Why tell the players about the referee lockout?

September 30, 12:42 PMLos Angeles Clippers ExaminerJohn Magers

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According to an Associated Press report of a Yahoo Sports report, the NBA has sent out a memo as of Tuesday letting players and their organizations know that "substitute" referees will be used for the 2009-2010 season.

The NBA has told teams it's going ahead with replacement referees, days after the league thought a deal had been reached with locked-out officials.

The league sent a memo Tuesday informing teams it had "no expectation of concluding a timely labor contract." The memo, obtained by The Associated Press, follows the latest failure in negotiations.

According to the memo, the sides had agreed in principle on a new two-year deal Friday. But the National Basketball Referees Association rejected the NBA's proposal Sunday.

The memo alludes to the reversal, saying, "this is not the first time that commitments made by the NBRA's negotiators were not met."

News of the memo was first reported by Yahoo! Sports.

Here's why I have a couple of problems with the way the NBA decided to handle this situation as far as its players are concerned.

First, why on earth would you basically concede to the players that, as an organization, you have failed to reach an agreement with the game's "overseers" and essentially have given up trying to rectify the situation for 2009-2010 beyond finding purportedly inferior replacements? How does this look good at all to players that probably expect the NBA to handle its business firmly and with omnipotence, much in the way the ludicrously successful NFL and its commissioner Roger Goodell takes care of things on its side? And does the NBA really expect its players to take it seriously if any impasse arises again between itself and the players, the refs, et cetera, considering the infamous ball-changing fiasco of recent past and the ever-present troubles with the officials, among other blunders?

I have a feeling this is about nothing more than greed and/or arrogance. Is the economy in shambles for most of the country? Well, it sure seems that way. Is the NBA really suffering and incapable of shelling out a few extra million dollars to placate its refs? Well, unless I'm missing something, no, that isn't the case. Basketball is a very popular sport, and the NBA ought to rake in obscene amounts of money this season (albeit not on the levels of years past). Yet the league won't pay up because either a few high-ranking members may need to take pay cuts or the profit margins may be sliced into more than what the league deems necessary? I have a hard time believing that. And perhaps the NBA, in its clandestine meetings, told the refs the old pompous adage, "It's my way or the highway," and the refs, offended by the impudence displayed by the NBA's "higher-ups", decided to take their whistles and go home.

Whatever the case is, I am one observer hoping the NBA figures out a way to get the "regulars" back into the old black-and-white uniforms as soon as possible. Because while the replacements won't be as bad as predicted by some fans, they will not be on the level of the spurned professionals employed by the league in 2008-2009.

For more information: Email John at mrlank134@hotmail.com OR visit http://msn.foxsports.com/nba OR visit http://www.clipsnation.com/ for further analysis of the NBA and the Clippers.

Thanks for reading!