Lockout Rock

Photo via exercisedaily.org.

This is a playlist I made last night after the once-promising marathon mediation sessions between the NBA and NBPA imploded and made the possibility of a canceled season seem more real than ever. There’s nothing scientific about this playlist—it’s just some songs by some bands I like that I think have something to say about this mess.

1. Rage Against the Machine, “Take the Power Back”

This is the underlying reason that we’re having a lockout. It’s what the owners want, whether power refers to a higher BRI split or more control over where players can sign and for how long. “Take the Power Back” is, as most Rage songs are, an anthem for the oppressed, which makes it a perfect match for the tone David Stern and the owners have taken with the media. It’s not hard to imagine them using it the way Ronald Reagan used “Born in the USA” as a campaign song, latching onto the obvious, surface-level message while missing all of the nuance.

2. Wilco, “Too Far Apart”

“We were too far apart, right from the start / I couldn’t be any closer to you now.”

It’s hard to sum up the current state of the negotiations better than Jeff Tweedy did right there. Right up until the moment the talks broke down on Thursday, bits of information were trickling out claiming that progress had been made on a new mid-level exception, as well as a few other, smaller issues—not central to the agreement, but significant nonetheless. Every small piece that is placed in the puzzle brings the sides closer to getting a deal done, but they’re too sharply divided on the big stuff.

3. Pink Floyd, “What Do You Want From Me”

This is what Derek Fisher and Billy Hunter seem to ask the owners every time the sides get together.

“Do you think I know something you don’t know?”…”Should I stand out in the rain / Do you want me to make a daisy chain for you?”

The answer to all of the above is yes, as far as David Stern is concerned. This song is taken from Pink Floyd 1994 album The Division Bell, which was recorded long after the departure of Roger Waters from the band. Despite countless #StandUnited campaigns, most people with some grasp of the leverage at play here think that the NBPA’s efforts to get a fair deal will end about as well as the relations between Waters and David Gilmour during the recording of The Final Cut.

4. The Strokes, “I Can’t Win”

“Good try, we don’t like it / Good try, we won’t take that s***”

If Hunter and Fisher are to be believed, that’s essentially what Peter Holt told them Thursday when they tried to propose a revenue split above 50/50. No matter what deal the sides end up agreeing to, it won’t be a win for the players. They just have to hope they can keep their losses to a minimum.

5. Rush, “Between the Wheels”

I’m using my favorite band for my least favorite part of this whole mess: the periodic reminder of just how much the NBA stands to lose with every canceled game, not just monetarily but also in momentum. I don’t need to tell you how good the 2010-11 season was—it wasn’t just the best season the league has had in the post-Jordan era, it was one of the best in its sixty-plus-year history. Given the depth of talent in the NBA at this point, the recovery time for this lockout should be quicker than it was in ’99 in terms of on-court play, but if we’re talking about expanding the scope of the league’s popularity, few things can derail that faster than a long, acrimonious lockout. “We can go from boom to bust / From dreams to a bowl of dust.” Indeed.

6. Led Zeppelin, “Communication Breakdown”

This is what happened not only Thursday but also at the end of every other period of negotiation over the last few weeks. At some point, even when progress is made, talks always seem to come to a standstill, and the flame war going on in the media (which was escalated yesterday when Fisher and Hunter flat-out accused the owners of lying to the press) isn’t helping matters.

7. Hüsker Dü, “Never Talking to You Again”

Whenever negotiations have hit a snag, one of the first things reported by the brave souls who stake out these hotels for all of our sake is that “no further meetings are scheduled.” During his statement to the press today, Holt claimed that with the way the mediation ended, it would be extremely difficult for the sides to pick it back up anytime soon. They always say that. But they will.

8. The National, “Start a War”

“We expected something better than before / We expected something more”

This goes not only for those in the negotiating room who genuinely want to get a deal done, but also those of us (myself very much included) who spend our days on Twitter looking for any sign of hope, any small breakthrough to latch onto. One of these days, we tell ourselves, they’ll get their act together and get this done. Except they haven’t. And yesterday, just as the National’s Matt Berninger predicted, the sides walked away from the table and started a new war.

9. Radiohead, “A Punch Up at a Wedding”

This one is dedicated to the hardliners, mostly on the owners’ side, who stalled what little progress had been made this week with federal mediator George Cohen with childish histrionics. Whether it was the previously moderate Holt reportedly telling the players they “haven’t felt enough pain,” Dan Gilbert telling Hunter to “trust [his] gut” that a deal would get done if the players made one more huge concession, or Paul Allen apparently acting as a predator drone sent from the Board of Governors meeting to stop the owners from giving up any more ground, these are the people who piss on the parade, shred what could have potentially been a big day, and ruin it for all concerned.

10. The Beatles, “I’ll Be Back”

Look, I’m as burned out on this stuff as the rest of you are. If I never have to hear the phrases “revenue sharing” or “exchanging ideas and concepts” again, it’ll be far too soon. But anyone who’s enough of a basketball fan to be reading a site like this that declares that they’re “done” with the NBA, that they’ll never love it the same way again, that they’re boycotting it, is lying to themselves. We told them once before goodbye, but we came back again. You’d think the sides would have better things to do than to break our hearts again—like actually attempting to compromise—but apparently not.