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NBA Team to Un-Retire All Numbers
Controversial decision leads janitors union to respond with strike for championship ring benefits
 It's not a question now, it's a guarantee. An NBA team official, speaking on the basis of anonymity because of the private nature of the matter, has confirmed what some in the media have had suspicions about for years. The official disclosed that his team is in fact un-retiring across the board all numbers, making available 0-99 again for its players to choose from and sport. Last year, this NBA team, say Team X, just retired its 90th jersey into the rafters of Superfluous Arena. Although its reasons for retiring its last few jerseys were never really quite explained to the press, they had plenty of reasons for this recent retirement. "We felt like we needed a jersey retired to honor all the achievements all the other retired jerseys have provided this organization and this city," a source close to the proceedings said.  The 90th jersey retirement ceremony officially honored every one of the jerseys retired before itself, in an 89-minute-long ceremony inside Team X's Stadium. Shaquille O'Neal attended the proceedings to talk about the obesity problem that faces our country, to dance a little bit, to praise his city for supporting him, and to make a promise to "come back and do it next year for Miami and the Heat all over again." Fans present thought someone forgot to tell O'Neal that it wasn't 2006 and the ceremony was not a championship celebration for the Miami Heat. The source continued on to say, "there is just so much these jerseys have done for us. Every time for the last couple of decades or so our fans get down on us for having 15-game losing streaks and lottery seasons, and we would retire another jersey and have a ceremony to get our fan base excited about the next year. That kind of an intangible quality had to be honored by this persevering organization." In a later part of the interview with the source, he went on to say, "unfortunately, after retiring a jersey almost every year, we ran out of rafter space, but that isn't the main reason we have to un-retire all the numbers; we took care of that a year ago by just making one big jersey with all the names and numbers on it. The major reason was because our fans started complaining we didn't have enough players on our roster. I didn't really understand what they meant, we had 9 out of 12 roster spots filled; we couldn't have anymore because all the other numbers were taken up. I guess our fans weren't OK with trading team members for retired jerseys, that wasn't getting it done for them."  Press releases by Team X cited other reasons for the massive un-retiring such as giving new players the opportunity to earn a retired jersey, but a secret fan source here at BreakingNews says those reasons are bogus. "The executive leadership knows we need to put more than 9 players on the court when other teams have rosters of 12-14. Retired jerseys don't score points." This fan complained that, "apart from the ludicrous image of 90 retired jerseys hanging down in the arena, the jerseys actually BLOCKED fans in certain seats from being able to see half or more of the court." Executive leadership has responded to allegations that it was reckless in retiring so many jerseys. "There is no evidence to show that our retiring of jerseys has negatively impacted our organization. The years before we started retiring jerseys annually, our average record was 17-65. Since then our average record has actually bumped up to 18-64, while annual ticket sales have picked up on the lower bowl seating as well. The only negative we can see, actually quite surprising, is that the rafter seating ticket sales dropped about 40%, which we have yet to adequately explain, but that didn't affect our gross revenue margins. Until someone can prove that our policies adversely affected the organization, we will not admit to recklessness." They would plead down to a lesser charge of negligence later in the day. The official un-retiring ceremony will take place next month at Team X's arena, at a time and date to be announced. Shaquille O'Neal will reportedly not be invited back.
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