CHICAGO — It’s about that time of year when the leaves start changing and the days get shorter. But when talking about basketball the same can be said for my hair; this 120 day mess is changing my hair color and making my days shorter.
Before I get insanely angry, and lash out about how the lockout is a reflection of Wall Street and the upper one percent always getting what they want and not caring about who or what they destroy to get it, I need to take a step back and ask myself a question.
With the news today that David Stern has cancelled the next two weeks of basketball effectively ending all false hope we had of a full schedule I’m left in a bit of a pickle.
Do I really care?
It’s getting to that point where it’s taking so much out of me to worry about the season starting and to wonder blindly if or if not we will see basketball anytime soon that I’m not sure I care about it anymore. I realize that has been said by people as a defense mechanisim in the past few months, I am guilty of this myself, but for the first time, I’m not really sure I care if there is a basketball season or not.
My passion for the game and for the Bulls is still there, but like the saying goes: you can only beat a dog so much before it gets mean.
"The economy sucks. Politics suck. Unemployment sucks. Everything sucks.People need sports to take their minds off the fact that they’re getting screwed by the upper one percent, but now even our escapism is being screwed and taken away from us and is reflecting the very thing we turn to it to get away from."
That’s where I am with the Lockout. Maybe I’m in a lull; the calm before the storm before I get super mad and just start ranting and raving. But the news was announced that David Stern slammed the door shut on us and our hopes of the first 4 weeks of basketball and it didn’t hurt as bad as I thought.
This is not me going soft, don’t worry. It’s most likely the adverse effect of losing a limb like bastketball from my sports body, even if it’s temporary. Have you ever accidentally sliced yourself in the workshop or making food. When it’s really bad, you don’t feel it right away,
you just go “Oh, hey my finger.”
But after you realize what has happened then the pain sets in and it hurts. That’s where I’m at.
My numbed reaction to the cancellation of the first four weeks is also aided by David Stern’s child-like ways of crying out for attention to get what he wants. Like a depressed teenager or a bratty little kid who just wares his parents down to the point where they just ignore them, David Stern has threatened, whined and shrugged his way out of my realm of caring.
I have two reactions to the lockout up to this point, a ying and a yang. On the one hand I’m very much emotionally involved as a bunch of rich white guys are basically holding something I consider dear and near to my heart hostage with crazy demands. To this I channel my inner John McEnroe: “YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!”
But on the other hand I am very observant as both I have to be for journalistic integrity and because if I don’t take a step back and breathe, I’ll go insane and then nobody wins.
That side of me can be summed up in a Family Guy reference (or your interpretation of the Blair Witch Project). To quote Brian Griffin, the NBA Lockout and their negotiations can be summed up very easily: Nothing’s happening, nothing’s happening, something about a map, nothing’s happen, it’s over and a lot of people look pissed.
In a nutshell, that’s what we’re dealing with. The lockout is boring, nothing is happening. The negotiations are boring and nothing is happening with them either. So why exactly do I or should I care?
Because I love basketball and I love to soak up the game. If it wasn’t for my vault of old NBA games on a constant loop in my Blu Ray player I’d be so far off the deep end by now it’s not even funny. I care because there are a bunch of guys holding my sport hostage at a time we all need sports more than ever.
The economy sucks. Politics suck. Unemployment sucks. Everything sucks.
People need sports to take their minds off the fact that they’re getting screwed by the upper one percent, but now even our escapism is being screwed and taken away from us and is reflecting the very thing we turn to it to get away from.
That’s where the NBA has dropped the ball the worst. Before, we turned to them to get away from the bad guys and bad things in this country and in this world but now all the NBA is is a another joy of us normal folks lives that has been hijacked by the rich and powerful.
Bravo David Stern and the NBA, you’ve basically just broken up with your fan base via a text message. And if you’ve ever seen a hysterical girl after that has happened, you have a pretty good picture of where I and many others in the NBA community will be at in the next few hours when all of this really soaks in.