The NBA Lockout... A Whole Different Story

     I have never been a huge fan of the NBA.  It's just not the same as college basketball.  They don't play defense like college, and NBA teams let themselves get beat by superstars too easily.  How come LeBron never gets double teamed?  But I must admit, I am completely captivated by the NBA lockout, mostly because of how different it is from the NFL lockout.

     With the NFL, you kind of had the feeling that everything was going to be fine.  They got the deal done in time, and the teams had just enough time to still have a crazy quick off season.  I even heard some fans call in sports talk radio shows to say they preferred it this way, instead of having the trade and free agency season drag out all summer, all the moves happened one after another in about two weeks.  The NBA has already cancelled two weeks of the regular season, and there are players saying they are fully prepared to sit out the whole season.

     The NBA players have a huge negotiating chip that the NFL players did not have.  The NBA players have other options.  Dozens of players have already signed contracts to play overseas if the NBA lockout doesn't end.  These are no contracts to laugh at either, some of these guys are getting paid a million bucks to play for a month.  Another option that has come up recently is a group of NBA stars going on a 4-city international exhibition tour.  I think this would be pretty interesting.  You get the NBA superstars, presumably big ticket sales, everyone wins, except the NBA.  Football players couldn't have just decided they'd play a season for NFL Europe, it's not quite the same.  Also, you don't really have the risk of injury in the NBA like you do in the NFL.

    I don't have the numbers to prove this last point, but I think the NBA just isn't as popular as the NFL.  The NFL could have handled some games being cancelled I think.  The NBA really can't.  Like other sports with long seasons, the middle of the regular season can drag on.  The NFL is so short and sweet, that every week is a big deal, and the fans would come back through just about anything.  I just don't think the NBA has the fan base to support an extended lockout.  Plus, more basketball fans might take up watching college basketball during the lockout, and come to the conclusion that many sports fans already have:  The NBA doesn't come close to the entertainment of college basketball.

It's Been A Great Postseason So Far

     Sometimes I think it's hard to get interested in the MLB postseason when your team isn't in the playoffs, but I had no problem doing that this season.  Really, it started before the playoffs, in the last week of the regular season.  I'm not anti-Red Sox or anti-Braves (okay, truthfully, I don't much care for the Red Sox), and if you check my pre-season predictions I had the Sox and Braves in the World Series, so I was rooting for them as much as anyone.  But, to see the two wild card teams, the Rays and Cardinals, come back from huge deficits to barely make it into the playoffs was extremely entertaining.  Also, I'd always rather see the teams with the positive momentum get in the playoffs rather than the teams who barely hung on to their regular season lead.

     I had a feeling this postseason would be good, and the biggest reason for that was that I can't remember a year when I had less confidence in the two top seeds in each league.  The Phillies and Yankees ended the regular season on a whimper, both seemingly for different reasons.  The Yankees made it clear that they only had one motivation for the last week of the season; to make sure their starters were healthy for the playoffs.  They benched a lot of their regulars against Tampa Bay, and it didn't hurt that losing to the Rays would help keep the Red Sox out of the playoffs.  The Phillies manager Charlie Manuel however, let everyone know that they would be trying as hard as usual in the last week of the regular season, but they struggled as well.

     Sure enough, The Phillies and the Yankees both lost in the first round, leaving four hungry teams who aren't always playoffs fixtures, in the Cardinals, Brewers, Rangers, and Tigers.  I wanted to write on here and make playoffs predictions, but I honestly couldn't.  This year's playoffs were as unpredictable as possible, that is what made it so great.  The Rangers and Cardinals of course moved on in the League Championship Series' and are getting ready for the World Series.  I think this series will be as good as the rest of the playoffs has been.  I'm not at all confident in being able to predict how this will turn out, but I'll take the Rangers in 7.