Really? That’s it? I expected so much more from you.

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Since the NBA lockout began on July 1, there has been a lot of finger pointing by the various sides involved in this embarrassing mess. The players blame the owners. The owners blame the players. The agents blame the owners. The owners blame the agents. The fans blame the players. The fans blame the owners. The fans blame the agents. And I blame the beer vendors, because they always expect to keep my change.

ESPN blowhard and Miami Herald columnist Dan Le Batard has other ideas, though. It’s not as simple as the owners and players disagreeing over 3% of the Basketball Related Income and the length of mid-level contracts. No, this lockout is all about how much Dan Gilbert hates LeBron James.

If you think the hawkish Gilbert wouldn’t try to throw away an entire season out of pure spite for James, you didn’t read his crazy-crayon letter in a rare moment of raw, rabid public honesty from an owner — a temper tantrum unlike any in the history of an American sports ownership that includes George Steinbrenner. And you didn’t notice how small he could behave by having his Fathead company price the James poster at $17.41 — the year of Benedict Arnold’s birth. And you don’t know how petty rich people can be when playing this kind of negotiating game of ego and power, emotion trampling logic just like when a divorcing wealthy couple spends $100,000 in attorney fees arguing over a thousand dollars in China.

That’s a pretty bold accusation, to imply that one guy is leading one faction of owners against another simply to spite the man who crushed a franchise’s fan base on national TV. Haha, just kidding, I’m totally buying this. Gilbert is absolutely the kind of guy who would do anything he could to get revenge on James, since he can’t live up to his promise to his team’s fans by putting together a championship team.

For instance, Gilbert, who owns Fathead, sold the James wall decals for $17.41 because James was a “traitor” and took money out of Gilbert’s pocket. Sure, Gilbert has no problem selling James’ Fatheads for $100 and capitalizing on him once again, but this lockout is personal… is what Gilbert will tell his former team employees as they ask him for spare change.

The NBA owners and players union met for three days this week with a federal mediator, including almost 20 hours on Tuesday and Wednesday alone. And while that sounds like both sides were super serious about agreeing on a new collective bargaining agreement and ending this obnoxious lockout, it’s the opposite. How far apart are both sides? So far that the federal mediator left and won’t meet with them again.

So long, season.

With no further meetings scheduled, it’s likely more games will be canceled, though Mr. Silver said Thursday the league won’t take any more steps until meeting with owners as early as Friday.

“Our discussions did break off,” Mr. Silver said. “We are saddened on behalf of the game. We understand we’re disappointing millions of fans.”

(Via the Wall Street Journal)

The latest word is that the owners want a salary system that mirrors the NHL, but I won’t get into what both sides are still demanding from the other because that’s boring and we don’t really care anymore because innocent, hard-working people are now out of jobs as the holiday season approaches and David Stern cares so little that he thinks we’ll believe that he actually had a flu when he walked out of a meeting this week.

The real comedy now comes from Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, who told players union executive director Billy Hunter that he could design a brand new system that would benefit everyone, and to “trust him.” I want to make a quick list of people off the top of my head that I would trust more to solve the lockout than Gilbert:

Anyone.

"RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE COMIC SANS!"

Yesterday, NBA Players Union President Derek Fisher finally took a major step forward in not only the public relations war but in the general process of ending the NBA Lockout. Fisher wrote and sent a letter to every player – and of course someone passed it along to Sports Illustrated’s Sam Amick – and the letter basically declared that two parties were to blame for the lack of progress in solving this whole mess – the owners and agents. Cue the dramatic chipmunk.

Fisher’s letter explained that there was a huge, unmentioned rift among the owners and that was the reason that they couldn’t establish a jumping off point in solving the collective bargaining agreement. The players then spent most of the day meeting in Las Vegas, after the owners had their most recent meeting on Tuesday. Now it is being reported that the owners rift is real and that we can thank Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert for everything.

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Who's ready to f*ck up two lottery picks?

The Cleveland Cavaliers won the first pick in the 2011 NBA Draft last night, and Dan Gilbert and Co. are now on the clock to most likely select Duke point guard Kyrie Irving in what many are I’m calling one of the worst drafts in NBA history. But the Cavs have a great chance to rebuild in the post-LeBron era with the top pick and the No. 4 pick, with which they’ll probably select a big European player, because that’s what this draft looks like. However, it’s Dan Gilbert we’re talking about and he doesn’t need to rebuild, because his Cavs will win a championship before LeBron James and the Miami Heat, who you can watch tonight in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals, which is the last round before the NBA Finals, after which a team wins a championship, in case Dan is confused.

Playoff semantics aside, Dan sent his 14-year old son Nick, who suffers from neurofibromatosis, as the team’s ambassador to David Stern’s lip-craving butt, and Minnesota Timberwolves general manager David Kahn used Nick’s presence to air his thoughts on the Lottery selection process.

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The Michigan State Spartans and head coach Tom Izzo have hit a really crappy streak lately, going from 12-5 to 13-10 in six games. Yes, three of those losses were to ranked teams (#22 Illinois, #13 Purdue, #18 Wisconsin), but one of them was also to a 72-52 loss against Iowa, a 10-13 team. That’s not what you really expect from a team who just a season ago made it to the Final Four. Yes, there’s some kind of dropoff after players decide to go to the NBA Draft, but there should be some kind of foundation so you don’t go from really good to really sh-tty in just one season.

Izzo is getting yelled at from fans and the Spartans are basically unwatchable right now. Hey, what’s that?! Up in the sky! It’s Dan Gilbert with his amazing angry yelling powers! Look what he did to motivate the Cleveland Cavaliers after they lost LeBron! Actually, don’t look. You might throw up due to how ugly it is now.
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