(Image Source: Orlando Sentinel)

 
BY KAVEH KAGHAZI
 

ANCHOR EMILY SPAIN

Is it time to say goodbye to the 2011-2012 NBA season?

The season is one step closer to being cancelled after players rejected the latest offer from owners and the league Monday. NBA Commissioner David Stern tells ESPN the league is headed toward a nuclear winter.
 
“It looks like the 2011-2012 season is really in jeopardy. If I were a player in the NBA, one of the 450, I would be wondering what it is that Billy Hunter just did.”

The players are going to the courts--and likely not the hardwood. The union and executive Billy Hunter ignored Stern’s warning and will move toward dissolving the players’ union. That will allow them to file a multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit against the NBA. An ESPN analyst says the players are making a risky move.
 
“These things take time. What the NBA players have to realize is while they may have a good case, this could take years. The courts do not operate quickly because they’re athletes.”

The main point of contention is the split of revenue between players and owners. In the NBA’s previous collective bargaining agreement, players received 57 percent of the income. The owners now want that split to be 50-50. Union President Derek Fisher says the players have yet to receive anything close to a fair deal.
 
“We have not chosen to be in this position. A lockout continues to be something that is imposed on us by the league and by owners. This is not a strike. We’ve continued to want to go to work, want to get back to work, want to negotiate a fair deal, but that process has broken down.”

So who’s at fault here? Many are blaming the players for not de-certifying earlier. But a writer from TSN says the owners have all the leverage here.
 
“The league and the owners made endless demands of the players over the last three months, after essentially refusing to meet with them over the summer, all while making it clear that they would make no concessions themselves in the negotiating process.”

The union unanimously voted against the league’s offer and seems content to wait this out. A writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says the players have no idea what they just got themselves into.
 
“This was the bonehead move of all bonehead moves… This is what it looks like when an entire players’ union commit suicide. If the players are serious about all this, forget this season. At least.”