First two weeks of NBA regular season canceled in labor strife; commentator says it's not about the fans or the game

Writes ESPN's J.A. Adande, in NBA shows it has no game: Why did the league cancel two weeks? Because it plays the fans for fools, mostly:

You haven't heard the fans, or the game itself mentioned much lately, have you? That's because they don't factor into this discussion at all. It was always about people saving themselves: owners asking the players to bail them out of bad business moves, players asking to preserve their cushy status with the highest average salaries among American team sports.

But Bruce Ratner says the under-construction Barclays Center, beneficiary of triple tax-exempt bonds and a fiendishly clever use of PILOTs (payments in lieu of taxes) to pay off construction, is "largely for the children and youth."

In contrast with Adande, it should be noted, analysts such as Malcolm Gladwell come down firmly on the side of the players.