Image via bionicteaching on flickr
Anyone who watched basketball during the 1990s is sure to have some nostalgic images seared into their brains. About 90% of them are of Michael Jordan dismantling an opponent. That other 10% are probably of Michael Jordan dismantling your home team. Growing up in Cleveland during the 1990s (oh hey, that other 10%), my cousins and I loved watching the NBA. We watched Cavs games. We bought NBA gear. I still have my Mark Price home jersey. My older cousin was DEVASTATED when he lost one of his Latrell Sprewell high tops during family car trip to Florida; it was the worst Spring Break of his life. Almost as devastated as I was when my family moved into a new house, and I somehow lost 2 David Robinson cards (from the “David’s Best†series) and two Alonzo Mourning rookie cards.
Oh you better believe we collected basketball cards. The three of us got a whole set one year for Christmas, and we divvied it up in a card draft (Not unrelated: if anyone happens to want 26 Calbert Cheaney rookie cards, hit me up). Why we needed three separate subscriptions to Beckett Basketball Monthly, I’ll still never understand. But we scoured those pages every month when those issues came in the mail, and every month we’d make fun of George Mikan’s glasses. Posters of Larry Johnson (as himself and GrandMama) adorned our walls. We tore pictures of players out of magazines (sports or otherwise) and taped them everywhere. My favorite was my height comparison chart of Muggsy Bogues and Shawn Bradley (Did you know the shortest adult in the world in the mid-90s was 18 inches tall and lived in rural India?).
In 1998, I took down my magazine pages, boxed up my cards, ended my Beckett subscription, rolled up GrandMama, and put them all in the back of my closet. Of all these pictures and mementos and keepsakes I had of the NBA around me at all times, the lasting picture I have of the NBA in the 1990s is Patrick Ewing, in a big brown suit, hulking over a microphone, telling me that he wanted more money, and he wasn’t going to play until he got it.
That may not be what he said, but it’s what I heard. Had I known then what I know now, I don’t think I would have been able to comprehend the complexities of labor disputes, salary caps, free agency, and why billionaires and millionaires fight. To be honest, I still don’t. But I was just entering my teen years, and these rich guys were taking something away from me that I’d enjoyed during my childhood. I didn’t get it, but I blamed who I could see: the players. Why didn’t they want to play? Why did they need more money? Whatever the answer to these questions (and dozens of other more educated ones I never thought to ask), the damage was done. The NBA lost me as a fan. It helped that the marginally competent Cleveland Indians were there to salve my fan-wounds, but it wasn’t the same. The characters were different. The personalities were different. The pace was very different. I was different.
Since then, the players have gotten a bit better at controlling their message, or at least the owners have gotten just as bad at making themselves look bad. Maybe it’s a sign of the times: labor disputes and anti-billionaire sentiments aren’t exactly rare these days. It’s not like both sides don’t have legitimacy to their causes; they just don’t need to look like jerks. Their federally-appointed mediator threw up his hands and walked out, saying that there was nothing he could do: the lockout was terminal. November’s games are gone, and those might just be the first. In 98-99, the NBA had a shortened season. A pretty poor one from what I recall (though I didn’t watch much of it). Apparently it’s worth forgoing hundreds of millions of dollars lost because both sides are too stubborn to make it work. Will dwindling fanbases be worth it too?
