Regarding This NBA Lockout

I have lived through an NBA lockout, but the the stakes did not seem nearly as high then as they appear to be right now. The consequences of this current mess truly have the potential to change the meaning of the NBA for years to come. During the first lockout, the prospect of superstars gracing the courts of Turkey or China were impossible. The legitimacy of those leagues was so far behind the NBA that for someone like Allen Iverson in 1998 to even mention balling abroad was not just laughable, it was non-existent.

Things are different in the post-modern world of 2011. We live in a global society, a global market and a global sports universe. You want proof?

The most prolific goal-scorer in English Premiership Football history currently plays his professional soccer in Harrison, NJ, and Kobe Bryant—who is currently fielding offers to play in Turkey—just stated that watching Barcelona influenced his basketball game.



Call the above a cheap way for me, a lover of the marriage between soccer and basketball, to promote the connection between two global games, or view it as a mere observation of the current state of athletics—either way, there is no denying that many of our sporting heroes have more choices regarding where they can earn a paycheck than they've ever had.

However, not all of the American sports leagues are vastly popular worldwide. Most notably: the NFL, which has never successfully infiltrated the rest of the world with the same debilitating disease that has infected American football fans. People worldwide tune in for the Superbowl, but when  the league tried to expand to Europe in 1991 with NFL Europe, they stumbled aimlessly for 16 years before ceasing operations and shuttering its six teams in 2007. If this year's NFL lockout had continued through the start of the season, Tom Brady and Chad Ochocinco's choices to continue playing their preferred game would have been either the Canadian Football League or the Arena Football League (also: RIP the XFL). If not for the NFL, Mike Vick and Plaxico Burress would have ended up like Brooks Hatlen with no sustainable post-prison options. (Yep, a Shawshank reference. Bill Simmons, get at us! Grantland here we come!)

The NBA could, and should, always be similar in its basketball standard of superiority and greatness. But the lockout is leaving the door wide open for other countries that clearly love the game as much as we do, and are so ready to see some of the superstars they adore from afar call their respective city home.

And why do so many foreigners love this American-born game so dearly? For many reasons, sure, but perhaps the most influential variable is the NBA's intense global marketing campaign. This 2008 article from Sports Business Daily transcribes an interview with the NBA's head of Global Marketing, Heidi Ueberroth. Ueberroth details how intent the league is on gaining popularity in lands abroad and how serious they are about the resources they're putting into these ventures. Conversely, this New York Times piece outlines one of the NFL's global strategies: a program that places Europeans on practice squads for NFL teams and guarantees that they can't be cut in hopes that one day, the league will find its first foreign superstar (Canadian Kurt Warner doesn't count). Suffice it to say, French practice players for the Washington Redskins are a far cry from talks of adding a foreign based team to the NBA, aggressive outreach in India and the success of Dirk Nowitzki.

Noting the above, it's reasonable to suggest that the NFL's apathy and inability to engage outsiders might very well have saved itself from implosion during this lockout, a prospect that the NBA is dealing with right now. Antonio Cromartie has seven kids to feed and with nowhere else for him to earn a paycheck intercepting passes, the pressure for the NFL Players Association to get a deal done was immense. Meanwhile, Zaza Pachulia doesn't need to worry about where he'll earn a paycheck this year because there's plenty of Turkish basketball money to be wire-transferred into his bank account.

When David Stern and the other NBA suits decided they were going to invest heavily in new horizons, I wonder if it ever crossed their mind that they might possibly be dooming their product forever.

The NBA could shut down for the entire year. What's to stop other studs from flocking across the pond, or two ponds and not only getting comfortable in new territory, but also embracing the idea of a role that surpasses NBA champion: ambassador of basketball in new lands—the equivalent of what David Beckham and Thierry Henry mean to soccer in the U.S.

What do we do as diehards? Blame the players for ditching the NBA in favor of other leagues that are actually operating? Blame David Stern for his LeBron-esque dreams of making the league a global icon? Disparage the owners for not really acting like they care? Root for the Turkish team that now boasts Deron? Try and nab Vick and the law firm, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, in our upcoming NFL fantasy draft? Forget it all and focus on Henry's quest for an MLS Cup in November? Get seriously depressed about the prospect of NBA-less nights in December, January in February?

Honestly?

All of the above.