TSN's Dave Kindred

["J. Mark Estepp" <esteppjm@conrad.appstate.edu>]

I'm beginning to enjoy reading this guys stuff.  He makes sense to me!  He
is saying a lot of what the average person thinks (at least THIS average person)
It reminded me of what Patrick Ewing said a couple of months ago.  In
defending the players, he said "What the public doesn't understand it that
our careers only last for about 10 years"
Yea, Patrick, at $20,000 a week.....         

    Who needs
               the NBA?
               Keep 'em
               locked, fellas
               OCTOBER 6, 1998 


               Dave Kindred


               Gotta know when to hold 'em and know when
               to fold 'em. So far the NBA players have failed
               this simple test of wisdom. 

               There is no public sentiment on the players' side
               in the labor-management war that now has
               caused cancellation of the NBA's entire
               schedule of exhibitions. 

               No loss, those exhibitions. But NBA deputy
               commissioner Russ Granik says the league is "a
               week away from losing regular-season games." 

               Know what? No loss there, either. 

               I'm fed up. In a league where a Kevin Garnett
               makes -- What? $20 million a year? -- I have
               not the least little bit of sympathy for players
               whining about the imposition of a "hard cap" on
               salaries. 

               By his repeated defenses of the indefensible
               Latrell Sprewell, the NBA players' union boss,
               somebody named Billy Hunter, already has
               disgraced himself and diminished whatever iota
               of dignity he might have once had. So who
               wants to hear him now when he says of the
               players/fools paying his salary: 

               "We're not going to accept a bad deal, and
               we're not going to be intimidated into accepting
               a bad deal." 

               A bad deal? The average player salary is over
               $20,000 a week. That's a bad deal? 

               Have these people completely lost their minds? 

               At one point during the long harangue leading to
               the cancellation of exhibitions, Billy Hunter even
               said the owners had the audacity to express a
               desire to make 10 percent on their money. 

               Imagine that! A capitalist wanting to make
               money! And all the way up to a lousy 10
               percent! Newspapers make 20 percent, TV
               stations make 40 percent. Good heavens, the
               first time Wal-Mart made as much as 8 percent
               on its money, chairman Sam Walton put on a
               grass skirt and danced a hula down the
               corporate offices in Bentonville, Ark. 

               Of course, the owners want to make money.
               And they are entitled to make money. They are
               the ones putting their butts on the financial line to
               make people like Latrell Sprewell rich beyond
               their imaginations. 

               I hope owners don't budge an inch. I hope they
               show the players they will lose less money by
               shutting down than they will lose by playing the
               games. 

               So this is my message to NBA players: 

               Go away. 

               Stay away. 

               I'll tape the World Series and watch it all winter.



Mark Estepp				704 262 3111
Appalachian State University			704 265 8696 (fax)
Esteppjm@AppState.edu