Fuck Yea[h] NBA

Thanksgiving NBA LOCKOUT Link Roundup

• Jim Quinn for Jeffrey Kessler as the lead negotiating lawyer for the players Union. This is a good thing since Stern and Quinn worked to end the 99 lockout as well. Oh and Kessler is fame-mongering asshole. [Hoopsworld]
• William Rhoden at the New York Times believes there’s something Obama can give to the player’s for their participation in a fund-raiser for his reelection campaign. Does that mean POTUS is going to spend Thanksgiving with Stern? [New York Times]
• Sam Amick at Sports Illustrated talks about those suffering the most because of the NBA’s continued lockout. Like Memphis mayor AC Wharton, who almost sued the league over his cities lost revenue due to the lockout, but took an extended metaphor from Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking and concluded: “Well I don’t think we can judge the players or the league on this particular phase of their existence. I’m looking at it in its totality.” [Sports Illustrated]
• Ken Berger at CBS Sports wonders whether there’s enough time for the newly initiated negotiations to reach a CBA deal for a Christmas start date. Both sides started talking again on Tuesday and into Wednesday and they’re expected to resume the talks on Friday after Thanksgiving. My father and I are worried about start-dates primarily because NBA games on Christmas are a tradition that’s gone for almost two decades (except 1999). [CBS Sports Bergersphere]
• Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald chastises the league and players for the wasted 8 days after all hell broke lose when the players rejected the owner’s deal and dissolved the Player’s Union last Monday. Now that the lawyers are back talking without the hubbub of press conferences and media members involved in formal discussions, we can get back to criticizing from afar any and all parties involved in this travesty. Bulpett brings us through the issues they’ll resume discussing tomorrow, but then gets angry (and rightly so) over the fact they’re the same issues from two weeks ago. Round and round we go with no basketball to show.

“It’s not often one can stand in a roomful of lawyers and be ceded a measure of intellectual high ground. Yet the counselors in this fray have been chained to their righteousness, never paying attention to the pragmatic keys that could unlock this mutton-headed mess.”[Boston Herald]

• Sekou Smith highlights Howard Beck’s Times piece, and asks whether there’s “something to talk about” in response to the new discussions between the union and owners’ lawyers. I’d love to agree with the optimisim in his last line, but I’ve been disappointed a few times already and the boy can cry wolf all he wants and I’m not moving. “There might be something to give thanks about (NBA related, that is) after all!” [NBA Hangtime]
• Did Matt Barnes’ (former) wife Gloria Govan (she’s on Basketball Wives) cheat on him with LA rapper The Game? It’s a distinct possibility after what he said on Twitter. This last story was just to break up the monotony of lockout talk, and who doesn’t love a good Basketball Wives story?! (well me for one—but whatever—give the public what they want). [I Am a GM]

pic via Washington Post