Since, like you, I'm sick and tired of hearing about the lockout and wish the league and its players would go far away and return when they have a deal worked out, today's column will open with a non-lockout subject: Derek Harper.
You remember him. He's the veteran point guard who almost got traded to the Utah Jazz two seasons ago, which prompted him to utter the now locally infamous "You go live in Utah" remark.Well, it seems Harper is being courted by the point-guard desperate New York Knicks, who finally have acknowledged that Chris Childs can't play and realize that free agent Charlie Ward may opt to play elsewhere.
Harper, who played last season in Orlando, thinks he'd be a perfect fit in New York.
"The Knicks are a team that if they stay healthy would have a legitimate shot to win it all," Harper enthused to the New York Daily News recently. "I want to be a part of that."
Which seems like an odd thing for a guy to say who turned down a chance to accept a late-season trade to a team that eventually went to the NBA Finals.
So let's clear up one thing about Mr. Harper. When he declined to come to the Jazz, it wasn't about inconvenience to his family, or the lopsided racial mix in Utah, or even the severity of our winters.
It was a pure-and-simple case of a proud man not wanting to play eight to 12 minutes a night behind John Stockton.
Now, the next time you hear a demented talk-radio caller or even some numbskull around the water-cooler mention Harper's name as an example of an athlete who refused to come to Utah because there are few blacks here, you can jump all over him. That may be true in some cases, but not in Harper's.
IT'S ABOUT TIME: Speaking of talk radio, if you missed the interview Steve Klauke and Tom Nissalke did with former Boston Celtics player and coach Tom Heinsohn a few days ago, you missed a gem.
First, let's establish that Heinsohn is probably as objective a source to comment on the lockout as you could find. Sure, he's been a coach and currently works as a Celtics broadcaster, which means he's bound to have owner sympathies. But on the other hand, he was one of the founding members of the original players association. He's not some anti-union toady; he's a fundamentally pro-union guy who recognizes that things have gotten out of hand.
In a nutshell, what Heinsohn said on KFAN is that the owners created the current situation, but that the players "exacerbated" it. (That means they've made it worse; I looked it up.)
Heinsohn then dropped the bombshell. He said it's obvious that superagent David Falk is trying to manipulate events so that eventually the players will form a new league -- with Falk as commissioner.
Falk would no doubt deny this vehemently, but it does seem suspicious that he recently sold his agency for megabucks, yet he still remains ardently involved with his NBA clients and the labor stalemate.
REAL GOAL: It's been hard not to suspect all along that union decertification is the real goal of Falk and the league's superstars.
The last time an NBA collective bargaining agreement was negotiated, Falk loudly lobbied for decertification. This time he's been strangely quiet on the issue.
Gene Upshaw, longtime executive director of the NFL Players Association, thinks decertification -- which NFL players did eight years ago -- is the obvious answer.
"I would've decertified a long time ago," said Upshaw. "I think eventually, Billy (Hunter) will do it."
That was somehow reassuring to the players, who apparently forgot to notice that the NFL has the hardest salary cap and lowest average salaries in professional sports.