"At the very moment the commissioner of the NBA is holding up the New Jersey Nets as a case study of basketball's impoverishment, the former owner of the team is crowing about 10 percent returns and the new owner is boasting of "explosive" profits. After the end of last season, one imagines that David Stern gathered together the league's membership for a crash course on lockout etiquette: stash the yacht in St. Bart's until things blow over, dress off the rack, insist on the '93 and '94 Cháteau Lafite Rothschilds, not the earlier, flashier, vintages. For rich white men to plead poverty, a certain self-discipline is necessary. "