NBA Lockout: Players and Owners Talking Doesn't Signal Basketball for Christmas

The NBA players and owners are talking again.

Who cares?

Every time these two sides negotiate, nothing gets done.

They’ve been “close” to getting a deal done countless times and never do.

There is now talk that the two parties are trying to get a new collective bargaining agreement in place this week to resume the NBA season by Christmas day and play a 66-game season.

It just seems highly unlikely that one side or the other will all the sudden cave in now and give in to the other’s demands.

Nothing has changed from the Nov. 10 negotiations where the league offered a 50-50 split of the basketball related income. The lawyers and figureheads for the players simply don’t agree with this stance and feel they should be getting more.

And why shouldn’t they? The players were getting a 57 percent share of the BRI prior to this lockout.

The players literally have nothing to gain by drawing up a new CBA and if a deal eventually gets struck, they will be on the losing end unless the courts intervene in this fiasco.

Whether they give up a percentage of the BRI, shorten their maximum contract length, or limit the mid-level exception, players are going to get screwed on any deal the owners send down the pipeline to them while the lawsuit is pending.

Shame on anyone who is calling for the union to just give up their crusade to find a fair deal and just sign whatever garbage the owners are throwing their way to get basketball started again.

The league office needs to realize that giving up that large a chunk of revenue and cutting salary so billionaire owners can make even more profit, isn’t going to sit well with the men who people pay the dollars to see.

This next CBA is going to shape the league and the way it operates for years to come. Having some lopsided agreement in place will just harm the NBA’s long-term health.