There are so many reasons that the NBA season might not start until December at the earliest, and maybe not at all the way things are going. But here is one, right out of the rooms where the owners and players are trying to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement:

Players Association president Derek Fisher – who seems to be auditioning to be a general manager someday – has been doing more negotiating with the other side than Billy Hunter, whose job it is to negotiate with the other side.

So Fisher, who wouldn’t negotiate his own player contract on a bet, now negotiates a contract for all the players. Perfect.

We constantly hear that the players are the problem here, the players are the ones holding up a deal, all because Hunter “closed his book,” in the words of Commissioner David Stern, and walked out of the room Friday.

Guess what? If Hunter did that, it is one of the few really inspired things he has done lately, perhaps realizing how bad the deal on the table really was before it was too late.

via Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News