David Stern: back off.

• Author: Zirin, Dave
• Position: Edge of Sports

"I don't know where you were raised, but I lived with rats. I used to kill rats. We had a .22 rifle, and we would lay in the kitchen and shoot them on the floor. One thing my grandmother taught me was that if you got a rat trapped, you've got to give his ass a way out, because he will fight you if he has to. If you don't give us a way out, a chance for a compromise, you're going to get a fight."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

A leader in the American labor movement said the above words. He wasn't a Teamster, a UAW official, or anyone from the American Federation of Teachers. He's the executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, and his name is Billy Hunter.

Yes, the labor wars have come to sports, and there is a fight brewing in the world of pro basketball that makes the NFL lockout look minor league. The main difference between the two is seen in Hunter's quote. He feels cornered and angry, and that's because the person he's negotiating with is arguably the most powerful and megalomaniacal sports commissioner in history: David Stern.

Just ask the fans of the Greater Seattle area about the price to be paid if you defy Stern. The people of Seattle didn't want to spend $300 million on a new publicly funded stadium, and so they lost their team.

But never in his three-decade tenure atop the sport has Stern seemed so unbending, so isolated, and so contemptuous of others. When Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said to the press that Stern doesn't allow dissenting opinions, Stern responded like he was doing his best Tony Soprano, saying, "We won't be hearing from him for the rest of the season." He further taunted Van Gundy by adding, "I see somebody whose team isn't performing, whose star player was suspended, who seems to be fraying."

Make no mistake about it, hoops fans: Stern's state of mind is our concern because the NBA's...