What if they threw a lockout …
… and nobody cared?
OK, that’s a bit of a stretch. We’re sure there are plenty of people who care that the NBA owners decided they didn’t want the NFL to have all the fun and called their own lockout.
But we don’t really care and we’re not sure why.
Maybe it’s labor fatigue. The NFL lockout is still ongoing and after months of hearing that the NBA owners wanted a lockout, the news was a bit anti-climatic.
After all, it’s only July 1 – no one is losing money yet and there are no games to be missed, so right now it’s all just talk.
It could be that we don’t trust that the owners want to make the NBA move competitive, but rather that they just want to make more money.
Of course, the NBA has never been competitive, not really, with only a handful of teams having won championships – the Lakers and Celtics have combined for 33 of the league’s 65 titles. So if anything really does change when a new labor deal is reached, it will most likely be a coincidence, not a result of the lockout.
Maybe it’s the realization that the fans just don’t matter anymore. What we want is so far down on the list of the league, the owners and the players, it probably doesn’t even register.
Maybe we don’t care because the Cavs aren’t very good right now and are not going to be much better next season. A shortened season wouldn’t really impact them one way or another.
Even if the season was reduced to 50 games – like in 1999 – that is enough for Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson and the other young players to get their feet wet.
If the Cavs were coming off consecutive 60-win seasons and were still a threat to win an NBA title, our feelings may be different.
But maybe not.
The Browns aren’t any good, coming off consecutive 5-11 seasons and in what seems like perpetual rebuilding mode – and we care very much about the NFL lockout.
The possibility, even if it is remote, that the NFL season will be shortened this fall is something we just don’t want to entertain. No Sunday Ticket, no fantasy football, no Cheddar Bay.
It’s all just too much.
But if the NBA doesn’t come back until the first of the year?
We’ll be OK.
Red Right 88 