Lockout Deja Vu

So in the spring everyone was all up in arms about the NFL lockout, and right now a much less covered but still important lockout is about to cut in the NBA season.

Universal hand sign for "We're fucked"

From Newser:

The rest of the NBA preseason is officially canceled, and the first two weeks of the regular season will be as well if players and owners can’t work out a deal by Monday, Commissioner David Stern announced yesterday, after negotiations to end the league’s lockout fell apart. Players' union president Derek Fisher said there was a “very large gap” between them, with the main sticking point being revenue sharing. The players, who currently earn 57% of revenues, are willing to take a cut to 53%, but the owners want more, the Wall Street Journal explains. 

The owners, who had been demanding that players take 47%, yesterday offered a 50-50 split, but the players balked. “Our guys have indicated a willingness to lose games,” union chief Billy Hunter said. “It may be a month, it may be two months—your guess is as good as ours.” Should NBA fans panic? Bill Plaschke of the LA Times isn’t, reasoning that only die-hard fans pay attention before February anyway. “The league might be missing games, but we’re not,” he quips.

The NBA will miss the entire season. Mark my words. During the NFL lockout we all sort of new it would work out. But every team makes money in the NFL. In the NBA there are teams that make shit or lose money. And the players can go play overseas. Even if it means a paycut. There are reports that Tony Parker just signed a deal in his native France to pay for dogshit, around 2k a month. But it's still playing ball. So I think we are looking at a long drawn out lockout in the NBA, and I think we can kiss this season goodbye.