Friday, July 1st - The NBA is locked out.

We all knew it was coming, but...

The NBA is officially locked out its players with the expiration of its collective bargaining agreement last night.  This is no surprise; almost everyone knew it was coming.  It appears that even the negotiations the past week or so were expecting it.  Unlike the NFL, there was no extension, no eleventh-hour attempts to work it out.  And, truth be told, this lockout means business.

The NFL lockout is, in truth, a simple matter.  No one is losing money in the NFL.  When the NFLPA pushed the owners to prove that there was a single team losing money, the owners ignored the request.  Too bad for them that one team is publicly owned - the Green Bay Packers - meaning their finances are available to the public.  The Packers, while operating at less of a profit than a year before, were still making millions of dollars in profit.  The NFL lockout, as we've come to realize, is primarily two things: billionaires and millionaires fighting over a revenue split between them, and it's a battle of wills between Roger Goodell and DeMaurce Smith, the NFL commissioner and union chief, respectively, who are both at the helm of their first labor battle.  Both know that their legacies could depend on the deal that comes out of it, and so there's been plenty of ridiculous posturing from both. 

Because the NFL lockout is a simple matter, it's no surprise to see both sides coming together amiably again now that the threat of lost games draws near.  The NFL needs a deal within the next two weeks before preseason games start to die - and believe it or not, the owners make money off of those.  No one in the NFL wants to miss games; everyone - owners and players - profit from them.  What makes the NBA lockout a more significant problem is that not every owner is profiting - according to the league, 22 of 30 teams are running at a loss.  To put it simply: it's cheaper for 22 owners to not play games at all than it is to open their doors.  That, readers, is a very serious problem.

With no doubt, the NBA players union will refute those numbers, and maybe they're not entirely accurate - but even if that's a projected or embellished number, it seems almost certain that there are teams that are operating in red ink.  Maybe it's 15 instead of 22, but even that is a huge number.  Even 10 is a huge number.  Even 1 is too many.  Right now, the players end up with 57% of league revenues.  The owners, before the lockout began, stated they wanted that to change to a 60/40 split - in their favor.  The owners are also fixated on adopting a hard salary cap - like the NFL and, after their missed season due to lockout in 2004-05, the NHL - something the players are steadfast against. 

One thing the NBA has going for it is that the commissioner is David Stern and the union chief is Billy Hunter: two men who have been at the helm for their respective sides in labor disputes before, notably when the 1998-99 season was threatened.  Unlike Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith, who haven't yet engaged each other in labor battle, these two men are familiar with each other and have worked together before.  They won't be posturing to see who has the bigger... well, you catch my drift.  Their legacies are already mostly in place, whereas the two NFL men are just starting to build theirs.  Stern and Hunter know what's at stake.

And yet, it won't be enough.  I said when the NFL lockout was beginning to take shape that it would be nothing, just an appetizer to whet our tastes for the real labor spectacle: the NBA lockout.  That the NFL is still locked out, that the NFL season is threatened, that no deal is in place yet are all laughable truths.  It's unfortunate, but it doesn't change the fact that the prevailing dispute is over who gets more from the sizable pie of NFL profits.  That's all.  There's no one bleeding red ink.  There's no broken system in which small-market teams are preyed upon by the big-market teams (who headline the playoffs every year; those that do in the NFL do so because of savvy front-office leaders).  The NFL also has a longer off-season to fight over this stuff - the playoffs end in February, no season games are played again until September - almost seven months.  The NBA season wraps up in June and starts again in October - four months.  There are NBA teams awash in red ink.  Small-market teams want a salary cap so they can be competitive and not watch every valuable player they obtain walk when they become a free agent.  The NBA, folks, has some serious problems.  I said it mid-season and I'll say it again, now, formally in writing - the NBA will not play a 2011-12 season.

Around the MLB -

Boston 5, Philadelphia 2 - Lester's shutout-through-seven helps save the Red Sox from a sweep.
NY Yankees 5, Milwaukee 0 - Sabathia shuts down his old team with 13 strikeouts through 7 innings for his 11th win.
Detroit 5, NY Mets 2 - He wasn't amazing, but Verlander gave the Tigers what they needed - a solid game allowing 1 run through seven innings for his 11th win.
Chi. Cubs 5, San Francisco 2 - A solo shot to tie it in the bottom of the ninth and a walk-off 3-run HR in the 13th win it for the Cubs.
Chi. White Sox 6, Colorado 4 - Juan Pierre's 2-run RBI single in the top of the 10th holds up and wins it for the White Sox.
Florida 5, Oakland 4 - Chris Volstad dominates for seven innnings as the Marlins take the series win.
St. Louis 9, Baltimore 6 - Lance Berkman powers two HRs - one from each side of the plate - to give the Cards the sweep.
Pittsburgh 6, Toronto 2 - Two runs allowed over seven by Jeff Karstens gives the Pirates all they need to hold onto a series win.
Houston 7, Texas 0 - The Astros lose the series, but avoid the sweep, thanks to a huge four-run fifth inning.