NBA Lockout: League Reportedly Ready to Cut 2 More Weeks from Regular Season

If we lived in a perfect world that had no use for such things as labor negotiations and lockouts, the 2011-2012 NBA regular season would be starting a week from Tuesday on Nov. 1.

Instead, we have these things, and they have caused the NBA to ditch the first two weeks of its regular season. And with no end to the negotiations in sight, NBA fans can expect to see even more regular season games bite the dust.

In fact, Frank Isola of the New York Daily News says the NBA is prepared to do the honors on Tuesday:

The mention of Christmas is in reference to a recent statement (see SI.com) from NBA commissioner David Stern that the NBA may not be in action on Christmas Day. So if the league is only intent on canceling two weeks' worth of games, Christmas is indeed still safe for the time being.

Either way, that the league is about to cancel two more weeks of basketball should come as no surprise. When we last checked in with the NBA lockout, the players and owners had called off talks with no set plans as far as when to continue them. You almost get the feeling that their negotiations are just getting started.

At some point, somebody is going to flinch. When the NBA last went into lockout mode in 1998, it took until January for the owners and players to reach an agreement. That left them just enough time to hold a shortened 50-game season.

Hopefully, the two sides can come to an agreement a little quicker this time. The only problem is that they've given us very little indication that they are going to be able to.

So... who's going to be down for a game of NBA 2K12 on Christmas?