Confidential Meetings Wrap Up

The positive vibe coming from New York on the lockout front continued on this week, as the players and owners wrapped up their “confidential” meetings today. Apparently, these aren’t the “secret” meetings anymore since everyone knows about them, so now they are being referred to as “confidential”. Since the meetings are “confidential”, we don’t know how much progress was actually made, but everyone in the know seems to think things are going well.

I think the best news to come out of this is that the attorneys for both sides were not present. Obviously, lawyers are necessary in litigation like this, but it’s pretty obvious that these people don’t have the best interest of the league in mind. The attorneys are only concerned with their billable hours and their side winning, so they don’t care how long this thing drags out. In fact, they would prefer if this thing would continue on as long as possible, because that’s just more money in their pockets. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that we are hearing good news about talks and there are no lawyers present. The best way to get this thing settled is for the two sides to sit down, face-to-face, and hammer out a deal. No outside influences, no pressure from people who aren’t immediately involved. Just the players and owners getting the thing done. It sounds like they are on their way, so at least it’s a start.