What Is Taking Over For The NBA

So what have you been watching instead of the NBA?

For me, it's been work, work, work and a big side dish of work, but the bigger point is this: no one, and I'm wildly beyond the pale in terms of liking pro hoop, seems all that put out from the lack of ball. The NFL spreads their product out over so many days now, and there's so much more to see and do with social media and Internet-ready entertainment (and yes, I consider Netflix instant to be in that camp), that the loss really isn't as striking as it might have been.

So after a lifetime of locking into teams and rivalries and draft picks and free agent movement... um, what? Sure, I guess I'd snap right back into all of the usual teams and obsessions and fantasy rosters and yada yada yada. But are there people, outside of Boston Fan and Laker Fan and Heat Fan and Bulls Fan, that feels like if they don't see what happens in the league under the current teams in 2011-12, they'd be cheated?

Personally, I'd be more interested in the entire league if they re-started the league from scratch. I wouldn't feel like anything had been lost, or that the league was any less appealing, and whatever disjointed nature of ball happened would be easily overcome by the feeling of hope and fascination I'd have for trying to figure out what the league was like now.

Football isn't like this. Even baseball isn't like this, and I root for an MLB- franchise that will be about as interesting to watch in 2012 as watching paint dry. If I didn't have a fantasy league that's just hanging in limbo, with a trophy that sits and looks at me as I write these things, I doubt I'd have even written as half as much about the matter as I have.

So stay out, NBA owners. It's all hurting us so, so much. Can't you tell from the reaction you are getting from the public over your absence?