If you have followed the mess that is the labor situation in the NFL you know all about litigation and decertification. Get ready, the same thing might be coming to an NBA team near you. According to report on ESPN.com(via CBSSports.com), the NBA Players Union already has enough votes from its members to decertify should the need to arise this summer.
That means we can expect the same kind of tactics from the NBAPA that we have seen from the NFLPA over the past 6 weeks.
"This is a victory for all professional sports unions," Gabe Feldman, head of the Sports Law Center at Tulane University, told CBSSports.com. "If the case stands up on appeal, it gives player unions a significant, though costly, weapon to use as leverage in labor negotiations."
It also could be a huge loss to sports fans. While I am not a fan of using a Lockout as a negotiating tactic, litigation doesn't make any more sense and seems to just slow the process down.
What NBA fans can hope for, however, is that both sides see what the NFL's fight has done to fans and avoid a similar fate. Both sides have said all the right things about 'intensifying talks', but the time for action has come.