Look on the bright side, everyone gets to enjoy more weeknight MAC football on ESPN!

Defense? We don't need no stinkin' defense!

they need to be talking about shortening the season and going back to the old first round best-of-5 playoffs.

THEN they can talk about splitting the pie.

Gunny Highway: What is it about the NBA that people dont like?

The inability to consistently enforce it's own rules.

/and black people

Why is DJ Jazzy Jeff in that photo?

I think the league's got a pretty good case that the Owners were acting in Bad Faith for a good deal of the negotiations. I think Basketball's heading for Europe for the foreseeable future.

We'll see how much of an idiot Michael Jordan is when the alternative is: No, you don't have *any* income. And you must still pay rent in Charlotte.

CHARLOTTE!

CPennypacker: Coco LaFemme: mitchcumstein1: Coco LaFemme: and would gladly take 1/1000th of what these overpaid, overpriced, spoiled dickholes are making.

Yes, but who the fark want to watch you play? They have a skill you don't have. You don't make that kind of money because you don't have that talent, just because you'd gladly captain an airliner doesn't mean you get to.

They can run up and down a court and throw a basketball into a hoop. That isn't a skill. Brain surgery is a skill. Auto mechanics is a skill. They don't have skills. They have athletic abilities that even people in wheelchairs can figure out. So let's stop acting like these are rare and impressive creatures who exist in a world beyond our greatest imagination. They're farking basketball players, not cancer researchers.

I love sports as much as the next person, and can't wait for baseball to start back up again in February, but I also put them and what they do in their proper perspectives. They are entertainment. A diversion. They are not role models, heroes, geniuses, or saints. They are human beings who can put a ball in hoop, a puck in a net, can throw a baseball a hundred miles an hour and can throw touchdowns. Nothing more, nothing less.

Entertainment is big bucks

Strangely, no one complains about actors. No one says "but they're just reading crap someone else wrote. Anyone can do that!"

For some reason we're supposed to suspend acceptance of the free market's ability to determine wages when athletes are involved. That jobs like introducing New Coke or writing the screenplay for Transformers pay millions is not discussed.

Are you an NBA fan who wants to help the game of basketball?

I mean, REALLY help the GAME itself and not just the money vampires in the NBA?

As a non-NBA fan I have some serious advice:

1. Take the money you were going to spend this season on tickets, jerseys and whatever else the NBA sells and give it to your local HS program, local Rec program or just go buy 10 basketballs and take them into the neighborhood and hand them out to any group of kids you see horsing around. If you've got large amounts of cash ready to spend, sponsor a little league team. By a portable hoop and put it in front of your house on the weekends so the kids in your neighborhood can use it.

/I'm sure there are more ideas, but you get the point.

bulldg4life: I wonder what it is about the NBA that gets people to generalize the entire league as "thugs"

Their overwhelming commitment to crime?

It's okay. Reruns of Whitney will still outrate the NHL playoffs.

What-the-fark-ever. Not like the NBA has been that exciting the last few years. The biggest news was Lebron James being an asshole, and that was a newsflash we really didn't need. Basketball has gone soft. It isn't how it was during the early 90's and late 80's, with massive fights, and awesome slam dunks. Nobody dunks anymore besides a few people. What the hell is that about? Basketball is golf to me now.

Captain Steroid: Wow, Mark Cuban's team wins the NBA title, and the league shuts down right afterward.

Good job, Mark. :-(

OMG you figured it out!!!! It's all Cuban's plot to hold onto the title for onemore year.

Still don't care, but disappointed about all the non-players put out of work.

These financial geniuses will no longer be asking, "what's da monfly?"

Well, at least they won't have to worry about Gold Diggers once the money runs out. So there's that.

Coco LaFemme: It took years for baseball to recover from their strike, hockey still hasn't rebounded from the lockout.

How do you figure?

NHL league revenues and attendance are far higher than they ever pre-lockout. TV ratings on Versus/NBC are as good or better than they were the last several pre-lockout years on ESPN/espn2/ABC. And the NHL now has a much better TV contract than it had pre-lockout.

Coco LaFemme: They can run up and down a court and throw a basketball into a hoop. That isn't a skill. Brain surgery is a skill. Auto mechanics is a skill. They don't have skills. They have athletic abilities that even people in wheelchairs can figure out.

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with sports would recognize that there is a difference between skill and talent, and both are needed to perform at the highest levels. Otherwise Bob Knight (skill) and Taj Gibson (talent) would have dominated the NBA.

Stern had said this weekend that he would not cancel the season this week and warned that disbanding the union was not a good strategy.


I'm not good with the negotiating and stuff but David Stern seems to be based on past history. If I were the players, I'd listen to him.

Rapmaster2000:Strangely, no one complains about actors. No one says "but they're just reading crap someone else wrote. Anyone can do that!"

For some reason we're supposed to suspend acceptance of the free market's ability to determine wages when athletes are involved. That jobs like introducing New Coke or writing the screenplay for Transformers pay millions is not discussed.

Exactly. Do you think that a pay cut for players will result in a drop in ticket prices? Can you hear me laughing through the internet?

Rapmaster2000: CPennypacker: Coco LaFemme: mitchcumstein1: Coco LaFemme: and would gladly take 1/1000th of what these overpaid, overpriced, spoiled dickholes are making.

Yes, but who the fark want to watch you play? They have a skill you don't have. You don't make that kind of money because you don't have that talent, just because you'd gladly captain an airliner doesn't mean you get to.

They can run up and down a court and throw a basketball into a hoop. That isn't a skill. Brain surgery is a skill. Auto mechanics is a skill. They don't have skills. They have athletic abilities that even people in wheelchairs can figure out. So let's stop acting like these are rare and impressive creatures who exist in a world beyond our greatest imagination. They're farking basketball players, not cancer researchers.

I love sports as much as the next person, and can't wait for baseball to start back up again in February, but I also put them and what they do in their proper perspectives. They are entertainment. A diversion. They are not role models, heroes, geniuses, or saints. They are human beings who can put a ball in hoop, a puck in a net, can throw a baseball a hundred miles an hour and can throw touchdowns. Nothing more, nothing less.

Entertainment is big bucks

Strangely, no one complains about actors. No one says "but they're just reading crap someone else wrote. Anyone can do that!"

For some reason we're supposed to suspend acceptance of the free market's ability to determine wages when athletes are involved. That jobs like introducing New Coke or writing the screenplay for Transformers pay millions is not discussed.

I think a lot of actors are overpaid, considering the output they present. Someone like Al Pacino earns his money, because he's shown through a large catalog of work, that he's a farking great actor. Does Kim Kardashian deserve the money she gets? She got peed on by someone in a sex tape. Oh wow.

Marine1: Gosling: A FRIENDLY REMINDER

Soccer has no work stoppages. They also have no offseason.

/join us....
//jooooiiiin usss....

And a $40,000 salary minimum, at least in the MLS.

You know, what average people make for doing something they're good at.

Technically, the $42,000 minimum is for roster players. Off roster players can be signed for as low as $32,600.

Hell, one of our (SKC) starters, Seth Sinovic, was only making $32,604 this year, and we picked up Soony Saad for $32,600. Talk about getting your moneys worth...

SandmanEsq: I was at an NHL game last week (Rangers, at MSG) and I asked one of the attendants how the strike/lockout/howeveryouwanttocharacterizeit was hitting them. He flat out said it has cut his salary in half and he now needs to find a second job because it is just not enough with only the NHL home games. I am having a hard time feeling bad for the players who complain they deserve another few percentage points on top of their already insane salaries.

The NHL re-org cut the players' salaries in half, too. Ownership seems to be doing quite well, though.

Orgasmatron138: Why is DJ Jazzy Jeff in that photo?

lulz.

BKITU: robertus:
/hockey season

Wabbit season!

Duck season!

Pro basketball is a joke. Give em' 5 minutes to play and 100 points on the board and you get the same damn outcome over and over again.

/at least football is exciting
//all these new hit penalties suck for the game, but safety first and all that

CPennypacker: Nobody is paying $200 for a ticket to stare at a hardwood floor for 3 hours.

That's why I support my local college paint-drying team.

Coco LaFemme: mitchcumstein1: Coco LaFemme: and would gladly take 1/1000th of what these overpaid, overpriced, spoiled dickholes are making.

Yes, but who the fark want to watch you play? They have a skill you don't have. You don't make that kind of money because you don't have that talent, just because you'd gladly captain an airliner doesn't mean you get to.

They can run up and down a court and throw a basketball into a hoop. That isn't a skill. Brain surgery is a skill. Auto mechanics is a skill. They don't have skills. They have athletic abilities that even people in wheelchairs can figure out. So let's stop acting like these are rare and impressive creatures who exist in a world beyond our greatest imagination. They're farking basketball players, not cancer researchers.

People in wheelchairs can't be auto mechanics? An engine is too hard to figure out for anyone but an elite few? People in wheelchairs are too dumb to be doctors?

"All they're doing is going up and down the court and putting a ball in a hole, I can do that."

TheZorker: I think the league's got a pretty good case that the Owners were acting in Bad Faith for a good deal of the negotiations. I think Basketball's heading for Europe for the foreseeable future.

My bet is you'll see more basketball players who will play in the NBA after the lockout on December 3 Noon on CBS (Kentucky vs. North Carolina) than you will ever see on the floor at the same time in Europe. I think college will still be more exciting than seeing one NBA player on a team with a bunch of second rate Europeans.

JVD: Don't care. Basketball sucks. Just a bunch of overpaid asshats.

you're right the amount tax payers have given the owners is embarrassing. they are overpaid fark those rich assholes.

Coco LaFemme: Rapmaster2000: CPennypacker: Coco LaFemme: mitchcumstein1: Coco LaFemme: and would gladly take 1/1000th of what these overpaid, overpriced, spoiled dickholes are making.

Yes, but who the fark want to watch you play? They have a skill you don't have. You don't make that kind of money because you don't have that talent, just because you'd gladly captain an airliner doesn't mean you get to.

They can run up and down a court and throw a basketball into a hoop. That isn't a skill. Brain surgery is a skill. Auto mechanics is a skill. They don't have skills. They have athletic abilities that even people in wheelchairs can figure out. So let's stop acting like these are rare and impressive creatures who exist in a world beyond our greatest imagination. They're farking basketball players, not cancer researchers.

I love sports as much as the next person, and can't wait for baseball to start back up again in February, but I also put them and what they do in their proper perspectives. They are entertainment. A diversion. They are not role models, heroes, geniuses, or saints. They are human beings who can put a ball in hoop, a puck in a net, can throw a baseball a hundred miles an hour and can throw touchdowns. Nothing more, nothing less.

Entertainment is big bucks

Strangely, no one complains about actors. No one says "but they're just reading crap someone else wrote. Anyone can do that!"

For some reason we're supposed to suspend acceptance of the free market's ability to determine wages when athletes are involved. That jobs like introducing New Coke or writing the screenplay for Transformers pay millions is not discussed.

I think a lot of actors are overpaid, considering the output they present. Someone like Al Pacino earns his money, because he's shown through a large catalog of work, that he's a farking great actor. Does Kim Kardashian deserve the money she gets? She got peed on by someone in a sex tape. Oh wow.

You are considering the wrong thing. Output isn't what they care about. It's input. As in, how much money do they bring in.

There was basketball?

Drew Carey: Great job, NBA players. Instead of forsaking your desires of having a seventeenth car in the driveway, you've chosen to take away thousands of jobs from cities across the US. Ticket takers, parking attendants, food sellers, janitors. People who would kill for a few more quarters an hour. This proves all the more that you're all about the money, not about the game. fark you and your "professional" sport. You make me sick.

Oh, and basketball sucks.

Um...dude...the owners locked the players out.....it isn't the players fault. The owners at any time can resume play...they haven't done so.

I wouldnt take the owners crappy deal, either. No sympathy for owners who cannot make money when most of the facilities they play in are either wholly taxpayer-funded...or mostly-taxpayer-funded. No sympathy for the Welfare recipients

mitchcumstein1: Coco LaFemme: mitchcumstein1: Coco LaFemme: and would gladly take 1/1000th of what these overpaid, overpriced, spoiled dickholes are making.

Yes, but who the fark want to watch you play? They have a skill you don't have. You don't make that kind of money because you don't have that talent, just because you'd gladly captain an airliner doesn't mean you get to.

They can run up and down a court and throw a basketball into a hoop. That isn't a skill. Brain surgery is a skill. Auto mechanics is a skill. They don't have skills. They have athletic abilities that even people in wheelchairs can figure out. So let's stop acting like these are rare and impressive creatures who exist in a world beyond our greatest imagination. They're farking basketball players, not cancer researchers.

I love sports as much as the next person, and can't wait for baseball to start back up again in February, but I also put them and what they do in their proper perspectives. They are entertainment. A diversion. They are not role models, heroes, geniuses, or saints. They are human beings who can put a ball in hoop, a puck in a net, can throw a baseball a hundred miles an hour and can throw touchdowns. Nothing more, nothing less.

If it's so easy, why aren't you doing it?

The plate and six screws in my left leg keeping my patella and tibia aligned doesn't think it's a smart idea for me to do be doing that anymore. I did play basketball in grammar school and high school, however. Also, I'm female, and last I checked, the NBA doesn't have any female players. If I hadn't had the accident summer before my senior year, I might have played in college for UIC, but I decided that my education was more important than excelling at a sport.

The players are greedy?
Isn't it the owners who blackmail cities into building them arenas, or did I miss something in Seattle and Sacramento. Or did I miss the owner who showed up one day in Vancouver, and moved them that season to Memphis.
If NBA owners want a revenue cut of 50-50, or 53-47, maybe I'll go watch them play ... but don't count on it.

error 303: Marine1: Gosling: A FRIENDLY REMINDER

Soccer has no work stoppages. They also have no offseason.

/join us....
//jooooiiiin usss....

And a $40,000 salary minimum, at least in the MLS.

You know, what average people make for doing something they're good at.

Technically, the $42,000 minimum is for roster players. Off roster players can be signed for as low as $32,600.

Hell, one of our (SKC) starters, Seth Sinovic, was only making $32,604 this year, and we picked up Soony Saad for $32,600. Talk about getting your moneys worth...

You guys have Soony Saad?

I wondered what happened to him/her/it/the dog.

Rincewind53: Like the baseball strike before it, this one will also cause the entire league to go out of business and bring an end to a major American professional sport.

Yep.

If it's my decision on Players versus Owners.

Then fark the billionaires. Go NBA Players!

Too many goddamn expansion teams nobody cares about.

Plus the season lasts something like 11 months, it seems.

Those thugs in the NBA did it again. What a bunch of thugs.

I'm actually a fan of the NBA. I watch about 50-60 games a year, though I don't patronize many of their advertisers. However, I'm glad the players are doing this. Any argument you can make about the players being rich/entitled/greedy can be turned right back around on the owners. I'm surprised to see the level of derp on this issue is the same on Fark as it is on my local newspaper's website.