Jeff Van Gundy gives his take on the NBA lockout – Basketball News
Former NBA head coach and current TV basketball analyst Jeff Van Gundy has weighed in on the ongoing NBA labour dispute. The former coach believes that both sides, the owners and the players, should not be complacent about the
issue and warned that the game could suffer a significant blow if an amicable solution is not reached and that too on time.
Van Gundy coached the Houston Rockets before retiring from the game, and was close to recently retired Chinese centre Yao Ming. He was also head coach of the New York Knicks for some time and led them to the NBA Finals, although
he never won the NBA Championship.
With the NBA lockout in entering its 4th month now, tensions are becoming higher by the day on the negotiating table for the new Collective Bargaining Agreement or CBA. Van Gundy gave his view on the matter Friday and
told all involved parties to handle the situation with care.
“I think everybody in the NBA — players, management, ownership — has to be very cognoscente not to be complacent in thinking that we’re more important than we are. The economy is tough, and whatever disposable incomes that are
being spent can be spent in other places and we’re not the NFL.” He said talking to Newsroom Jersey.
The NFL also had a labour dispute this year, followed by a lockout just like the one in NBA. The players in the NFL though decertified their union and sued the league in the federal court. The increased pressure on NFL authorities
led to a deal being reached outside of the court without a loss of regular season games.
Even if the NFL had taken more time in resolving its labour dispute, Van Gundy believes they were in a better situation than the NBA. The NBA is not as big of a sporting entity as the NFL. It has surely seen a great upturn in fortunes
recently, especially last season, but the current lockout threatens to undermine the progress made.
“The NFL has a strangle hold [on the American public’s attention], and rightly so. It’s super exciting. It’s perfectly set up. It’s weekends, it’s not too many games. Everything is great. I just think we have to be careful.” Van
Gundy said.
The NBA owners and the players unions held a meeting on Friday but no clear headway was made. Another round is scheduled for Saturday, but sceptics believe time is already running short.
The season is scheduled to start November 1, but it is hard to see how that deadline will be met given that both sides still remain so far apart.
Tags: