Lockout: Owner vs. Owner

As a a basketball fan the impending lockout looms large. The summer league has already been canceled, and there is sure to be a shortened NBA season as the owners and player's association butt heads over player compensation. Although the lockout is portrayed as a conflict between players and owners the origin of the lockout is the inherent competition among franchises.

A number of basketball teams are losing money and the owners are blaming bloated player salaries. The owners wish to create a more profitable environment by settling on a collective bargaining agreement which would lower salaries across the board. What is usually ignored in this very convoluted situation is that owners choose how much they play their players. If they wanted to pay less for a player they could simply offer them a contract for less money. In fact, franchises are given incentives to keep player salaries under the current salary cap, yet franchises continue to pay players to the point of financial ruin. The new collective bargaining agreement will become the league wide law which keeps compensation in check for all NBA teams, so no team will be able to shoot itself in the foot on a bad contract. So the real question is: Why do NBA teams make voluntary decisions to lose money? 

Gilbert Arenas Tweet of the Day

Arenas truly is a modern day Aristotle.

Dwight Howard Fires Back at Annoying Fan Aficionado Chase Mathew

Dwight Howard is usually seen as a mild mannered athlete who smiles too much to produce wins. Today, constant badgering from fans and the media about his upcoming free agency status resulted in Dwight firing back. Rather than a major news outlet, the victim of Dwight's frustration was a young Orlando resident and avid Magic fan, Chase Mathew.

Now I personally know Chase Mathew from time on the Official Orlando Magic Message Board. I know he can be quite annoying at times. It's been unfathomable to see Dwight fire back at a fan, though. It's now very obvious how this entire process has impacted Dwight both mentally and emotionally. I wonder if the constant attention on the summer of 2012 is eventually going to push him away. Dwight has a right to be frustrated but he shouldn't fire back on a fan especially when you consider the amount of vague quotes that Dwight puts out into the public realm. He fuels some of this frustration by his own actions.

Chris and Jareth's Early Morning Rambling

Jareth:

So in my opinion Otis Smith has to make some sort of move. I don't buy this "no move is a big move" BS.

Dwight wants to win NOW.

Chris:

Otis is just pulling his normal secrecy act. He's saying that he's not looking for a deal so he doesn't lose any leverage in his talks. We need to trust all of the sources who say he's working his *** off trying to improve the team. If he doesn't make a trade its because he couldn't come to terms on a deal, not because he didn't want to move anybody. I'm thinking we might wait until after the draft so we can trade our 2012 pick.

Though i think we could announce the trade on draft day.