With the 2011-12 NBA season potentially over, I've been trying to block everything related to professional basketball out of my mind. As much as I'd love to see the NBA and NBPA come to an agreement over the Thanksgiving break and get the season started by Christmas, it seems less and less likely to happen every day. Rather than get myself worked up over the loss of what could have been an exciting Knicks season, I've been telling myself to forget about the NBA and focus on bigger and better things - college football bowls, the second half of the NFL season, college hoops and maybe even a little NHL hockey.
It's been harder than I expected to stay away from NBA-related conversation over the last few weeks, however. For one, perhaps not surprisingly, every person I come across wants to talk about the NBA lockout. People are constantly asking me for my thoughts or trying to draw some inside information out of me (which I honestly don't have); it's happened so often over the past month that I pretty much have a scripted response memorized ("I haven't heard anything specific, but based on what I've been reading from public sources I don't feel optimistic. It's really a shame, especially after the fantastic finish to last season and considering all of the great young talent in the league blah blah blah").
There are other little reminders of the NBA's absense that I'm also forced to deal with everyday, though. ESPN's Scorecenter app for Android phones still lists basketball games among the upcoming events; on the "My Teams" tab, I have each previously-scheduled Knicks game staring me in the face, with a giant "CANCELLED" written where the start time would normally be. The other day I was watching a college basketball game being played at Madison Square Garden (and I'll be watching more from there this week when Stanford heads to the Big Apple to take part in the pre-season NIT semifinals starting on Wednesday) and noticed that the NBA three point line is still prominently painted on the hardwood. Every channel I turn to is either running a T-Mobile ad starring Dwyane Wade, an Adidas spot featuring Derrick Rose or the new (and amusing) Call of Duty commercial with the Dwight Howard cameo at the end.
Yes, there's a lot of sports to watch right now, even with the NBA on hiatus. But that doesn't mean it's been easy to forget about the NBA altogether. Whether it's the constant questioning from family and friends, the ESPN app, college basketball at MSG or seemingly every ad on TV, reminders of all the great professional basketball that we're missing right now are everywhere. Here's hoping that the two sides come to an agreement soon, before the 2011-12 season is lost forever and all we're left with is the (fitting) image of Dwight Howard firing a machine gun.
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