The Winner of the Lockouts? The Commissioners!

..and here I was about to say he needs to work on his pimp hand.

I got home from work today, turned on ESPN, and relaxed as they talked about a real sport…football. I was so happy football was back. I switched my Facebook profile to the logo of my Tampa Bay Buccaneers, began early planning for who I’d scoop up in fantasy football, and scoped the free agents my Bucs may scoop up in real life. Man…I was just about to find out where I could order my Bucs flag for work,then it hit me…we’ve all been fooled, myself included. 

This weekend I attempted to write something up on my theory of how Mark Emmert keeps his hoes in check effectively, and why in the era of fame over finance reality stars, David Stern and Roger Goddell can’t stop their stables from running around reckless eyeballing, and just plain out disrespecting the game. Things were going good until my ADHD kicked in. Now, I’m actually glad I never finished writing it. In the middle of fanning out today I started to wonder if this is exactly what Roger Godevil planned. Sure, the NFL and Player’s Association had to restructure some things and iron out some wrinkles in their current financial agreement, but what was the actual chance of us not getting football games this year? Peyton Manning and Tom Brady taking the NFL to court? Seriously? I mean, you figure one of those NFL minimum wage guys (which gets paid about the annual salary of the president…for far less than a years work) would be the first to run to the judge on the league. With their high medical expenses (taking care of your body when when you run, jump, and get hit by James Harrison for a living is expensive), and the increase in Maybach prices….you’d have to assume some of those special teams guys would NEED to take the NFL to court a lot sooner than pretty boy Brady, or top NFL ad boy Peyton Manning. Now, when it’s all over, when all the hype and drama is over, the only difference is a shorter free agency signing period, no missed games? I’m just saying….

This weekend, NBA players were balling everywhere except NBA arenas. Lebron brought his game to the streets of LA, balling in the Drew league, Kobe and D Rose were tossing lobs out in the Phillipines. You have to ask yourself…when’s the last time you’ve seen this many NBA All-Stars hooping this early in the off-season? When I was young, we used to go to the summer league games at the Pyramid (Long Beach State University). I saw Kobe Bryant there…but this was fresh out of high-school Kobe, far from best player in the league, 5 time champion Kobe Bryant. At the summer league games you could catch some of the rookies, and older vets fighting for roster spots. You couldn’t just show up to a game in the hood and catch Vince Carter doing 360s, and you wouldn’t catch Jordan hooping it up in a throw away game somewhere over in Asia…this is unheard of. While they say the NBA lockout is far more serious than NFL’s…if the season starts without a hitch, I called it first…bullshit marketing scam.

They say you don’t miss something until it’s gone…maybe the appearance of it being gone, or the possibility of it being gone works well enough. I’m no marketing expert, or psychology major…just a dude with a blog.