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There's crazy talk about the NBDL (the NBA's junior league) possibly giving big brother a run for its money. What's the deal with that?

Hummm......Lemme see... The sideshow upstaging the main act, and the biggest of its kind?! Not in this century.

But it can help keep it in line.

If you remember well, after the NBA lockout at the end of the 97-98 season because of union contract negotiations, it resulted in the shortened 1999 NBA season.

Shortly after that the league began working on a minor league of its own, despite the fact that the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) had been the NBA's feeder league for decades.

During the NBA's labor disputes, the CBA enjoyed plenty of attention, even a few NBA stars joked about going to play there, and USA Basketball selected players from the CBA to represent the US at the 1998 World Championsips in Athens Greece. They finished 3rd. Considering current NBA players aren't managing any better, that was and still is an impressive result.

When the NBA's NBDL finally began it's inauguaral season in 2001, the thinking was that, the commish and his followers, would use their new league as a way to keep the NBA players union in check.

If there were to be another lockout the NBA will always have the option of giving more promotion to the NDBL, and it's activities can always be seen as NBA related. So all the attention that was directed to the CBA in 1998-99 could now be channeled to their own minor league.

Sure the NBA's media partners and sponsors would surely not agree to be associated with an inferior product, for their top dollars. Yet it's a move that will definitely have the players union thinking twice if another disagreement in labor contracts were to arise.

America has great love for underdog success stories. So in the future if during an imaginary NBA lockout, don't be surprised if you find yourself getting hooked while watching the life story of some NDBL player on ESPN. That would be David Stern's Plan B in action.

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