The Weekend Clipper: Blah Blah Blah Lockout Blah Blah Blah Blah....

It's the weekend. The players union and the NBA owners are meeting again. Blah blah blah. Maybe something great will happen, blah blah, but probably it won't. Blah blah blah blah blah. If you're wondering why I put a picture of Dan Gilbert at the top, you'll have to read on...

- Ffity players apparently had a conference call with a genius who knows about decertification, you can read about how Ray Allen thinks that's not a big deal here. Blah blah BLAH blah blah.

- I don't know what good decertifying the union would do, but Larry Coon, a smart guy, thinks he does here. Or you could just skip it. Blah Blah. Blah.  

- There's a pretty good article over at Grantland by a guy named Vishnu (I'm pretty sure he's a Hindu god, but it might not be the same guy) that goes over the whole thing, determines that the players have no leverage and are screwed and that the owners are a bunch of vindictive A-holes. You already knew that but it was a pretty good read... and he's Vishnu, after all. 

- When the lockout talks heated up I fell in love with Ken Berger. Now I think I hate him but maybe it's just that I'm sick of him. Anyway he writes here about how everything's all doom and gloomy and says an agent told him that most players would take the 50:50 split. Blah blah blah blah. I stopped listening too. 

- I'm pretty sure that George Cohen, the federal mediator will be back in the room with the players and owners, but I'm not sure why or what good it will do, and I can't find a link for it. It didn't help before so I'm not sure why it well help now. I think, maybe the owners thought the guy was going to be George Cohan (he leaves out the "M." when he's mediating), but when George just sat there instead of climbing up on the table and tap-dancing, dopey Dan Gilbert lost interest. But find your own link. 

- Tom Penn at ESPN tells us why the NBA players have the best deal of all professional athletes. Actually I've never heard of Tom Penn but this is an interesting article. I'm also pretty sure he has some of the facts about the NFL and the NHL deals wrong, but I'm too lazy and too sick of the lockout to prove my theory. Maybe I'll work on it later. More likely I won't.

- In non-lockout non-news there's this curious story at Hoopsworld by Alex Kennedy about how Deron Williams is only renting and not purchasing a house in New Jersey. Okay, last I checked DW is actually playing basketball in Eastern Europe somewhere... and the Nets are only playing one more season in New Jersey so maybe Deron is saving up for the brownstone in Park Slope. Kennedy refers to Deron's Blog here, which includes the cryptic words, "I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do after the NBA season. We'll see." I think he's referring to real estate but Kennedy reads it as a refusal to commit to the Nets. (Deron also talks about Turkish food which I found more relevant. Because there's some pretty good Turkish food in LA). 

- I saw Neil Olshey at Starbucks yesterday working as a barrista. At least I think it was him, but I'm not entirely sure since I don't really know what he looks like. Nah I was trying to be funny but I lost interest. Exactly like I've lost interest in the lockout. Blah blah blah blah blah. 

- Oh, I almost forgot...I enjoyed my George M. Cohan notion so much that I decided to find a picture of George M. Cohan and put it at the top of the post. I couldn't find one but I found a dopey picture of Dan Gilbert instead. There are forty-thousand available pictures of Dan Gilbert and every one is dopey.