NBA lockout ends with more shame than pride

So this is how it works: The NBA and its 430 reasons to exist try to blow themselves to smithereens for five months, catch themselves at the last minute, and suddenly everyone is a great statesman and human exemplar.In other words, threatening to kill yourself, then deciding at the last second just to take a few toes off your left foot makes you a man of peace?Yet such is the nature of self-congratulation, and of wanting something so badly you forget how badly youve been treated.We are unclear who actually deserves the credit for slapping the two sides silly, though we have heard some silly notions along the way, including the one where the new baseball deal spurred the basketball people to greater conciliatory impulses. This is, of course, idiocy.We only know one thing for sure: When Ken Berger of CBSSports.com broke the news on Twitter at 12:11 PST, the first instinct of the insomniac class was, Yeah, right, sure. Seconds later, people were scrambling for all-night caterers and 24-hour parade routes.And one other thing: You may start complaining about the Warriors and Kings on December 26.Details are understandably sketchy while both side scramble to take credit for brokering the deal, which must still be approved by kindred spirits like Bob Sarver and Metta World Peace, but this lockout will fade into insignificance once people see that losing 16 games and a month and a half is probably good for the product.And next year, when an owner tries to make next years schedule 98 games long to make up for the 16 lost this season, lots of people will nod happily and say, Yeah, mmmmmm, more games. Nummy.Too bad, too, because having seen the NFL avoid the lesson in humility it sorely needed and Major League Baseball duck the bullet entirely, the NBA was our next realistic hope for some good and proper shame directed at the owners and their uniformed minions.Oh, we like our amusements as well as anyone, an the NBA is a worthwhile amusementeven in Oakland and Sacramento, as hard as that may be to believe.But the NBA got to thinking it was bigger than itself while both sides and posed and preened and prostituted and acted all indispensable and like that there. It isnt, of course, and not even the most ardent hoop blogger can make such a claim with a straight face. A full season would have shown the league and its players its real place in the universe, and nothing beats a humble for educational value.Instead, the sides pulled out of their mutual death spirals in the middle of the night FridaySaturday, proving of nothing else that tryptophan does not paralyze all people equally. David Stern forgot that he hated Billy Hunter, and Hunter pretended that he thought Stern was an owners tool, and they became fast friends again.Makes you want to heave just thinking about it.Camps are expected to open December 9, and the Warriors and King both open December 26, the day after Christmas to honor a deal made the day after Thanksgiving. Hurray for everyone, I guess.But this isnt a day to be proud of, in all frankness. It should never have gotten to this point, and the owners should have been made to learn that fans dont care about them, never have and never will. Their job is to provide the shows demanded of them, and having tried to screw the product, they should enter the new season with more shame than pride.They wont, but a fella can dream.