No Subject

NBA NOT FAN-TASTIC
By KEVIN KERNAN
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MICHAEL Jordan has one hand on the piano, the other on a golf club and one
foot out the door. Guys like Jerry Reinsdorf, who has done such a brilliant
job running the 13-games-under-.500 White Sox and building a baseball park
that no one goes to, actually think they are the game, not His Airness. 

If you're an NBA fan this morning, you must ask yourself one question. Have
I had enough? Is it time to lock the NBA out of my life? Summer is here and
the living is easy. Without the NBA. 

Go to a baseball game; go to the beach; go to a movie; go anywhere; go
camping with the kids; go play hoops, but don't give a second thought to
what's happening between the players and owners. 

If November comes around and there still is no NBA, no big deal. Catch a
college game; go to a high school gym to get your Basketball Jones. Heck,
you might even wind up going to a whole new league, where the courtside
seats can be purchased by someone who is not a movie producer. 

Can you really tell the difference anyway between the Vancouver Grizzlies
and say, a brand new team in some other city, a league that could be
started by Fox and CBS in no time? If there is no Jordan in the NBA anyway,
what does it matter? Without Jordan, the NBA threatens to be the WNBA -
just with men. 

The NBA and the players are ruining a good thing. This isn't baseball,
America's Game. It would be much harder for basketball to bounce back from
a bitter labor war that scarred baseball for years. 

The announcement yesterday of tonight's midnight lockout by the owners is
just another wedge between the league, players and fans. Are we really
supposed to feel sorry for the owners because they can't control salaries? 

And the players? Do we care if millionaires aren't paid? Is the NBA in
danger of finally killing the golden goose? 

"No question about it," Knick forward Buck Williams said last night,
"because there has not been a willingness to compromise." 

Williams is the former president of the players' association. He firmly has
his feet on the ground. Yesterday, more so than ever, because he had spent
the previous night camped out in his back yard with five nephews and
nieces. This is not a pampered pro athlete. This is an adult, who
understands what it takes to make kids and fans happy. 

Williams believes the owners have to take care of business themselves. No
one is holding a gun to their heads to pay the outrageous salaries that are
out there. Start running your business like a business and you won't have
to worry about a hard cap or a Larry Bird exception. 

After all, that was the beauty of the NBA in the 80s and most of the 90s.
The owners and players worked in partnership with one another to build a
better league and the fans reveled in the fun. 

Now Williams said, the owners are just "spoiled brats" who want to shove a
contract down the players' throats. Williams insists the owners' demands
are "unrealistic and un-American." 

"A player should be able to take his service to the highest bidder,
especially on his own team," he said of the Larry Bird exception, a ruling
that allows teams to keep their own free agents by spending above and
beyond the cap. "We're not trying to have a total free agent position." 

Williams calls the Bird exception "sacred." He said the union has been
willing to compromise with the owners through the years. 

All that compromise could go out the window now, however. Williams believes
that Fox and CBS are contemplating a new league. 

"There's not a better time," he said. "Basketball isn"t like football. You
don't need all that equipment. All you need is shorts, sneakers and 10 guys
in a sweaty gym and a dependable camera. People are in love with the
excitement of NBA basketball. They don't come to see Reinsdorf and Jerry
Krause manage a team. 

"The time has come to put the onus on their shoulders," he said of owners.
"It's time they right their ship, not just re-open the deal because it's
not sweet enough for the owners. If management made better business
decisions, they wouldn't have to re-open the deal." 

David Stern, through the years, has proven himself to be a brilliant
commissioner, giving the NBA something baseball lacked, an intelligent
person in charge who knew how to make decisions and keep his league out of
the labor mud. 

Now the NBA is flirting with disaster. Stern, obviously, has not lost his
mind. The NBA is locking out players when nothing is happening. 

As Williams noted, "There's no basketball played in the summer time. I
don't think the fans really care about basketball until November." 

He's right. The fans don't care now. The way things are going, they won't
care come November. 



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