NBA Lockout: Billy Hunter's Players-Only Meeting Won't Help Labor Issues

The NBA lockout is getting ugly, to say the least. Earlier this week it was announced that the first two weeks of the 2011-12 regular season were canceled due to the labor strife, and there is little hope that anything will get resolved soon.

Union president Billy Hunter is organizing a players only meeting, according to ESPN.com, to discuss where they stand with the owners in negotiations.

While it is admirable that Hunter wants to keep all of the players involved in the negotiating process, because it is affecting their lives, the players need to work on setting up meetings with the owners and commissioner David Stern.

Nothing is going to be fixed by having the players meet with each other. One of the reasons that the NFL lockout got resolved as soon as it did and in a fairly clean fashion was because the players and owners knew that in order to get anything done, they had to talk with each other.

The reason that the players and owners are, as Stern said, separated by a gulf is because they have not been meeting constantly in order to hash their problems out. In order to fix the issues, you have to talk to each other.

Hunter has a responsibility to keep the union informed of what is going on, but what does it say about him and the players that they want nothing to do with the owners right now?

Don't get me wrong, I am rooting for the players to get the best possible deal that they can. But they have to understand that there are real financial problems facing a lot of teams in the league.

The owners are at fault in that regard, because they refuse to give up their financial records in order to validate those claims.

The players have tried to make concessions, but the owners are not giving in on anything that they want. They have been unreasonable, so it is not hard to understand why the union does not want to meet with them.

At some point, though, both sides have to put their pride away and do what is in the best interest of the league. The only way to do that is if they are talking to each other, not having separate meetings without the other side present.