Ok. I’m know there are some folks who are waiting with bated breath hoping the lockout ends and the season won’t be effected, but the NFL lockout and even the threats of an MLB lockout back in the day make the NBA issues look like “Who really gives a shit any way?”.
Now I know the NBA is not as huge as the NFL, but even considering that it seems like no one really gives two shits about the lockout. It’s never on the news, other than Sportscenter and the players are all acting like “Hey, free vacation! I’ll stay home and party!”.
I believe a prolonged lockout will permanently damage the NBA further than it already is.
Thoughts?
ETA: If a mod sees this could they change my Does to an Is in the subject. Thanks.
You’ve posted enough about your hatred of the NBA that I feel pretty confident suggesting there’s some confirmation bias going on. It’s probably just that it’s only September, and that it was always going to pale in comparison to the giant clusterfuck of a big deal the NFL is. Nobody ever cares about the NBA preseason, which is all that’s been affected thus far, whereas NFL preseason is a huge thing in its own right.
People will start caring in December when they’re looking at a few months where pro sports are:
Hockey
waiting for pitchers and catchers
March Madness will take some of the sting out, I suppose.
I also think a lot of the ho-hum attitude is due to the complete expectation that a deal wouldn’t be done, there’s no surprise, people have had time to accept that games will most definitely be lost.
NBA fans will start caring then, because that’s the drop dead time for getting something done, so you can have a shortened season in 2012. I know Stern is making noise as though he’ll cancel the season early, but if they get an agreement in December, there can still be basketball this season. No deal by then, it’s a totally lost season. No sense getting worked up now.
Most people think the NBA regular season is too long and kind of meaningless anyway, so losing some games might be viewed as a benefit, not a downside.
There wasn’t really much consternation about the NFL lockout because it was never going to be a blood war, it was deciding how to split up the bajillions in profits. The NBA is in a different position, so I would imagine the worrying will really ramp up as we get into October/November.
People tend to worry more about baseball labor strife because it has a history of being very acrimonious, plus the players have shown that they have no compunction about striking and prematurely ending the season. Since the nuclear option has already been used, there’s always a possibility it will be used again.
I’m not sure that everybody saw the NFL dispute would never get too bad, but as the deadlines got closer there were signs that the sides were talking about something would happen, and it is widely understood that the NBA’s problems are more serious and the sides are further apart. Jimmy Chitwood is also correct that so far only NBA summer league and preseason games are being lost, and even fans don’t pay attention to those. There are fewer NFL games, so annoying as the preseason stuff can be, people pay more attention.
I think the OP is right that the NBA lockout has not been getting the coverage that NFL lockout got. We had to hear about the NFL lockout all through the spring and summer. Every day there was an update on every detail, including what kind of hat DeMaurice Smith was wearing. I’m not even making that up.
Now, we just get a blurb here or there about the NBA. I’m not saying I want the non-stop coverage, I’m just pointing out that it is, indeed, less. And I am a fan of the NBA.
I’m not much of a basketball fan, but I agree, the coverage of the NBA lockout, at this stage in the process, does feel a lot lower than the breathless, blanket coverage that the NFL lockout was getting.
I also agree with the points up-thread that the NFL fans were more in the “I can’t believe they’re going to screw up the season over these small disagreements” mindset while NBA fans are more in the “the league is so messed up that we’re likely going to lose a season getting it sorted” mode.
Also, quite frankly, I think there are plenty of casual NBA followers that wouldn’t really mind if half of the season was axed. 40-odd games is more than enough to set up the playoff field. Not so much with the NFL, where 16 games is likely too few to get an accurate gauge of team quality.
I’m actually kind of curious. Anyone know where to get in-progress standings from past seasons? I’d like to know if any team that made the conference finals from the past few years would have missed it if only the first 40 games of the season counted.
The other thing that makes this seem less impactful is that lots of players are signing contracts/getting ready to sign contracts with overseas leagues and no one really seems to care. I would expect some sort of “Look NBA, all the players are leaving. What are you going to do about it??” from fans but I don’t hear any of that.
Isn’t Kobe getting ready to go play in Italy or something?
My understanding is that most, if not all, of these contracts allow the NBA player to end the contract when the NBA lockout ends. So, there’s little for fans to get upset about in this regard, beyond the possibility that their favorite NBA player gets injured while playing abroad.
I think the NBA is one league that particularly disliked by a significant part of the population.
For instance, when the NHL had a work stoppage a lot of people said “I don’t care, I’m not into hockey.” They didn’t say, “I love hockey but hate the NHL.”
With the NBA there are a lot of people that love basketball and hate the NBA. They feel that the pro game is inferior to the college game.
Last year I was at Madison Square Garden for a couple of Coaches Against Cancer college games. On week later I was in the same building for a Knicks game. For the college games you could feel the electricity in the crowd. The atmosphere was generated by the crowd and you felt a sense of excitement and anticipation. For the Knicks, the whole atmosphere was contrived with too loud music, a lot of flashing lights and a lot of canned noise. Of course, the game featured play that was uninspired but that’s what you expect from regular season NBA games.