What’s going on in the NBA?

The NBA lockout has been on for just over four months now, and you’d hope that the NBA Players’ Association and the NBA could come to an agreement by now. Unfortunately for fans, they haven’t. And they don’t even seem close.

Talks last week proved to be fruitless, despite the fact that some came out of the meetings saying that some major ground had been broken. Others though, said that issues such as the hard salary cap and the revenue sharing strategy proposed by the NBA could bring the whole thing collapsing down around the two parties. Given that no meetings have been scheduled since last week, it seems like the latter might be true.

The NBA still wants the players to have a hard salary cap. Not surprisingly, the players want to keep their soft cap, which would afford the teams to keep their current big-buck players even if they hedge over the cap a bit. The NBA wants the revenue sharing program to show an equal 50/50 split between them and the players. And while the players are willing to budge on their current 57% of revenue sharing, they’re only willing to drop it down to 52.5%. Seeing as how there has been no conclusion on these two very key issues, Commissioner David Stern has cancelled all games through to the end of November.

Meanwhile, Miami Heat owner, Mickey Arison, is facing big charges after tweeting about the lockout. His tweet, which was in response to an angry tweet by a fan, was simply, “You are barking at the wrong owner.” Owners, players, and NBA execs have all had a sort of “gag order” imposed upon them, which restricts them from talking about the negotiations outside of the board room. And while Arison’s comment might not seem like a huge leap across that line, David Stern is still charging him with a hefty $50,000 fine.

With no talks scheduled and games not being played at least until December, no one’s giving in. And the biggest ones to suffer from it, unfortunately, are the fans.

Categorized in: NBA