Let’s Make a Deal, Commissioner Stern

The NBA is on the verge of a lockout. This day of reckoning has been looming on the horizon for some time and now it has arrived. Commissioner David Stern and the owners have some issues they feel need to be addressed in order for the game to continue growing at a healthy pace, while the players believe there are things that need to change before a deal gets done.

One of the chief issues on the table that need to be addressed is the length of player contracts. The league wants shorter contracts, decreasing the maximum length of contracts from seven years (six if you're a free agent who doesn't re-sign with their team) to five years (four if you don't re-sign with your team). The owners are solidly behind this issue because they want to protect themselves from the many bad decisions, bad contracts, and bad injuries they've had to endure over the years.

Do you know how much Grant Hill cost the Orlando Magic? It cost them Tracy McGrady and a couple million dollars. How much has Allan Houston's bad knees and his bad contract hamstrung the Knicks? The Atlanta Hawks are just now recovering from the ridiculous mistake of signing Jon Koncak to his huge contract over a decade ago. The owners want a way to curb their spending but at the same time, protect themselves from themselves. The shorter contracts would provide the owners with a bit of a safety route in case a player signing goes wrong, due to various reasons, such as an unfortunate injury or a lack of player talent.

Theoretically, with the shorter contracts, fewer mistakes would be committed. But, in the event that a mistake is made, that mistake won't have to linger on a team's books for what seems like an eternity and turn into a colossal blunder. This, in turn, allows a team to recover from their mistake quicker, thereby giving each team an equal opportunity to sign and keep talent, which would then create a more level playing field for each team in the league. When you step back and analyze it, you have to admit that it's a very sugary, fantasyland-type view of the world. It's a very noble outlook, but one I'm not so sure would ever become a reality. It's also not an issue important enough to lockout players over, either.

One thing I am sure about, though, is the feeling David Stern must have whenever he looks at the current makeup of his league. Whenever he surveys the NBA landscape, what he sees are wonderful players and good teams. However, what he also sees is a league that is getting younger by the season. One in which the players are too immature to be on their own, earning millions of dollars a year and providing for their own families. He sees too many young, urban youth becoming role models when they need role models themselves. He sees too many tattoos. He sees too many players with cornrows. He sees an NBA, maybe sometime in the near future, that struggles to retain the corporate sponsors he worked so hard to bring to the table in the 1980s and '90s.

Worse yet, he sees players that are becoming increasingly difficult to market because the average basketball fan doesn't know anything about them. So, because of these, and many other things he sees as ills of the game, Mr. Stern is proposing that there ought to be age restrictions for the league. His reasoning is that if the league imposes age restrictions on its potential draft participants, then the entrants to his league will be better equipped to handle life in the NBA and in the public eye, and, in turn, will be more marketable to Madison Avenue.

Stern helped transform the NBA from a drug-tainted sport that almost no one cared about or watched in the 1970s to a league with worldwide appeal, driven by superstars like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird. Stern carefully crafted the image of the NBA and helped bring it into the 21st century with slick cross-promotion and basketball stars who became matinee idols and household names.

But now, he believes that the look of the league has changed due to the proliferation of teenagers, most of whom are unknown until draft day when their name is called, that dot many rosters. The league has become more hip-hop than jazz, which, in his mind, has a negative perception with advertisers and has the potential to drive them away in the near future. So, his only way of protecting himself and his league is to institute an age limit that won't allow anyone access to the league until they are at least twenty years of age or two years removed from their high school graduation.

The problem I have, along with many of the players, with Stern's age-limit restriction is the fact that it appears racially motivated and for a sport that's as image-conscious as the NBA, this is a potential PR nightmare. The fact of the matter is that the majority of the players aiming to join the league right out of high school happen to be inner-city African-American kids.

And, despite how unrealistic it may be, many kids in the inner-cities view professional sports as their ticket out and the quicker they can punch that ticket out of their situation, the better it will be for them. For many, college isn't even a viable option and mandating that they must go to school for another two years is a waste of time for the athlete who doesn't want to be there, the school that could be educating someone else who wants to be there and the displaced student whose seat the unwilling athlete-student now occupies.

The players argue that Stern's proposed age restriction is unfair because it's a form of discrimination — ageism in reverse, if you will. If they're old enough to get married, the players wonder, vote and fight in unjust wars, why shouldn't they be allowed to support themselves playing basketball? Whey are they being targeted? Why isn't anyone going after Major League Baseball and its draft? Why must you wait until you're 21 to play in the NBA, if you can be drafted by baseball teams and sign professional contracts at 16? Why isn't there a fuss made when soccer has their draft and one of the teams drafts and signs a 14-year-old kid? Why is it that teenagers can turn professional and play professional tennis and golf tournaments but basketball players have to wait until they're 21 to live their dream to play in the NBA?

The reason is because none of these other sports are dominated by and populated with urban youth and whether David Stern finally admits that or not, the perception is there that this whole issue is racially-motivated and will not go away quietly. And it shouldn't go away quietly because some things are worth fighting for. Having an age limit in the NBA is a rule that is a whole lot discriminatory and probably just a little bit racist and one I would fight with every fiber of my being — if it were me.

However, for all the negative talk, fortunately, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. News spread late last week that the league and the players aren't as far apart on a deal as they had been in recent weeks. In fact, negotiations, which had broken off, have begun anew, just in time for the beginning of the NBA Finals. So, there is hope that a deal can be struck quickly because no one wants to lose basketball.

You need look no further than the NHL to see just how much of an impact a lockout can have on a league and a sport. Hockey has just about fallen from the consciousness of most American sports fans, just when we would normally be in the midst of another exciting run for Lord Stanley's Cup. Instead, interest in hockey has all but died in this country to the point that even if brought back next year, the NHL would be hard-pressed to restore fan interest to the levels they'd reached prior to the lockout.

Therefore, my memo to David Stern and the players is simple: get a deal done ASAP! Do not become like hockey. Do not become a memory lost in the minds of the American sports fan. Do not sell out your fans because you couldn't agree on a few simple, yet potentially destructive, issues. The average sports fan already has no sympathy for athletes they perceive to be spoiled and rich and not playing because of contract or money issues is no way to get the people on your side.

We've already seen how much damage a lockout can do to the welfare of a league and a sport. It took baseball many years and a now-tainted homerun race to restore the fan interest in their game. Don't deprive basketball fans to opportunity to see the next step in the development of great young players like Dwyane Wade, Amare Stoudemire, and LeBron James.

Get a deal done now and avoid the mess of a lockout. There is far too much to lose and not nearly enough to gain if there is no NBA next year. But, if you don't believe me, ask your favorite NHL player how much his life has changed since being locked out the next time you go to your favorite fast food drive-through window. I'm sure he'll be happy to tell you all about it as he checks to make sure you have enough ketchup and napkins in your bag.