In a move that could potentially jeopardize the 2011-12 season, the NBA owners have locked out the players after failing to come to an agreement on a new NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement.
With the NBA lockout, two of the four major professional sports leagues are now locked out in the United States. The NFL, who locked out their players in March are currently working towards a new CBA to avoid any disruptions to their 2011 season.
To get an idea on how bad things are between the owners and players, both sides met for three hours Thursday to come to some sort of an agreement. After the three hour meeting owners decided to lockout players well before the 12AM deadline.
“We tried to avoid the lockout; unfortunately, we couldn’t reach a deal,” union executive committee member Matt Bonner said.
What this now means is all NBA business is now on hold. Free agency, which was suppose to start Friday, is now delayed indefinitely with games potentially being lost in 2011-12. The last time the NBA players were locked out was during the 1998-99 season in which the entire season was reduced to 50 games. That was the first time in the leagues history that games had to be cancelled due to labor issues. At this point it seems like there is a reasonable chance that it could happen again.
Both sides remained very far apart Thursday on just about every major issue from the salary cap, player salaries, revenues and revenue sharing.
Stay tuned to The Majors for more on this as it develops.
Source: Associated Press