Late Monday night the NBA commissioner, David Stern, cancelled the first two weeks of the 2011 NBA season. For seven hours that night, Stern and the league had a meeting with the NBA players union. Unfortunately they ended with no agreement on a new bargaining agreement. The league had already cancelled training camps and all preseason games, but cutting into the regular season creates “enormous consequences” that Stern recently addressed.

After twelve combined hours of arguing and bargaining, the two sides did not come to an agreement. “We tried very hard,” Stern said on Monday night. “We made concession after concession.”

Adam Silver, the NBA deputy commissioner said in a statement, “Despite extensive efforts, we have not been able to reach a new agreement with the players’ union that allows all 30 teams to be able to compete for a championship while fairly compensating our players”.

As a final result, for the second time under Stern’s reign as commissioner, the NBA will be faced with a lockout into the regular season. This lockout could possibly have the same effects as the last lockout in 1998-99; diminishing popularity of the league at a near-all-time high last season. But is it unlikely that the NBA is losing as much money as they claim? Basketball is not like football; which has built decades of fan interest and loyalty to specific teams. While basketball on the other hand, has fans hooked on just player’s.

I think that it’s tough for the NBA to claim that the players are overpaid when the entire marketing message of the league focuses entirely on how valuable those same players are. The NBA player’s all show obvious qualities of vanity. Each player does their best to rise above all the other players an score their own points, rack up on assists, and work’s their best to get the most play time. Even off the courts each player is doing their own work to make more money. For example, Lebron James doe’s commercials along with Shaquille O’Neal.

At this point in the game, the NBA has a few options to save money: cut the player’s salaries, which is the only hand they’ve played, minimize the number of games played,  or even contracting teams. If they cut the amount of games played, then ticket sales would rocketship to the moon because more and more fans would want to attend the event.

In short, the owners say their businesses are ending while the players say they won’t cut a single dime of their salaries.  The owners at this point are declaring all-out war on the players’ union. Which means not only will there almost certainly be a lockout, it means that it could have ramifications reaching into other leagues.