Just before the main event at a boxing card in Atlantic City a few days ago, ring announcer Michael Buffer was making his obligatory introduction of the celebrities in attendance. Movie stars and rock singers were in fairly short supply on this particular evening, but professional athletes were there in some profusion.
When Buffer announced the presence of Troy Vincent, a cornerback for the 1-7 Philadelphia Eagles, the unforgiving fans exploded in a chorus of boos and hisses. The announcer then introduced a pair of basketball players, forward Tim Thomas and first-round draft choice Larry Hughes of the Philadelphia 76-ers.
The reaction was a prolonged and embarrassing silence. No one cheered, but neither was a solitary voice lifted in disapproval, a reaction of heartfelt indifference which fairly sums up that of the American sporting public to the National Basketball Association's continuing labour dispute, which enters its 128th day this morning.
The 1998-99 NBA season was supposed to have begun two nights ago with the Boston Celtics playing the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. The date came and went and hardly anyone took notice. This is in part because the league had cancelled the first two weeks of the season some time ago, but largely because no one seems to miss the NBA very much at all.
While the sports-fan-on-the-street (if he cares at all) is apt to describe the league's current condition as a "strike", in technical terms it is not that at all. Shortly after the Chicago Bulls raised their annual championship banner to the rooftops last June, the NBA owners announced a lockout. Teams were prevented from having even the most minimal contact with their players until a new collective bargaining agreement was achieved. Four months later they aren't even close.
As is usually the case, there were sundry side issues involved, most of which have come to be used as bargaining chips along the way. The players gave way on one front, for instance, and agreed to allow marijuana to be added to the list of banned substances for which they may be tested. The owners grudgingly agreed to raise the minimum salary for veteran players, and both parties agreed unconditionally to extend, for two more seasons, a maximum limit on spending for rookie players.
But on the central issues - the NBA salary cap and, more importantly, the so-called "Larry Bird Exception" - neither side has been willing to budge.
Two decades ago the league's owners and the NBA Players Association staked out a bargaining agreement that was widely viewed as an example of enlightened co-operation. It also established professional sport's first "salary cap", a self-imposed limitation on each team's collective payroll.
By the late 1980s, however, it became clear that the system contained an inherent flaw. Specifically, it rather encouraged the movement of star players from one team to another, with a concomitant, deleterious effect on fan loyalty. Thus the owners adopted what became known as the Bird Exception: a club was allowed to pay any price to re-sign one of its free agents who had been with the team for more than three years, and the money would not count against its salary cap.
Matters quickly spun out of control (Michael Jordan, for instance, received a salary last year that was almost twice the allotted cap for the entire Chicago team), and, unable to control themselves, the owners imposed the lockout in the apparently vain hope that the players would do it for them.
Given the multi-million dollar bonanza that the NBA has become, it is difficult for the sporting public to feel much affection for either side. While the owners are hardly a sympathetic lot, the publicly thuggish behaviour of some players has antagonised many fans. Moreover, as one source claimed to me in a conversation just last month, one contract proposal already rejected by the Players Association would have raised the NBA's average salary to over $4 million a year.
There are other reasons underlying the public apathy. Since the NBA plays an 82-game schedule whose sole purpose is to eliminate 13 of its 29 teams from the post-season playoffs, many fans feel that the regular season has become all but meaningless anyway.
Moreover, since national telecasts of NBA games don't start until Christmas Day (roughly coinciding with the conclusion of the NFL's regular season), there is no sense of urgency. Not only do many people not care that the NBA isn't playing games this week, a lot of them haven't even noticed.
Both sides miscalculated in assuming that basketball fans would rally around their respective positions, and it would seem obvious that getting their message out to the public would be paramount on both agendas. That this is not remotely the case was aptly illustrated last week when, following a union meeting in Las Vegas (probably not a great choice of locations for a body crying poor-mouth), player representatives spurned television interview requests from the local NBC affiliate on the grounds that the network, the principal underwriter of the NBA's $660 million television contract, was effectively bankrolling the lockout.
A fascinating subplot to the entire affair has been the vacillating position of the league's most visible player. Although widely perceived to be headed for retirement following last season, Michael Jordan has never officially confirmed his intentions, and he has tantalisingly allowed speculation to linger. Conjecture has it that the NBA's marquee player is keeping the possibility of his return open mainly to enhance the union position, but he was in attendance and did everything but lead the troops in a chorus of Solidarity Forever last week in Las Vegas.
Sports Illustrated has even taken to running a weekly box entitled "The Jordan Watch", chronicling the star's ever-evolving position. In this week's update from Las Vegas, Michael was typically evasive: "My mind is open to next year, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't get involved. It doesn't matter if I play or not." Huh?
On the eve of the day the regular season was to have begun, unconfirmed reports surfaced that the NBA owners and players were about to reach a rapprochement. Union president Billy Hunter quickly dashed those hopes.
"I don't see any possibility at all of reaching an agreement this week," said Hunter, "and I can't say how soon it will be." The two sides were scheduled to meet in Manhattan again yesterday, but no one seemed especially optimistic.
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