After getting off to a league-worst 2-15 start in the shortened NBA season, the Washington Wizards fired head coach Flip Saunders on Jan. 24 and replaced him until the end of the current season with assistant coach Randy Wittman.

Wittman said he’s not going to be able to work miracles with the young team and the players will have to change their outlook on how they play if they want to turn their fortunes around. He said young players can’t develop their skills just from playing games and they need to concentrate more on practicing them during training sessions.

The axe fell on Saunders after Washington lost by 20 points to the Philadelphia 76ers the night before, giving the Wizards a road record of 0-7. Club president Ernie Grunfeld said the coaching change was made because he didn’t think the players were responding to Saunders and a different voice needed to be brought in. He said it was his decision to make the move, but Ted Leonsis, approved of it. Leonsis, who also owns the NHL’s Washington Capitals approved of the firing of coach Bruce Boudreau from the hockey team back in November.

Grunfeld said the club’s objectives are still the same since they want to build the team up through the draft, develop them properly, and create some salary-cap space. He added that the current players haven’t developed as fast as the club had hoped and that needs to be worked on. Grunfeld and Wittman said the team needs to play a quick-paced running game when they’re on the offense and use more defensive tactics.

At the same time, they said some of the team’s young players need to realize that minutes on the floor aren’t guaranteed, they need to be earned. Wittman reasoned that if players know they’re going to be playing no matter how poorly they may perform, then they’re not developing properly. He said there’s always some tough times related to a rebuilding process and that’s what they’re going through now, while they’re trying to build a solid foundation.

This was Saunders third season as the Wizards head coach and he leaves with an overall record of 51-130. He previously coached Detroit and Minnesota, and reached the conference finals in 13 years. When he took the Wizards job in 2009 the club had some solid players in All-Stars Antawn Jamison, Caron Butler, and Gilbert Arenas. The club is starting over now though and is trying to build around point guard John Wall, who was the top pick in the 2010 NBA draft. However, Wall doesn’t have much of a supporting cast.

Wittman said Wall’s a talented player, but he needs to be coached properly and also needs to be willing to be coached because that’s how good players are transformed into great players. Wittman also takes some responsibility for the team’s woes and their 23-59 record last season. The Wizards have only beaten the Oklahoma City Thunder and the woeful Toronto Raptors this season after starting it with eight straight losses, with half of those being by at least 18 points.

Wittman has had two previous head-coaching jobs, with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Minnesota and has a career record of 100-207, so things might get a lot worse before they get better.

It didn’t take long for the axe to fall in the shortened NBA season as the Sacramento Kings fired head coach Paul Westphal on Jan. 5 with the club’s 2-5 record cementing them in the basement of the Pacific Division. Geoff Petrie, the head of basketball operations for the Kings, said the team wasn’t performing as well as expected and assistant coach Keith Smart would take over the reins. Smart won his first game in charge with the Kings beating Milwaukee 103-100 the night Westphal was let go.

It appears to many that the firing was somehow related to Westphal’s relationship with center DeMarcus Cousins. For some reason Cousins and Westphal just couldn’t get along and team owners Gavin and Joe Maloof decided it would be easier to replace the coach than one of their star players, especially a 61-year-old coach who had a 51-120 record with the club. This is an important season for the Kings since they’re hoping to gain momentum towards getting a new arena.

Westphal thanked the players, his coaching staff and the Maloofs after packing his bags and said he appreciated the opportunity they gave him. He said there’s still a long way for the club to go, but felt they at least took some steps in the right direction. However, his relationship with Cousins seemed to be consuming much of his time lately.

He criticized the player’s commitment to the team in a statement on Dec. 31 and didn’t play him against New Orleans. In addition, he said that Cousins had asked the franchise to trade him, which was then denied by the player and his agent. Petrie claimed he knew Westphal planned to release his statement regarding Cousins, but neither of the Maloofs knew about it.

After Westphal was fired, Cousins said there have been quite a few misunderstandings and the last week has been pretty emotional. He added that it comes with the territory though and he felt Westphal was a good coach and a fine teacher to a lot of the players, but ultimately it was a decision made by the team’s management.

The 21-year-old Cousins was drafted in 2010 fifth overall out of Kentucky. At the time of the firing he was playing 26 minutes a game with a 13.7 point scoring average along with 9.3 rebounds. He’s had a reputation of being a volatile character though ever since high school and his work ethic and conditioning have often been questioned.

He said he realizes a lot of people are going to blame him for Westphal’s demise, but reiterated that it was the management’s decision. Westphal was depending on Cousins to help the team improve on last year’s 24-58 record and was hoping to make the playoffs for the first time in six years. But with the team struggling early on the Maloofs didn’t want to dig an early and deep hole that they couldn’t get out of.

Gavin Maloof said Westphal’s a great guy, but it was time to make a change and push for a postseason spot before things got out of hand. The franchise is also still waiting to hear about a new arena in Sacramento and will find out by the deadline on March 1. If they don’t get a new rink, the club could end up relocating, possibly to Anaheim.

Smart said being named the new head coach was a bit of a surprise to him, especially so early in the season, but added that Westphal engaged him in a heart-to-heart talk and gave him a vote of confidence. He’s gotten off to a good start, but still needs improve the coaching relationship with Cousins to succeed over the long haul.

Toronto, Canada is one of North America’s worst locations when it comes to the performances of its professional sports franchises. The NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1967 and haven’t even made it to a final series since then. The NBA’s Raptors have won a total of one playoff series in their history and the Blue Jays of MLB haven’t made the post season since 1993. Still all of these clubs are more successful than soccer team Toronto F.C of MLS. They haven’t made the playoffs since they joined the league.

It can easily be said all of these teams are pretty bad, but there’s also another common thread now since the Maple Leafs, Raptors, Toronto F.C, and Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League (AHL) were all recently sold. Canada’s top two telecom companies, Bell and Rogers, joined forces and bought 75 per cent ownership for a total of $1.32 billion from previous owners MLSE (Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment). Rogers already owned the Blue Jays and now the telecom giants have a monopoly on Toronto sports teams as well as the telecommunications market.

MLSE was funded by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and they confirmed sales of the sports franchises as well as the Air Canada Centre, where the Leafs and Raptors call home. Rogers already owns the Rogers Centre, home of the Blue Jays and Bell has an 18 per cent stake in the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens, who play out of the Bell Centre. The other 25 per cent of the former MLSE stocks are owned by Larry Tanenbaum, who had first refusal on the shares that were sold.

The sale still has to be approved by the various leagues, such as the NHL, NBA, and MLS and the Canadian government’s Competition Bureau also has to approve it to make sure the sale doesn’t result in a substantial prevention or lessening of competition. Bell also owns TSN, which is one of Canada’s biggest sports networks while Rogers owns the Sportsnet channels which is it fiercest rival. The two companies now have to sort out some type of deal to see which network shows which games. The 66 Raptors contests this season will all be shown on one network or the other.

However, when it comes to the Maple Leafs, which is the NHL’s most valuable franchise, the broadcast deal might not be so easy to split up since both networks view the team as their golden egg. Bell and Rogers also own competing radio stations, but all of the current contracts involving the teams have to be honoured until they expire.

The announcement of the sale had been rumoured for a few weeks, but most fans and journalists wondered aloud how two of the nation’s top rival companies to come to an agreement. Both Rogers and Bell reportedly paid $533 million each while Tanenbaum’s previous stake of about 21 per cent was raised to 25 per cent in a separate deal.  The sale will allow the new owners to broadcast its franchises’ games on a variety of media devices, such as mobile phones and Xboxes.

The sale doesn’t mean the teams will necessarily improve and as one journalist put it, “It just means I can now watch their lousy teams on more electronic devices.”

Point guard Chris Paul finally got his wish and was traded to Los Angeles by the New Orleans Hornets. However, he ended up with the Clippers not the Lakers. Paul had hoped to join the Lakers a week earlier, but the NBA rejected the deal that was in place.

They didn’t have a problem with this deal though that saw Paul and a pair of second-round draft picks in 2015 head to the west coast for center Chris Kaman, forward Al-Farouq Aminu, guard Eric Gordon, and a first-round draft pick. The Hornets are owned by the NBA and therefore had to get approval of the trade from league commissioner David Stern.

Stern said it’s his job to do the best thing for the Hornets and he didn’t call off the original Paul trade to the Lakers due to the opinion of other franchise owners. Of course, rating the players in the trade is up for debate. Paul ends up in LA, but with a different team and the controversy has died down for the time being.

Stern said he’s trying to make the Hornets as competitive as possible, especially since the league is looking for a new owner that wants to keep the team in New Orleans. He said there are a few potential owners on the horizon and he’s optimistic that the franchise has a bright future ahead of it.

The Clippers are glad this trade was approved since they now have a 26-year-old four-time All-Star on their roster. Paul, a six-year veteran, managed to sink 18.7 points on average per game last season along with 9.8 assists. He now teams up with Clippers forward Blake Griffin and that pair could do a lot of damage this season. Griffin had an excellent rookie season last year with a 22.5 points-per-game average to go along with 12.1 rebounds.

Paul doesn’t come cheaply though as he’ll be paid $16.4 million in 2011/12 and $17.8 million the next year, which is his option season. The Hornets received some good players in return. Gordon knows where the basket is as his 22.3 point-per-game average last season proves. However, if he doesn’t sign a contract extension with New Orleans he’ll be a restricted free agent at the end of the season.

Aminu is 6-foot-9, and sank 5.6 points a game with 3.3 rebounds last year in his rookie season. Kaman’s a 7-footer and former all-star, who managed 12.4 points a game last year along with seven rebounds, but he suffered an ankle injury and only managed to play in 32 games. He’s also in the last season of his current deal and will make $12.2 million in 2011/12.

The Hornets are hoping the club’s fans are happy with the deal since more fans in the seats will make the franchise easier to sell. They didn’t really have a choice other than to trade Paul since he said he wasn’t going to extend his deal with the Hornets and would have been eligible to leave as a free agent. Adding Aminu, Kaman and Gordon to the roster will give New Orleans some added depth and their presence could also help the team attract some good free agents.

The NBA players just ratified the new collective bargaining agreement with the league on Dec. 8, and it didn’t take long for the first controversial issue to rear its head. New Orleans thought they had a deal worked out that would have seen guard Chris Paul shipped off to the Los Angeles Lakers, but the league rejected the move.

Paul, an all-star guard, would have ended up in LA while Lamar Odom would have been sent to New Orleans and Pau Gasol would have landed in Houston. But even though the NBA operates the Hornets, the three-team deal was shot down. All of the players involved are expected to open training camps with their respective teams on Dec. 9.

Paul expressed his disappointment with the leagues rejection via his Twitter page after the news came down. It was reported that the deal was swept under the rug because several club owners were against it, but NBA Commissioner David Stern said that wasn’t true. Stern said the trade wasn’t discussed during the board of governors meeting, but reports said Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was one owner who disagreed with the deal.

The new bargaining agreement was signed by the owners as a way to keep the league competitive and for small-market teams to be able to hang on to their top players. The deal to send Paul to the Lakers was exactly what they didn’t want to see. It meant the Hornets would have lost their marquee player to one of the league’s richest and biggest markets.

The NBA took over the Hornets in December 2010 when it purchased the franchise from George Shinn. In addition, the trade would have also seen New Orleans receive point guard Doran Dragic, shooting guard Kevin Martin and forward Luis Scola, along with a first-round draft pick from Houston. Odom, last season’s Sixth Man of the Year, has spent most of his career in Los Angeles and seemed to be relieved he wasn’t leaving the city. The Lakers may now try to acquire center Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic.

If New Orleans can’t trade Paul, he’s eligible to  opt out of present contract at the end of the season, which is a good possibility. The Hornets obviously would rather trade him and get something of value in return than simply letting him walk away for nothing. The 26-year-old scored 15.8 points a game on average last season along with 9.8 assists.

New Orleans has seen its ticket sales increase slightly even though the Paul situation is looming and the NBA lockout lasted several months. The team is hoping to find a buyer that will keep it in the state of Louisiana. The Hornets sold just over 6,000 season tickets last year and have managed to sell 10,000 already for the upcoming campaign.

It’ll be interesting to see if Paul, Gasol, and Odom report for training camp or if the rejection of the trade may be challenged in court.

NBA fans will get an extra present this Christmas as the league is scheduled to tip off on Dec. 25 with a triple header. The news came down about 2 am on Nov. 26 as NBA owners tentatively agreed to end the 149-day lockout after coming to terms with the players’ union on a new collective bargaining agreement. However, it’s still not official as there are several legal issues that need to be taken care of and the handshake deal will need to be accepted by the players in a vote.

If things go according to plan then training camps will open on Dec. 9 and free agency will begin the same day. The 2011/12 season should then get underway with the New York Knicks at home to the Boston Celtics, followed by the Dallas Mavericks at home to the Miami Heat and then the Chicago Bulls on the west coast to take on the Los Angeles Lakers.

Specifics of the new deal weren’t immediately released, but NBA Commissioner David Stern and Billy Hunter of the players’ union said it was in the interests of both sides to try and save as much of the season as they could. The owners and players met for about 15 hours on Nov. 25 and things were pretty complex, but they agreed to a deal in principle.

Each team will play a total of 66 games in the first year of the 10-year contract, 16 less than a normal 82-game schedule. But either side may opt out of the agreement following the sixth year. To be ratified, the contract needs to be approved by the majority of players and owners. This means that 15 out of the 29 team owners need to agree to it. The New Orleans Hornets don’t need to vote since the league owns the franchise.

On the union’s side, just a majority vote is needed from the approximate 430 members. However, the union was dissolved on Nov. 14 and it needs to be reformed before they can vote on the deal. The union also needs to drop its antitrust lawsuit which was filed in Minnesota. The NBA also has to drop its lawsuit in New York. There’s still a lot of work to do though including an agreement on drug testing and several other issues.

NBA owners are hoping the league has more parity with the new deal instead of it being dominated by the big spenders such as the Celtics, Lakers, and Mavericks. They hope a stricter luxury tax will achieve this. They’re also hoping that the fans will flock back to the arenas after the work stoppage, especially after such as successful season in 2010/11.

The lockout started on July 1 and it looked like it might wipe out the entire season after players and owners couldn’t come to an agreement on the division of revenues and other issues. The owners claim they lost millions of dollars during the last agreement and wanted the players to take a smaller percentage of the revenues.

After the players filed their lawsuit things moved along at a faster pace though, as they could have won close to $6 billion worth of damages if it had been successful, but Stern said that’s not the reason the owners settled. This will be the NBA’s second short season in its history. After the lockout of 1998/99 the teams played a 50-game schedule.

It’s not expected that the vote will be unanimous on either side as there are people who are still unhappy with the deal, but it’s still expected to be approved by the majority. Specific terms of the deal should be released shortly.

The Toronto Raptors still find themselves in the headlines in Canada even though the 2011/12 NBA is on hold. But it’s mostly for all the wrong reasons. One of the most interesting stories developing concerns a season-ticket holder who’s taking the club’s owner, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE), to court.

Mark Michalkoff, a Toronto businessman, said MLSE has been treating him like dirt ever since it installed a new row of seats in front of his “first-row” seats at the Air Canada Centre in 2007. Michalkoff was asked to pay $915 per game for his two seats, which MLSE said was in the front row on the court. However, the organization then added a new row of seats in front of Michalkoff’s. This effectively made his row the second not the first.

MLSE has reiterated by saying the fan is dishonest and is actually a ticket scalper. The two sides have tried to solve problem by going to mediation, but didn’t have any success, so they’re headed to Ontario Superior Court. Michalkoff is suing MLSE for a total of $1.6 million, but said a lawsuit could have been prevented if the sports group simply said they were sorry.

He said MLSE didn’t even answer his communications and then insulted him by calling him a scalper in their counterclaim. In the court filings, MLSE said Michalkoff runs a company called DLF Solutions Inc. and they sell Raptors tickets for a profit and are therefore ticket brokers and are breaching the season-ticket holder contract.

The argument started back in 2007 when MLSE asked a colleague of Michalkoff at DLF Solutions if they wanted to trade their pair of third-row seats for better ones. Michalkoff agreed and paid for the seats in advance for the 2007/08 season. Just before the season began MLSE said it planned on installing half a dozen seats in front of Michalkoff’s and if he wanted to upgrade again it would cost him $1,650 for each game.

But Michalkoff said he upgraded his seats the first time because MLSE said they were the very front row at courtside and were unobstructed and then a few months later they asked him to cough up more money. Michalkoff responded by writing to Richard Peddie, the president of MLSE, to try and settle the argument. He said his company had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years for Raptors and Toronto Maple Leaf tickets as well as seat licenses, but Peddie didn’t answer him.

Finally, an MLSE official named Robin Brunder met with Michalkoff to find out what they wanted and apologized. Michalkoff said all he asked for was a public apology and justice, but nothing was done about it. MLSE then called the fans scalpers in the court documents, but Michalkoff said DLF’s business is providing its clients with gift cards and adds on a five per cent service fee which covers the company’s expenses for distributing the tickets.

Michalkoff said there are plenty of commercial ticket brokers selling tickets in Toronto and MLSE doesn’t seem to have a problem with them even though the tickets were purchased via seat licenses with MLSE. Michalkoff said that MLSE gave him his money back for the 2007/08 season as well as $23,000 for the seat license, which is a fee giving a business the right to purchase tickets to events.

However, Michalkoff isn’t backing off and is still looking for damages of $1.6 million. He still has two other seats for Raptors games as well as four season tickets for the Maple Leafs. He said even though MLSE treats its fans badly, he still loves the teams.

NBA Commissioner David Stern is understandably getting a little tired of the basketball lockout and all of the unproductive talks that have been held in an effort to resolve it. After more recent discussions didn’t bridge the gap between the league and the players’ union, Stern is now starting to play hardball and has issues the players an ultimatum.

Stern said the latest offer will be on the table until the afternoon of Nov. 9 and if the union doesn’t accept it at that time then it’ll be pulled off of the table and replaced with a worse one for the players. The NBA and players’ union recently met with a federal mediator named George Cohen and some progress was made in the talks.

Stern insisted that the league accepted five out of the six proposals that Cohen suggested, but the players’ union didn’t want to get on board with them. The commissioner has offered the players a 51 per cent share of league revenues as a maximum and 49 per cent as a minimum, depending on what the total revenues are. He said if this offer isn’t accepted by Nov. 9 then the offer that will replace it is only going to give them a maximum of 47 per cent of revenue money.

Admitting that he was getting tired of the whole process, Stern said he definitely hopes the players accept the offer before the owners pull it back. Los Angeles Lakers guard Derek Fisher, the players’ union president, said that the players tried as hard as they could to get a new collective bargaining deal done on Nov. 5, but the two sides just didn’t see eye-to-eye on enough issues to finalize anything. He added that the players made some financial concessions and he doesn’t understand why the league didn’t accept them.

He emphasized that the players made the effort to come to an agreement, but for some reason this specific group of franchise owners just didn’t think it was good enough to end the lockout. The new proposal by the owners puts a limit on free agency as well as trading options for the clubs that are spending over the salary cap and are paying the luxury tax. This is because the small-market clubs feel they can’t compete with the big spenders and they want to keep as much parity in the league as they can.

Nov. 9 now becomes a crucial date on the NBA calendar. The league was supposed to tipoff on Nov.1, but the entire month of November has been scrapped. If the new offer is accepted then part of the season could definitely be saved, but if the players turn it down there’s a good chance that the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) will decertify and this season will be flushed down the toilet.

The NBA and its players are losing more money as each day passes in the current labor lockout. Things got bleaker on Oct. 28 when league boss David Stern announced that more regular season games were going to have to be canceled. This is the third time Stern has scrapped games this season after pulling the plug on the pre season and then all regular-season games from Nov. 1 up until Nov. 14. This time he said all games up to Nov 30 will be canceled

The league and players got together to try and work out a new collective bargaining agreement and after about 21 hours of talks they left the negotiating table where they started off, with no deal anywhere in sight. Stern said any new offers to the players union will now have to reflect the money that the owners have lost so far this season. He said both the league and the players are losing an extraordinary amount of money with each passing day.

The players are trying to put the pressure on the league by saying it might not recover from a lost season. However, the people who are feeling the squeeze the most at the moment are all of the associated workers, such as arena security staff, vendors, and ushers as well as others who depend on the NBA to make their livings.

Adam Silver, the NBA’s Deputy Commissioner, followed all of the clichés and said the league feels for its fans, business partners and those who rely on the games for their livelihoods. He added that the league is committed to coming to a deal with the players that’s fair for everybody involved and will enable the game to grow. It’s going to be pretty hard to accomplish in the near future though as there aren’t any new talks scheduled between the two sides.

Some of the league’s foreign players are either feeling the pinch of no income or are just getting bored of the whole thing and have headed back overseas to play in their domestic leagues. Some of the American stars are also thinking about joining them, but none of the biggest names have committed to it as of yet. It’s been reported that Kobe Bryant has considered it as well as Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks, who was the MVP in last year’s NBA Finals.

The last labor dispute to wipe out an entire season in a major North American sport took place in 2004-05 when the National Hockey League season was scrapped. When that happened, 350NHL players headed overseas and ended up playing in an assortment of leagues throughout Europe. There have also been reports that some of the NBA players might get together and take their act on the road for a world tour if things don’t get settled soon.

It’s believed that star players such as Bryant, Derrick Rose, Dwayne Wade, and LeBron James might decide to play some games over in London, England, Australia, Puerto Rico, and Macau. As long as the players are asking for more than 50 per cent of the league revenues it looks like those players will be packing their bags soon.

The NBA and players union are going to try one more time to end the lockout by meeting with a federal mediator on Oct. 18. With the first two weeks of the season already scrapped and no progress at all in labor talks they figure it’s worth a shot. The mediator is George Cohen, who’s a director with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS).

Cohen will oversee the talks between the owners and union at meetings in New York and he said he’s been talking with both sides for the past few months already. The FMCS was started by President Obama in 2009 as an independent government agency.

In 2010 Cohen was instrumental in helping Major League Soccer (MLS) come to an agreement with its players on a new collective bargaining agreement and its players just before the season kicked off. Both the MLS and the players’ union commended Cohen for his work. It’s unclear if it was the NBA or the players who requested meeting with a mediator.

It’s also been reported that NBA boss David Stern met with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Oct. 12. The players’ union lodged a complaint with the NLRB against the league in May and accused it of not negotiating in good faith. When the league locked the players out in July the union amended the complaint and then canceled the summer league in Las Vegas.

In return, the NBA filed a complaint against the players’ union along with a federal lawsuit that claimed the union was planning to decertify and wasn’t negotiating in good faith. The NLRB’s been studying the claims for the past five months now and sent its recommendation to its lawyers in Washington.

If it turns out that the NLRB rules in favour of the players and then files a complaint against the league the organization would be able to ask a judge to end the lockout immediately. The NLRB could also tell the NBA what it proposes to do and request the league to come to an agreement with the players within 48 hours.

Some fans feel a mediator is the right solution to the problem because mediation was used to help end the recent four-month long NFL lockout. So far, the NBA and the players have attempted to settle their disputes on their own, but it’s obviously not getting them anywhere.

After the last round of meetings Stern said there was a huge gap between them, but the union said it felt some progress had been made. The main issues that need to be solved include the luxury tax, raises, length of player contracts, player raises, roster sizes, and revenue sharing.

Going to a mediator seems to be a sensible move as both sides don’t really have anything to lose, other than millions of dollars and the entire 2011/12 NBA season.