Crap.
Just crap.
My apologies for ruining your day in advance, but according to the Sporting News’ Sean Deveney—special thanks to Joe Flynn over at Bleacher Report—NBA league executives and “prominent” agents are expecting there to be another lockout in 2017:
It is a little more than three years before the NBA’s current collective bargaining agreement, accepted after a five-month lockout in 2011, can be tinkered with — only after the 2016-17 season can either the league or the union exercise its opt-out on the deal.
So it may be premature to mention this, but hidden in the details of the league’s day-to-day business in recent months has been this fact: The groundwork is already being laid for another lockout.
Did I say “crap” yet? Because, crap. Crappity crap, crap crap crap.
Deveney’s piece is worth a read in its entirety, as it goes into the various reasons why the NBA could be headed for another lockout. Everything from general system issues to the current television deal is discussed. So seriously, read it. I can’t copy and paste the whole thing here for you, because that would be wrong. And plus, you know, read it over there.
So yeah, where were we? Oh, yeah: Crap.
Though it’s been almost three years, the 2011 lockout feels like it was just yesterday. And that sucks. It was awful. The intricacies of the arguments being waged were ridiculous, and the impact it had on that 2011-12 season was absurd.
Sixteen games, pretty much all of training camp and the preseason were sacrificed for a bunch of technical bullshit. The players wound up taking a hit in that agreement. That’s the extent of what you need to know. They lost. Commissioner David Stern and the owners won.
But again, this is about basketball, because that’s what fans should care about: actual basketball. You, the average reader, don’t care about revenue splits and all that jazz. You care about basketball. And the basketball played during the 2011-12 campaign was god-awful. It was, well, crap. Crappier than crap, even.
Trying to fit 66 games into such a short period was a mistake. Back-to-backs were frequent and back-to-back-to-backs were an actual thing. It all made for some ugly basketball we should never, ever (ever) want to see again. Ever. It was that bad.
Unfortunately, it makes sense for the owners to make another run at the players union. It’s in disarray at the moment and by the time it’s stabilized, there’s no telling how stable it will actually be. They might be able to extract more compromise out of the players. And by “compromise,” I mean they may be able to eviscerate them even more this time around.
But I implore you to not think about it, at least for now. We’re more than three years away from it being an issue, so it’s senseless to get worked up that far advance. Just enjoy actually, not-so-ugly basketball now, while you can, all while tacitly hoping commissioner Adam Silver doesn’t foster a lockout this early into his tenure.
Dan Favale is a firm believer in the three-pointer as well as the notion that defense doesn’t always win championships. His musings can be found at Bleacherreport.com in addition to TheHoopDoctors.com.
