Negotiators for both sides of the NBA lockout met in New York for 13 hours to reach a deal before the start of the NBA season. Participants of the meeting included NBA commissioner David Stern, a couple of owners (San Antonio owner Peter Holt, New York Knicks owner James Dolan, and Minnesota Timberwolves Glen Taylor) along with NBA Officials Rick Buchanan and Dan Rube, while the NBA union side were union executive director Billy Hunter, L.A Lakers/Union president Derek Fisher, vice president Maurice Evans, and lawyers Jeffrey Kessler and Ron Klempner. Last week, Stern set a Monday deadline to reach an agreement. Unfortunately, they were unable to reach a deal for the split of basketball relation income, which led the commissioner to cancel the first two weeks of the 2011-2012 NBA season. David Stern made the announcement about the cancellation around 10 pm last night.
"We certainly hope it would never come to this. I think that both sides worked hard to get a better solution."
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| NBA Commissioner David Stern |
NBA union executive director Billy Hunter doesn't feel that the entire 2011-2012 NBA season is in trouble. However, the union has been preparing for the worst to happen, similar to the shortened 1998-1999 basketball season. He told reporters:
"We probably need to miss a few games in order for them to be convinced that there is resolve among the players. While we don't want to be out here, our players are not going to fall apart. We've spend two and half years getting them ready. This is the worst-case scenario."
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| NBA Union Executive Director Billy Hunter |
Derek Fisher is disappointed of Monday night's outcome. But he is standing firm in support of the NBA union's decision.
"To be here at this point is disappointing in some ways, but also we've said all along, this what we anticipated would happen. And here we are. So we'll deal with this with our chin up."
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| L.A Lakers/Union President Derek Fisher |
A total of 100 games were canceled between Nov. 1st to Nov. 14th, where each team will lose six to eight games. For every two weeks that passes, more cancellations will come and will cost the entire league about $700-$800 million dollars in revenue for each month of lost games. And it seems that this can happen for the month of November, if a deal is not reach by the end of this month.
Since the first two weeks of the season has been canceled, season ticket holders willl be reimburse soon.
Most likely, the NBA will play less than 82 games, which will lead the players receiving a lower offer because of the lost of revenue.
This lockout has caused some players to decide to play overseas in Europe. Players like New Jersey Nets Deron Williams (Turkey), San Antonio Spurs Tony Parker (France), and Denver Nuggets Ty Lawson (Lithuania) to play overseas until the end of the lockout, while NBA free agents (Wilson Chandler and J.R Smith) signed on to play in China for the entire season, no matter the outcome of the lockout.
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| New Jersey Nets Deron Willians |
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| San Antonio Spurs Tony Parker |
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| Denver Nuggest Ty Lawson |
While more players are considering to play overseas; some are planning to go back to school. Golden State Warriors Stephen Curry plans on attending Davidson College to continue his education.
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| Golden State warriors Stephen Curry |
Before Monday night's lockout decision, Derek Fisher and D-Wade tweeted "LET US PLAY" with trending topic #standunited, which led other NBA players to retweet. Were they trying to make statement via twitter and get their fans to join? Seems that way. However, the tweets and trending topic did not help David Stern's decision last night. All we can do is wait for a better outcome at the end of this month. Hopefully the owners and players can come to an agreement, so we can be able to enjoy some BASKETBALL. Its sad to see that something like this going down once again.
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