San Antonio Spurs legend Robert Horry worried about NBA lockout
Former NBA great Robert Horry sat down for an interview recently and gave his take on the current NBA lockout.
The San Antonio Spurs big was in the league, the last time it became embroiled in a labour dispute and he doesn’t like what he’s seeing at the moment.
Horry is regarded as a legend in NBA for his multiple NBA World Championship rings with Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio Spurs and with the Houston Rockets. The man who has played alongside some of the best players in basketball history over the last two decades said he wasn’t really that worried about the players, he was more concerned about the other staff that will have their livelihood taken away if an NBA season is cancelled.
“It’s just a bad, bad thing,” he stated. “I don’t feel for the players, I don’t feel for the owners. Those are seven-figure people. I feel for the people who work in the arenas, who use this as their livelihood to put food on their tables. That’s who I care most about and that’s what I said during the last lockout.” Horry told Erin Sharoni.
Horry’s comments seem well founded too. A number of NBA teams cut their staffs when the lockout began and even the league laid some people off since. The staff at work, in various NBA arenas around the country is also set to be hit hard. A recent study shows that the average arena worker makes around $48,000 an year, which is now in danger of being taken away.
Compared to them, the players, most of whom are already millionaires, don’t induce much sympathy, and neither do the many billionaire owners. In fact, there are more venues of income available to NBA players today than they were the last time NBA locked them out.
One of them is going overseas, to vibrant basketball leagues in Europe or China. Horry knows that.
“Now, basketball is loved worldwide…guys are playing overseas making a lot of money,” he said. “The game is at an all-time high.”
New Jersey Nets star Deron Williams is the highest profile player to sign abroad so far, followed by Denver Nuggets duo Kenyon Martin and J.R. Smith. Even super star Los Angeles guard Kobe Bryant is on the verge of a move to Italy, after spurning the advances of various other teams.
The lockout, in the meantime, seems set to drag on further. The NBA and National Basketball Players Association endured another unfruitful negotiation session in New York on Tuesday.
Afterwards, the sides have not scheduled another meeting with the Commissioner David Stern announcing the cancellation of the pre-season as well as a deadline of Monday to save regular season games.
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