Wednesday, Oct. 21, 1998 | 10:05 a.m.
It's hard to sympathize with a group of overpaid, pampered athletes who have been catered to their entire lives and who likely have little appreciation for the masses who pay their collectives salaries.
Yet a few soothing words seem in order for the National Basketball Association players who will begin arriving in Las Vegas today for a players' association meeting Thursday.
It's the players who are getting the shaft in the current NBA labor dispute that is now 113 days into a lockout the owners initiated July 1.
The typical fan tends to side with the owners in any owners vs. players disagreement. Generally, fans empathize with the owners because it's the owners who take the risks and have to put up the capital to operate a professional sports franchise.
They're the ones with the white hats.
But not this time.
This time it's the owners in the role of undisciplined bully, utilizing the threat of a cancelled season to alter a situation of their own making.
Simply put, the owners want to regain a little financial control over the players' salaries. Can't blame them for that, right?
Well, yes you can and here's why: The players deserve the right to work in a free-enterprise system in which they're paid what the market will bear. If a player can negotiate an outrageous salary, more power to him.
No one forced the Minnesota Timberwolves to hand Kevin Garnett a $100 million deal, ridiculous as it was to even consider such a thing.
The trick for the owners is to have the type of restraint it takes to keep those salaries within a certain affordable line without resorting to collusion. But with the owners lacking that ability, they're looking to the players' association for a little help.
And the association is in a bind. On one hand, there's the matter of principle and the knowledge that the players are not at fault if the owners have overspent on salaries. On the other hand, there's the risk of remaining adamantly opposed to change and the possibility of the entire season being cancelled.
As it is, the NBA has already called off every game scheduled for the first two weeks of the season, which had been due to open Nov. 3. Another two weeks of cancellations are said to be right around the corner.
Monday, an arbitrator ruled the owners were not obligated to pay the 226 NBA players who had guaranteed contracts for the 1998-99 season. That means no one gets a dime if the season is scrapped.
It also means more pressure on the players' association to acquiesce. They have a fund for emergencies such as these, yet it can't possibly be sufficient to cover every locked-out player's mortgage and living expenses ad infinitum.
So they arrive in Las Vegas in something of a quandary. Last week their proposal for compromise -- putting a "luxury tax" on specific free-agent signings -- was rejected by the owners and now their supposedly guaranteed contracts are worthless if the lockout continues.
The gavel will bang and there will be some players in the crowd who say it's time to give in and take whatever the owners are offering. Others will challenge their cohorts to call the owners' bluff and stick it out.
If they can afford to be gutsy about it, they should let the lockout continue until it's the owners who feel the need to settle.
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