You have to admit, this is getting old now.
For the third or fourth time (I honestly lost count) talks between the NBA Players Union and team owners, after showing progress the day before, fell apart.
As CBS's Matt Moore nicely put it : And momentum boat sinks back to the ocean floor. Idiots
This lockout has reached the point where everyone is pissed at everyone, I'm included in this group. However the only thing that stops me from going off completely on the players is that the hard-line owners have basically lied to fans this entire time.
Now not all owners are in the 'take it or leave it' cluster. Miami Heat owner Micky Arison (who apparently had a interesting time tonight on Twitter), Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, New York Knicks owner James Dolan, and a few others want to get a deal done. It makes sense for them to do so from an economic standpoint.
Too bad for them since a group of hard-line owners have taken control of their side of negotiations and are preventing any concrete progress. The worst part about this is that these owners are punishing the fans for them not being able to run their franchise well.
Take the most batant example of this group: Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert.
This man owns a franchise that solely benefitted from drafting a young LeBron James in 2003. Since then the Cavaliers have tried to find the right superstar to compliment their phenom. Their quest has led them to Larry Hughes, Mo Williams, and an old Shaquille O'Neal...not exactly the brightest choices.
In the 2009-2010 season however they were very close to landing Amar'e Stoudemire from the Phoenix Suns via trade. They were so close that Amar'e was practically wearing a Cavs jersey, but talks fell through when the Cavs refused to include JJ Hickson in the trade. The Cavs after that aquired Antawn Jamison from the Washington Wizards (A move that would've been great if it happened three years earlier) & y'all know the rest.
Oh, & that coveted JJ Hickson? He was traded to the Sacramento Kings before the lockout started.
That's just one example of these hard-line owner group's imcompetence.
Yet somehow they have taken the wheel in these negotiations and are Hell bent of crashing the league until they get all they want.
With their mouthpiece in NBA commisioner David Stern these owners have conned us again & again. They pretended to back their desire for a hard salary cap & then propse a salary system that is essentially a hard cap without the title. They pretended to back off their desire for the players to take 10 points less in basketball related income form 57% to 47% & then proposed a '50-50' split which appears to the union as a Trojan Horse for them to really take 47%.
Now not to let the players off the hook, they have been fragmented from the start of this. This has ranged from leaks about possible union decertification, to talks of certain agents (who only care about their commisions) usurping the union, and to them not battling long held public perception about athletes. These factors have prevented the players from taking advantage of a slow shift in public support from management back to labor.
Even if those things were fixed it's not an even battlefield. The owners, through the league, have their own cable TV channel and thus can set the narrative for the media. Thathopefully will change as a growing group within the media are gretting tired of Stern's crap.
To me though, the worst part of all this, the part has really pissed me off this time, was that these owners lied about the prospect of a full 82-game season actually being played.
Players wanted it, arena vendors and employees sure as hell wanted it, but these hard-line owners never intended it to happen. It's all psychological warfare with them. Even as some have realized when Stern announced that games were cancelled through November 30th that it was only a semantic move, the mental scarring to fans was already done. All fans really heard was more lost games. Then Stern announced that an 82-game season was impossible, 24 hours after giving people hope of a full season.
It's enough to make one not care about this anymore.
For the third or fourth time (I honestly lost count) talks between the NBA Players Union and team owners, after showing progress the day before, fell apart.
As CBS's Matt Moore nicely put it : And momentum boat sinks back to the ocean floor. Idiots
This lockout has reached the point where everyone is pissed at everyone, I'm included in this group. However the only thing that stops me from going off completely on the players is that the hard-line owners have basically lied to fans this entire time.
Now not all owners are in the 'take it or leave it' cluster. Miami Heat owner Micky Arison (who apparently had a interesting time tonight on Twitter), Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, New York Knicks owner James Dolan, and a few others want to get a deal done. It makes sense for them to do so from an economic standpoint.
Too bad for them since a group of hard-line owners have taken control of their side of negotiations and are preventing any concrete progress. The worst part about this is that these owners are punishing the fans for them not being able to run their franchise well.
Take the most batant example of this group: Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert.
This man owns a franchise that solely benefitted from drafting a young LeBron James in 2003. Since then the Cavaliers have tried to find the right superstar to compliment their phenom. Their quest has led them to Larry Hughes, Mo Williams, and an old Shaquille O'Neal...not exactly the brightest choices.
In the 2009-2010 season however they were very close to landing Amar'e Stoudemire from the Phoenix Suns via trade. They were so close that Amar'e was practically wearing a Cavs jersey, but talks fell through when the Cavs refused to include JJ Hickson in the trade. The Cavs after that aquired Antawn Jamison from the Washington Wizards (A move that would've been great if it happened three years earlier) & y'all know the rest.
Oh, & that coveted JJ Hickson? He was traded to the Sacramento Kings before the lockout started.
That's just one example of these hard-line owner group's imcompetence.
Yet somehow they have taken the wheel in these negotiations and are Hell bent of crashing the league until they get all they want.
With their mouthpiece in NBA commisioner David Stern these owners have conned us again & again. They pretended to back their desire for a hard salary cap & then propse a salary system that is essentially a hard cap without the title. They pretended to back off their desire for the players to take 10 points less in basketball related income form 57% to 47% & then proposed a '50-50' split which appears to the union as a Trojan Horse for them to really take 47%.
Now not to let the players off the hook, they have been fragmented from the start of this. This has ranged from leaks about possible union decertification, to talks of certain agents (who only care about their commisions) usurping the union, and to them not battling long held public perception about athletes. These factors have prevented the players from taking advantage of a slow shift in public support from management back to labor.
Even if those things were fixed it's not an even battlefield. The owners, through the league, have their own cable TV channel and thus can set the narrative for the media. Thathopefully will change as a growing group within the media are gretting tired of Stern's crap.
To me though, the worst part of all this, the part has really pissed me off this time, was that these owners lied about the prospect of a full 82-game season actually being played.
Players wanted it, arena vendors and employees sure as hell wanted it, but these hard-line owners never intended it to happen. It's all psychological warfare with them. Even as some have realized when Stern announced that games were cancelled through November 30th that it was only a semantic move, the mental scarring to fans was already done. All fans really heard was more lost games. Then Stern announced that an 82-game season was impossible, 24 hours after giving people hope of a full season.
It's enough to make one not care about this anymore.
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