Flickr Image by Gerald Simmons

“We’re prepared to file this antitrust action against the NBA. That’s the best situation where players can get their due process.” – Billy Hunter

Sigh.

The NBA is blowing up. Or will be entering a “nuclear winter” – Commissioner David Stern’s words, not mine. Isn’t this exciting?

They were so close – or seemed to be close – to a deal to salvage the season and now the players union will be disbanding which will mostly put the entire 2011-2012 NBA season in jeopardy.

From ESPN.com:

Players ignored that warning, choosing instead to dissolve its union, giving them a chance to win several billion dollars in triple damages in an antitrust lawsuit.

“This is the best decision for the players,” union president Derek Fisher said. “I want to reiterate that point, that a lot of individual players have a lot of things personally at stake in terms of their careers and where they stand. And right now they feel it’s important — we all feel it’s important to all our players, not just the ones in this room, but our entire group — that we not only try to get a deal done for today but for the body of NBA players that will come into this league over the next decade and beyond.”

Fisher, flanked at a press conference by dozens of players including Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony, said the decision was unanimous.

Hunter said the National Basketball Player’s Association was in the process of converting to a trade association and that all players will be represented in a class-action suit against the NBA by attorneys Jeffrey Kessler and David Boies — who were on opposite sides of the NFL labor dispute, Kessler working for the players, Boies for the league. That lawsuit has yet to be filed.

Things are even worse for our Knicks.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Madison Square Garden Co., which owns the Knicks, in a November public filing said if cancelled games aren’t rescheduled, the company’s financial results would see a “material negative effect.”

The Knicks are unveiling the first phase of their $850 million renovation this year and planned to raise ticket prices 49% in the lower seating section. The Knicks anchor Madison Square Garden and combine with the New York Rangers and other sporting events at the arena to generate $372 million in revenue in 2010 for its MSG Sports division.

Oops. Bad timing for such a big renovation.

At least MSG has the Rangers!

When the NBA lockout was about to start people said it would be more contentious and heated than the current NFL lockout and it looks like they weren’t kidding. Some people were even saying that the entire 2011-12 season could be lost before the lockout could come to an end.

Today, NBA owners are speaking out against claims made by Forbes Magazine that the owners were overstating the NBA’s financial losses.

Nate Silver, author of the New York Times blog Five Thirty Eight, wrote a piece that cited figures from a Forbes Magazine article written by Dr. Patrick Rishe.

The owners have said that they lost as much as 340 million dollars during the 2009-10 season but Silver states that the NBA made as much as 183 million dollars in profit during that same season.

Silver went on to say that NBA fans should be skeptical about the NBA’s numbers, one main reason being that the data hadn’t been released to the public and that the CBA in place since 1999 was renewed as recently as 2005.

NBA spokesman Tim Frank sent Silver a statement on Tuesday night disputing Forbes’ data.

“The information from Forbes that serves as the basis for this article is inaccurate and we do not know how they do their calculations.”

Another spokesman for the NBA, Mike Bass said, “Precisely to avoid this issue, the NBA and its teams shared their complete league and team audited financials as well as our state and federal tax returns with the players union.” He added, “Those financials demonstrate the substantial and indisputable losses the league has incurred over the past several years.”

The NBA then reworded the statement and posted it on NBA.com this morning. (It’s too long to repost here)

Silver responded to the NBA’s statement saying that the league released information in their lengthy statement that was previously not made public:

I simply have no way to adjudicate the NBA’s claims. Mr. Frank’s statement includes several specific claims that have the league has not made publicly before, but in general the league has not made substantial detail on its financial condition, or its accounting procedures, available to the general public.

My question is, why are the NBA owners suddenly up in arms about this now when the Forbes Magazine piece was published nearly a week ago on July 1? Was it because Nate Silver and the New York Times decided to take the information and run with it on his blog?

Stay tuned for more “As the NBA Turns” on your TVs, computers and mobile devices all summer long and possibly into next year.