My Thoughts on the NBA Lockout

A Guest Blog By Howard Ticker:

Currently there is an NBA lockout because the Collective Bargaining Agreement expired and no new deal could be reached. This has really angered me along with the sports world because this is the second lockout to occur this year. It looks like this lockout is going to last longer than the NFL’s. I think it is stupid when millionaires (the players) can’t agree with billionaires (the owners) how to split money.

In my opinion, the players’ salaries should stay right where they are. However, the salary cap should be decreased so teams can’t have 3 superstars on their teams like the Miami Heat with Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh. This will create more balanced rosters amongst the entire league. I do believe they should get rid of guaranteed contracts in case something happens to a player and the team can easily opt out of the deal. Also, the total length of contracts should be reduced. No deal should be longer than 5 years in my opinion. In terms of revenue and revenue sharing, they should be split fairly close to 50/50 between.

I am going to be really angry if there isn’t an NBA season because of the lockout. Especially since to me this was one of the most entertaining NBA seasons in a while and finally my favorite team, the New York Knicks are getting good. I think in a best case scenario there will be a shortened season of around 50 games like in 1998, but I feel like there won’t be a season at all. This is unfortunate because the all around competition in the league was getting much better. Smaller market teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder and Memphis Grizzlies were able to make great play off runs. People like to see these underdog teams do well and it’s a shame that we might have to wait a whole year for another season. This may end up hurting the NBA because a lot of players have been signing with teams overseas. Some of these players might not just be staying there just until the lock out ends. Some players who are role players in the NBA may really like being in the spot light overseas and end up staying there. Another bad thing that could happen is that the players (especially the superstars) might get hurt. Some superstars like Deron Williams have agreed to play overseas. Other big name players are doing tours with other stars playing exhibition games around the world. On Tuesday August 29^th Lebron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, and Kevin Durant played an exhibition game in Baltimore. What if someone got hurt? What if it was a career ending injury? It wouldn’t only lose money for the player but the team they play for. Right now teams aren’t allowed to contact their players and tell them what to do. I think this is awful because I just know something bad is going to happen to one of these players with all this free time on their hands.

Obviously, the players and league can’t expect the other side to agree to their current demands. Realistically, both sides need to budge a little and meet somewhere in the middle. The faster they come to an agreement, the faster both sides can get paid and the fans can be entertained by another great season of basketball.