NBA Lockout

What will the summer of 2011 bring NBA fans? Probably a great deal of heartburn. At this point, a lockout seems inevitable; the owners have shown very little interest in negotiating with the players thus far, and seem to be digging in for a major battle.

The first casualty of the owner/player cold war will be the 2011 NBA Draft. Top college underclassmen and elite foreign players aren't going to declare for the draft if there's a chance they'll have to sit out an extended labor battle. There are already strong rumors that Duke's Kyrie Irving and North Carolina's Harrison Barnes -- consensus top-three picks both -- will return to school for their sophomore seasons due to concerns over the labor situation. Mass defections could make what is already projected as a weak draft class even weaker.

Any lockout will also put free agency on indefinite hold, leaving Carmelo Anthony (assuming he hasn't been traded and signed an extension), Yao Ming and others in limbo.

Because these things are rarely settled until there's some deadline pressure, I expect the negotiations to proceed at a glacial pace for much of the summer, speeding up in September when teams would ordinarily be hitting training camp.

My guess is an agreement will be reached in late September or early October -- late enough in the year that the 2011-12 schedule will have to be compressed, but not so late as to have a major effect on the season. Both sides have too much at stake to risk major cancellations. The league is doing well right now; the owners and players gain more by capitalizing on the game's high profile. Besides, the NFL could also be headed for a labor dispute -- there's a chance the NBA could have the late fall all to itself.

The deal itself? I don't think the owners will get a hard cap. I'm not sure they really want one. I do think they'll use the threat of a hard cap to get concessions on the players' percentage of BRI, the size and length of max contracts, and the number of exceptions to the cap. It wouldn't surprise me to see changes to the contract buyout process and a tougher personal conduct policy.

The owners' big concession could be revenue-sharing, though I'm not sure that's something that will be written into the CBA. The league probably won't want to tackle an issue that will pit big-market owners against their small-market counterparts; David Stern will want his owners presenting a unified front. Instead, look for a new revenue-sharing deal announced in parallel with the new CBA.

Once the i's are dotted and the t's crossed, we'll see a quick free-agent signing frenzy and training camp, thrown together in a matter of weeks, with the season starting just after Thanksgiving.

View the original article here