According to http://espn.go.com/espn/commentary/story/_/page/munson-111021/nlrb-complaint-nba-players-best-chance-end-lockout-now

The NLRB may fainally be ready to make a ruling (really I don't get why it takes so long):

....Officials of the National Labor Relations Board, sources say, appear to be ready to act on a players' union claim that NBA owners are guilty of unfair labor practices in their demands for "draconian demands and changes" and the declaration of a lockout when there was "no impasse in bargaining."

With board members appointed by President Obama in control, the NLRB has been leaning toward unions in most disputes. If the board agrees with the players that the owners have been guilty of bad faith in their bargaining and their lockout, the board would ask a federal judge for an injunction that would stop the lockout...

...NLRB lawyers and investigators have been analyzing the players' claims since May, when the union filed the first of a series of three increasingly detailed complaints about the owners and their bargaining tactics...

...The players insist in their NLRB complaints that from the outset of negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement in August 2009, the owners have been making "harsh, inflexible, and grossly regressive 'takeaway' demands." What does that mean? It means, if the union is correct, that the owners want to take back from the players major benefits that the players have struggled to achieve in negotiations going back to 1995. These benefits include guaranteed contracts and a relatively soft salary cap, and exceptions to the salary cap that are highly beneficial to players.

The owners not only want changes in these basic structures, the players argue, but they are demanding those changes in "take it or leave it" terms without "appropriate tradeoffs." The players are describing something known in the labor world as "surface bargaining." They are saying that all of the meetings and all of the exchanges of proposals between August 2009 and June 30 of this year (when the contract expired and the lockout began) were sham maneuvers designed only to stall progress until a lockout was possible.

In addition to the charges of bogus bargaining, the players note that the owners "have admitted in negotiations that the lockout will cost them approximately $1.5 billion per year." In a nice bit of understatement, the players say the loss of $1.5 billion is not a "sufficient business reason" for the lockout.

The lockout itself is also a part of the players' claim that the owners' bargaining tactics are "destructive to the collective bargaining process" and violate players' rights under the laws that govern unions and bargaining.

It's a clever double-barreled argument from the players. They lay it out this way: The bargaining before the lockout was a sham and a violation of the law, or the bargaining was lawful and the owners declared a lockout when there was no impasse. The players win either way.

The article seems to think there's a good chance it will rule in the players favour- while I'll believe it when I see it (it seems these things usually favour the owners), I do hope it's true. The owners are clearly not bargaining in good faith, they clearly want the lockout- after recent events, I don't see how you could argue otherwise- whether the board will see it that way, who knows. Hopefully we'll find out soon.

Thanks for posting this. Do you know if the ruling is in favor of the players if the season would start under the old labor agreement now?