The NBA lockout is beginning to bring on new worries to club owners.
Their players are heading to foreign countries. I see nothing wrong with this choice because basketball is their profession and if NBA teams won’t pay them teams from other leagues will.
Kobe Bryant seems serious about playing elsewhere. At this writing a team from Turkey appears to be losing interest but China is a strong possibility because Bryant is extremely popular there.
Pau Gasol is leaning toward playing for his native Spain in a September tournament and perhaps elsewhere too.
The Lakers can only hope their star players aren’t injured.
The players’ willingness to play elsewhere increases the pressure on the NBA to settle its current financial dispute with the Players Association.
I’m intrigued by the choices players have even when they aren’t being paid by their NBA teams.
Jrue Holiday, the Philadelphia 76ers’ point guard from UCLA, attended the Womens’ World Cup championship soccer match in Germany because he’s dating US player Lauren Cheney, who he met at UCLA.
How did they meet? They were watching a UCLA girls basketball game a few years ago when another spectator rushed up to Holiday and said, “Oh my God, it’s Darren Collison. Can I have your autograph?”
Holiday laughed and Cheney, who was sitting nearby, said “you’re much cuter than Darren Collison.”
It wasn’t much later when Holiday and Cheney began dating.
As a first round NBA draft choice Holiday achieved wealth. So if he doesn’t play for awhile he can get by.
They all can if the lockout is a temporary thing.
I’ll be very surprised if there isn’t a 2011-12 NBA season. After a few months when the season would be reduced to about 50 games, both sides figure to get serious.
Unfortunately, this is the path most negotiations take as some laid off team employees and frustrated fans suffer the most.
Who’s going to cave in first? That’s the question.
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