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Another deadline not met, and here we are. One hundred NBA games cancelled, no basketball of the first two “planned” NBA weeks, and David Stern saying there was a significant gulf  on virtually all issues.

The sad thing is everyone knew this was coming. Fake hope blown around with talks of this is the last deadline before this and that get cancelled. The played don’t to concede too much. The owners? They probably wanted this to happen, well at least most of them.

David Stern repeated his usual mantra – We think that we made very fair proposals. I’m sure the players feel the same thing, But the gap is so significant that we just can’t bridge it at this time. At least he wasn’t too condescending.

Billy Hunter sees things a little differently – I think everybody’s waiting for the players to cave. They figure that once a player misses a check or two, it’s all over. I’m saying … that would be a horrible mistake if they think that’s going to happen, because it’s not going to happen. The players are all going to hang in. 

So far, the players have shown solidarity, through the media and their favorite social media option, Twitter. As the day grew longer, the owners’ offers kept getting worse. Who said the owners even want a season? They certainly didn’t show that during the negotiations. Maybe the players should have loosened up a bit, after all, their bosses are losing money, some of them, but nobody is fooled by David Stern or the rest of them. They’re glad the lockout has come this far, because there will be no OCCUPY RANDOM NBA ARENA here.

The owners and Stern claimed they made concessions, but in fact, they just shifted the taxes elsewhere. Like the whole Luxury Tax debate, being the main obstacle on Monday. The blows kept coming. Three and four year restrictions on free agents re signing with their own teams or no use of the Larry Bird exception for teams over the salary cap.

At least Adam Silver wasn’t B’Sing about the intentions – It makes no sense for us to operate under the current model, where taxpayers have a huge advantage over other teams. 

I guess what Billy Hunter had to say about David Stern, regarding this lockout being a given thing for a few years now, summed it up – I think it goes back to a comment that David made to me several years ago when he said ‘Look, this is what my owners have to have’. Hunter replied ‘The only way you’re going to get that is if you’re prepared to lock us out for a year or two,’ and this indicated to me that they’re willing to do it.So my belief, my contention, is that everything he’s done has kind of demonstrated that he’s following that script.

The BRI again? The BRI again, the biggest issue, above everything else. The players don’t want to go lower than 53. The owners, reportedly, offered 50-50 last week, but right now are back to under 50% from the players, something around 47. We aren’t getting anywhere with this.

My two cents – This league is too big. We need less teams. The players will cave, but not to the extent the owners want. This is David Stern’s biggest failure, in a long period of decline in his performance. His dictatorship and way of going after the players will end soon enough. I just hope it doesn’t take the NBA too long to recover from this blow, when it actually begins recovering.