Owners hold keys in NBA lockout

Many believe the easiest road out of this NBA lockout mess is one that leads to a Tribal Council, where the weakest contestants -- in this case, those named Minnesota and Sacramento and New Orleans and Memphis and Charlotte -- are voted off the island of riches because they just can't compete on the floor or in the stands or probably when it comes time to drinking that cow's blood with milk.

Fortunately, the guy named for "Survivor: David" has long fought the concept of contracting teams on his watch. He could, however, start with eliminating some owners, because the fact Donald Sterling has been allowed to run a professional sports franchise this long is akin to a certain local pastor overseeing the finances of a congregation.

David Stern has hardly been an NBA commissioner defined by imaginative thinking of late. But he and his league can certainly come to an agreement without eliminating franchises that -- while they might be considered dead weight under the old rules -- could actually compete and prosper under new ones.

Contraction isn't going to happen, but far too many wrongly paint it as the easy solution to a problem that has more to do with obstinate individuals on both sides than gluttonous ones.

NBA owners are losing money, but that doesn't mean the first ones punished should be fans of those cities struggling to win games. It's not about bad circumstances as much as bad management. Contracting teams has never been the cure-all answer for the pickle Stern's league finds itself in, one that has already led to cancellation of the season's first two weeks and will assuredly lead to losing more games, if not the entire 2012-13 slate.

No new meetings are scheduled between sides said to be further apart than my vertical leap compared to that of LeBron James, never a good sign for those seeking progress.

The owners created this chaos, and instead of allowing it to continue while the haves harvest all the benefits and the Timberwolves and Grizzlies and their fellow have-nots keep losing games and money, the owners need to fix it.

They're going to win the labor battle because they're bigger and richer and have more at stake than the players. Owners can wait out a lockout longer than many athletes who, amazing as it sounds given their extraordinary wealth, live paycheck to paycheck.

The thing is, as cliche as it often is to choose the side of players in these fights, much of what the owners are proposing makes sense.

Players don't want a hard salary cap because it would eliminate guaranteed contracts for all but the best talents.

And their point is?

The major reason the NBA made $3.8 billion in basketball related revenue last year (ticket sales, merchandise, concessions, broadcast fees, programs) is its star players. People aren't shelling out the monthly mortgage to watch Rudy Gay or Mike Dunleavy Jr., or standing in lines to purchase their jerseys.

James and Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant and a handful of others are the reasons all NBA players enjoy the riches of such basketball-related income, and the rest should be made to live the existence of NFL types who must annually prove their worth or fear being cut with little to no compensation.

The NBA for years now has been a mainstay of wasted payroll, littered with bad contracts that overpay for average talent, all of it being guaranteed cash.

Don't fret about what Kobe or LeBron make. Instead, wonder how in the world things got to the point of Erick Dampier making $73 million over seven years and Larry Hughes $70 million over five.

The NBA needs a hard cap to strike the balance owners seek, and they in turn need to share revenues amongst each other on a far more equal footing.

I just don't understand what would be so wrong with the Thunder or Kings winning an NBA title. Storylines and history interest me; TV ratings don't.

My guess is the sides will ultimately agree to a revenue split of 50-50, and no one should feel sorry for anyone intimately involved with slicing up $3.8 billion. My guess is the season begins some time in January.

My guess is the owners draw an even harder line across the court about that salary cap.

They created this mess. They might as well clean it up by being even more stubborn now.

If so, that idea about a Tribal Council can disappear for good.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday on "Monsters of the Midday," Fox Sports Radio 920 AM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.