Tim Ajmani
The Corsair
Today is November 1st, 2011. If you’re wondering why we won’t be seeing Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, and Dirk Nowitzki, you aren’t alone. Strangely enough, I don’t see anyone caring about it, save for a few scattered articles in the media. If the NBA owners and players think we are missing the games and pining for some professional basketball, they are sadly mistaken. Today is day 100-and-whatever-it-is of this ridiculous lockout. And I’m still saying the same thing that I said on day 1 – I won’t miss it anytime soon.
I’m one of those people who follow sports like a religion. This past weekend was amazing for us sports fanatics. On Friday, the St. Louis Cardinals won their 2nd World Series under Tony La Russa. The Cardinals weren’t even supposed to make the MLB postseason. On Saturday, we saw more upsets in an amazing College Football season thus far. Wisconsin, for the second week in a row, gave up a late score and continued their two game skid. Stanford and USC battled for 3 OT’s in a classic, whose ending didn’t do the game enough justice. The NFL action on Sunday was even better.
The winless St. Louis Rams, perhaps inspired by the Cardinals winning the World Series, emphatically beat the New Orleans Saints. The Arizona Cardinals pushed the Baltimore Ravens to the limit, before eventually falling. In about a week, college basketball will kick off. The “state of the nation” for sports right now is at an all time high. Certainly, the NBA’s most recent season was a definite success, and probably one of the most exciting in the past decade.
However, there currently is something more exciting and fun to watch than an NBA game. Sitting behind a computer typing this is easy for me to say because I don’t follow basketball as religiously as I do with football and soccer. But watching the NBA owners and players go at it like spoiled kids is downright hilarious. Let’s take a step back and consider the current landscape of the world today; our country, from an economic perspective, is in a state of disarray. There are people fighting to put money on the table for their families. We still have many troops overseas dying. And yet, we have two sides with millions of dollars at stack that can’t, after more than one hundred days of arguing, strike a deal.
The NBA owners and players could have saved themselves like their NFL counterparts did. The NFL did not let its season waver by any imagination. Yes, the two sides acted silly for a large part of the lockout, but when push came to shove, they got a deal done, and saved their season. The NBA can’t say that. With a month’s worth of games already canceled, there is a chance that we may not see any NBA regular season action until the New Year starts.
Hey, I like watching NBA games. I thoroughly enjoyed last season. But do I miss it? No, not right now. Maybe, if this lockout continues, I’ll start to miss it after “March Madness” next year. However, I much rather prefer to see two sides with grown people acting ignorantly bicker some more.