Professional sports owners are taking their balls and going home in droves these days, with the NBA announcing that, like the NFL, it will lock players out until they can get a new labor agreement sorted out.

ESPN reports the NBA is playing the poverty card, insisting that 22 of its 30 teams would lose money under the previous collective bargaining agreement. The league wants players to agree to a hard salary cap and take significant pay cuts. The players have rejected the league’s offers so far.

If the two sides can’t settle things by late September, preseason and regular season games may be in jeopardy. The last lockout, in the 1998-99 season, dropped the league’s 82-game schedule to 50.

If you’re a sports fan, what would an extended NBA lockout mean to you? And whose side are you on?

NBA says it will lock out players [ESPN]

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