FOOTBALL

The NFL Lockout is a complicated scenario which deals with collective bargaining agreements, rookie salaries, television money, owner vs. player payments, and many other confusing issues.  However, with all that, it appears that this lockout may be close to finally being over.  Yesterday, NFL Owners agreed to a proposed collective bargaining agreement, which is primarily the key issue of the lockout.  In short, easy-to-understand terms, it determines how much money everyone is going to make going forward.  However, the players did not sign off on the deal yesterday.  Many experts believe that the players association will sign the deal today and that will be that.  But of course, there are other sources saying that the media has it all wrong and the players are nowhere close to agreeing to terms.  Let’s just hope they settle this soon so we can have our football on Sundays.

BASKETBALL

In the NBA, the Detroit Pistons have been a pretty hapless franchise for the past few years.  In the middle of the previous decade they won a championship and took the San Antonio Spurs to 7 games before falling.  They got rid of Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson, Rasheed Wallace retired, and Ben Wallace went to Chicago, and that basically destroyed their nucleus.  Since then it’s been a very discombobulated team.  Last year, they even practically went on strike, as they had given up on their coach John Kuester.  Kuester was fired mid-season, and the Pistons were a team looking for a direction.  Now, they have found their new captain:  Lawrence Frank.  Frank comes from Boston as an assistant coach, but Frank was also responsible for turning the New Jersey Nets into a competitive franchise in the early part of the decade.  He’s a sharp young coach that has a chip on his shoulder to win.  Detroit has a bunch of talented young rookies looking to prove themselves, so, assuming we have a season, they might just turn things around.

And in some news from the WNBA, the Tulsa Shock made headlines when they cut a former Olympic Gold Medalist.  We all remember Marion Jones three gold medals at the 2000 Olympic Games. It was an exciting accomplishment at the time.  However, it was later revealed that she took steroids during that period AND lied to federal investigators about the matter.  This led to 6 months in prison and she was forced to return the medals.  Cheating is cheating.  Recently she tried to revive her career as a professional basketball player.  After all, she’s still an amazing athlete and does have basketball skills.  But, her 14 appearances in the WNBA didn’t yield much.  In fact, she averaged less than a point per game.  Now the Shock have decided to party ways with Jones to simply make room for somebody else.  She got a shot, but the Shock have to put themselves in the best position to win and thus entertain the fans.