NBA Players Union's Foolish Actions Makes David Stern the Voice of Reason

Sometimes the reasonable thing to do is not the right thing to do. That is the conundrum facing the players as they cease to be a union and become a trade association. 

The players took one look at the final offer given to them by David Stern and decided that enough had been enough.

We have to understand that the owners have given little in the way of concessions while the players have given much. The fact that the final offer would have not only limited the money the players would get but also greatly reduced player movement is the major sticking point.

A negotiation process that has been about money now has freedom being battled over as length of contracts and player mobility gets dissected by both groups.

As you can plainly see, the players are right to want to fight for a deal that is at least close to what they have enjoyed since the last CBA agreement was certified.

That being said, David Stern is the voice of reason. He took to ESPN after the players wiped their behinds with the owners offer and decided to bring a lawsuit to the NBA's doorstep. Here is the video of Stern's reaction. 

Among the few things that I agreed with, Stern offered this in the video, "It's not going to work. If they were going to do it, they should've done it a long time ago...they seem hell-bent on self-destruction."

It pains me to no end that the players have absolutely no leverage here. They may have resigned themselves to the fact that they will miss a season, the owners would gladly miss ten. 

The power looms large with the men that own the franchises, and it will serve to eventually have these player kowtow to the NBA. 

When they do, the deal will be far worse than the one they received this past weekend. There is also the point that Stern made when the NBA released a statement on Monday afternoon. 

Here are some excerpts from that statement: 

"

At a bargaining session in February 2010, Jeffrey Kessler...threatened that the players would abandon the collective bargaining process and start an antitrust lawsuit against our teams if they did not get a bargaining resolution that was acceptable to them.

In anticipation of this day, the NBA filed an unfair labor practice charge before the National Labor Relations Board asserting that, by virtue of its continued threats, the union was not bargaining in good faith. We also began a litigation in federal court in anticipation of this same bargaining tactic.

"

A battle that started over BRI quickly turned into a battle for freedom and player movement. Now it is about to get really messy as both sides argue over who should be suing who in this affair. 

By the end of it all, a season will have been murdered and the players will have received and accepted a horrible deal. 

The players are getting a thrashing here. The deal offered up is being forced by about 10 owners that are clinging to the hope that a new deal can save them from their depleted purse strings and horrible decisions. 

In a perfect world, the players would get what is owed to them, but they won't. David Stern is right in just one aspect, the deal is only going to get worse. Goodbye, NBA season. We sure would have liked to know you.