By MATT MEYERS
Staff Writer
 

I don't know about anyone else, but I am tired of this garbage. This is not the players versus the owners, this is greed versus greed and there can be no winner. I am as big of a basketball fan as the next guy, but I would not care if there was not one game played this season. That way, neither of the two sides would make any money and maybe they would begin to learn the value of it.

You would think that the NBA would have learned something after the last two major sports labor disputes. After the 1994 baseball strike, some teams had to practically give tickets away to get fans to come to the ballpark. The entire league should thank Cal Ripken Jr. and his streak for bringing fan interest back to baseball. This season has raised that enthusiasm even more. Without that excitement, who knows where baseball would be. Also in 1994, we saw the NHL lockout. The New York Rangers had just won Lord Stanley's Cup and interest in hockey was at an all time high. That spring, there was an article in Sports Illustrated saying that the NHL was hot, and the NBA was not. The lockout that followed brought the excitement over the NHL down many levels.

The NBA had managed to avoid these major labor disputes until this season. Even if the season does start, the league is in trouble. The biggest question is whether or not Michael Jordan will return to win another NBA championship with the Bulls. Most likely, if it is a modified season he will return, but that is only a short term solution.

The NBA is going to find itself in the same position they were during the late seventies. This was before Magic and Bird and basketball enthusiasm was at an all time low. Luckily, those two came around to save the league. Unfortunately, if the NBA ever starts again, the next generation of stars is not a group that gets me excited. They are probably the greediest of the bunch, demanding ridiculous salaries before they even step onto the floor in an NBA uniform.

The question that I ask myself now is, what are we missing? We are missing a slow-paced, foul-heavy, low scoring league that is only a shell of its former self. The league has developed a one-on-one game where every time one player is isolated, he tries to take it to the basket and score. The team concept has been basically eliminated. I am a fan of good defense, but low scores do not always mean good defense. We are also missing the excitement of hearing about how Chris Webber screwed up again, or about how Allen Iverson has proclaimed himself ready to take over for Jordan as the league's superstar.

I could sit here and go on and on about the issues at hand in the labor negotiations, but what would the point of that be. To put it in laymen's terms, both sides want more money. That is all there is to it. Patrick Ewing of my beloved New York Knicks was quoted as saying "We're fighting for our livelihood. We can't survive if we sign this contract." I wasn't sure if I should take him seriously. Last year, the veterans' minimum in the NBA was $272,000.00 Do they expect us to feel bad for them? If you went down to Lisbon street and asked anyone if they would like to be paid 272,000 dollars to play basketball, I don't think you'd get anyone turning you down.

The owners are not really an issue in this because they are billionaires in other industries and basketball ownership is not their main source of income. On top of this, no one is paying $1,000 to sit court-side at Madison Square Garden so they can stare up at Dave Checkettes and the front office all-stars up in their luxury boxes. Right now, this dispute is all on the players' shoulders. Only they can get the season started. If it does start, I will most likely follow it. But I would be lying if I said that I have the same passion for the NBA that I used to. It had been dwindling for awhile, and the lockout has only moved it further in that direction. The only way for fans to show their displeasure is to not support the NBA in any way. This means don't buy the over-priced tickets, the over-priced shorts, jerseys and other paraphenalia.

I am not too worried about getting my basketball fill though, as I plan to just watch college basketball. They probably get paid enough anyway.