The NBA lockout negotiations have steadily been getting uglier and uglier since they began, but it appears the newest deadline is Wednesday. After that, according to commissioner David Stern, things are going to get even uglier because he plans to take the current deal off of the table.
Stern appeared on ESPN's SportsCenter late Monday afternoon to talk about the next step and, as Bullets Forever's Mike Prada transcription tells NBA fans, things are not exactly pretty right now.
On the deadline: "We think there's a great offer on table, and we told the players, 'It's getting late.' The only rational thing is to make that deal because given what is going on in our business and our industry, it will get worse from there. We told the players ... an offer of 47% will become operative w/ hard cap in effect [if they don't accept]."
The Minnesota Timberwolves are one of the teams that will be hurt most by the lockout as they are too young to be missing valuable court time while they should be gaining chemistry. It will also probably take a bit of time for new head coach Rick Adelman to install a new offense and new point guard Ricky Rubio to adjust to American basketball.