NBA Lockout 2011: Players, Owners Fail To Reach New Collective Bargaining Agreement (VIDEO)

Although it won't be official until 12:01 a.m. tomorrow, the NBA owners will lock out the players after failing to reach a new collective bargaining agreement on Thursday.

San Antonio's Matt Bonner, vice president of the NBA Players Association, said after the three-hour meeting that the players and owners "tried to avoid a lockout. Unfortunately we could not reach a deal."

According to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, Union chief Billy Hunter said that the players made a new proposal, but it did not work out in the end.

Hunter also said that "the gap is too great" and both sides plan to meet again in the next two to three weeks.

More from ESPN:

Players, who previously offered to reduce their salaries by $500 million over five years, considered the owners' proposal for a "flex" cap, where each team would be targeted to spend $62 million, a hard cap. Although the league said total player compensation would never dip below $2 billion over the life of its proposed 10-year deal, that would amount to a pay cut for the players, who were paid more than $2.1 billion this season in salaries and benefits.

Commissioner David Stern and deputy commissioner Adam Silver were said to have ripped the union's new proposal after the meeting.

"I'm not scared, but I'm resigned to the potential damage to our league," Stern said.

Comments

[deserteagle248]

12:44 PM on 07/21/2011

every one can speak there mind at http://basketballeagle.blogspot.com/

[deserteagle248]

12:40 PM on 07/21/2011

http://basketballeagle.blogspot.com/ will have an open debate on the lockout

[Kingstone]

03:34 PM on 07/02/2011

Billionaires against Millionaires. Sucks!

[CubnKira]

12:51 AM on 07/01/2011

I hope the lock out spreads to MLB next. We criticize CEOs for making excessive salaries, and some of it is warranted, but they are responsible for running big companies
The deal proposed by the NBA would have paid each player an average of $5 mil. a season. The players apparently want $7 mil. a year per player avg. How exactly is your life style affected whether you make 5 or 7 mil? It isn't.

At a time when a lot of Americans are struggling, this is beyond greedy for the pro players in the NBA, NFL and MLB.

[Concerned Citizen in CA]

12:47 AM on 07/01/2011

At least there's still college basketball and football.

[prdamericanmom]

12:26 AM on 07/01/2011

When will this insanity end? In so many professional sports, teams are going broke and yet they still find millions upon millions to pay players who may or may not win them a ring or trophy, who may or may not get hurt, who may or may not end up in legal trouble, etc. If the average sports fan saw even a 10th of one year's salary of their favorite players, I'd say they were doing very well for themselves. These people should be ashamed.

[Joel Kent Melville]

12:05 AM on 07/01/2011

well I guess I have the NHL to look forward to this fall since football and now this have been suspended........

[DoctorWhoDat]

11:44 PM on 06/30/2011

Who cares!

[Lynda Groom]

11:04 PM on 06/30/2011

That figures. After a terrific NBA finals the owners lockout the players. Let me guess...the billionaires are not making enough money and the same for the players. As usual the fans pay the price at the box office. Someday the owners will discover that without the players there is no league. All the owners do is provide the platform and rake in the cash. Lets not forget that for many team owners the citizens of their fair cities built the stadiums at taxpayer expense. It has got to be very difficult to not make money with such a deal. Pathetic money grubbers.

[CubnKira]

12:57 AM on 07/01/2011

You obviously don't know the history of Pro Basketball which was quite shaky and many owners had to fold their teams. George Steinbrenner was the owner of the Cleveland team in the American Basketball League that won the league Championship under Coach Bill Sharman, but folded the very next year. Steinbrenner lost a lot of money and at the end of the season, didn't even have enough to pay his Coach, but he did a couple of months later. Many franchises and leagues collapsed. A firm salary cap would also make all the teams more competitive in every sport. Luxury taxes merely allow the rich to buy the best teams and pay a penalty. That is like starting a monopoly game with one player getting twice as much money. You still may beat him, but it would be mighty difficult.

[Lynda Groom]

02:00 AM on 07/01/2011

True enough, I don't know a great deal about pro basketball. I do know that the ABA was a generation ago. My question to you would be have many or any franchises collapsed recently in the NBA? I can't screw up much sympathy for either side. The Kings are the local team in the area where I reside and they've just had a battle with the owners trying to keep them from moving to the Los Angeles area. The Kings wanted the locals to build them a new stadium...again mostly at taxpayer expense. Most folks think the idea is absurd. Hundreds of thousand paying taxes so 14 or 15K can go to games played by millionaires in the employ of billionaires.

[frank day]

10:48 PM on 06/30/2011

Good Luck NBA owners.

There are fewer NBA players than football players and they are better prepared.

They also have more options for playing elsewhere.

[DARRELL LANIER]

10:55 PM on 06/30/2011

Actually, they are not prepared. Most live check to check, even though they make large amounts of money. Only a small percentage of NBA players have a sizable savings account. Also, the European clubs are having financial problems, too. Some clubs are running out of money to pay their players. Not including that joining a European club while under contract can cause huge contractual problems based on the fact that nobody knows when this will end.

[mskermit]

10:42 PM on 06/30/2011

Players stick together.

[abuja19]

10:40 PM on 06/30/2011

NOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! First the NFL, and now NBA?

MLS, here I come.........

[Bxblasta]

09:41 PM on 06/30/2011

The NBA is rigged in so many ways. The recent referee scandal should of opened people eyes. And I think people are forgetting one major fact, the NBA is a business, a corporation. The "owners" are not concerned about providing entertainment, only so much to produce revenue for themselves. Stevie Wonder could of seen this "lockout" coming.

[spytheweb]

09:39 PM on 06/30/2011

I bet this is because of republican owners. It's happening in the NFL and in states with republican governors. Squeeze the people for more money, they make millions but that is not enough.

Why don't they call the lockouts for what they are, strikes.

[iMissMollyIvins]

12:40 AM on 07/01/2011

Lock-outs are NOT strikes - a strike is when employees do not go to work, a lock-out is when employees are not ALLOWED to enter their place of employment.

[rikster]

09:13 PM on 06/30/2011

NBA is a boring product that has too many prima donnas and officials that call whatever the home team wants. all the teams do the same thing on offense and defense is basically non-existent. its all become ABA ball.