NBPA Exec Dir Charles Grantham said the union will seek to
put on its own games should the NBA lock out its players at or
near the start of the '94-95 season in November. Grantham: "My
reaction is that we'll just have to show basketball in a
different way. We'll play our own games, and, hopefully, we'll
get them on television. If they're preventing us from working,
then that gives us the right to play elsewhere. If they, in
fact, move to lock the players out, we would go elsewhere." A
source within NBA management told the BOSTON HERALD that any
lockout is not likely until Thanksgiving (Steve Bulpett, BOSTON
HERALD, 9/28). Rudy Martzke reports that CBS college basketball
announcer Billy Packer said he has let the NBPA know that "he'd
like to be involved in arranging for telecasts of 'alternative
games.'" Packer: "This is business, like a hundred things I'm
doing. But whatever anybody says, I'm acting on behalf of Billy
Packer, not CBS Sports." But CBS Sports Senior VP Rick Gentile
"unequivocally" denies a report that CBS and ESPN have a deal to
televise 10 charity games in case of a lockout. NBC Sports
President Dick Ebersol, whose network carries the NBA: "I don't
know where Billy gets the time for this. I thought he spent most
of his time in airports, hanging around with bowlers and trying
to find out who's more popular, him or the bowlers." NBA Deputy
Commissioner Russ Granik: "There is no lockout, so there is no
reason to engage in any debate about the consequences of a
lockout" (USA TODAY, 9/29).
