Trying to answer to Bill Simmons

Bill Simmons: All right, I'll ask: why did it take until October 18th for us to have a 

marathon 16-hour NBA labor negotiating session? 

Because players are not going to sign a deal involving many sacrifices, compared to the 

previous one, before the owners show, by absorving some real damage, their serious 

willingness to fight for that new deal. And agreement before some games were 

cancelled was never an option, so it had no sense to keep negotiating until real pain 

started.

 The union´s team of negotiators would have been crucified by many players, agents 

and media (you too, Mr. Simmons) if they had signed the deal they will have to sign finally,

once and because real damage has been made, so they have shown they tried hard 

to get the best available deal. 

Many politicians know that they will be out of the job if they impose sacrifices on people, 

trying to anticipate a solution for a future problem, before people have felt the direct 

effects of that problem. It has always happened in Spain with fishing. We lost most of 

our resources because politicians were afraid of taking protective measures, which 

would have been fought by the fishermen with protests. Then, when there were no 

fish, and fishing boats were coming back to ports with no product, the same fishermen 

asked to take those measures they were opposed to before. So that´s when 

politicians, these who know how to survive in this dirty job, react. Always a 

little bit too late, once real damage has been made to the people they ask to accept 

real sacrifices. People worried about greenhouse effect understand what I´m talking about.  

Some politicians try to anticipate a reaction using the "fear about the future" weapon,

trying to increase people´s level of tolerance to sacrificies. And it works, but only partially. 

That´s why Stern has put on the table his "observation"  "season is in jeopardy",

 while Billy Hunteris trying to avoid any responsability for all the damage coming soon, 

by saying that sacrifying half of the season was part of the owners strategy from the 

begining, what Stern tries to deny by saying how much the owners have lightened their

demands. And so on.

Sadly, I think both parts have put themselves in position to force negotiators to explore

the painful way. And, as some of you have said, the players will double their pain with a

lost season and a worse deal.