We'll be following one of the most memorable and successful NBA seasons with another wage war that would threaten next season, or at the very least threaten to delay interest in a sport that had the world captivated just a few weeks earlier.

But for all the gloom and doom and cause for concern, with Charles Barkley dropping words like "Armageddon" to describe how entrenched the owners are in this fight, there's really only one thing that can happen to ruin what we just saw last season.

The only way this "momentum" can be disrupted is if the league strips superstars of their power.

It's one thing to want to even out earnings, to make up for lost money, to shorten contract lengths, to position your owners to rake in dough following the next TV contract. All of those things won't affect interest once the games actually start, and if it improves the long-term health of the league, there's really no reason to be against it.

It's another issue altogether to remove a significant part of what makes this league so great.

So if the league and its owners are intent on creating a system that makes player movement a lot more difficult than the current system, particularly more difficult for the league's superstar (read: highest-paid) players, then it would truly hurt the game that the sports fan has learned to love again.

More than any of the four major pro sports leagues, the NBA is about its superstars. Not just about how well they can carry a team, but how much they move the needle.

Carmelo Anthony made Denver a destination while he was there. LeBron James made Cleveland a hotbed. Dwight Howard was actually a successful replacement for Shaquille O'Neal.

But the league becomes all the more exciting when there's a possibility they can change teams. Howard has been and would continue to be great in Orlando, but there would be far more intrigue should Howard join forces with, say, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles because the story lines become greater, more fascinating, not to mention to actual product being potentially phenomenal.

Staying together

It's not even a big market bias, either, because if Howard were to convince the Magic to trade him to Oklahoma City to play alongside Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, all of a sudden the Thunder would be on par with the Heat as must-follow franchises.

It's why Barkley sounds uninformed when he suggests the owners are upset that the Heat nabbed the three top free agents last offseason.

"I think they're really upset by this LeBron James-Chris Bosh situation, because their teams don't have to be really good, but I feel like if they have a star in their market they can make some money," Barkley said in a New York radio interview. "And if all the stars want to play together ... we're almost becoming like baseball where you've got a few good teams and the rest of them stink."

First of all (one of Chuck's favorite phrases), the NBA long has been the more top-heavy league. Baseball has had nine different champions since 2000, while the NBA has had only six in that span, with the Lakers and Spurs making up eight of those possible 12 champions.

And for every LeBron who leaves the smaller market of Cleveland for greener pastures, there is a Durant or a Dirk Nowitzki who stay put and maintains a reasonable competitive balance.

But it's not even about what would make a Sacramento or Memphis a more successful franchise. It's about what makes the league a more successful entity, and that has been and will continue to be its superstars playing for championships, not stuck carrying the flag for a mediocre franchise.

The league was at its best when two words dominated a decade: "Magic" and "Bird." The league was almost as captivating when two letters dominated another era: "MJ."

And now, the league experienced an immediate boost in interest when one player made a decision to head south.

So if the league tries to implement rules like a hard salary cap or remove current rules like the sign-and-trade option with the intention of keeping players like Chris Paul stuck in New Orleans as opposed to joining New York, then the league will be hurting its own product.

If the intention of these new rules is to protect owners from themselves, making them think much harder about throwing money at any available player regardless of risk, then that's perfectly respectable. But the union needs to hold strong on the idea that players should be able to make their own business decisions. Because it's ultimately good for NBA business, as well.

This past season, when everyone outside of South Florida was screaming about the Heat's free agency coup being bad for the game, those same people were watching intently.

The 2010-11 season was the most viewed in history for ABC, ESPN and TNT. The regular-season attendance was the fifth-best in league history despite a still-struggling economy.

And that trend won't change much as long as the league understands what works. And keeping teams from building powerhouses just for the sake of a few happy people in Milwaukee does not drive the NBA, despite commissioner David Stern's hopes to make it "a more competitive league."

If it takes a lengthy lockout to keep the league this exciting, it won't be a problem. There's too much football in November and December to distract us from the NBA anyway.