Michael Ventre

As everyone knows, NBA basketball players are spoiled divas. They hang with posses, play video games, blow money on expensive cars and jewelry and are infected with a raging sense of entitlement. In short, they have no perspective. They’re consumed with themselves and don’t realize how good they have it.

Or do they?

If you want to talk about arguably the most staggering upset in NBA annals, it occurred Tuesday when it was announced that the league and its players came together on a new collective bargaining agreement, thus averting an NHL-style lockout that could have permanently tainted everyone involved.

But what is even more mind-boggling is that the players bent more than the owners. They didn’t cave, they simply gave in a little more than the other side on the key issues. Ordinarily in labor talks, this would be seen as a sign of weakness. In this case, however, the players deserve kudos for having the strength to make concessions in order to get a deal done and keep the league operating uninterrupted.

Unlike the NHL, which has deteriorated into a rinky-dink niche sport run by cow town amateurs, the NBA is thriving. There are lucrative TV deals in place. There is a loyal fan base that buys tickets and merchandise. There is an ever-growing international following. And unlike some of the other sports, especially football, hockey and to a lesser extent baseball, the NBA is ideal for the marketing of personalities. It is more star-driven than any other sport, and that translates into rabid interest.

Therefore, it wasn’t imperative for the players to budge. The league is solvent. There is no economic crisis. The gains they made in the last collective bargaining agreement did not have to be compromised, because there was no need.

Yet they made the greatest realization of all: They recognized that the owners have all the leverage.

Simply put, the owners can withstand a long work stoppage. The players can’t. Rarely do players in a professional sports league hang together long enough to outlast the owners, who are far wealthier and who usually have other outside business interests upon which to rely. Owning a sports team, at least for most, is a hobby and not the sole source of income.

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Sometimes strike funds are formed for unions, but that is the exception. And whatever resources are amassed by professional athletes for the purposes of waiting out a long period of unemployment usually is quickly tapped out because of excessive lifestyles. Mortgage payments on mansions and car payments on Bentleys tend to make an otherwise sumptuous pile of cash disappear quickly. Remember those immortal words uttered in 1999 by Patrick Ewing during the last lockout: “Sure we make a lot of money. But we spend a lot of money, too.”

To their great credit, the players in 2005 have a firmer grasp on reality, which is why there is labor peace today.