NBA players appear in Houston charity game; Give views on the NBA Lockout
A number of prominent NBA stars descended on Houston on Sunday to appear in a charity game organized by former player and coach John Lucas. Among those who turned up for the event included Memphis Grizzlies star Zach Randolph,
Houston Rockets forward Luis Scola and DeAndre Jordan of the Los Angeles Clippers.
While the fans had a good time out after being starve of basketball for over 5 months, the players also got a much needed workout. As is custom these days, a few of them even took time out to talk about the NBA lockout.
"This is for us, this is for the future of the league, this is for everybody," Houston point guard Kyle Lowry, the Rockets' player representative to the National Basketball Players Association, said. "It's for the good of basketball.
Now it's up to our lawyers to get this deal done."
He was speaking of course about the NBPA’s decision to reject an ultimatum by NBA Commissioner David Stern on Monday. Stern had offered the union a take it or leave it deal that didn’t get players any concessions on the salary
cap structure and also called for their share in the Basketball Related Income to come down from 57 percent to 50 percent.
As expected, the union unanimously rejected the offer after a meeting last Monday. They have since filed two lawsuits against the NBA owners as well, and now the labour dispute looks set to cost both sides a complete NBA season
and the loss of revenue that comes with it.
Rockets Argentine forward Luis Scola endorsed the decision of the NBA and spoke about his own plans for going abroad. He has been training with a club in his native country over the summer, as well as with the Argentine National
Basketball Team. However, signing a permanent contract overseas has been an issue because of the uncertainty surrounding the NBA labour dispute.
"It's very hard to make a plan, because you really don't know what's going to happen," he said. "I've been saying that I don't want to go to a place for a week or two for three or four months. If I would've gone, it would've been
more than two weeks, it would've been two or three months.
He did concede though that the current situation is a cause for concern and he would have to make a decision on his future sooner or later.
"At some point, I have to just go play," he said. "I don't know when is going to be that point."
The game was held at Delmar Fieldhouse, a gym in Houston that holds around 5,400 people.
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