Basketball fans everywhere this week are rejoicing, as news emerged last week that the NBA Lockout had come to an end.
The NBA, located at 645 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York, is a favorite spot of many to come and play basketball. Since August, players have been locked out after the key to the door was misplaced.
However, last Tuesday, Commissioner David Stern reached into his jacket pocket for change to pay for a coffee at a local gas station when his fingers came across something cool and metallic. Much to his surprise, it was the key to the NBA, alone on a ring, missing its miniature basketball keychain. “I usually keep my keys in my left pocket, but somehow they ended up in the right, and I never even thought to look there,” Stern told ESPN’s Nathan Sanford. “I don’t know where I could have lost the keychain. That little basketball helped me feel the keys in my pocket; made them hard to misplace.”
Stern misplaced the keys in mid-August and had been unable to find them ever since. He possessed the only key to the NBA, which left countless players stranded outside unable to play basketball.
As temperatures began to drop and signs of winter approached, patience ran thin. Some players, including JR Smith and Wilson Chandler, flew to China in pursuit of another venue at which to play basketball. Others got fed up and decided they didn’t want to play basketball, like Delonte West, who went to work at Home Depot. Most, however, continued to wait outside.
After several months, disputes between David Stern and the players arose over who would pay for a locksmith to open up the building. Stern alleged that he had lent his key to Lakers guard Derek Fisher and had never gotten it back, saying Fisher should be responsible for the cost. Fisher claimed to have never received the key. Talk of a compromise never reached fruition. In an attempt to split the cost, Fisher and the rest of the players were willing to pay only 48 percent of the cost of a locksmith, while Stern wanted them to pay 52 percent.
The dispute became irrelevant when Stern made his fateful coffee purchase.
Players were jubilant as they walked into the building for the first time in months, running toward the ball rack and then dribbling furiously with looks of utter bliss on their faces.
They plan to begin televising games December 25th.
-MFG ’14