Dwight Howard Eats a Cookie with No Hands

Holiday Cheer, but no basketball near :(

     With the NBA still in a lockout, this year for thanksgiving families are going to have to find something else to watch.  Ratings will be up for sure in all of the televised football and college games broadcasted on Thanksgiving.  With no NBA key holiday matchups, this year fans are going to have to try and find something else to get their fix.  Maybe a college game!!

     Besides Thanksgiving not having basketball, as it stands right now there is going to be no Christmas games either.   If by some rare miracle, the players and owners can come to terms with a deal by than, David Stern said he is willing to put those games back on the table.  I, however, do not feel like that is going to happen so start making alternate watching plans for christmas day as well.

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Since B-ball is in a stand still, why not pick a college team to follow… LADIES… I sugesst following Notre Dame because of this gorgeous Greek God of the ball… Tim Abromaitis…

 

 

Tim is a 6′ 8” foward who is with Notre Dame for his fifth season. (Was out his sophmore year so he maintained elligilbilty).

 

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORTIE? What is your favorite team/ player? Let us know!

NO DEAL!!! Fight goes to COURT.

NO DEAL!!! Now there is a GREAT chance there will be no season.

Ken Berger break down :

NEW YORK — Unable to reach a collective bargaining agreement with the NBA, the union representing the players dissolved Monday and paved the way for a potentially lengthy and ugly anti-trust lawsuit to be filed within days.

With a unanimous show-of-hands vote from as many as 50 players, the union sent a disclaimer of interest letter to commissioner David Stern, which effectively ended the National Basketball Players Association’s role as the collective bargaining agent for the players. Outside counsel Jeffrey Kessler and star attorney David Boies — whom the players met for the first time Monday — will lead the legal team that will sue the NBA alleging anti-trust violations.

“We’ve negotiated in good faith for over two years,” said Billy Hunter, who now becomes executive director of the National Basketball Players Trade Association — no longer the leader of the players’ union. “The players just felt that they’ve given enough.”

Stern, speaking live on league broadcast partner ESPN, called the players’ tactic “a charade” and characterized it as a “magical trick” that ultimately will fail.

“What they’ve done is destroyed incredible value that would’ve gone to the union membership,” Stern said. “… We were very close, and they decided to blow it up.”

Stern made no pronouncements about further cancellation of games, but added, “The calendar takes care of that.” Although the disclaimer action initiated by union executive director Billy Hunter is more expeditious than a decertification vote initiated by the players, the legal fight that will ensue certainly imperils the 2011-12 season.

During a meeting attended by the players’ executive committee, player reps from all 30 teams and about 20 more players — including superstar Kobe Bryant, Tyson Chandler, Carlos Boozer, Rajon Rondo and Elton Brand — union officials presented and explained details of the league’s most recent offer. It had been characterized as the final revised proposal the league intended to offer, and if the players didn’t accept it, Stern’s negotiating position would revert to a harsher offer — including player salaries being dervied from a 47 percent share of revenues, a hard team salary cap and rollbacks of existing contracts.

The deal on the table for the players Monday included a 50-50 split of revenues — a 12 percent reduction from their previous share of 57 percent — and a long list of system and spending restrictions. Hunter said the meeting gained momentum and changed in tone once players raised the option of decertification. They ultimately chose the more expeditious option of a disclaimer, with Hunter saying a summary judgment in the anti-trust case could possibly be reached in 60 days — about the length of time it would’ve taken the National Labor Relations Board to authorize an election through a player-initiated decertification. 

About 200 players already had signed decertification petitions, displeased with the league’s negotiating tactics and the concessions made by the union. Among these were 15 players in the meeting Monday, Hunter said.

The former union executive director said he has no intentions of withdrawing the NBPA’s unfair-labor practices charge with the NLRB, although it is not clear how the agency will view it now that the union has been dissolved.

for the article and more see CBSsports.com

Last Offer is made…

Ken Berger breaks it down quite nicely… according to Ken at CBS Sports:

 

NEW YORK — The NBA made its last offer that will contain a 50 percent revenue share for the players Thursday night, and commissioner David Stern shifted the pressure to the union by tantalizingly attaching the possibility of a 72-game season starting Dec. 15.

“There comes a time when you have to be through negotiating, and we are,” Stern said.

The players, expressing disappointment that the league did not respond with more system compromises after they’d signaled their willingness to accept a 50-50 revenue split, will bring the proposal to their player reps Monday or Tuesday to see if they will recommend the proposal to the union membership for a vote.

“The idea … is to sit down with them and say, ‘You sent us out to get something, here’s what we’re coming back with,'” said Billy Hunter, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association. “‘Now let’s sit down and decide what our next option is, what are we going to do.'”

The players’ options are few, and none of them particularly appealing. They can put the deal to a vote, and if passed, they would be locked into a proposal that is an unmitigated victory for the owners — one that shifts $3 billion over 10 years from the players to the owners and also dramatically restricts the rules governing team payrolls, player contracts and player movement. If the player reps tell the union leadership they want to reject the proposal, then Stern said the league’s negotiating position will revert to a 47 percent share of revenues for the players along with a hard team salary cap and rollbacks of existing contracts — the so-called “reset” proposal whose introduction at 5 p.m. Wednesday was delayed while the two parties bargained for 23 hours over the past two days.

“We have made our revised proposal,” Stern said, “and we’re not planning to make another one.”  

Another outcome likely will begin to unfold Friday before the union even decides whether to accept the proposal — and would continue to progress regardless of the outcome of next week’s player rep meeting: Agents dissatisfied with the deal the union has negotiated and the intransigence of league negotiators already have more than 200 signatures on decertification petitions which are ready to be submitted to the National Labor Relations Board requesting a vote to dissolve the union, according to a person familiar with the plans.

Such a move would threaten to torpedo whatever support there is among the union membership to approve the owners’ offer, and if it resulted in the players deciding not to vote on the proposal or voting it down, could throw the 2 1-2 year negotiations into the chaos of an anti-trust lawsuit — virtually guaranteeing that the 2011-12 season would be lost.

“The negotiations are over,” Stern said. “The negotiations on this proposal are over.” 

 

For the full story check out the direct link to Berger’s blog on CBS Sports:

Ken Berger story in full… Click me!