NFL Lockout 2011: What Can the NBA Learn from the NFL's Ineptitude?

ThWith Friday’s week-long reprieve from labor Armageddon, the NFL and its players’ union have a few more days to negotiate their way out of a lockout that would cost both sides.

However, the NFL isn’t the only league with heated labor negotiations in the offing. As football scrambles to save itself, the NBA owners and players should keep a close eye on the proceedings and save themselves some of the mistakes their NFL counterparts have made.

The first lesson for the NBA to take, and one at which it’s done well enough thus far, is to avoid making a spectacle of the negotiations. By playing out their demands in the press, both the NFLPA and the owners have hurt their images with the fans.

If the NBA can keep its negotiations quieter, it could salvage a lot of goodwill that would otherwise be lost.

The NBA and NBAPA also need to realize that neither side can expect to “win” the negotiations. The NFLPA felt that it came away successful in 2006, but in the long run, all they accomplished was to force the owners to dissolve the CBA that much earlier.

If either side ends up too happy, an NBA agreement is similarly unlikely to last. The NBA owners seem especially susceptible to this concern, given that they’re asking the players to take a 40% salary cut at this stage in the negotiations.

In the same spirit, neither side in the NBA lockout talks can afford to go in thinking they have all the answers. As the NFL learned when a judged blocked it from accessing the $4 billion in TV revenues that would accrue during a lockout, even advance planning may not turn out as the league (or union) expects.

If both sides enter the NBA talks understanding that it’s a negotiation and not a pitched battle, basketball may dodge the lockout bullet. If they don’t learn from the hubris on both sides of the NFL dispute, then woe be to basketball fans everywhere.