As we mentioned yesterday, the NBA owners and players met in New York City again for what many people called the most important meeting of this entire lockout. The media reported over and over that this was the meeting that could make or break this season, David Stern’s final deadline to save the games and get everyone back to action. So of course nobody should be surprised with the result of that meeting – another deadline was set.
“We were not able to make the progress that we hoped we could make and we were not able to continue the negotiations,” Stern said after nearly four hours of talks between owners and players ended without gaining ground on a new deal.
No further meetings are scheduled, making it even more likely the league will lose games to a work stoppage for the first time since 1998-99, when the season was reduced to 50 games.
(Via NBC Sports)
As has been the case through most of this lockout, Pro Basketball Talk has a pretty in-depth breakdown of where the two sides stand in regard to solving this mess. Basically, everyone has wanted the stars to step up and flex their muscle, and they are (finally). The stars want the players to get 53% of basketball related income in the new CBA. The owners offered a 50/50 split, which Stern endorsed and the players rejected. Also, as mentioned yesterday, the agents are kneeling behind Billy Hunter by telling the players to not accept any compromises, and they’re pushing for decertification, which at this point would kill the whole season. And of course there’s that dagger line about no further meetings being scheduled. Well done, guys.
On a semi-related note, I’ve been paying a lot of attention to this Occupy Wall Street movement over the past two weeks, and while I’ll reserve my opinion on their efforts for the sake of not starting a flame war, I will ask a favor from America’s rebellious youths, who apparently believe that dressing up as zombies will make people take them more seriously – can you spare a few thousand “troops” and send them over to protest at the NBA labor negotiations? Because while the battle to convince billionaires to redistribute their wealth is impossible important to you guys, there are thousands of people in 30 cities that are about to lose their jobs (if they haven’t already) and they could use some support while Billy Hunter tries to free up some time in his schedule during the next four weeks.
Maybe you’ll even meet Kobe Bryant. He showed up to yesterday’s meeting because he cares.
(Images via the AP)
