Dave,
You don't mention or write much about the lockout. What gives? What do you think? Are you frustrated like the rest of us?
Frustrated? Maybe. Resigned is more like it. That's what I've felt since the beginning. I've gone on the record as a proponent of revenue sharing as the first step to financial sanity. I also believe in contraction, shorter guaranteed contracts, and periodic tax amnesty opportunities.
But most of all I believe that it doesn't matter what I believe. The NBA has always walked with arrogant step. That doesn't change in good times or bad. They're not going to listen to you, me, or anybody when they--players, owners, management--feel like they're The Show, that they've earned their exalted positions and power, and that they know better than anybody else about basketball and just about everything related. Wasting words is not my thing. Giving advice to those already convinced they know is fruitless.
I also give an enormous amount of credit to those authors, especially around this network, who have devoted their time and energy to this topic. I don't feel like I can detail the issues any better than they.
But you're exactly right. There's a lockout going on and it sucks. Right now we'd usually be ramping up for training camp and the season. Instead we're waiting on a bunch of rich guys to get their crap together when nobody forced them to fall apart but themselves.
So here's my protest. I'm going off-topic today. I just caught up on a few recent movies. I'll share a couple recommendations. In the comment section go ahead and share any movies that were surprisingly good or surprisingly disappointing for you. Make the movies recent. We all know that the Godfather was good.
Personally I was pleasantly surprised by X-Men: First Class. I thought it was a good relaunch and was much better acted than I expected. I also liked Source Code because it did the techno-philosophical-mystery thing while still remaining straightforward and not devolving into a muddled mess that left you guessing. It wasn't Inception-level brilliant but it also didn't require the commitment that watching Inception takes. Hanna was also a fine movie...very well thought out. On the other end of the spectrum Skyline--a movie about a small cadre of refugees evading an alien invasion--was so uniformly bad in its character development that you were rooting for the aliens after the first half hour. Eventually we'll see if Battle for Los Angeles ends up any better. Let me know what else I should see, eh?
There you go NBA and NBA fans...my protest. I want to be talking basketball. Instead I'm talking about other forms of entertainment and leading others astray as well. How long will you let this go on? I say again, how long?
--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)