The latest news out of the NBA has Boston fans so flippin’ mad that they might actually start pronouncing their “ah’s.” Well, maybe not, but you get the point. The news broke today that the players have unanimously rejected the owner’s proposal and will now seek to disband the union in order to go the class-action route in order to sue the league looking to win the long, cold battle that has stretched out over 140+ days.

Can this be true, have we really come to this? Sadly, we have. The players blew their last good opportunity to save some face and get back on the court in order to play the proposed 72-game schedule. NBA commissioner David Stern stated over the weekend that he would not make any further cancelations this week. The proposed 72-game schedule is currently slated to begin on December 15th and is really just a pipe dream at this point as it would have given the teams and players just about 30 days to get everything in order and back on the court, and that is considering that the league issues get settled and ratified no later than tomorrow.

Either way, the main issue remains the basketball related income or the BRI. Under the most recent deal, the players had the lion share of 57% BRI leaving the owners to split the remaining 43%. Ideally, the owners want the players in the 47% range, but have settled for 50%. The players are not willing to go any lower than 53% and thus being the catalyst for why we are “Playing The Feud” this far into November with really no end in sight.

As each day passes without a deal, we become less and less hopeful in there being any games played this season. The league needs to and will continue to threaten to cancel the season at every given opportunity. The threats are legitimate, but the league is not going to cancel the entire slate of games this early. They are going to wait until the last possible moment in order to play some form of a season. The players know this and will continue to view this as just an idle threat meant more to sway the fans whilst working them into an uncontrollable frenzy. As stated before, we target the last day possible to strike a deal as December 31st. This would get the players back on the court by the end of January in hopes for an abbreviated 50-game schedule.

The players seemingly let their last good offer slip through their hands, they have no leverage and the owners are just waiting to crush them ending up with exactly what they want. Player spending has been out of control over the last decade and needs to be regulated. The owners have been shelling out a lot of money over the years and in some cases getting little to no on-court return of their investment. The NBA trade deadline is a prime example of this, players with expiring contracts should not be the equivalent of NBA gold making them worth far more than what they can actually do on the court.

The issue is going to drag out until one side caves under the pressure. Unfortunately, it has come to this with neither side willing to make a compromise. The Celtics had a good run and who knows what the future will hold for them. They have only a handful of players under contact for this season and will lose even more after this season. The future does not look promising and it could be a long time before the green team can climb back into the conversation as a member of the NBA elite.

Word is coming out today that the first two weeks of the NBA season are in danger of being cancelled if a deal is not met by this Monday, and considering that there is not an official meeting scheduled, the odds do not look good.

Said commissioner David Stern: “We were not able to make the progress that we hoped we could make and we were not able to continue the negotiations, by Monday, we will have no choice but to cancel the first two weeks of the season,”

The league has also cancelled the rest of the exhibition schedule as they continue talks with the union. The two sides have been making progress lately, but there are still significant gaps that remain as far as the financial aspects are concerned.

Some of the sticking points revolve around the basketball related money and how it should be divided amongst the two sides. This past season, the players took home 57 percent and had submitted a proposal lowering the amount to 53 percent. The owners raised their offer to 47 percent up from their previous amount of 46 percent. With the sides so far a part, the difference was too much to overcome and essentially ended the talks for the time being.

Celtics Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett were present for today’s meetings as part of the union’s executive committee.

The regular season was scheduled to open on November 1st. Considering the 1999 labor issue as a model, the sides would need to reach a deal at some point around the new year in order to squeeze in an abbreviated 50 game season.

The results, as we currently see them, are disastrous for an ageing team like the Boston Celtics. The Celtics cannot afford to play a season with games on back-to-back or back-to-back-to-back nights are the norm. The team is old, tired and just cannot simply recover in time to be productive in these short stretches. However, one thing working in the C’s favor is that they have been normally fast starters. Should they get out and win a bunch of games off the bat, this could set them up nicely and allow them to coast into the post season. With what could be a wild home-stretch, just getting in to the post season should be the goal.

With no meetings scheduled, it could be weeks before the two sides meet again and with each passing day it seems more and more likely that the season will be a lost one. Such a shame considering the high last season ended on and it effectively closes the window on our version of the new big three.

We’ll continue to report on the news as it comes out. Peace.