Harrison Stanfill

The NBA is in the middle of a heated lockout and both sides are nowhere near a negotiation.

This should come as no surprise if you have flipped on ESPN this past month.

This lockout is so heated they can’t even decide on who came up with the different plans to get them out of the lockout. It is basically a circus in New York right now and this past week, NBA commish David Stern announced they were going to cancel even more games up to Nov. 30.

This might as well be the death sentence for the NBA.

If they have to cancel any more games they are going to get closer and closer those Christmas Day games. If the NBA loses those games then their season is a wash.

I realize that the NBA is not the most popular sport in this part of the country, but if the NBA season is lost it will definitely be missed.

There is nothing quite like seeing LeBron James fly through the lane and throw it down on some unsuspecting power forward, or watching Kobe shimmy and shake and take an ill-advised 3-pointer when the rest of the team is standing wide open.

It’s this kind of star power that has driven the NBA, but this is not what I’m going to miss about the NBA.

What I will miss most about the NBA will be the role players, not the stars. There are three types of role players that almost every team has and makes watching every game fun.

It’s the role players that bring the energy and drive the team toward success.

If you watched any Chicago Bulls game last season you know that it’s not Derrick Rose that makes that drives that team, but rather “The Vanilla Godzilla” Brian Scalabrine. “The Red-Haired Monster” himself was the first one off the bench congratulating his teammates, leading the league in high-fives, averaging a whopping 15 per game.

Putting up stats like that raises some serious eyebrows. Especially when Nate Robinson, everyone’s favorite teammate, is only bringing down eight high-fives per game and only three and half chest bumps per game, a slightly disappointing season last year from Nate.

It’s not all about encouraging from the bench, though.

When they do get in the game role players have got to do the stuff the starters don’t want to do. It’s not the prettiest role to play on a team but you need the enforcer, the guy who is going take the charges, knock you down in the lane and dive for the loose balls.

It is so much fun to watch a guy who does all this and the best in the business is “The Custodian” Brian Cardinal of the Dallas Mavericks. The Custodian put on a showcase during the NBA Finals, diving for every loose ball, taking charges from  LeBron and completely stifling the Heat’s dynamic duo of the Big Z and  Chris “All Talk” Bosh.

After the cheerleader and the enforcer there is one more type of role player, the specialist. This is the guy who comes off the bench and does one thing really well. Either he comes off the bench and can light it up from three like “Pretty Fly for a White Guy” JJ Reddick or he comes into the game and can electrify the crowd and fire up his teammates.

I love nothing more than watching “The Birdman” Chris Anderson fly through the lane all tatted up and throw it down. That is not where the enjoyment stops because after he throws it down, expect some trash talking, fist pumping, and arm waving.

I won’t miss watching The Durantula throw it down, but how often do you get to watch a slightly overweight, tatted up white guy with a Mohawk dunk?

The NBA is a league all about its stars.

It is obviously the star power that is what is driving this league. That is not what I will miss during the lockout.

It is the role players that make the NBA fun for me, your everyday guys who are just happy to be there.

Harrison Stanfill is a guest columnist for The Arkansas Traveler. His column appears every Monday.