This excerpt from Bill Suimmons from Page 2 on ESPN.com...he makes some very real 'in your face' style comments on hoops. Check out his comments on the Lockout below...ITS GOLD!:
"Everyone forgets this now, but when they had the last lockout, the reason it ended was because too many players had leveraged themselves financially and were relying on their next paycheck to survive. I know, I know & that sounds impossible in a league where just about everyone has an eight-figure contract. But without pointing any fingers, imagine you owned multiple houses and multiple cars, you sired multiple kids by multiple women, and you were supporting multiple family members and multiple friends from back home & and suddenly you weren't getting a paycheck for six months? Would you be sweating it a little bit? Once the players started panicking, Stern smelled the blood in the water, stuck the shark fin on his back and started circling Hunter & leading to the famous story (possibly apocryphal) of an enraged Charles Oakley slapping an A-list superstar player across the face during one meeting, followed by the abrupt end of the lockout and fans' paying $80-90 a ticket to see overweight stars playing themselves back into shape.
(The NBA & it's FANNNNNNNNN-tastic! I love this game!)
Anyway, there was no way this was happening again. From the last lockout, Stern knew the players would cave once he started threatening a lockout and sitting quietly in his seat with a menacing look on his face every time ABC showed him during the Finals. Too many of the guys in the league were there in 1999. They weren't going down that road again. And Stern knew it. That's why he's the best. And that's why he should be our next president."
