Photo by o0mouse0o via flickr
NEW YORK — Full committees of NBA owners and players met Tuesday with a hint of progress on the economic split but no signs of compromise on the hard salary cap owners are trying to impose.
After five hours — most of it spent with each side symbolically huddled amongst themselves, apropos of their deeply entrenched bargaining stances — National Basketball Players Association executive director Billy Hunter and president Derek Fisher warned that it appears the season will not start on time. Hunter said he has advised players that they “may have to sit out half the season before we get a deal.”
“We can’t come out of here thinking that training camps and preseason are going to start on time,” Fisher said.
via NBA talks at stalemate, start of season imperiled – CBSSports.com.
That’s the dagger, ladies and gentlemen. After a week of optimism, the Wicked Witch of hope is dead. The munchkins of the lockout are rejoicing. By my calculations and Billy Hunter’s estimate of a half-season lost, the most die-hard among us (no, not you, Bruce Willis) are looking at 29,520 minutes of game time taken away.* That’s 492 hours. I don’t know how many days that is – I’m not a wizard – but I know that filling the gap is going to be an on-going struggle, an uphill battle of Sisyphean proportions. Fortunately, I’m here to offer a handful of activities to help while away the time.
*Commercials not included. In these incredibly difficult times, I suggest you still use commercials in your day-to-day lives. Do nothing for more than 12 minutes at a time. Make liberal use of the television timeout. Most importantly, never prepare a sandwich or other ready-made food unless you are explicitly within the friendly confines of a commercial break. You’ll thank me once the league returns.
- Volunteer to coach a Boys & Girls Club youth basketball team
Wit the owners and players setting a bad example for the children, you can show them that basketball isn’t just a modern 3-ring circus. It’s also a great game to play and teaches them lifelong lessons about discipline, teamwork, and blaming the people in charge of enforcing the rules for everything that doesn’t go your way. Most B&GC leagues operate with four 8-minute quarters, so you’ll only need to coach 922 games (plus an additional half, which you’ll probably cover with a few overtime sessions) to make productive use of this lockout. If you’re even more motivated to help the youth of America, you can hold two practices each week – an hour apiece. Then your services will only be necessary for 194 weeks (or just shy of 4 years) before you’ve taken back what was once yours! It’s what LeBron would want.
- Become 5% of an expert
By every indication I got from the people I cheated off of to get through college, being smart is really hard. Malcolm Gladwell famously stated that being an expert in a given field requires 10,000 hours of intense study or practice – and it has to be the right kind of practice. An orangutan cannot become an expert on the guitar, even if you allow him 10,000 hours of practice and dress him up to look like Jimi Hendrix. He simply lacks the necessary funk in his soul and the mental ability to appreciate the pentatonic scale.*
*Lemur monkeys are better suited for these purposes, but be sure to keep them away from housecats, as they are susceptible to toxoplasmosis.
Fortunately, you now have almost a full 1/20th of the time necessary to look everyone else in the eye and say, “No, trust me. I am an expert,” so pick a subject and get to it! Have you ever wanted to be able to maintain your own vehicle and save yourself money? You probably don’t have the dedication to learn that much, so why not take this opportunity to become the most proficient air-conditioning vent operator on your block? Your children will thank you. Admire Shakespeare but bemoan the fact that the dude wrote so darn much? Pick a sonnet and earn renown as the world’s leading authority on any single couplet. Now you don’t just speak English – you are the English master! And it’s all thanks to the lockout and your well-earned free time!
- Watch the Top 16 Basketball Movies on a continuous loop.
Coincidentally, you’ll be able to watch them sixteen times in your 29,520 NBA-free minutes. With a remainder of seven viewings of Eddie. It’s like your own NBA Playoffs, with Whoopi Goldberg as the Finals!
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If none of these ideas appeal to you, don’t fret. You have plenty of time to figure out your own NBAlternatives. Feel free to share your best suggestions; if the negotiations stay this productive, we’ll have another 29,520 minutes to spare.
