We’re now months into the NBA lockout. July 1st marked the expiration of the previous collective bargaining agreement, and even before that deadline passed, the lockout loomed over the 2011 off-season.
Yet in terms of the timeline of negotiations and bargaining sessions between the players and owners, the lockout is in its infancy. Only now are the parties involved given incentive to compromise -- or rather, only now are the parties involved truly facing actual risk. The potential for a shortened free agency period and the cancellation of the annual Summer League naturally didn’t do much to expedite the negotiating process; a logistical shift in free agency and a year off from the festivities in Vegas just don’t register as legitimate losses on a scale this large. The owners and players are fighting for what they believe to be fair, and thus far have refused to let isolated summer events stand in the way of what they deem to be equitable.
So while it’s almost trite to say that the NBA negotiations have “only just begun,” or “are just getting started,” both of those tropes are nonetheless true. Matt Bonner, Vice President of the NBPA, elaborated on the realities of the lockout’s motivations and timeline in a radio interview with The Fan 590 in Toronto (as transcribed by Sports Radio Interviews):
This, ladies and gents, is the lockout’s true beginning. It isn’t dragging on; the real negotiations begin only when both sides have an accurate view of what’s at stake, and now that losing regular season games is a real possibility (if not an outright certainty), the bargaining process has finally begun in earnest.
