duncan228
01-10-2009, 10:50 PM
I put this here because of Pop's quotes, please move if it belongs in NBA Central.
Recession makes NBA free agency whole new game (http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/39871)
By Scott Howard Cooper, Sacramento Bee
In the joyous locker room after an easy win, Brevin Knight is the Utah Jazz player sitting with a grim conclusion.
The money is disappearing. Not to where the approximately 150 National Basketball Association's impending free agents will sweat the poverty line, but dreams of receiving blank checks in the highly anticipated 2009 marketplace, and maybe even the hugely anticipated class of 2010, just crashed with the rest of the economy.
"You can't try to just say, 'Well, this guy made this (before), so I should make this,' " said Knight, in his 12th season and one of the free-agents-in-waiting. "Because coming up now, it's going to be a lot different than what it was."
Real life has intruded. The United States hasn't endured a financial crisis like this since the Depression, and therefore the NBA never has. So welcome to the new reality as July 1 approaches: free agents being squeezed in what most team executives and some players say will result in a spending downturn to match society.
"It's going to be a nuclear winter for them," Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban predicted.
"I think most of the teams, there'll be some sort of an effect," New Jersey Nets president Rod Thorn said.
"I can't speak for 30 owners and management teams," said Gregg Popovich, the San Antonio Spurs' coach and president. "But I'm sure that tightening of the belt is something that goes through every organization's head, for obvious reasons. We're all part of the economy, too."
And no sense in waiting on a federal bailout of NBA teams.
"I'm going to bet against that," Popovich deadpanned.
Guessing the economy's state in July is just that, but it's certain reductions are on the minds of the owners and executives who will do the bidding with tighter budgets than initially projected. That would be significant in itself. But the timing - a threat of major cutbacks as summer approaches and possibly lasting through July and August 2010 - could be particularly crushing for all involved.
Teams have been maneuvering for years to clear salary cap space in hopes of spending sprees both summers, especially the uber-class of '10 with the possibility that LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, Yao Ming, Joe Johnson, Dirk Nowitzki and Manu Ginobili will be unrestricted free agents, depending on whether they opt out. There could be so many headliners flooding the market that Paul Pierce, Tracy McGrady, Tyson Chandler, Steve Nash and Michael Redd will be considered second-tier.
The 2009 group isn't as deep but will have star power, again depending on who stays in his current deal and who exercises a clause to become a free agent: Kobe Bryant, Carlos Boozer, Shawn Marion, Ron Artest, Jason Kidd, Andre Miller and Allen Iverson.
The stars will get their money, maximum contracts in many cases. But if the salary cap goes down in the summer, a very real possibility, those deals will be worth less than what headliners got in past years. Only once since the complicated formula was initiated in 1984 has the number decreased -- from $42.5 million in 2001-02 to $40.271 million in 2002-03.
A smaller salary cap will mean smaller contracts, from the max packages to the mid-level exceptions that also could decrease from the current $5.585 million. But even with that forced financial trimming, executives say, teams could take it a step further and not offer the entire midlevel spot as readily as before. That sets up the possibility that the stars will get their mega-deals as expected, and then everyone else -- the established middle class, the fringe players just trying to find a home -- will find a market more unforgiving.
"Some people, your contracts may not be what you had predicted it to be," said Knight, one of those who could be negatively affected. "You're going to have to adjust what you're living. We're still living in the top 5 percent of this country, and we will continue to live that way. It's just a matter of somehow modifying the way your lifestyle is."
Another 2009 non-marquee free agent, Devean George of the Mavericks, does not expect to take a hit, saying: "There might be some setback. But even though there's a setback, there will still be enough for guys to live on."
And a prominent agent, Aaron Goodwin, said: "At the end of the day, as weird as it is, fans still come out to support their teams. As long as that's going on and as long as we've got television contracts and partnerships, you'll still be able to negotiate a decent deal."
Others, though, insist that approach is unrealistic in an economy where most owners are affected by shifts in the business world outside basketball. It is possible, some say, that a team that fails to sign an All-Star free agent will choose to save the money rather than feel fan pressure to spend just because the cap space exists. What the owner saves on the NBA front, after all, compensates for other operations.
"The mid-level is being used less and less frequently, and now there's an impetus to use it even less," Cuban said. "All it takes is one team, and then everything changes. ... I've said this before, and it panned out. But I think it's going to be a nuclear winter for the middle tier of free agents."
Recession makes NBA free agency whole new game (http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/39871)
By Scott Howard Cooper, Sacramento Bee
In the joyous locker room after an easy win, Brevin Knight is the Utah Jazz player sitting with a grim conclusion.
The money is disappearing. Not to where the approximately 150 National Basketball Association's impending free agents will sweat the poverty line, but dreams of receiving blank checks in the highly anticipated 2009 marketplace, and maybe even the hugely anticipated class of 2010, just crashed with the rest of the economy.
"You can't try to just say, 'Well, this guy made this (before), so I should make this,' " said Knight, in his 12th season and one of the free-agents-in-waiting. "Because coming up now, it's going to be a lot different than what it was."
Real life has intruded. The United States hasn't endured a financial crisis like this since the Depression, and therefore the NBA never has. So welcome to the new reality as July 1 approaches: free agents being squeezed in what most team executives and some players say will result in a spending downturn to match society.
"It's going to be a nuclear winter for them," Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban predicted.
"I think most of the teams, there'll be some sort of an effect," New Jersey Nets president Rod Thorn said.
"I can't speak for 30 owners and management teams," said Gregg Popovich, the San Antonio Spurs' coach and president. "But I'm sure that tightening of the belt is something that goes through every organization's head, for obvious reasons. We're all part of the economy, too."
And no sense in waiting on a federal bailout of NBA teams.
"I'm going to bet against that," Popovich deadpanned.
Guessing the economy's state in July is just that, but it's certain reductions are on the minds of the owners and executives who will do the bidding with tighter budgets than initially projected. That would be significant in itself. But the timing - a threat of major cutbacks as summer approaches and possibly lasting through July and August 2010 - could be particularly crushing for all involved.
Teams have been maneuvering for years to clear salary cap space in hopes of spending sprees both summers, especially the uber-class of '10 with the possibility that LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, Yao Ming, Joe Johnson, Dirk Nowitzki and Manu Ginobili will be unrestricted free agents, depending on whether they opt out. There could be so many headliners flooding the market that Paul Pierce, Tracy McGrady, Tyson Chandler, Steve Nash and Michael Redd will be considered second-tier.
The 2009 group isn't as deep but will have star power, again depending on who stays in his current deal and who exercises a clause to become a free agent: Kobe Bryant, Carlos Boozer, Shawn Marion, Ron Artest, Jason Kidd, Andre Miller and Allen Iverson.
The stars will get their money, maximum contracts in many cases. But if the salary cap goes down in the summer, a very real possibility, those deals will be worth less than what headliners got in past years. Only once since the complicated formula was initiated in 1984 has the number decreased -- from $42.5 million in 2001-02 to $40.271 million in 2002-03.
A smaller salary cap will mean smaller contracts, from the max packages to the mid-level exceptions that also could decrease from the current $5.585 million. But even with that forced financial trimming, executives say, teams could take it a step further and not offer the entire midlevel spot as readily as before. That sets up the possibility that the stars will get their mega-deals as expected, and then everyone else -- the established middle class, the fringe players just trying to find a home -- will find a market more unforgiving.
"Some people, your contracts may not be what you had predicted it to be," said Knight, one of those who could be negatively affected. "You're going to have to adjust what you're living. We're still living in the top 5 percent of this country, and we will continue to live that way. It's just a matter of somehow modifying the way your lifestyle is."
Another 2009 non-marquee free agent, Devean George of the Mavericks, does not expect to take a hit, saying: "There might be some setback. But even though there's a setback, there will still be enough for guys to live on."
And a prominent agent, Aaron Goodwin, said: "At the end of the day, as weird as it is, fans still come out to support their teams. As long as that's going on and as long as we've got television contracts and partnerships, you'll still be able to negotiate a decent deal."
Others, though, insist that approach is unrealistic in an economy where most owners are affected by shifts in the business world outside basketball. It is possible, some say, that a team that fails to sign an All-Star free agent will choose to save the money rather than feel fan pressure to spend just because the cap space exists. What the owner saves on the NBA front, after all, compensates for other operations.
"The mid-level is being used less and less frequently, and now there's an impetus to use it even less," Cuban said. "All it takes is one team, and then everything changes. ... I've said this before, and it panned out. But I think it's going to be a nuclear winter for the middle tier of free agents."