Over the past three days it has appeared, to NBA diehards, that the 2011 NBA lockout was rapidly coming to an end.
But while the casual fans debate parlays and proposition bets for the upcoming NFL weekend, a small group of NBA lifers were quietly sitting at home hitting refresh on their Twitter accounts. Over and over again.
Sadly, I now sit in my Minneapolis area apartment, and battle the despair as I now realize how I was sucked in to false hope that a deal would be reached.
But as Friday’s talks came and went, all that I could wrap my mind around was this following tweet from the Twitter of Yahoo! Sports Adrian Wojnarowski:
The NBA will cancel regular season games through November 30th, a league source tells Y! Sports.
For many of the other NBA lifers that have over the last few days constantly been hitting “refresh”… “refresh”… “refresh” on their Twitter browsers. We should’ve known this was coming.
As a Minnesota sports fan, false hope is something that I should be used to. Much like snow in the winter. Sadly, though, I bought into the hype.
As we look to the future of this NBA lockout, only time will tell when the players and the owners can come to their senses on an agreement. If not soon, the lifers like myself will begin to give up hope on the prospect of a 2011-12 NBA season tipping off at any point.
Here are some tweets from today that showcase the gaps between the two sides.
More from Wojnarowski:
Union won’t accept 50-50 split with many changes of luxury tax/exception system. Players thought NBA would concede a little, get deal. Nope.
Oh, why not, Adrian, lets look at one more:
Privately, owners saying union left impression they would accept 50-50 if system issues were resolved, and that’s why NBA returned to talks.
NBA.com’s Steve Aschburner:
Derek Fisher told me he’s flying out to L.A. tonight. So weekend resumption of talks looks like no-go.
76ers beat writer Kate Fagen:
Hunter: “They got to the place again that was 50-50 take it or leave it … And we’ll leave it again like we left it last week.”
TNT’s David Aldridge:
To summarize: sides still can’t make last 2.5 pts (league 50, union 52.5). Almost there on tax. Exceptions 4 lux tax payers major issue.
The tweets can go on and on. But the fact of the matter is there will be no games played this season in November. And, my original hypothesis of no games in 2011, seems to be flying up the probability charts after today.
Sadly, I’m sure I’ll get sucked in again once the two sides agree to meet; and to again not reach an agreement.
-Brett Cloutier
Brett is a contributor to The Sports Bank. He covers all things Minnesota sports. You can follow him on Twitter @brettcloutier.