NBA Lockout Begins with Failure to Reach Collective Bargaining Agreement

The NBA lockout has officially begun. Union chief Billy Hunter announced Thursday that the owners have locked out the players. There were meetings between the owners and the NBA players' union Thursday, but apparently the two sides were unable to reach a new collective bargaining agreement.

According to ESPN, Hunter said "the gap is too great." The gap that he is speaking about is between the players and the owners, with the two sides quite far apart when it comes to a new agreement. The negotiations over the past two weeks didn't result in much, leading to the situation that the league has now created for itself. At exactly midnight Eastern Thursday, players will no longer be able to use any team facilities.

With a lockout comes the suspension of the free agency period as well as any other league business. Players can't sign new contracts, coaches can't talk to players, and the players stop getting paid. If the lockout lasts into the regular season, it would also result in missed games that could not be recovered. Back in the 1998 offseason that is exactly what took place, as the NBA owners held a lockout that lasted deep into the regular season. It resulted in a 50-game schedule in order to get the playoffs started in time.

There are many issues at stake during this lockout, but the biggest one is definitely going to be money. The players want to keep things the way they are, but the owners want to step in and cut salaries and compensation to players. One concession the players already made was to reduce salaries by $500 million over five years, but that didn't appear to be enough for the owners to budge. What the owners want is a hard salary cap, meaning that no team would be able to spend more than the cap.

It's important to realize that the owners are asking for the players and league to fix an issue they created for themselves. Huge contracts and overpaying for fringe stars have put a lot of teams into the red when it comes to expenses. Taking a closer look at the proposed $62 million salary cap the owners want reveals even more about what is going on.

During the 2010-11 NBA season, 22 franchises spent more than $62 million. Two teams (the Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Lakers) spent more than $90 million on salaries alone. One of the biggest problems will be figuring out how teams that are so far over the salary cap would be able to get back under the limit. The Lakers are under contract for $94.8 million in 2011-12 and then $67.6 million in 2012-13 for just six players.

A lockout is not what the league should have allowed at this point, and it could quickly harm the appeal of a sport that had been starting to get fans back from the last time it held a work stoppage.