NBA Lockout: Owners and Players Must Set Aside Egos to Get Deal Done

The NBA lockout appears to have reached its 11th hour, coincidentally enough, on the 11th day of the 11th month of 2011.

Now, it's incumbent upon the owners and the players to set aside their bruised egos and make this year's Armistice Day one to remember for basketball fans everywhere.

The Players' Association, led by union chief Billy Hunter and president Derek Fisher, has finally moved down to a 50-50 split of basketball-related revenue, thanks in large part to the owners, guided ever so tenuously by commissioner David Stern, letting go of their own insistence that they dictate both the economics and the system issues involved.

These two sides have spent more than four months in detente to this point, trading barbs and vantage points while trying in vain to persuade the public that one side is right while the other is wrong.

As if the population at large gives two hoots about how millionaires and billionaires split up a $4 billion pie. All the average sports fan wants to see is players suiting up for battle on the court, not in three-piece suits threatening war in the courts.

Realistically, though, neither side is about to rescind its turf without good reason to do so. The players have been saving up for two years now, preparing for a nuclear basketball winter, while the owners have, well, continued to be billionaires who can easily absorb seven- and eight-figure losses without flinching, as much as their dispositions might suggest otherwise.

The players will not agree to a 50-50 split unless the owners compromise (i.e. relent) on their insistence that there also be a hard cap system rather than a soft cap with a punitive luxury tax.

Blah blah blah, in the end, nobody really cares about any of this business unless the players and the owners get back to the business of entertaining sports fans with leather balls bouncing on wood floors.

Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Kevin Durant, among others, need to stop trying to barnstorm the country with their never-ending list of All-Star scrimmages and get back to playing for things that matter, like the Larry O'Brien Trophy and, more importantly, money.

So keep your fingers crossed, folks, because basketball's labor unrest isn't about to settle quietly into that good night. Whether you side with the owners or the players, it's clear that the sport itself cannot afford to go on much longer without actually presenting fans and casual spectators alike with a worthwhile product.

Lest they spend the next decade building hoops back into a relevant source of entertainment, at which point the process would have to start anew.

Albeit with a brand new cast of characters, though likely with similar results.