After two days of marathon negotiating sessions, each lasting about 7 hours, NBA owners and the players' union failed to reach agreement on a new CBA and commissioner David Stern announced tonight that the first two weeks of the regular season have been canceled, according to several reports.
They chose the "everybody loses" option. Brilliant. Sorry fans, that money you were going to pay these men in game tickets, TV viewership, buying team gear? You'll just have to go ahead and do something else with it while players "#standunited" and tweet "let us play", acting as if they're some oppressed group fighting for truth, justice and the American dream. All they're fighting for is to stay as obscenely rich as they are now, based on their ability to bounce a ball and throw it in a hole. Yeah, stand united. Your struggle is akin to that of Nelson Mandela or Ghandi, give or take. So noble.
The owners? They could have taken a nice victory from the players here, but they want more. When negotiations begin with "how much will one side give up to the other?", that isn't really a negotiation. Instead of taking a bigger chunk of BRI and closing some cap loopholes, the league would rather cancel games so that they can break the union completely. Sure, some teams are struggling and there is a problem with competitive balance, but owners have manufactured a crisis here, and counted on fans in a down economy to give wealthy athletes no sympathy. This has emboldened them to attempt to radically change the economic landscape of the league. Why? Because they can.
More details on the failed talks at USA Today.
Consider this an open thread for rants, tirades, weeping, whatever.