Brian Champlin: LakersNation: “Basketball fans are surely in a dour mood today. The announcement that the NBA lockout was officially upon us was decidedly unsurprising and yet no less depressing for the extended notice. I’d wager to say that I’m not alone in holding a bleak outlook for the prospects of an agreement being in place before the scheduled start of the season. Both sides are digging in hard and there is little impetus to negotiate further, at least on the owners side, until the ramifications of the work stoppage hit home (see: missed paychecks). But for the Los Angeles Lakers maybe a shortened 2012 campaign wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Yeah, you’re skeptical, but hear me out.”
David Whitley: Sporting News: “I was pretty convinced life as we know it was going to end at midnight. If you haven’t been hoarding bottled water and Dirk Nowitzki DVDs, you probably didn’t even realize the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement expired at that moment. Basketball has officially joined football in lockout mode. With luck, soccer and synchronized swimming will soon join them. I don’t mean to minimize the greatness of all those endeavors, but the only one powerful enough to alter solar activity is the NFL. If America doesn’t get its fix, the entire nation might act like Vancouver after a Stanley Cup loss.”
Kurt Helin: Pro Basketball Talk: “They both want a financial deal that is good for them not just next year but for the next five plus years — and this year’s Collective Bargaining Agreement will end up being the basis of the next deal, too. Both sides have a lot of money riding on the outcome. Both want to get a big slice of the revenue pie.”
Kurt Helin: Pro Basketball Talk: “But what happens when we get into September and their agents are in their ear about watching out for their own interests, and their friends are in their ear about cutting a deal to get back work because he only has so many years to make this NBA money? There are a lot of forces that pull on players, many of whom make a lot of money and spend a lot of money. Not having that money come in could hurt.”
Adrian Wojnarowski: Yahoo! Sports: “The final word of the first hours of the lockout belonged to the great manipulator of the basketball masses. Once again, David Stern beat Billy Hunter on the way out the door Thursday. In his manufactured, grim disposition, the NBA’s commissioner proclaimed the union had made an 11th-hour counter proposal that would call for the average salary to rise $2 million over the length of the agreement.”
