NBA players starting a new league? Get serious

SALT LAKE CITY — Amare Stoudemire, the New York Knicks' star player, thinks he knows what the players can do if the upcoming NBA season is canceled. He and the other players have got it all figured out, and he wants you to know that he's "very, very serious" about it.

"If (the lockout doesn't) resolve then we're thinking about starting our own league," he says.

And thank you for continuing the players' fine tradition of making really stupid comments during NBA lockouts (please, see the '98 lockout when Kenny Anderson complained that he might have to sell one of his eight luxury cars to survive, and Pat Ewing's legendary quote, "Sure NBA players make a lot of money, but we spend a lot, too.").

Stoudemire, just getting warmed up, continued: "If we don't go to Europe, then let's start our own league; that's how I see it," he said. "It's very, very serious."

Actually, this idea is so laughable and na?e that it's difficult to know where to begin.

Let's start with a comparison that maybe even the players can understand: Like them or not, NBA owners are to the business world what NBA players are to basketball. They're worth anywhere from $100 million to $5 billion. They are successful. They know how to game plan in the boardroom. Do NBA players think they can compete with these guys? It's the equivalent of Kobe Bryant going one-on-one with Mark Cuban on the basketball court.

Most players didn't finish college — or even start college. They don't know anything except basketball, especially when it comes to money, which is why 60 percent of NBA players reportedly go broke within five years after retirement.

They can't even handle their own finances, so why do they think they can run a billion-dollar business?

To listen to Stoudemire, though, starting a league is simple. "It's just a matter of us strategically coming up with a plan, a blueprint and putting it together," he said.

Right. And building a 747 is just a matter of us strategically coming up with a plan to slap some steel together with some wires and bolts and other stuff.

Stoudemire sounds like Bubba in "Forest Gump" when he is trying to convince Forest to join him in the shrimpin' business — "I got it all figured out, too. So many pounds of shrimp to pay off the boat, so many pounds for gas, we can just live right on the boat …"