Hubbard column: Live from New York! It’s the NBA and Saturday Night!

By now, the writers responsible for Saturday Night Live spoofs are papering the halls of NBC with Kim & Kris scripts. After a couple of weeks off, a new show is scheduled this week and you can bet Kardashian-Humphries will get major play.

Ah, the NBA and reality TV: Fantastic!

The announcement Monday of divorce plans between the couple came after only 72 days of marriage. You can google “Kardashian and over-under” and see that projections of how long the relationship would last were being made immediately after they got married, but the shortest I saw was six months.

That proved to be wildly optimistic.

Getting an SNL interpretation is inevitable, but I’d rather the comedy writers focus on the lockout because there is ample material. Certainly Bill Hader (famous impressions: Rick Perry, James Carville) as David Stern and Kenan Thompson (Al Sharpton, Herman Cain) as Billy Hunter would provide many laughs.

And like the bits with Tina Fey portraying Sarah Palin, the truth would provide the comedy.

Stern character: “All we’re trying to do is have the players help us recover from the last two deals that I made, which were called brilliant for the owners at the time but have now resulted in losses in hundreds of millions of dollars every year. I think it would be fair to say they might have been the two worst deals ever negotiated in the history of sports, which our very rich and demanding owners have, admittedly, reminded me of a few times. Our owners can sustain those type of losses only for another 50 years or so – well, except in the case of Paul Allen – so we have to do something to stop the bleeding.”

Hunter character: I know what the owners are thinking. They think that our players haven’t been prudent with their money. They think a guy like Kris Humphries spending $10 million on a wedding that preceded a 72-day relationship is excessive. Well, let me tell you something. He did not pay. Kim found sponsors and actually made money on her wedding. I’m sure David can relate to that. Probably jealous. Our players don’t spend that kind of money on weddings. Well, except Carmelo. But our guys have a lot of money saved. They will not cave. If the owners want to shut down the league for a year or two, we’re prepared. Some of our big guys may be fatter when they get back, but we’re prepared.

Stern character: What I feel the worst about is the little people – the people we’ve had to lay off at the NBA office, the thousands of arena workers who labor at a second job just so they can pay the bills and are now missing paychecks. I know I don’t look like I care when I talk about it, but I really do.

Hunter character: Our players have had to sacrifice, too. Those who can afford to buy or lease a jet now have to travel first class instead of on charters. They’ve also had to exist without that $115 a day meal money on the road. You know, even rich athletes get tired of McDonald’s. Well, some do.

Stern character: Writers have calculated the owners have already lost $400 million after losing $300 million total last season. Let me tell you something: We are prepared to lose a lot more money in order to save money.

Hunter character: Well, we’ve lost $400 million in salaries, too. But let me tell you something: We will continue to lose money that we can never make up again in order to . . . well, in order to . . .  I’m not sure. I guess like David said, it’s the principle of the thing.

Stern character: Finally, as a gesture to improve my public image and also to send a message to the players that I am sincere, I have not taken a salary during the lockout. Of course, I’m already rich, but it’s the principle of the thing.

Hunter character: Uh, no comment.

One scene Hunter would not want to see, and is doing everything possible to ensure he never does, is putting the owners’ current proposal to a vote of the players association. Hunter and union president Derek Fisher have said consistently they will not allow the union to vote as a whole for any offer the owners currently have made.

But if they did …

Hunter character: We have 450 members in the union and each of them has voted. I have the results right here, but before I open the envelope, let me say that we are united. We stand together! . . .  And the vote is … 429 for take the deal, and 21 to keep holding out. Looks like we have a season!

The players are obviously in the toughest position, and not so much because they have to take less than before. Any deal to that guarantees a 50-50 split of $4.2 billion is a good deal. The key word, of course, is “guarantees.”

The problem is the players won the 1999 and 2005 negotiations handily. They were the U.S. vs. Grenada in 1983. But the owners didn’t get wealthy by being continually stupid. They are smart people. And they are intent on getting a deal they deem to be good.

So the players can’t get a victory and the truly smart ones – and there are a bunch of those – know that. Like many others, I have said that these negotiations are not about what’s fair, they are about owners not losing for a third consecutive time. It is about who controls the industry and in that sense, the NBA is no different than any other business in the world. Workers provide the labor – and in this case, spectacular entertainment – and the owners control the finances.

Hunter and Fisher can continue locking out the players from taking a vote on the deal offered by owners, but ultimately they are going to discover that outlasting rich men in a game involving money is a futile enterprise. And they will discover there is nothing funny about missing the money that has been and will continue to be lost.

Jan Hubbard has written about basketball since 1976 and worked in the NBA league office for eight years in between media stints. His columns will appear every Tuesday on SheridanHoops.com. Follow him on Twitter at @whyhub.