| 11 October 2011
By now, you all should be in a state of even more deprivation and frustration after hearing that the NBA just cancelled its first 2 weeks of the regular season and with the threat of more games in the coming days. That's because no further meetings between the 2 sides have been scheduled after Monday's get-together.
Even after wasting 102 days (plus the 3 previous years) arguing about money, both the owners and players continue their pathetic public outcry of support from fans to hang on while they settle their bickering. It's the same old story that's doing nothing but irk and aggravate everybody else.
Now, we're all left waiting while obsessively keeping an eye or ear out on any update for who knows how much longer. To think, a lot of us had hoped the season will start on time.
How foolish we are.
We should've trusted our guts more that when it comes to money, these billionaires and millionaires would claw and stomp on each other to stay rich and get richer long before they'd even give a slight glance at the fans and all of the little people who work for each of the 30 teams and their arenas in the league.
That includes missing an entire season. (Or so they say.)
We've seen the same numbers and all of the mindless PR jobs each side have gone through lengths to tell us fans that it's all for the greater good. But take note that they never once clarify who's actually going to benefit from the endgame.
Come to think of it, they haven't even told us how they're planning on "making up" for all the mess this time around.
After the last lockout ended in 1999, ticket sales and TV ratings went down and stayed down for years until it gradually went up with a boom last season. Even then, everyone saw the lockout as a battle between greedy rich men. It only ended because of the rise of tension amongst the players, those who simply wanted to play and those who wanted to keep as much of their paycheck as they can.
The owners and Commissioner David Stern are hoping history repeats itself. Some say the cancellation of season games has always been their plan to put an extra persuasion to the players. Others say the players have zero leverage at this point and question their unwillingness to make a deal. However, the players say they anticipated and are prepared for missed games, but none of them were in that war room 12 years ago.
We'll see how much prepared they are in the coming weeks.
