NBA Lockout Watch, Day 54: Players Don't Have Leverage They Wanted

As the NBA lockout "approaches its two-month mark and with just one full-blown meeting having taken place since it began, the harsh reality is that the leverage players wanted so badly doesn't seem to exist," according to Sam Amick of SI.com. The opportunities to sign with foreign teams "that were limited to begin with are shrinking by the day." Decertifying the NBPA "remains an option for the players, although dissolving the union would do immense damage to both sides, and it would only extend this sluggish situation considering the league filed a litany of preemptive lawsuits in early August." Furthermore, the "self-employment route is also a non-starter as a business strategy." Players are "learning the hard way how vital the league's marketing machine is with sponsorship and television money." But Amick noted there is "one reason, and one reason alone, why the players aren't rolling over in this labor standoff: the expectation/belief/hope that the owners will be divided at some point in time." The "hoped-for fracture might start" with Lakers Owner Jerry Buss, Clippers Owner Donald Sterling, Bulls Chair Jerry Reinsdorf or Knicks Owner James Dolan. In the eyes of "so many players and the folks who represent them, someone from a large market will eventually raise his hand and ask out of this lockout game." That owner "would be followed by a few more of the fattest cats whose finances are just fine, and then there would be weeping from small -- and mid-market owners who have dreamed of a system makeover." But Amick added, "Here's the thing about this premise that has so much to do with the current state of affairs: I'm pretty sure it's wrong. There's nary a sign of the owners backing down" (SI.com, 8/22).

BLOCKED SHOT: SPORTING NEWS' David Steele writes under the header, "China Doesn't Embrace Being NBA Stars' Backup Plan." The NBA "has cashed in big on the Yao Phenomenon, milking that for nearly a decade." Its players "have become celebrities in China in the same way they have in other countries in which the league has spread its gospel." No Chinese basketball officials "have gotten in the way of any of that," yet the Chinese Basketball Association last week "drew a line anyway" by not allowing teams to sign players with existing NBA contracts. The policy "definitely stifles NBA players’ ambitions to immerse themselves into an international league in case there is no NBA season." It also "gives the NBA itself a leg up in those negotiations, which could very well be part of the motivation for the Chinese league, hoping to stay on good terms with the league that helped make Yao a worldwide sensation" (SPORTING NEWS TODAY, 8/23).