2011 NBA Schedule: David Stern Cancels Yet More Games

Only a roller coaster can give you these types of highs followed by these disgusting lows. The NBA lockout has now guaranteed a full season has been killed, and I definitely have a sick feeling in my gut.

The NBA hype machine went up and down far too many times to count this week. By Friday evening, I just wanted to get off the inane roller coaster.

After receiving the brightest bit of hope in months, we were dealt a blow that came out of nowhere. How naive could we be to believe that anything would change.

NBA commissioner David Stern has come out and all but cancelled more games. In fact, he did more when he guaranteed that a full season was in no way possible given the latest setbacks at the ongoing NBA negotiations.

Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski tweets the most ominous post of the day:

We then had the knife driven even further into our hearts. Ken Berger of CBS Sports tweeted this:

And just like that, the 2011-12 NBA season was decimated. We of course hold out a small glimmer of hope that negotiations will one day yield a return of NBA basketball.

However, we have seen what hope can do to a person. We were all certain that major headway had been made in the current meetings. It seems that neither side is willing to budge past the current threshold.

We will hear a great deal about BRI and revenue sharing in the coming days. It seems that the major plot point is still very much the major reason we are without professional hoops.

The players have been asked by the owners to take a financial hit, and they have. Now they want them to meet them without conceding any bit of ground since day one.

Stern will continue to spin this as if the players are entrenched in concrete. Rather, it's the owners that are made of stone.

Meanwhile, the fans are left to wonder when the NBA will return. The easiest answer is fairly scary, but it's one we must embrace, not anytime soon.