It won't matter who is to blame. It will AGAIN poison NBA fans against basketball, just when several new stars are starting to emerge and a few old ones are beginning to fade. It will AGAIN result in "an asterisk championship." It will dim the impact of the All-Star Game in the future - and the best All-Star weekend in pro sports - when it is forced to be cancelled. It will re-inforce the "thug" image of the NBA.
Don't know if anyone has noticed, but there's a football lockout going on. Labor unions are under fire in Wisconsin and several other states. Any negatives coming from these conflicts will ALSO be applied to the NBAPA - whether fairly or unfairly. Worse yet, if state budget deficits are fixed by de-unionization (I doubt it too, but I'm saying just suppose), the NBAPA will be seen as a failed idea by the fans - and will definitely be identified as "part of the problem."
Eventually, the players will cave in. (After all, owners can own teams for 50 years - players play 7-to-12 and then they're done.) The NBA will get most of what they want, with a few bones thrown to the players. And the entire argument will make folks more willing to turn to look at the college game again.
The winners? Baseball and Hockey. The losers? The NFL, depending on how long the lockout lasts, and the NBA. BIG wins for MLB and NHL if basketball *AND* football are BOTH sitting out at the same time.
A racial angle will be thrown into the mix. The sport of basketball as a whole will be tarnished. Players will be dismissed as cry-babies who only want to play with their friends while raking in ridiculous amounts of money. The new face of the league will be LeBron James as a Cleveland Cavalier in game 5 against Boston, with a Miami plane ticket in his hand and money stuffed in his pockets under a banner reading "The Decision."
That's what *I* think is going to happen.
