player representatives from each of the 28 teams refusing to vote on the basic agreement Gourdine and union president Buck Williams had just rubber-stamped.

The carpet was pulled out from beneath Stern’s feet. His only response was to give the rug a firm tug of his own.

“Lockout begins Friday.”

There.

Take that.

The good news, NBA fans, is that more than three months remain before training camps are due to open. Time is on your side.

The bad news, of course, is that baseball and hockey resolved absolutely nothing during their off-seasons, mid-strike and pre-lockout.

In the meantime, we are reminded of the old saw: A summer without the NBA is like a night without sunshine. Or the Fourth of July without cricket. Or Matt Fish without a bicycle.

Or a sports labor action without an ounce of leverage, from here to Halloween.