They do great work at Sports Illustrated but today's coup of landing the first major sport athlete to come out as gay while playing is major, first for being a first and second for not being leaked or scooped.

It's a shame the value of getting the story out first as the real success is in finding and telling the story well, which Sports Illustrated appears to have done. But Deadspin notes, based on accounts from top editor and a writer, that the James Collins piece included hiding it within the newsroom, a key step in needing secrecy from an office full of reporters.

And of course, at ESPN, the top story remained the non-story, Tim Tebow the celebrity without a job or team or sport. 

I wouldn't call it the B-1 curse.

Plenty of teams and players have graced the front of our wonderful sports section and gone on won games, trophies, and championships.

But when the timing is off, I do notice. We finally had a nice column from our excellent Detroit Pistons beat writer, Dave Pemberton, on Sunday, the most important day of the week for newspapers, especially their printed product.

"Pistons finding ways to win tight games," Pemberton's column's headline proclaimed.

On Monday morning, with the Sunday paper on my desk to ensure that Sunday's content missed on Sunday's web site received proper play on Monday morning, the biggest day and time of the week for the newspaper's digital product.

Headline on the home page: "Pistons fall at home to lowly Bobcats in OT, 108-101 WITH VIDEO"

The four-game winning streak was gone. Oh well, we tried to promote the team, and I'm optimistic they are still on their way up. I'm even rooting for a playoff birth, still, kinda, though it's anchored in realism.

At least they are making it worth watching.

So, will the NBA actually start on the date that casual fans - or at least the national media - starts to pay attention annually? Yes, I'm thinking of the annual Christmas Day double- or triple-header.

According to reports, the players and owners have agreed to a deal that will allow for a 66-game season this year, starting on 12.25.11.

Good for them, though I haven't missed the NBA at all. Don't have time for it. I may have missed it, say, come June. Some of the playoff matchups are fun to watch.

But the league was smart enough to avoid labor trouble at the end of the year, forcing fans to miss a playoff, as both baseball and hockey did. The damage to both leagues was incredible, though baseball rebounded strongly with steroid-driven home run derbies.

Many fans turned their backs, though, and it seems impossible for a league's history to include DNP (labor) just like some leagues took time off for something truly monumental, such as World War II.

I think the true NBA fans will be quick to forgive and casual fans will not have noticed, so the negative feedback from fans will be minimal. There's going to be a champion and there's going to be a playoff, meaning all is just about as it should be.

I'm looking forward to the big story announcing the end of the NBA season.

Why? Not because I hate the NBA.

I like the occasional Pistons game. I like rooting either for or against Boston and always against the Lakers and now the Heat.

I enjoy the Pistons in playoff contention.

I don't like watching the slow-to-end games, the hype, the trash talk, the endlessness of the season. I swing back and forth when it comes to the entertainly annoying Mark Cuban.

But mostly, I'm hoping 2011-2012 is flushed so that we are further removed from both the NHL lockout and the MLB strike that cost the Indians a real shot at a World Series. People hated those two for so, as some fans can be so unforgiving.

The damage the NBA will do to itself will last for years, especially for fairweather fans who resent the fame and fortunes of so many of the jackasses who are talented hoopsters.

Plus, with no NBA season, no underclassmen from college will be in a hurry to leave. Now, if we could only legally pay the NCAA hoopsters....

There's been a couple significant instances of 'big news' coming out due to the NBA lockout, such as the cancellation of the preseason, or games into the regular season.

It's not breaking news; it's expected.

Breaking news about the NBA would be if there's a resolution and any part of the season is played. Of course this thing is going to last. There's no group of people, I think, more out of touch with regular folks than players in the NBA. These guys can't even relate to NFL offensive linemen, who share with them the classification of professional athlete.

And in the fight between millionaires and billionaires, no one making less than $200,000 a year has any sympathy for either side. (I have to think where ESPN stands in this, having brought the NBA into its fold at the expense of hockey, the NHL, which underwent its own de-fanification.)

No sport is as obnoxious about its wealth, its posturing and its out-of-touch views than the NBA, so I say let them cancel the year, let's let this go into the following season and let's see how few people actually miss it. The whines from players over the years has increased to the point of it being unreal how clueless these guys are. They've ruined the golden egg, the one sport with no masks, the best face time, and absolute most money to share (with only 12 players per team, versus say the NFL and their massive rosters).

As the more evident it becomes that people don't miss the NBA, both sides will have to continuously lower their demands, and we can lose these $20 million-a-year guaranteed salaries for people who don't contribute that much.

Baseball has high salaries, yes, and the Yankees abuse the system, it seems, but no one has seemingly been as arrogant and greedy as NBA players.