Stern, owners responsible for NBA's miserable season

The NBA regular season is really ending on a high note, isn’t it?

Witness the marquee game of the night Saturday. Well, not so much the marquee game as the one most representative of what’s happening in the league in the final week of the lockout-compressed regular season. In Miami, the Heat, still with an outside chance of getting home-court advantage in the Eastern Conference playoffs, hosted the Wizards, still with a chance of winning the rights to Anthony Davis in the lottery.

LeBron James and Chris Bosh sat because, as star players across the NBA have been doing for a month, they needed the rest, playoff position be damned. Dwyane Wade dislocated a finger early, sat out the rest of the game and probably will miss a handful more -- also a common theme among stars this season who have needed rehab more than rest because of fairly serious injuries.

The Wizards won to cap a week in which they beat the Bulls in Chicago with no Derrick Rose or Luol Deng. A normally inexplicable feat is easily explained by the fact five All-Stars played a total of 2 minutes 40 seconds in the games.

But this is what you get for your money this season. Well done, David Stern and owners.

Sorry for the pre-emptive strike, but it’s never too early to cut off a blame-the-players tirade, which never seems far away. Let’s remember who locked out whom, and who put this slapdash schedule together.

Remember that when the likes of Rose, Wade, Kobe Bryant, Amar’e Stoudemire, Tim Duncan and three of Boston’s Big Four enter the playoffs next weekend with gaps in their playing and preparation time. Some are still hurting.

Remember that when Orlando stumbles into the postseason while Dwight Howard recovers from back surgery.

And, if that’s not enough -- if diluting or even corrupting the playoffs with beaten-up, broken-down players wasn’t bad enough -- don’t forget that Howard now won’t play in the Olympics this summer in London. Neither will Andrew Bynum, who told reporters that, even if he's asked, he's not interested in playing for Team USA because he needs to rest and get treatment for his knees.

You all yearned for the fresh-faced purity of college ball to return to the games? Here comes the 19-year-old Davis, maybe, to play center on the defending Olympic champs because he might be all they have left.

So, let’s review. Last summer’s labor dispute was dragged out beyond the limit by guys like Michael Jordan, the architect of a Bobcats team that’s staring the worst record in NBA history in the face this week; and Paul Allen, whose Trail Blazers team isn’t as bad as Jordan’s but is tanking much more blatantly.

Because of it, the players suffer physically. Teams like San Antonio, Miami, Boston, Chicago, Orlando and the Lakers suffer because of the players’ unavailability. Fans suffer from the sharply decreased level of play, and from devalued games for which they’re still charged full price, or are still served up on television. (The NBA last week offered the final week of League Pass for the bargain price of $49. Hey, as long as they’ve gone elbow-deep into your pockets, for fewer dates and lesser quality, why not try shoulder-deep?)

To top it off, America runs the risk of coming home from London with less than gold. History tells us that won’t be received well back here.

But at least the players are staying united in their common struggle, untroubled by internal union strife.

Oh, wait ... no, they’re not.

Since arguably the most physically and mentally taxing year of their careers is now hitting the home stretch and demands their greatest concentration, there’s no better time for players to referee the latest feud between union president Derek Fisher and executive director Billy Hunter, who is trying to oust him.

These aren’t lightweight issues on the table. The executive committee has to navigate them now. So do each team’s player reps. So does Fisher himself, who’s only working to provide the final piece to his new Oklahoma City team’s championship puzzle while defending himself and his record and hiring a public relations firm to help.

Just another part of the fallout from the disaster that was the lockout.

Well, not was. Is.