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NBA Cancels First Two Weeks of Season

By Steven Lloyd Wilson | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (35)

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Strikes (or lockouts) in sports are a funny thing. Fans get up in arms, fingers are pointed in every direction, 30 billionaires try to convince us that they’re going broke while a few hundred millionaires try to convince us that they’re underpaid. Typically the owners give up a few things they don’t care about but win the things that they do since they’ll go to sleep on piles of money even if the entire league collapses, while the lower tier players quickly run out of the liquid capital needed to keep their pet lions eating organic unicorn steaks. Journalists submit the exact same articles that they submitted the last time this happened, just searching and replacing for the name of the league.

The fans are furious, but they’re just the customer so they don’t really matter. And fans don’t make up their minds until after it’s all over who was to blame. That blame is generally apportioned against the players depending on how many juicy quotes land in the media to the effect of backup punters complaining that now they’ll have to feed Chow Chow real dog food. The blame is aimed at the league as a whole in proportion to how much of a season is missed. But if the game comes back strong afterwards, all the fury can dissipate. So the NFL strikes of the eighties is long forgotten, baseball’s lost World Series faded with Sosa’s and McGwire’s swings.

The NBA announced today that at least the first two weeks of the 2011-2012 season will be cancelled, with David Stern saying that the players and owners are “very far apart on virtually all issues. … We just have a gulf that separates us.”

The odd thing is how muted the fan base is at the moment. But that might just be the normal indifference to November basketball.

(source: THR)









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Comments

My "normal indifference to November basketball" is only exceeded by my indifference to December, January, February, March, April and May basketball.

Oddly enough, I find summertime basketball riveting but coverage is scant, which only adds to the enticement.

Posted by: clocker at October 11, 2011 10:24 AM

I only see this as good news as I won't have to walk through a sea of people asking me if I need tickets as I walk to my car 2-3 times a week.

Posted by: Morosey at October 11, 2011 10:32 AM

Excellent - maybe my favorite shows won't be delayed as much this year.

Posted by: Keith at October 11, 2011 10:33 AM

I was surprised to see a post about this on Pajiba. I'm an enormous NBA fan, and I think there are more of us in the nerdosphere than most realize. I like to think of it as the thinking man's mainstream sport, though I will not object to being ridiculed for that sentiment.

In any case, the overwhelming verdict from the mainstream sports media and the internet sports Hive-Mind is one of dismissal. The logic generally goes as follows: Basketball is not nearly as popular as Football, therefore, who cares?

Baseball, even though it comes in a distant third to Football and Basketball in terms of ratinga nd popularity, is not generally subject to this treatment on account of history/nostalgia/patriotism(whuck?).

The NBA is coming off of a banner year, yet still lost money as a whole. I'm a union man, generally, but in this case am siding squarely with the owners- mainly because NBA players already have the cushiest position of any player union in pro sports. They currently command, in the form of salaries, 57% of GROSS REVENUE. That's before expenses, y'all. I understand that the owners are evil plutocrats, but it's gotta be next to impossible to turn a profit with that sort of arrangement.

The owners have demanded massive and arguably unfair concessions from the players, and I understand their reticence to agree without a fight, but here's the thing: The deal on the table isn't going to get any better as the players lose paychecks and go stir crazy. Every game cancelled is a measure of leverage lost by the players. It's a bitter pill, but they need to take the deal. The owners are NOT going to cave.

In the words of Jack Donaghy: "My offer is now seventy-five cents. Tick tock, tick tock..."

Posted by: Martin at October 11, 2011 10:44 AM

As far as I'm concerned, the Dallas Mavericks slew the Beast this past summer and every NBA game after Game 6 of the 2011 NBA Finals is simply epilogue to the greatest story ever told.

That said, I don't know if I can wait until December for the sport to return. It's the only sport I watch and enjoy, damn it.

Posted by: RobP at October 11, 2011 10:45 AM

Cancel the additional 40+ weeks or whatever it is and you'd be getting somewhere. Godtopus, how I loathe NBA.

Posted by: TylerDFC at October 11, 2011 10:54 AM

The season is way, way too long anyway. That goes for ALL of the top four major-league North American sports. And they will get longer. I'm convinced that somewhere in the future, all sports will run year-round, much like golf and tennis and pretty much auto racing do now, because TV demands it: Sports programming is cheap programming and fills hours and hours of air time at huge profits.

I hope I'm dead before that happens, but it's certainly coming.

Posted by: , at October 11, 2011 10:58 AM

I understand that the owners are evil plutocrats, but it's gotta be next to impossible to turn a profit with that sort of arrangement.

I read something about this recently (grantland.com?). The author was arguing that sports team owners always overpay for the teams and they're not run like normal businesses. This is because it is a dream for most of these people to own a team. Ah! "Psychic benefits" is what he called it (http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6874079/psychic-benefits-nba-lockout).

Anyway, interesting read. If I may attempt to hijack this thread: I hate basketball because it always turns into "Foulball" in the last minutes of a close game. I can think of no other sport where it is a good strategy to repeatedly intentionally foul (hockey, maybe?). I just can't enjoy basketball because of this.

Posted by: pissant at October 11, 2011 11:27 AM

the cancellation is not a surprise to any real fans we expected it. The NBA is not a moneymaker for every team supposedly so the owners will use this to break the players. In reality the NBA is owned by the big market teams like the Lakers and the Celtics. The NBA needs contraction, too many teams, which will never happen so the players will have to take pay cuts and work under a stricter cap because a few teams are so poorly managed they lose money. I expect a short season maybe 45 games. End result: the rich will get richer.

Posted by: logan at October 11, 2011 12:09 PM

More people watching hockey!

Posted by: Tori at October 11, 2011 12:24 PM

I'm trying to think of a way this affects my Magic in a good way. I say my Magic being from San Diego, and knowing that if we did have a team it would suck. Because are teams always suck. "Last in sports, first in weather". Are town fudging motto, tell you what. Anyways, hope Dwight gets a consistent team put around him. Also they get rid of Hedo, who phoned it in all last season. Any chances any team out there is drunk enough to get Arenas too? Otis Smith should get slapped for that one.

Anyways, I can watch any sport and enjoy it, but I only actively seek out the NBA. Only sport I ever enjoyed playing and love watching.

"Anyway, interesting read. If I may attempt to hijack this thread: I hate basketball because it always turns into "Foulball" in the last minutes of a close game. I can think of no other sport where it is a good strategy to repeatedly intentionally foul (hockey, maybe?). I just can't enjoy basketball because of this."

Take a knee.
Keep away with our feet.
Baseball. Literally everything about that game is boring. Everything.

Posted by: googergieger at October 11, 2011 1:33 PM

@Martin: I will not object to being ridiculed for that sentiment.

O thank God. For a minute there I was going to feel bad for, well, ridiculing you for that sentiment.

Posted by: klingonfree at October 11, 2011 1:36 PM

Take a knee.
Keep away with our feet.
Baseball. Literally everything about that game is boring. Everything.

What? Can I assume you're talking about soccer with that second line? I don't get the first. I wholeheartedly agree with the third.

Posted by: pissant at October 11, 2011 2:06 PM

Football.
Soccer.
Baseball.

Posted by: googergieger at October 11, 2011 2:08 PM

Football.
Soccer.
Baseball.

...but those aren't fouls...

Are you just listing reasons why you can't enjoy other sports? Because, if you are, I must inform you that, objectively, the worst part of soccer is the acting.

Posted by: pissant at October 11, 2011 2:42 PM

So your complaint is just the fouls? Not the slowing down of action? Not the boring? Just the fouls and fouls alone?

Alright.

I can enjoy every kind of sport. I only seek out Basketball.

Posted by: googergieger at October 11, 2011 2:46 PM

So your complaint is just the fouls? Not the slowing down of action? Not the boring? Just the fouls and fouls alone?

Well, I don't like those other things, either. However, fouling irritates the hell out of me because it slows down the action, makes it boring, and I can't think of another sport where breaking the rules is an acceptable strategy. The problem is the lack of severity in the penalties. It makes sense to foul in basketball. In football, if you know the receiver is going to catch it and blow past you, you can foul the shit out of him, but they're going to get the ball way down the field. It's a pretty severe penalty (NFL anyway, NCAA I believe is fifteen yards from the line of scrimmage). In a soccer tournament you can slide-tackle someone from behind to prevent them from breaking away and scoring, but you're going to get a red card which means your team plays a man down for the rest of the game, you're out for the rest of that game, and you're out for the next game. So, you rarely see people intentionally committing these fouls. And I can't think of a situation where someone intentionally fouls in baseball.

In the last two minutes of a close basketball game the action grinds to a halt and the game becomes something that is not basketball.

Posted by: pissant at October 11, 2011 3:03 PM

Yeah and what does taking a knee do? What about when a team is up in soccer and all they do is play keep away? Intentional walking? Etc...

There are a lot of things other sports do that slow down the action. I am not a fan of the intentional fouling among other things with basketball. I can easily say it has the worst officiating and rules out of any professional sport. Soccer or as my people say it, futbol probably has the best. However to hate the intentional fouling for slowing things down while ignoring every sport does it in some way, is kind of asinine.

Posted by: googergieger at October 11, 2011 3:24 PM

And I can't think of a situation where someone intentionally fouls in baseball.
What if it's a really tough curveball? (Sorry. Terrible joke.)

I'm not a huge NBA fan, which I attribute to my hometown lacking an NBA team. I do love me some postseason basketball though.

I saw the David Stern quote about last year being the best ever for the league, but I believe he was talking about TV ratings. How do they do with other revenue streams. I know, at least a few years ago, some NHL teams were out drawing the NBA team in the same city. I love the NHL, but that's just unfathomable.

Posted by: Socrates_Johnson at October 11, 2011 3:43 PM

Yeah and what does taking a knee do? What about when a team is up in soccer and all they do is play keep away? Intentional walking? Etc...

There are a lot of things other sports do that slow down the action. I am not a fan of the intentional fouling among other things with basketball. I can easily say it has the worst officiating and rules out of any professional sport. Soccer or as my people say it, futbol probably has the best. However to hate the intentional fouling for slowing things down while ignoring every sport does it in some way, is kind of asinine.

I didn't ignore that every sport does it in some way. My main annoyance is the fouling, but it's not mostly because it slows down the action. It's mostly because it's repeatedly and intentionally breaking the rules and turning the game into something else that I do not consider to be basketball. Taking a knee and playing keep-away suck, too. To me, though, soccer still resembles soccer and they're just going to conservatively run it to run down the clock in football anyway. So, those don't annoy me as much.

Posted by: pissant at October 11, 2011 3:48 PM

Whoops, that second paragraph in my previous comment is also meant to be italicized.

The revolution will not be italicized!

Posted by: pissant at October 11, 2011 3:50 PM

Question marks. Why must you elude me.

Posted by: Socrates_Johnson at October 11, 2011 3:55 PM

Dear America*, what do you hate about Hockey? It's so fast and they hit each other into comas all the time. It's just like fighting except faster!

*I exclude Boston and Chicago, you guys support the shit out of your teams, and you also know the sport.

Posted by: Greg at October 11, 2011 5:39 PM

Baseball's lost World Series put an end to my interest in current Major League Baseball, although I still enjoy reading about baseball in the 125 years before that.

Posted by: Pat C. at October 11, 2011 6:54 PM

Greg,
If I may speak for the entire nation, we're sorry. Hockey rules, though I rarely watch it (but when I do I always enjoy it, and the video games are awesome). I think it mostly has to do with how we're a rather large nation with rather large areas that don't freeze very often. It probably goes back hundreds of years to places that had frozen ponds in the winter (not too frequent in the south). By all accounts, though, it should be huge. It has the pace of soccer mixed with the violence of football. Perhaps we should just chalk it up to low scores*?

* - Baseball excepted because it's "the nation's pastime".

Posted by: pissant at October 11, 2011 6:58 PM

Pissant:

Thank you for the eloquently stated and unfortunate truth.

Posted by: Greg at October 11, 2011 7:51 PM

If I may attempt to hijack this thread: I hate basketball because it always turns into "Foulball" in the last minutes of a close game. I can think of no other sport where it is a good strategy to repeatedly intentionally foul (hockey, maybe?). I just can't enjoy basketball because of this.

Posted by: pissant at October 11, 2011 11:27 AM
---
I second this sentiment. They take a beautiful, flowing game and hack it into three-second increments in the final two minutes, so that those two minutes last 20. Throw in all the timeouts* and commercials and free throws and substitutions and I can't believe anybody finds that exciting.

I'm in favor of two shots AND THE BALL on fouls in the last two minutes. Make teams play actual defense.

The college game is worse at this than the NBA. At least the pros know when they're beat and don't keep hacking and fouling and lengthening the game interminably when they're 20 points behind with 10 seconds to play. I hate that rah-rah never-say-die shit. Admit you got beat, take it like a man and get the fuck off the court.

*--If you have to stop the game every 10 seconds to tell your players what to do, I figure you're either a horseshit coach or an attention hog.

Posted by: , at October 11, 2011 8:41 PM

"It's mostly because it's repeatedly and intentionally breaking the rules and turning the game into something else that I do not consider to be basketball. Taking a knee and playing keep-away suck, too. To me, though, soccer still resembles soccer and they're just going to conservatively run it to run down the clock in football anyway. So, those don't annoy me as much."

Yeah those are the same things. Time management and all that crap. I'm not a fan of it in any sport. Again I just don't see how someone can hate it in one sport and find it okay in the other. Breaking the rules? They do get fouls and the other team does get free throws. What can soccer do when one team is up one and decides to simply kick the ball back and forth between two people until time is up? All sports have their moments where they drag out to bejesus and back. Hate a sport for something substantial not for something every sport is guilty of.

Also hate baseball. Seriously how can anyone enjoy that sober?

Posted by: googergieger at October 11, 2011 9:50 PM

The average score of a baseball game is about 6-3. So while it may not live up to the point parades in basketball and American football, there is still considerably more scoring than in soccer.

I've given trying to convince people to like baseball, though I did convince a friend to tolerate by explaining it to him as a giant statistical exercise. Unfortunately, that's a negative for most people. Baseball is all about tension and the relief of someone coming through with that big hit or strikeout after all the buildup. I understand why some (many) don't like it, so to each their own I guess.

Posted by: Socrates_Johnson at October 12, 2011 8:23 AM

Yeah those are the same things. Time management and all that crap. I'm not a fan of it in any sport. Again I just don't see how someone can hate it in one sport and find it okay in the other. Breaking the rules? They do get fouls and the other team does get free throws. What can soccer do when one team is up one and decides to simply kick the ball back and forth between two people until time is up? All sports have their moments where they drag out to bejesus and back. Hate a sport for something substantial not for something every sport is guilty of.

OK, once again: it's the fouling that I hate in basketball. No other sport that I can think of is guilty of (one more time) repeatedly and intentionally fouling. Apparently, you see that and time management as the same thing. I do not.

I'm in favor of two shots AND THE BALL on fouls in the last two minutes. Make teams play actual defense.

, for president!
The only problem (as I understand it from my friends who are "in the know") is something like that would kill the full court press. I've always thought three shots for fouls in the back court would alleviate this problem. But if you do that, you'll just have teams sitting in the back court eating up the shot clock (which would bother me less as at least the game would end). Regardless, I agree with everything you said. Especially your hatred of rah-rah-never-say-die.

Posted by: pissant at October 12, 2011 10:48 AM

Yeah see THAT'S a superficial reason, pissant. They get fouls. The other team gets two points. You hate fouling because of the name is what you are saying. Because the end result of doing such a thing is the same as what a lot of other sports do. They just call it something else.

Teams have ten seconds to make it past half court. Or did they change it down to eight? I forget as most teams don't make that mistake. The way basketball is designed it's hard to give it a quick write off rule and expect that will fix things. Two points and the ball? That means one team will never have a chance to comeback after those two minutes. I mean, in that scenario a team is up one point with twenty three seconds left. What do you do?

Posted by: googergieger at October 12, 2011 2:17 PM

I'm fairly certain that I know what I'm saying/feeling. As Clair Huxtable once told that new character, punishments should not be an option. Nearly every sport has a way to slow down the action and nearly every sport has intentional fouls. It's the frequency of the fouls in basketball that annoys me more than any other sport. It's playing like a pussy, and basketball, in my opinion, does it much more than any other sport.

Oh, and I'm not serious about changing the rules of basketball. I think it'd be nice to try, but I think it would either just plain not work or give the defense too much of an advantage. However, the fact that a team can even intentionally foul that often shows that they need to look at the rules.

Posted by: pissant at October 12, 2011 3:19 PM

There is a difference in frequency of fouls and intentional fouls. The former is because of favoritism(cheating) with refs. The latter is giving yourself a chance to win. I mean a team doesn't intentionally foul down ten with a minute to go.

I think I'm just going to play the race card on this one.

You just got race carded.

Posted by: googergieger at October 12, 2011 8:31 PM

Race card, eh? And you're into "futbol"* and basketball. Are you, sir/madam, South American?

* - no offense

Posted by: pissant at October 12, 2011 10:10 PM

I'm not into soccer. I do have a European Spanish last name. I also speak Portuguese*. Also not all people from south America are trannies. Pretty racist assumption from you.

*I lied.

Posted by: googergieger at October 13, 2011 12:08 AM