Sports

Farewell, NBA

It looks like the NBA has just been blown-up. Unless the courts intervene, we can probably say goodbye to the 2011-2012 season. The NBA Humpty Dumpty is broken apart right now, and all the kings horses and all the kings men are going to be hard-pressed to put him back together again. Here’s the story from The New York Times:

Faced with a deal it could not accept, and a negotiating process that had reached a dead end, the National Basketball Players Association elected to disband Monday afternoon, thrusting the N.B.A. into chaos. The prospect of reviving the 2011-12 season now rests with the courts.

Read the rest here.

11 Comments

  • Jerry Corbaley

    I’m an NBA fan of 30+ years, and I can get over it.

    I’d like to ask three absurdly simple questions:

    1. Are the fans impressed with the talent of the players or the talent of the owners?

    2. Where or where might the players find the resources to start their own league?

    3. Will sympathy for the squabbles among the mega-rich last for years?

    College Hoops just became a lot more interesting.

  • yankeegospelgirl

    So, let me get this straight. The NBA is imploding because the players wanted MORE money?

    Man, if I could make, oh I don’t know, say, 1% of what some of these guys make annually… I’d be doing pretty well for myself!!

  • Dave Miller

    I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that this is a negotiating ploy. If the owners don’t blink in the next week or so, the players probably will. Dissension in the ranks of the players will grow and they will be playing basketball by the start of the new year.

    Of course, not being a prophet, I did not specify which year.

    They are getting very close to “lose the season” time and one side or the other (likely the players) is going to blink.

  • Gabe

    This is really a shame, after one of the best NBA seasons I can ever remember and by far the best NBA playoffs I’ve ever watched. I think the Dallas Mavericks’ run in the playoffs and then beating the mighty Miami Heat is one of the greatest underdog stories ever in all of sports.

  • Paul

    “So, let me get this straight. The NBA is imploding because the players wanted MORE money?”

    The players, not the owners, are the ones that get people into seats. If the players want a chunk of the revenue from the profits made over the course of the season, then I say that’s completely reasonable.

  • Larry Geiger

    The NBA owners and the NBA players get nothing from this season. I think that’s a good thing. The less money they all make, the better.

    Of course, Orlando just built the “best” new arena around! Hello Orlando! Are you listening?

    Maybe some folks will buy a few more $2.00 to $5.00 tickets down at their local high school and watch some real ball. YMMV

  • Brian Krieger

    Hey, Paul,

    You touch on an idea that we were disussing here once before. Our discussion centered around this. If profit sharing is demanded to be part of the equation, how is risk sharing also going to be factored in? Taking the idea that players get people into the seats concept, if a player doesn’t pan out and doesn’t bring “wow”, can he be docked pay? Or would it be a pure profit sharing where all the players would get a cut of the generic sharing?

    I think both sides make me roll my eyes, personally. And given the detracting aspect of professional sports (surrounding sports), I’ve watched NBA less and less. But it does make for good conversational fodder!

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