NBA Lockout: Sides Still Miles Apart as Season Remains in Jeopardy
With preseason games already being missed, Kobe Bryant negotiating a contract overseas and David Stern threatening to cancel the 2011-2012 NBA season, extreme progress needed to be made in today's labor negotiations to keep from missing regular season games.
Unfortunately, today showed just how far apart the sides are in this negotiation.
This is clearly a dire situation and Stern is looking at any and all avenues that lead to the NBA playing a full season, even if it means pushing back the start date of the season.
Player union representative Derek Fisher had a pessimistic take on how the talks went today, saying,
""We engaged in more intense discussions today to see if we can close what remains a very large gap. Today was not the day to get this done. We were not able to get close enough to close the gap."
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Unlike the NFL lockout, there is a very real possibility that these talks will eat into the regular season. The NBA doesn't have time for a power struggle and with superstars exercising other options and heading overseas, the players in the NBA have far more leverage than the players did in the NFL lockout.
Even so, everyone wants to see that a deal is done. In the end, three letters are keeping this deal miles apart: BRI.
BRI stands for basketball related income. Last season, players received 57 percent of BRI. The players offered up a deal that would send 53 percent of BRI their way, but the owners countered with an offer that would give them 47 percent.
It was a slap in the face and an indication of just how long we have to go. Somewhere in the middle is where this deal will inevitably fall. While the whole country was hoping for optimism, today was a dark day in the NBA.
Playing a full season is becoming less and less of a possibility every day and the amount of ground that needs to be gained in these discussions paints a bleak picture of labor negotiations in the near future.
The two sides aren't anywhere near making headway on a deal. They are going to need to take baby steps and there simply isn't enough time to do so.
With players calling Stern's bluff and not backing down to the pressure, it's clear neither side is going to be bullied into making a deal they don't want to make. While Stern didn't rule out the possibility of the season, a lost season became a much more real possibility today.
