Sports News: The NBA is OFFICIALLY Locked out

NBA Commissioner David Stern and National Basketball Players Assn. head Billy Hunter held a three-hour meeting Thursday in a last-ditch effort to avoid a lockout, but the session halted with the sides failing to reach a deal on a new collective-bargaining agreement for the 2011-12 season. Peep the vid. 

The lockout became official at 12:01 a.m. ET. All league business, including free agency, is on hold. Union executive committee member and San Antonio Spur Matt Bonner told the Associated Press: We tried to avoid the lockout; unfortunately we couldn't reach a deal.

At first, I thought it was just another version of the NFL lockouts and I brushed it off. I thought it was another example of millionaires playing "monkey see, monkey do" until I started to pry a little more and realized just how serious the situation has become.

Lets briefly compare this lockout to the NFL's lockout. No regular-season games will be missed; no preseason games will be missed. When all is said and done, not a single day of training camp will be lost. Word on the innanet streets is the commissioner and the union chief are flying around the country together. As a matter of fact, the NFL's only damage would be the elimination of unnecessary offseason activities most people don't care about anyway. 

The NFL was never going to miss anything meaningful. On the other hand, sh*t just got REAL for the NBA. Tom Penn, ESPN's expert on the NBA's financial matters said,  "If the NFL labor dispute is a sprained ankle, the NBA's is a torn ACL and a ripped Achilles. NFL teams still make money; it's just that instead of $30-40 million a year in profit, they've been down recently to, say, $9-10 million." *sigh*



You may recall our discussion of the financial troubles of professional athletes. It is more necessary than ever for the athletes to get their finances in order as the NBA might miss the entire 2011-12 season. You read that right. The NBA is on the verge of another real lockout and shutdown of operations. I don't mean the kind of shutdown Americans feared from our government a few months ago, the NBA dispute seems to be the Real McCoy. 


What the hayle is the problem? The owners want a harder salary cap than exists now, and probably a cap that down the road becomes not just harder, but hard, period. The owners say that's a must, while the players say a hard cap is a no-go. Instead of the players getting 57 percent of basketball-related income, the owners want something more akin to a 60-40 split in their favor.


The NBA has a much longer season so the players have more to lose.  The concern now is whether there will be a loss of games.The last time an NBA lockout took place, it took 36 days before the opposing sides sat down together to negotiate. The season was limited to merely 50 games back in 1998.


Before all of you girlfriends, wives, babymamas, jumpoffs, side pieces and all other members of #teamvagina rejoice, remember sports is a source of sanity for men. If they do not have LeBron to hate on or Kobe to d*ckride they will grow frustrated. They will spend all of their free time with you and problems will occur. Somebody start a petition to get this lockout fixed asaptually! Otherwise, your screen will be damaged with burn ins from him playing too much Call of Duty. 


I'm not sure how all of this will play out but two out of the four major sports in North America are now in lockout mode. Get it together folks! All I'm gonna say is, don't blame the lawyers! *giggles*


How will you occupy your time? What do you think SportsCenter will cover now? Do you care?