Lockout Update
2011-09-08
From ESPN.com via the AP newswire:
NBA owners and players met for about 5½ hours Wednesday, plan to resume negotiations Thursday, and could even sit down again Friday.
While neither side would say if progress is being made, the frequency of the discussions seems a good sign. They met only twice in the first two months of the lockout that began July 1.
But they went for about six hours last Wednesday, and decided they would go multiple days this week. Both sides said they could even carry over the discussions into a third consecutive day if things go well during Thursday’s session.
There was also a cryptic accidental tweet from Players’ Association VP Roger Mason of “Looking like a season. How u” yesterday, so interpret that however you like. It’s simultaneously encouraging and disheartening that the NBPA and the owners are finally sitting down together for an extended period of time, but this is the first granule of optimism floated NBA fans’ way in months. Here’s hoping Hunter, Stern, and Fisher find some common ground this week.
FWIW “Amar’e Stoudemire is optimistic the NBA lockout will end soon and confident he’ll be ready to play for the Knicks once a deal is reached. ‘I’m hearing good things about the lockout,’ Stoudemire said Wednesday.” Truehoop quoted http://mobile.newsday.com/inf/infomo;JSESSIONID=E6EC5AFA5822C56EA0F8.3124?site=newsday&view=knicks_item&feed:a=newsday_5min&feed:c=knicks&feed:i=1.3152579&nopaging=1 in their morning stories today.
If I knew that others would do it to, I’d boycott this season, just for the nerve the owners and players are showing. The owners made more money than expected last season, the players get paid (for the most part – a lot) to play a game. They rely on our interest, on our money, on our time, and we give them all gladly with never a threat of a lockout from the fans who are tired of this crap.
forget news of the lockout, I just got super psyched to see Boobie Gibson on the espn-nba front page. Ya gotta have love for him. Though, yea, it reminded me we won’t see him play this year. AGH!
Any progress is a good thing – I hope we have a full season, but if not a partial will do.