Chances of a Lockout?

[024]

while everyone is excited to watch the new rosters go at it, will a lockout spoil the season? i haven't been following the negotiations so far so i'm wondering what's been going on. last i heard, the players union and stern could not agree to terms but it's been quiet since then.

[Double-Up]

There will be a lockout no doubt...oh yea and Amarelooms you're still a fucking faggot.

:elephant:elephant:elephant:elephant

[rayray2k8]

Still got a year till then, but it's more likely that there will be a lock out..

Well, at least there's still football.. :)






Oh wait.. Shit! :pctoss

[Darrin]

while everyone is excited to watch the new rosters go at it, will a lockout spoil the season? i haven't been following the negotiations so far so i'm wondering what's been going on. last i heard, the players union and stern could not agree to terms but it's been quiet since then.

David Stern tried for a hard salary cap back in 1998 and the Players' Union balked at the notion. Since that time he has not had the bargaining chips to try again. He now has 10 years of the luxury tax system, from teams shedding contracts and not signing players in the last CBA in order to avoid the Luxury Tax implementation, to teams doing the same after the Luxury Tax threashold was put into place.

The Players' Union gave ground during the last negotiations by limiting contracts to 5 and 6 years as opposed to 6 and 7 years. The Union won by getting rid of the 10% tax on players' salaries that was not counted against the BRI and was put into a general fund that players would receive at the end of the year if the league did not need the emergency fund.

However, the economic downturn since the last CBA, the Great Recession, has left the NBA losing money. The Salary Cap is no longer projected to increase, rather decrease and each year it stays the same or even goes up a little is a celebration.

This is Stern's leverage. Losing 400 million dollars league-wide and needing to dip into the League Office's funds to pay expenses during the 2008-09 season has the Players' Union crying foul because they know that those statistics give Stern an edge at the negotiating table.

Stern has maintained that if Players' salaries outgrew league growth it could bankrupt the league which was his original argument for a hard cap in 1998. He can make the argument that salaries are doing precisely that if the league is losing money for any reason.

Still, under the current system, the grandfathered players like Garnett and Shaquille O'Neal are either retiring or no longer demanding high-end deals. The days of the 100-million-dollar contracts are gone. Rudy Gay's 82 million dollars over 6 years is about as high as salaries can go. A good player is under contract for 5 years on the rookie scale, 6 years under a max deal, and no one can enter the league before 19-years-old (at the time of the draft). Therefore, the best players are only eligible for that type of contract extension (100 million or more) at the age of 30 or 31. Teams are less likely to issue a pay-increase in that timeframe because of concerns of what the 37-year-old version of their player will look like.

Because of this the Players' Union might concede the hard-cap if they can do-away with the rookie scale. This would allow players to set the ground-floor on where salaries are entering the league and let the league control the percentage of that they can increase from year-to-year on each deal afterwards. Stern isn't likely to go for that because it means contracts will be waived left and right, as has happened in football, and salaries could actually increase.

I see a stalemate on the horizon. The NBA has a great financial system, and I would hate to see a Championship team broken up because the NBA has put restrictions that don't allow them to keep all their players.

[Giuseppe]

No strike.

No lock out.

[BRHornet45]

Son hopefully it does happen. The NBA needs to be put under federal investigation anyways for scripting and controlling what is supposed to be an athletic competition.

[Basketballgirl25]

let's hope it happens, the NBA needs a lockout, maybe it will get better like Hockeyif a lockout happens. I can live without basketball if it takes time to get better and we have more then 4 great teams. How about maybe 15 good teams

[Kevin Durant 35]

What do you guys mean lockout you mean no nba for 1 season or more? if so when and why?

sorry I havent been paying much attention to nba news lately

[Darrin]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/David-Stern-s-latest-crisis;_ylt=Aj3qJqra9F7lcDJ1W5Rz0BG8vLYF?urn=nba-259979


David Stern's latest crisis
By Kelly Dwyer

http://a323.yahoofs.com/ymg/ept_sports_nba_experts__59/ept_sports_nba_experts-352211207-1280855880.jpg?ymINejDDY8rNCkUQ

There was a rumor Monday that the NBA would open its season on national TV with the Miami Heat playing in Cleveland against the Cavaliers.

The hook behind that pairing, in that setting, would be that northern Ohio's own LeBron James(notes) would be visiting his former team for the first time, opening his new season (the NBA's new season, as well) with a new team amidst a 20,000-strong chorus of boos. Just a righteous string of deserved invective televised nationally so as to make the first 90 seconds of "SportsCenter" without the benefit of even tipping the damned thing off.

We've learned since then that this isn't happening. The problem isn't that this almost happened, because we have no idea how close it came to happening. The problem is that we believed it could happen. That we believed it to be within the realm of the possible.

And that's how far this league's credibility has sunk.

That, if even for a moment, we believed the league to be crass, cynical and exploitative enough to ensure this macabre celebration of separation a reality. I've been covering this league for over a decade. I've sifted through two lockouts, an impending lockout, and all manner of bad behavior both on court and off. I think I'm within the belly of the beast so far as to know when things are getting silly, and when it's time to defend against the nastiest of critics. And yet, I believed it. Didn't assume it, but thought the rumor somewhat credible. Quite credible.

And there's your issue, NBA. You had me thinking that this mess could actually take place on your opening night.

You're doing everything right, mind you. You involve the fan, you treat the fan with respect in a way that I don't think the other two major pro sports do, and you more or less serve the NBA junkie. Those summer leagues are not only televised, but you repeat those runs. Dorks like me got to watch the Oklahoma City Thunder (as good as basketball gets) play the Los Angeles Lakers (OK, technically, as good as basketball gets) a couple of times Monday night, if only on replay.

Your Twitter feed just passed two million followers. Your commissioner doesn't mince words. You nationally televise games nearly seven nights a week during the season. You, as far as I can tell, haven't come down hard on the millions of illegal downloads and webcasts that stream these games overseas, to ardent fans who aren't blessed with the ability to tune into basic cable during the dinner hour and check in on the New Orleans Hornets. You get it, in an area where not too many do.

On top of that? It's never been better. We are living in an unmatched era. The talent is as good as it has ever been. The play is coming around. The dedication to the craft hasn't been this strong in the league's history. Want one-in-450 proof? Kevin Durant(notes) was on Twitter talking about lifting hundreds of jump shots as soon as the season ended, not to brag, but just to let people know how hungry he was. Where can a guy like that carbo-load? Who has the best cobb salad that can be served to a guy in sweats? Talking to his fans with little-to-no separation. A direct line, from a direct guy, who just happens to drop 30 a game.

And we never got that a decade ago. An era ago. A generation ago. This is good. Hell, this is great.

But it has to be taken care of. And I don't know what the NBA can do to force LeBron James to take his sunglasses off when he's indoors or to keep Chris Paul's(notes) trade demands from leaking out, or if it can turn Dwight Howard's(notes) Ed Hardy T-shirt inside-out (OK, that's just a personal preference), but the league has to watch itself.

Because it's losing credibility through its players. And that's happened before, but never on this level. It's happened because of arrests or addiction or violence or apathy or greed or any combination of the unholy list. But it hasn't dealt with this before. Ego, on a level that nearly approximates the league's own level of hubris. There have been big heads before, but never so much to where they almost remind of the suits that run this show.

Which is why the LeBron-in-Cleveland opener felt so credible. And that's not a good thing, especially when you're dealing with a professional cynic like myself.

David Stern, for all his posturing, knows that he can't come to the negotiating table astride from the players' union next summer after a year spent torching the players he's paid to promote. It's understandable that he's not going to speak too much out of turn, because as much as he wants to do right by his constituency, he also knows that one public misstep or candid comment or semi-legal maneuver can be tossed back in his face 11 months from now.

But he needs to work on this. The league is at a crisis point, down so low that even the junkies are rolling their eyes. Nothing nasty is at stake. The league isn't on the verge of dissolution, nobody's getting hurt, nobody's losing their jobs (save for all those Miami employees that made the mistake of being great at their jobs), and nobody is going to take games off.

The scent, though? That smell? That daisy-fresh idea that lets you know you can come here unencumbered by steroids, free and clear from the tedium of pro football's orthodoxy, and into a little niche collective misunderstood by many but sworn-to by people that you admire?

That's going away. It's inching away, I submit, but it is going away.

Not on my watch, though, Mr. Stern. Kindly take the same approach.

[TDMVPDPOY]

hope theres a lockout so heats championship *

[Trainwreck2100]

100% chance look at what the current system has given us

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Let's not forget history, for what it's worth.
1998-99 lockout:
Phil Jackson leaves NBA. Spurs win championship
2011-12 lockout (?):
Phil Jackson leaves NBA. (This season is his last hurrah supposedly?) Can the Spurs make history repeat itself again?

[024]

oh, so there's not going to be a possible lockout until next summer? for some reason, i thought it would happen this summer. that's why everyone is trying to get long bloated contracts. also, if there was a lockout, would it occur before the FA period?

[Darrin]

oh, so there's not going to be a possible lockout until next summer? for some reason, i thought it would happen this summer. that's why everyone is trying to get long bloated contracts. also, if there was a lockout, would it occur before the FA period?

If it goes like 1993 and 1998, yes.

[Bito Corleone]

100% chance of a lockout. Stern has all the chips to get salaries lowered, and as sad as it is a very high percentage of NBA players live paycheck-to-paycheck. Stern won't cave because he knows that these players need to work, and the players will end up giving in because of the same reason.

[024]

reduced salaries would be nice, something like $16 million/year as max. the lower salaries could then adjust accordingly. also a hard cap at $75-80 million, with the soft cap still at $58 million would help smaller market teams. luxury tax only further penalizes smaller markets with cheap owners.

[ajh18]

I don't like the NFL's hard cap system. I much prefer the NBA's luxury tax, but I would make some adjustments.

-Add a penalty for multiple years in a row over the luxury tax threshold. Maybe after 2 years of being over tax threshold, the cost goes to $3 penalty for every $1 over.

-Keep the revenue sharing for teams that stay under the luxury threshold.

-Build national team play into contract negotions. Players AND owners should get to consider someone's desire to play international ball when deciding on contract length/amount.

-Make the mid-level exception available every 2 years instead of every year.

-Add something to protect small market teams that handle their finances well. A trade exception for teams that are under the cap for a given year? Not sure what, but something to add more value for teams that cant afford to just spend whatever they want.