Basketball After the NBA
As I write, the NBA is in lockout land. It’s a spaghetti western classic with an all-star cast, and the film is paused at the height of conflict. Inside a dusty tavern everyone is facing each other in silent anticipation, waiting for the draw to go down. It hasn’t yet, but it’s coming, and will take with it everything the NBA has built up in the last few years. And this just as it's on the verge of becoming the number two sport of the United States.
A lockout is on the horizon for all the usual reasons. Owners point to a huge deficit that needs to be righted Players aren’t willing to sacrifice salaries or sign on for hard caps. Yep, a lockout seems inevitable at this point, as the two sides, represented by NBA commissioner David Stern, and Players’ Association head Billy Hunter, have made no attempts at working through the gap.
Sadder still, both sides seem to be OK with this slipping into a stand still. If that happens, North America will be without professional basketball, save for the CBA and the WNBA, which don’t really count much anyhow.
If the lockout last months or even a year, players may be forced to go overseas to play ball, or play for recreational league teams. This would have lasting effects on their careers. They could be forced to see their primes dwindled away, without adequate media representation or an outline to give their talents expression.
Lockouts aren’t fun. After all, it took the NBA a decade to recover from the last lockout, and some say this one could be just as bad. But it isn’t necessarily true that just because the NBA stops functioning, basketball too has to. Actually many out there suggest that the death of the NBA could actually be a good thing for professional ballers.
Consider that FIBA, the World Governing Body for Basketball, currently governs many other clubs in leagues all across the globe, and each league has a champion. Likewise, bringing them all together with North American players, we could potentially have a real champion, and even a highly anticipated event like the Super Bowl every summer for basketball.
If FIBA was smart, they would do well to start preparing. Now. In the event of a lockout, they could have an entire league ready to go, that players could join easily and without hesitation. They should be tapping into the network markets, like ESPN and others, and drafting out contracts. They should also have people surveying cities for basketball hotbeds.
A FIBA-sponsored lottery could be held to determine who would get to draft players. The season itself could be shortened from 82 games a year to 50, 25 home and 25 away, and the top eight teams, regardless of their division standings, make the playoffs. The winner of these playoffs, representative of the best talent in North America, would then go on to play winners from the other respective playoff tournaments—the best from Europe, South America, Asia, etc.
The location of championships could change on a yearly basis, kind of like the World Cup.
While all of this may seem crazy, it’s really not—it could be an effective way to run, or at least see professional basketball.
At the same time, there’s no guarantee in a system like this, and there are a lot of chinks. World Sporting leagues rarely if ever work, and basketball fans particularly are interested in something local, and in having a personal stake in teams. This becomes pretty impossible with a sole North American team allegedly representing their interests.
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