The NBA season is currently at risk of being delayed due to a lockout. What is the NBA lockout? The NBA lockout is where the players negotiate a new pay contract with their team owners and high level NBA officials. During this event, the season will not start until the players and their owners agree on a contract, if they don’t reach an agreement then there will be no NBA season this year.
The Collective Bargain Agreement (CBA) is the group that proposes the deals with the players. July 1 was when the old bargaining agreement expired which started the lockout. NBA owners and players held a meeting for negotiations on a Monday, but after about three hours of negotiating, both sides were at the same place where they started, making no progress. Billy Hunter, head of the players association, is saying that the 2011-2012 NBA season is most likely to be canceled because the players and owners can not reach an agreement on the contract. He also sent a message to all the players to start looking for other jobs like playing basketball across seas hoping it will make the owners offer better contracts to their playing seeing that the players have options. The second meeting between the players and their owners occurred August 31. During the meeting there has not been an agreement but both sides did mention on attempting to make an agreement soon. They said that they will start meeting more often to negotiate. Both sides also said that they will not go to the media to complain about each others proposals and will now just talk about it when they are in the meetings.
If the season does get canceled it will be devastating to the players, owners, and even the fans. If the season does get canceled it will mean that the fans will not get to watch their favorite teams play and won’t have any kind of basketball games to look forward to (I personally prefer to watch basketball rather then any other sport). Even people that like to watch football and basketball will not get to watch basketball after football season is over. Basketball is one of the most entertaining sports in theUnited States and there are dedicated fans out there that will be angry if they do not get to see their team play.
This also is not the only sport that has went on lockout this year, football was also on lockout once there 10 year old bargaining contract ran out but the CBA for football did reach another agreement and now the 2011-2012 football season has started. Unlike football, basketball is still trying to negotiate a contract to be ready for the new season. The football players and their owners both had to give in a little on each side of their deals which was successful and they ended up reaching an agreement. This is what basketball needs to do but neither side is giving in which is resulting of this continuous lockout. I hope that basketball will reach an agreement because I know I want to watch my team play and hopefully win the NBA finals just like many other people out.