I have never liked David Stern. I really started to despise him during the Western Conference Finals in 2006 (those were the playoffs that were officiated by the infamous Tim Donaghy–whom we all know and love). Even though that series was abysmally officiated, there was the famous incident where Robert Horry ran into Steve Nash and knocked him into the scorers table. Once that happened, a few Suns players stood up from the bench and walked a few steps on to the court to check and see if Nash was ok. They didn’t get far before they were asked to sit down. At the end of the game, suspensions came down for Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw for the next game against San Antonio because they both “left the bench during an altercation.” This decree was from Stern himself.
The thing that bothers me most about it is that the Spurs did the exact same thing a few plays later when Nash and Parker collided with each other. Tim Duncan jumped off the bench and came out FAR onto the court, did Stern do anything about that? No. So, not only did the Suns go up against a cheating reff who fixed games, they went up against a cheating commissioner who fixed games.
Now, he’s canceling them. The NBA owners have not been able to get something on the table to get a deal done, and the players don’t seem to want to receive under 51 percent of the take. Want to know what the effect of these talks will be? Less people will watch the games when they come on, and the NBA will continue to “lose money.” People can’t commiserate with millionaires fighting over millions of dollars. Especially with the economy being what it is now, few people respect what’s going on with the owners. In issues like a lockout, the owners are always the bad guys, regardless of where the fault lies. The players want to play and keep tweeting about it saying “Let Us Play,” etc. Because the fans feel the same way, they get on the side of the players and see the owners as the bad guys. Is that wrong? Yes and no.
The issues that are on the table are player salaries, revenue sharing, salary cap and other basketball related income. The owners want to lower the cap and share revenue with all the teams to make each of them more competitive. How’s this, want to make money? Start the season. Whatever needs to happen, make it happen!