The Credits: "Horrible Bosses"

Damn [REDACTED] Owners! Those [REDACTED] of [REDACTED] [REDACTED]. Get a [REDACTED] deal done, meet halfway or at the [REDACTED] middle-ish. NO. MORE. [REDACTED] GAMES. CANCELED.

What’s so hard to understand?
All the easy loot of the 2000’s is long gone – for everyone.
Housing. Gas. Jobs. Food. Everything.
Nobody cares if a player goes from $10/year… down to $5mil/year.
Nobody cares if a player goes from $5 mil… down to $2mil/year.
Why pick on the players? Why not owners?
Duh.
The Game revolves around the players – not the owners.
Folk buy the players jersey’s – not the owners.
Folk identify with the players – not the owners.
Nearly 100% of all NBA Fans have played some kind of basketball in their life.
Only what? 5% of the population has ever owned a business?
What a gross miscalculation on the part of the owners.
What did they think was gonna happen?
“We’ll just shut the game down, and hurt the owners”. Silly Rabbits.
This ain’t the civil rights movement.
This ain’t “We Shall Overcome Someday”.
This ain’t “A Change Is Gonna Come”.
This is more like:
There was an old man, and his name was Jeb
Poor Mountaineer, barely kept his family feed
And then one day he was shootin for some food
And up from the ground came a bubblin crude.
Black gold. Texas Tea.

This is the Beverly Hillbillies!
Poor folk, who struck it rich.
Shootin hoops at the park, then college, then the NBA.
Shootin hoops. A game. A pastime. A hobby.
I remember a few years back, somebody asked Kobe, what he’d be doin if there was no NBA, if he wasn’t a professional basketball player. You know what Kobe said?
“I’d be shootin hoops, at the park, probably after work at some job I didn’t like”.

Playin (ok, workin) in the NBA is a priviledge.
Owners and Players, together, have come up with a DREAM business.
An UNBELIEVABLE enterprise.
Fans galore. Jerseys. Video games. Heck, BLOGS!
It’s the gravy train, baby!
Only in America, baby! (now being exported like crazy).
What did Derick Fisher THINK was gonna happen (I’m only pickin on DFish cause he’s the president, and we love him).
Nobody is gonna shed a tear for the players.
They couldn’t SEE the reality and know that 50/50 was/is the best alternative.
Didn’t the see that the Pendalim of Power has in fact shifted to the owner side.
It’s just part of the cycle of life, man.
One day in the future, the ball would shift back into the Players court. No biggie.

Don’t the players also want a strong league?
Don’t the players want to keep it going?
The players control this thing by going in there to devise a plan that: 1) capitulates to ownership, 2) make sure the deal isn’t “forever”; 3) and stay clear away from a protracted outage before fans leave in droves.
Again, nobody cares about folk going from $5mil to $2mil.
The NBA Bubble has Burst.

You’re representing the players about as well as you run the point. You have flashes of brilliance, leadership and grit, but on the whole you’ve lost a few steps.

Billy Hunter…You remind me of a high schooler. You have a huge amount of time to do your homework, but cram it in at the last minute. What the heck have you been doing in years or months you’ve had to gear up for this negotiation?

Dear Vince McMahon…I know the XFL was a bust but about now I’ll settle for an XBA. How about it?

Bring on some scabs – and I’ll watch.

the owners are Unified, the players have a union. but all they do is piss off the real money….US!!!!!!!!!!!

The solution, a Fan Union. I’m starting a Fan Union. WE’re the ones who actually pay for all this shit, WE should be represented in these meetings…the NBA F U!

Let’s do this