The next major date for the NBA is next season when the players and owners have to discuss the new collective bargaining agreement. Most people believe that there will be a lockout and the owners are constantly crying about how they are losing money. I've said this before and am going to say it again but the problem with the NBA is that the owners and their GM's just throw money around like it's going out of style.

The Milwaukee Bucks were doing a nice job of gutting the crap contracts they had and rebuilding a sensible roster. Then this offseason they acquired the overpaid Corey Maggette and now have signed Drew Gooden to a five year, 32 million dollar deal. (I could see Scott Skiles benching both of these guys in no time.) The Atlanta Hawks are readying a full max deal for Joe Johnson. The Wolves seem to be continuing their Summer of Small Forwards and are looking to offer Rudy Gay a big deal. I'm sorry but these are the types of moves that tie teams to mediocrity and gives teams bloated payrolls.

The problem isn't that the players are asking for too much. The problem is that the owners are paying too much for names when there are similar, if not better overall, players out there who could make less. I swear, it seems like most of these teams are run by semi-intelligent fans rather than professional scouts/capologists/etc. This last offseason was basically the Year of Buyer's Remorse and the way this year is kicking off, I'm not sure that we won't be seeing a repeat of that again this year.