POLL

["Dorine" <norine@sover.net>]

    I submitted a vote in the ESPN poll and found that so far 32.1% of the
voters think there will be no season this year for the NBA.  That's
depressing, but I think they might be right.  Even Shaq is worried about it.
Probably figures if he's not visible on the basketball floor nobody will buy
his rap music.  He's absolutely right, though.  I know some people who still
not only won't go to a baseball game but won't even watch them on
television.  They are still angry about the World Series being cancelled and
I don't think the NBA will bounce back that quickly.
    There's plenty of blame to be found on both sides of this argument, but
the ordinary person sees the player salaries as so far above what they will
ever make they're disgusted.  From what I can see and read, the players are
the ones the fans blame, overall.  As I said before, I believe the league is
very determined and feel they have to make some changes now or it'll be too
late, therefore they will hold out as long as necessary.  I read the article
someone posted about the deal the league wants and quite frankly, I don't
see anything wrong with it.  Many of you do, I know, but that's my opinion,
nevertheless.  This Antoine problem wouldn't exist if they were under this
kind of deal now.  Free agency has been good for the players in some cases,
but for the fan it's taken some of the joy away.  When you have a team where
the players are so different year to year it's hard to feel the same way
about them as we used to.

Dorine