The NBA Lockout 2011 has officially led to the the cancellation of games. Now before you over react, they are only preseason games. The NBA released a statement on Friday that they will delay the start of all training camps and cancel any preseason games that are scheduled through October 15. This statement was posted on NBA.com:

The NBA announced today that player training camps for the 2011-12 season have been postponed indefinitely because a new collective bargaining agreement has not been reached with the National Basketball Players Association. Training camps were scheduled to open on October 3.

In addition, the league canceled all preseason games scheduled from October 9 through October 15.

“We have regretfully reached the point on the calendar where we are not able to open training camps on time and need to cancel the first week of preseason games,” said NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver. “We will make further decisions as warranted.”

For the Chicago Bulls that means they will lose two preseason games that were scheduled October 10 and October 14. Overall, it leads to the cancellation of 43 total preseason games across the league. Many expect this to be just the beginning and I for one have been saying that we will not see a single NBA game before the calendar turns to 2012.

So far, none of the current Bulls under contract have signed a contract to play overseas if the lockout continues. Although, Joakim Noah, Luol Deng and Carlos Boozer have all expressed interest in doing so. If any do decide to play, I would expect all of them to stay in Europe where they can have an NBA-opt out clause, which is unavailable in the leagues in China.

In the Bulls email to season ticket holders they informed everyone that they can either request a refund or the balance of cancelled games to stay on their account while receiving one percent interest annually until the lockout ends. It might not be much, but at least it is something. Season ticket-holders have till November 10 to decide if they want the refund or balance to stay on their account.

Let’s hope these are the only two games that are lost, but I have a really strong feeling that they aren’t close yet.

source: Michael Gibbons -Bleacerreport