NBA owners, players and league executives are meeting again today for the fourth time in a week, as someone finally brought in a dictionary and pointed to the word “urgent.” NBA Commissioner David Stern has previously denied that there’s a standing deadline of Sept. 15 to resolve the lockout or else the preseason will be eliminated, which some owners apparently want. Deadline or not, it is widely believed that if progress isn’t made today, well then it’s sayonara, meaningless games.
Over the weekend, it was reported that NBA Players Union President and Los Angeles Lakers guard Derek Fisher had texted players and told them to be prepared for the season to begin as scheduled. Yesterday, Fisher denied telling anyone to keep training and be in shape in the most convincing way imaginable – he logged on to Twitter.
While the reports of my texts are false, I will say that I have & will continue to urge our players to stay ready for a season.
Ah OK, you didn’t text anyone to stay in shape, but you’ll go ahead and remind them while you’re on the ol’ Tweet-o-verse. That’s a lot like saying that you didn’t sleep with my sister but you sure have had a good time having sex with her.
And speaking of the Twitters, Union President Roger Mason also caused a bit of a stir last week when he Tweeted, “Looking like a season. How u”
That was it. No closing punctuation and no follow-up addition. But then Mason claimed that his account was hacked, and as Pro Basketball Talk points out, that’s so lazy and unbelievable that he might as well have blamed his dog.
Here’s the thing, though – that’s not a good thing. Sure, he could mean “It’s looking like there will be a season.” I won’t discount that. But Mason, who goes by MoneyMase on Twitter much to the pain behind my eyeballs, was clearly sending someone a private message and he accidentally posted it to his feed instead. “Looking like a season. How u” could mean a few things, like someone previously asked him, “How long do you think this lockout will last?” So the pessimist in me thinks that his accidental Tweet means this:
“Looking like a season. How u getting to that job fair?”
As of right now, the Burnsy Lockoutometer is resting at “Not a country fried steak’s chance in Kirstie Alley’s lap.”
Finally, in completely ironic, dismissive wanking news, the NBA referees may be looking at their own lockout, as their CBA just expired. I actually have a pretty good solution for this. Play without refs. It couldn’t be any worse than it was this season with refs.
