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The differences between the NFL and NBA lockouts are just astounding. I think I already mentioned in an earlier post how the NBA cannot profit off of players during the lockout, so they had to do things like take all player video and images off their web site. During the NFL lockout, you couldn’t even tell it was a lockout. NFL network, nfl.com and pretty much everything related to the NFL went on as usual except contact between team staff and players and organized team activities.

Now, thanks to Michael Jordan’s decision to give an innocent compliment to Andrew Bogut in an interview with Bogut’s hometown paper…IN AUSTRALIA, we find out that owners can’t discuss players in any capacity.

A snippet of Jordan’s comments:

“I can’t say so much … but I know the owners are not going to move off what we feel is very necessary for us to get a deal in place where we can co-exist as partners. We need a lot of financial support throughout the league as well as revenue sharing to keep this business afloat.

“We have stars like Bogut who are entitled to certain type of demands. But for us to be profitable in small markets, we have to be able to win ballgames and build a better basketball team.”

Jordan said small-market teams would benefit greatly from a “hard” salary cap, and it would allow clubs such as Milwaukee to plan a future on key players including the Australian centre.

“Bogut is a good piece to build around for Milwaukee,” Jordan said.

Then BAM! $100K fine! Jordan’s comments violated both the league’s rules on discussing individual players as well as the general collective bargaining process.

If you ask me-and no one has-this is how a lockout should be done. Everyone should suffer. Not that $100K is taking anything out of Jordan’s golfing budget or anything. But it made me think of how whenever the government shuts down, only employees are hurt (for the most part). The public and those in power keep going along just fine. Not enough of the government is ever shut down to make people realize that there’s actually a problem. Therefore, no one takes it seriously. Yeah I know the government is a lot less important than the NBA *snickers* but you get my point.

If you’re gonna shut it down, shut it alllll the way down. Every time someone violates a lockout rule we are reminded that shit in the NBA is pretty real right now. Pretty real = pretty messed up.  The guys across the blogosphere think the NBA is going too far in enforcing the rules. Funny to me, because I don’t see them saying the rules aren’t good, just that the NBA is taking them too seriously. Odd position to take in my opinion.

For some reason though, this fine reminds me of a school yard fight between two girls over their cheating boyfriend. The owners and Billy Hunter are arguing with Hunter telling the owners to KEEP MY MAN’S NAME OUT YOUR MOUTH OR ELSE.

Or something like that. Can you tell I have some hood in me? Mind your business!