NFL lockout finally ends, but it’s just the start for NBA
The week started on a high note for the National Football League fans as the players and NFL owners finally formed an accord to remove the dark clouds from the football fields after 132 days of arguing and bickering. The NFL lockout,
that had threatened the regular season, completed its four months which is the longest work stoppage in the league’s history.
While the associates of NFL are cheering the moments and waiting for the action to trigger; for National Basketball Association, the lockout has just started. With the official announcement of the NFL getting back to business,
the NBA has become the sole major professional sports to bear the infamy of a work stoppage.
NBA officially locked out its players on 1st of July upon expiration of the old Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). The NBA lockout is about to complete its first month and there is still no definite answer of when
the league will get back to business. During the meetings that took place before the implementation of the work stoppage, the NBA owners and the players association were miles apart in their demands.
In the post Lockout era, the free agency was postponed, then the Las Vegas Summer League had to be cancelled and most recently the Rookie Transaction Program was put off. This is just the beginning of the ugly consequences of the
lockout. If NBA fails to make some quick moves to end the lockout, the organization will bear an unredeemable loss in form of some or total games in the 2011-2012, a thing which is looking like a possibility at this point in time. Not to mention the hit, which
the popularity of the league will take after this whole money issue.
The first negotiations between the owners and players association will resume on Monday. However the biggest problem is that both the parties have already conceded that the work stoppage will obliterate some games in the next season.
This frame of mind will do nothing, but prolong the process which needs to be changed.
Associate Professor of Law from Marquette University Mathew Parlow talking on the issue said:
"Both sides are already anticipating that there is going to be part of the season lost. You hear some people predicting that the owners might even go two years. I think that would be crazy; that would be insane. That might actually
just kill basketball, or it would take a decade to rebuild."
NBA now has an excellent example of NFL, who just came out of the lockout. The league should learn from the experience of NFL make a move for the resolution for the issue. The players also need to understand the fact that they
cannot win it all and have to be more flexible.
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