The Lockout through the eyes of former Hoosier stars

The next couple of days will be pivotal for the NBA in hopes of restoring their season.

Players and owners will met with a federal mediator yesterday; if no deal is reached games through Christmas will likely be canceled.

Both sides are far apart, and the players feel the owners need to meet them halfway in order for a deal to be made.

“They got to meet us at some point, I feel like (the owners) aren’t trying to help us out,” Kevin Durant said at an exhibition game in Washington D.C..

Former Hoosier star Eric Gordon, and now current NBA star for the Los Angeles Clippers, who was in town this weekend for Hoosier Hysteria feels the same way.

“The owners have an upper hand in this, and we know we have to give, and we’ve given, and you just don’t want to give the owners everything at will,” Gordon said.

While he may be considered young, Gordon understands that it’s been a long process, but seems somewhat encouraged by some of the owner’s most recent attempts.

Also asked if he believes that players are beginning to think the best option is to “fold” as Javale Mcgee was quoted as saying, Gordon responded by saying “its hard to say, but I wouldn’t say the players are ready to give up so easily.”

For a player like Gordon, this lockout couldn’t have come at a worse time for him or his team, as he’s coming off a season in which he averaged 22.3 points a game in 56 games. The Clippers, led by rookie sensation Blake Griffin seem to finally be putting the pieces together.

“Its not good (referring to lockout), I’m still young and the only way you can get experience for myself and being on a young team is to keep on playing and play together,” Gordon said.

Gordon wasn’t the only former Hoosier Star in attendance. D.J. White also was on campus sporting what he calls his “lockout beard”.

Both players are doing all they can to stay in shape, as both don’t know when this season will start back up again.

“All I’ve been doing is working out,” Gordon said. “It’s all I can do at this point individually to stay in shape somehow just to be ready for whatever happens.”

While Gordon took that approach in addressing his offseason training, it seems D.J. White is losing patience.

“Just working out, working out everyday, that’s pretty much all you can do now,” White said. “I’m trying to find something else to do, I’m bored out of my mind”.

The lockout couldn’t have come at a worse time for D.J. as well, as the second half of the season saw a huge improvement for him

After playing 23 games for the Oklahoma City Thunder and only averaging 9 minutes and 3 points, he was traded to the Charlotte Bobcats where his average minutes played jumped up to 19.4 and he averaged 8.5 points, along with almost every other major stat seeing a jump.

Players who attended the meeting with Javale McGee said no one was thinking about folding. McGee denied that he said that and said he was misquoted and also said to have been at the meeting the shortest out of any player rep.

In fact, if anyone seems to be getting soft, union head Billy Hunter said he and Derek Fisher were the ones.

Hunter said they were the “pacifists”, and the players attending the meeting thought he and Fisher had begun to weaken.

“So while we’re willing to make some concessions, which we’ve already demonstrated, we’re not willing to do or make as many concessions as the NBA wants us to make,” Hunter said, reiterating the point Gordon made Saturday night.

The biggest unresolved issues include how to divide the revenue, contract lengths, and the structure of the new luxury- tax system.

Eric Gordon and D.J. White are one of three Hoosiers currently playing the NBA (Jared Jefferies plays for the New York Knicks).

They want to play, and so does the rest of the league. Now it’s up to the owners to concede on their part and get basketball going.

The players and owners are going to meet somewhere, and if that somewhere isn’t met today, NBA fans might not see basketball in 2011.