OSSEO, Minn. – Hundreds of fans filed into the arena, paying good money to see some of their favorite hometown NBA players hoop it up, just as they have so many times before.
Only this time the arena was a high school gymnasium and the event was the Michael Beasley All-Star Classic, the closest thing basketball junkies can get to seeing the pros in action during this dreary lockout.
Beasley rounded up some of his friends and brought them to a suburban Minneapolis high school on Friday night, helping raise money for charity and cast the players in a better light as they fight the league’s owners in what is becoming a more bitter labor dispute by the day.
While NBA commissioner David Stern takes to the radio waves to try to cast the owners as the good guys in this struggle, players across the country are taking to the court, organizing their own games as a way to connect with fans who don’t understand why millionaires and billionaires can’t seem to work this thing out.
“I think that players are doing a really good job of getting out in front of fans and continuing to show that we really just want to play
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