Reuters photo via Daylife.com
Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big storyline. Because there's nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.
NEW YORK — I am disgusted and speechless.
I trusted wise men to act wisely. I believed in common sense prevailing. I think the NBA owners are nuts to go down this road. They just lost a significant percentage of their fair-weather fans.
Idiocy rules the day. How very, very sad.
Not just sad. Stupid.
That's the entirety of Chris Sheridan's post-cancellation announcement column. That's the whole thing.
First, I want to apologize to Chris. I like to leave something behind because I'm not in the business of stealing content. I quote from it and encourage clicking through. But this is too awesome. This is just too priceless for me not to quote entirely.
Sheridan has always been the most optimistic guy out there, so he has reason to be taken aback. In fact, he explains his reasons for his optimism in his piece this morning. He also adds this:
From talking to people after the talks ended Monday night, the players felt the owners were piling on with their demands for system changes, trying to run up the score in a negotiation that clearly, from the get-go, was a case study in what is known as concessionary bargaining – a union trying to hang us onto as much as it could from the old labor deal.
It's clear a deal was there to be had. In fact, Stern said last night that a financial system was within reach if they had agreed to the systemic issues. The union later said that the luxury tax system in place was so punitive, it was basically a hard cap.
So that, and I'm sure other things, derailed these talks. Owners were going to get somewhere in the neighborhood of 49% of the BRI, up from 43%. It more than covered the gap of their losses. Now they're just piling on.
Make no mistake, the players have given up large chunks of money and, with the mid-level exception being tweaked, they were moving on other systemic issues. Owners have gotten a lot of what they wanted. And now they're flushing tons of money down the toilet to get the rest.
Was this ever really just about money? Or was this about breaking the union too? David Stern and the owners had a chance to save a full season and they didn't. I wish people would rise up, get pissed, and show the owners their disdain. Instead, though, I'm afraid most people just won't care. And maybe, for the NBA, that's worse.
The rest of the links:
EOB: Players react to first two weeks being cancelled | Ken Berger: Canceling games: Foolish or part of the plan? | Yahoo!: NBA cancels first two weeks
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