NBA lockout's gone largely unnoticed

If you're in line at the airport and more than one person says he misses pro basketball, look out. Chances are good you're about to board a flight with David Stern and his family.

The NBA commissioner should have been dressed in sackcloth and ashes to set off his new beard and all the wailing he's been doing lately. It's almost impossible to see him on TV without his finger wagging at somebody or other, carrying on about how hard it will be to win back the fans when - if? - the league gets back to playing actual basketball games."It will be an extraordinary amount of work," Stern said. "We will have to almost beg their indulgence."

Not to worry. Though nobody in the league office has dared mention it, poll after poll says that only a few people have noticed the games aren't going on. And even fewer are the least bit upset. After four months of hearing how some really rich guys are being locked out of work by even richer guys, most people have gone back to worrying about more imminent dangers - like the radon gas collecting in the basement.

Tuesday was supposed to have been opening night for the NBA, one of the few serious dents pro basketball makes in the sporting consciousness between now and the end of the NFL season. And if nothing else, it was a concrete reminder of what we missed with the cancellation of the season's first 10 games: Michael Jordan beginning his defense of the Bulls' championship by setting the hair of several Cleveland Cavaliers on fire. Latrell Sprewell suing his teammates for nonsupport after losing to Seattle by 30. The chance to see whether Karl Malone actually grew new hair.

Exactly why there has been so little clamor is anyone's guess. It took the greatest season baseball has ever known just to begin to melt away the bitterness from the most recent of its 33 labor wars. The NFL steamed more than a few followers when it took a few weeks off during both the 1982 and 1987 seasons to sort out owner-employee relations, and resentment against some replacement players lingers still. And the only reason the NHL got away with cutting the strike-shortened 1995 season in half is because Canadians have grown used to getting clobbered on the exchange rate. Besides, they're much too polite to riot.