NBA Lockout keeps New Orleans Hornets point guard Chris Paul in limbo
The National Basketball Association (NBA) Lockout has completed three and half months and yet there is no definite answer on hand as to when the league will get back to business. Since the NBA lockout took its first breath, the
absence of the progress has been the only definite thing, in the negotiations between the owners and payers association.
At this time when many NBA players were supposed to start their official work out sessions with play exhibition games with their respective teams, the cancellation of the training camps and the cancelation of the preseason games
in the last month as a result of the lockout has hampered those players from doing so.
New Orleans Hornets versatile point guard Chris Paul is also among the players who were suppose to start the training camps from today. However, as the lockout drags on, the 26-year-old Paul remains in limbo.
Chris Paul had a fantastic 2010-2011 season and he spearheaded New Orleans Hornets towards a surprising play-off trip after failing to do so a year before. Although Chris didn’t put his best scoring performance, however his versatile
game-play became the highlight of the last season.
Under normal circumstances when Paul would have been gearing up to build up his team for another post-season trip, but the uncertainty of the lockout keeps him on dividing line.
“At this time every year I usually would be in training camp. I would love playing on the court right now. But there’s nothing to be scared about, we’re going to keep trying to get a deal.” Pau said.
Despite NBA commissionaire David Stern threatened the owners and players union with the possibility of cancelling a complete season if no progress is made by the start of this week, both the parties showed no sign of backing down
from their demands.
While the NBA owners are determined to trim down the Basketball Related Income (BRI) of the players to 46 percent from 57 percent which they were guaranteed according to the previous Collective Bargaining Agreement, the players
are resolute to offer 40 percent cut down in the percentage at the moment.
Being the member of the player’s union executive committee, Chris Paul stated that they all love the game of basketball and will continue to negotiate to bring the action back on the court.
“It’s very emotional in those meetings, we think about the fans and we think about how much we love the game of basketball and what we get an opportunity to do. We’ll just continue to negotiate because at the end of the day we
want to play this game that we love,’’ Paul said.
Although Chris Paul talked on players behalf that everybody want to play basketball. However the players’ union needs to show some flexibility to encourage owners do the same and sign a fair deal in order to save the 2011-2012
season.
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