VICTORY!!!!

I felt like Johnny Drama waking up on the precipice of the Grand Canyon this morning.

I was (probably) still drunk from last night, feeling slightly lost and forlorn, and immediately got a call that changed my life:

The NBA Lockout, after 150 days of monotonous bullshit, is over.

I know you're probably expecting some massive write-up about how resilient the players were, how greedy the owners were or how obstinate both sides were, but I'm sorry, that's not happening. You're not getting some in-depth analysis of what happened and why, because frankly, I don't care.

What I really care about is that WE won. Not the players, not the owners, but us, the fans; the people that drive this business that was subject to such meticulous scrutiny and really make the NBA what it is. We were on the verge of being cheated out of an NBA season by trivial bullshit, and now by some act of divine intervention, we've been spared a whole winter of hockey and curling.

So crack a beer, light up a stogie (word to Red); celebrate. It's time for some fucking basketball...

It's Gonna Be a Long Winter...

Well, it's happened.

It lingered in the back of our minds all last season (as incredible as it was), loomed over our heads all summer, and as the weeks and days kept counting down, all we could do was watch in disbelief, and hope, against all indications, for salvation. No such luck.

After all the closed-door meetings, hardball tactics, verbal warfare, media obscurity and other muddling bullshit, we're left with an empty void where our 2011-2012 season was supposed to be.

With the NBAPA's head in a noose, there are obviously many more questions than answers about where the league's headed, but this situation has devolved beyond any fan's worst fears. Whatever the outcome, we're going to spend the coming months listening to painful litigation quotes instead of EJ, Kenny and Chuck, seeing more of David Stern and Derek Fisher than Blake Griffin and Kevin Durant (not that we haven't enough already), impossibly trying to fill the NBA's shoes with some other sport.

As a die-hard NBA fan, it took me a very long time to come to terms with what happened here. I committed a long ago to remove myself from the lockout; to not read into the shallow and misleading quotes being fed to the media dogs outside every meeting. Basically I was in denial, but now that we've been robbed of a season, I've been served the rudest of wake-up calls. I still don't know exactly how to feel; I'm shocked, a little depressed, but most of all I'm angry. No, sorry, angry doesn't really cut it, I'm fucking livid.

What enrages me the most is what's cost us this season: rich people being greedy. The casual uneducated fan would immediately assume I'm talking about the players for demanding pay increases when they're mostly already millionaires, but no, I'm talking about the ones even higher on the pyramid; the billionaires trying to manipulate them like puppets on strings.

I'm talking about Dan Gilbert, the small-market owner taking a hard line on salaries after he blew his chance to keep a once-in-a-lifetime talent by overspending on role players. I'm talking about Bruce Ratner, to whom the New Jersey Nets were little more than a chess piece (the piece Malcolm Gladwell did for Grantland's a must-read). I'm talking about every NBA owner (and it's the vast majority of them) that inked ridiculous contracts over the past decade, establishing an unsustainable spending pattern that was either going to drive them into bankruptcy or eventually screw over the players. And eventually just happened.

The facts are right in front of us: Right now, Vince Carter (10), Michael Redd (5), and Rashard Lewis (2) are all among the highest-paid players................(ok, just wanted to give you a second to absorb the fact that Rashard Lewis is actually making the 2nd-most money in the NBA), years removed from their last All-Star game, never franchise guys. There's plenty more: Hedo Turkoglu. Luke Walton. Erick Dampier. Beno Udrih. Jerome James. Joe Johnson. Amir Johnson. Josh Childress. Eddy Curry. Andrea Bargnani. Larry Hughes.....It goes on and on. No wonder they were losing millions.

What the owners have done with this precedent is present players with an illegitimate ultimatum: either accept a lower percentage of the BRI - and thus a sizable paycut - or the vast majority of teams continue to hemorrhage money while they try to keep up. They're looking for the guys who ultimately drive their investment and determine its value to shoulder the load for their own stupidity. That's why we're not watching the NBA right now. And that's fucking ridiculous.

The owners dug their own graves, and too proud (or savvy, whatever) to accept blame, took a hard stance applying pressure on those who they saw as below them. As much as I wish a deal could've been reached, a big part of me respects the players for not giving in, and furthermore for proving their love for the game: using the lockout to throw impromptu All-Star games and charity events, trying to ensure that Basketball Never Stops.

But today, it seems like it has. Sure, we can still watch college hoops, maybe find a good site for streaming EuroLeague games, but the fix we crave as basketball fans is going to be much harder to come by as we sit through what's sure to be long, cold winter.

Hope you all like hockey.