Has anyone noticed the NBA is starting yet? Latest new is the NBA labor front isn’t good for the diehard fans. Comiss David Stern has already canceled two weeks of the preseason and he says if there is no deal by Monday than he will cancel the first two weeks of the regular season. The way the talks have gone doesn’t look good for the Monday deadline but I bet most people have no clue. The timing couldn’t be any worse for a sport struggling to start a season, just look what happened to hockey.

Pro hockey and basketball start roughly around the same time but both take a back seat in the sports world in October. Just look at ESPN, any sports radio, and even the little amount of sports talked on WOKV it’s all about the other sports. The entire sports world in October is focused on NFL, NCAA football, and Baseball playoffs. Hockey fell into the same trap when they missed their season in 2004. No one was talking about a potential lost season and it wasn’t because people didn’t care it was because of all the other stuff going on. The NFL had a huge advantage when it came to their lockout. Baseball was in the middle of a long season and the races weren’t exciting yet and that’s all that was going on. This summer it was 24/7 lockout that adds a lot of media pressure to get a job done when the eyes of the world are looking right at you.

The NBA doesn’t have that pressure and you see what’s happening or maybe you don’t. I think it’s going to be really tough to get a deal done anytime soon. We haven’t even heard the generic “we are making progress” line. The longer it goes the better hockey starts looking and maybe they will be the big winner when all is said and done.