The poll results are in and it appears that 99.7 percent of America's sports fans don't give a hoop about the NBA lockout, don't care if there's a season, don't care if there's a league.
At least that's that conclusion from an informal poll of my email correspondents. I don't know about Gallup or Pew or CBS polls. Maybe their numbers are different, but I doubt it.
I'm sure if we ran a poll asking people what they hope will happen to NBA commissioner David Stern, 94 percent would say they hope he replaces Ashton Kutcher on the slow death of "Two and a Half Men."
But come on, people. Aren't you the least bit excited to see how LeBron James will do in his second season in South Beach? Isn't there some curiosity about life with the Lakers after Phil Jackson? Don't you miss Kendrick Perkins' scowl?
Sure, the NBA is a $4 billion industry that, at this moment, seems bent on self-destruction. But don't you want to root against Oklahoma City just one more season? Don't you want to see where free agent Dwight Howard lands? Aren't you curious about whether the Dallas Mavericks can repeat? Don't you want to hear Shaquille O'Neal on TNT?
Have some compassion for the players. Look what can happen if an NBA player has too much time to kill.
Consider Kris Humphries. Have a little empathy for his breaking heart, now that ex-wife Kim Kardashian has ripped it out and stomped on it like it was a prop in a TV show. Come to think of it, it was a prop.
"He's not who she thought he was," one magazine reported about Kardashian's decision to divorce Humphries after 72 days of wedded bliss.
Who'd she think he was? Chris Bosh?
Frankly, I believed in this marriage. I thought it would last a lifetime, or at least several hundred days longer than the nine-day marriage of Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra.
Kris Humphries is in real pain, people. Or at least real reality-show pain.
And Kim? According to Star, so you know it's true, she's "emotionally and physically exhausted" from the divorce. And, according to other reputable magazines (I can't believe The New Yorker continues to get beat on this story), she is upset that her former beau, Miami Dolphins running back Reggie Bush, won't return her calls.
Her family is angry with her, because they believe she is sabotaging their highly rated reality TV show. Former Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner -- her stepdad, or butler, or whatever he is -- is so mad about the divorce, he canceled his latest face-lift procedure.
(I made that up.)
This lockout can only get worse. The longer it continues, the more players Kim is liable to marry and divorce. Look out, Thabo Sefolosha!
End this lockout. Give Kris Humphries a reason to live again. Let him dunk on somebody just so he can feel like a man again.
I mean, let's face it. Is there a more emasculating group of women than the Kardashians?
Look what they do to their men. Jenner is married to Kim's mother, Kris. Look at his face. Is that the face of an Olympic decathlon champion? Decathlon gold medalists should be sports royalty.
They're heroic: Bob Mathias, Rafer Johnson, Dan O'Brien, Bryan Clay. Their faces should be sculpted into the side of a mountain like Mount Rushmore. Jenner's face looks like it was sculpted by a plastic surgeon using a trowel instead of scalpel.
And the way he wanders around their sprawling house (of course I've watched the show; it's called research), he looks as if he's misplaced his masculinity and thinks it just might be in the next room, under some old Sports Illustrateds.
But back to Humphries. He needs a diversion. He needs a new reality show, like the NBA on ESPN. He's lost his wife. Now he has to reclaim his life, get back his game. Heck, he probably still has to pay for that 20.5-carat diamond ring he gave Kim.
So all of you poll people who say you don't care about the NBA, please reconsider. Think of someone besides yourself.
Think about Kris Humphries. Wish for his safe return to reality.
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