Charles Barkley: ‘Miracle’ Needed to Avoid NBA Lockout

Like most observers, Chuck thinks the League is about to enter a long and ugly work stoppage. From SRI (via ESPN Radio): “On the impending NBA Lockout and what a miracle it would be if David Stern would be able to bridge the huge divide between all the various parties involved: ‘Well I think, and I’m not saying this because I’m in the NBA, if you go back and look, David Stern has been the best commissioner in sports the last 25 years. It would take a miracle on his part not to have a lockout and I truly believe that. I think there’s going to be a lockout, I think the owners are dug in, I think they want to send a message to these players. I think they’re really upset by this LeBron James / Chris Bosh situation, because their teams don’t have to be really good, but I feel like if they have a star in their market they can make some money. And if all the stars want to play together…we’re almost becoming like baseball where you’ve got a few good teams and the rest of them stink.’ But wait, even though there’s a handful of powerhouse teams in baseball, there’s still been nine different teams who have won the World Series in the past decade: ‘Yeah but it’s different because we make all our money on television. And those teams … like the San Francisco Giants can win the World Series if they’ve got great pitching, but they don’t make any money on television like we do in the NBA. Then we have that rule where you can only show a team ‘X’ amount of times. So now we’re stuck. Why are we going to show the Cleveland Cavaliers? Why are we going to show the Toronto Raptors? We can’t do that. Now you’ve got the thing brewing with Dwight Howard, and now you’ve got the thing brewing with Chris Paul, and it’s like why would we show Orlando if Dwight Howard is not there? And why would we show New Orleans if Chris Paul is not there? I think because they’re upset that some of these players all want to play together…..I think the players are going to have to take a really shoddy deal not to have a lockout. And I shouldn’t say a shoddy deal, but they’re going to put some things in play where all these players can’t play together — that’s first and foremost. And I think they are going to bring these salaries down, as far as ‘X’ amount of years. I think they’re definitely going to do those two things.'”