NBA Lockout Tips Off

You know it is going to be a long offseason when NBA.com's second lead story is, "WNBA MVP race heating up."

As soon as the NBA lockout officially began at 12:01am ET this morning, NBA.com transformed to a stripped-down version with no pictures, videos or text of any current players.

One condition of the lockout was that all those player images and videos had to disappear off NBA-owned digital properties.

Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN.com's True Hoop explains the digital aspects of the lockout.

"...the moment the clock strikes midnight on the current CBA, all those images and videos of NBA players have to disappear off NBA-owned digital properties. Depending on how you interpret "fair use," the prohibition could include the mere mention of a player's name on an NBA-owned site, though different teams have different interpretations of this particular stipulation."

However strict the boundaries, overhauling the architecture of these sites is a painstaking process that has a lot of talented web people around the league very stressed out. The NBA has built and furnished each team with a website "wire frame" that will take the place of the existing, much more sophisticated site. The wire frame is a rudimentary version of the site, without a lot of the snazzy technology we've grown accustomed to seeing. As a result, each of the 30 team sites will look virtually identical.

“We're going back to the stone ages of the Internet," said one team website administrator. "It's all going to be very dumbed down.”