The NBA may have overestimated the leverage it has over its players with this lockout business. This throws a chainsaw into the NBA owner's negotiating strategy. Lockouts are effective if you have a monopoly or near-monopoly over your labor pool. This had been true for most major American sports, specifically baseball, football, and basketball, since they were invented. But it's less true now for basketball than it has ever been. Basketball is the second most popular team sport in many parts of Europe and perhaps South America. Many of these teams have rivalries that run deep and owners with the resources to acquire expensive assets that might help them bully their rivals -- and perhaps show off their wealth to a few friends. And with the economy going well for the top 1/1000th of 1%, they might just pull the trigger.
While not all NBA players have the option to go abroad, its most important players will. The 9th man on an NBA bench has little leverage regardless. True superstars have infinite leverage, but also have the wealth and resources to avoid the most serious consequences of a lockout (not being able to pay the bills). It's the folks between those two categories that will determine what gets negotiated when.
Part of me thinks D-Will is bluffing. But if he's not, and if enough European owners are willing to bring on some foreigners to put on a show, NBA owners might find they were playing a trump card in a game where, in reality, there was none they had to play.
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