Kori Ellis
06-05-2005, 12:10 AM
Mike Monroe: For beneficiaries of NBA fines, a better solution
Web Posted: 06/05/2005 12:00 AM CDT
San Antonio Express-News
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA060505.15C.BKN.COLmonroe.2e18448b2.html
Shaq to pay Mikan's funeral expenses
Karl suspended, Nuggets fined
These two items, which ran on Page 3C of Saturday's Express-News Sports section, at first glance seem entirely unrelated.
Look a little deeper and you can find a connection, though it is more accurate to say you can find what ought to be a connection, but isn't.
The fact the family of George Mikan accepted O'Neal's gracious offer to pay the funeral expenses for Mikan serves to underscore the woeful manner in which the NBA has taken care of the men who were the league's pioneer players. Mikan, the league's first great big man, died Wednesday after a long battle with diabetes and kidney ailments.
Mikan's family already had sold most of the basketball Hall of Fame player's memorabilia to help cover his medical expenses. There wasn't much left for a funeral service befitting a man who was so dominant in his day that rules were changed to minimize his strengths.
What does this have to do with George Karl and the Denver Nuggets being fined $200,000 because Karl, back in mid-March, attended a workout at which his son, a player at Boise State, participated, along with several other college underclassmen?
Nothing, and everything.
The $200,000 the Nuggets have to send to the league office goes into a fund that league spokesperson Tim Frank said eventually is disbursed to "charitable endeavors." Frank didn't have a total for fines (and suspended pay) collected this season, but when you consider just the financial penalties meted out in the Nov. 19 brawl at the Palace of Auburn Hills, the amount clearly is many millions.
And while this season may set a record for money collected for bad behavior, mostly because of that one incident, it is clear the league has been putting millions into its "charitable endeavors" for many seasons.
Charity is supposed to begin at home. But the league and its players, who make an average salary of more than $5 million, turned a deaf ear to the pleas of old-timers like Mikan.
Simply stated, the players who played in the NBA from its 1947 inception, until 1965, are paid a paltry pension that has kept some of them in dire financial straits.
Some history: The NBA Players' Pension Plan was first created in 1965 through collective bargaining between the NBA and the Players Association. As originally implemented, the Plan covered only individuals who played in 1965 or beyond. Two decades later, in recognition of those individuals who had contributed greatly to the foundation of the NBA, and pursuant to the 1988 collective bargaining agreement, the NBA and the Players Association extended a pension benefit to those players whose careers ended before 1965.
Pre-1965 players were brought into the system, all right, but the formula for determining their annual pensions is a joke. Except none of them is laughing. The formula for pre-1965 players: Those who had five or more years of service receive $200 per month per year of service, up to a maximum of 10 years. In other words, a player like Mikan, who played in the NBA for seven seasons (he was in a rival pro league in two earlier seasons) received $1,400 a month.
Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton, one of three African-Americans who, in 1950, became the first black players in the league, still was driving a cab in Chicago when he suffered a fatal heart attack in 1990. He had collected only a few thousand dollars in those belated pension benefits.
The formula for players from 1965 on: Each gets $357 per month per year of service, up to a maximum of 10. So a player like Walt Frazier, who turned 60 recently and must be eyeing the day when he will be eligible for his full pension benefit, will get $3,570 per month.
When you consider there are only about 100 living eligible players from the league's early years, the amount needed to bring those pioneer players up to the same benefit the 1965-and-onward players are to receive comes to only about $2 million a year.
What better endeavor could there be for the league's charitable use of the money it collects from players, coaches and executives for their occasional stupidity?
Web Posted: 06/05/2005 12:00 AM CDT
San Antonio Express-News
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA060505.15C.BKN.COLmonroe.2e18448b2.html
Shaq to pay Mikan's funeral expenses
Karl suspended, Nuggets fined
These two items, which ran on Page 3C of Saturday's Express-News Sports section, at first glance seem entirely unrelated.
Look a little deeper and you can find a connection, though it is more accurate to say you can find what ought to be a connection, but isn't.
The fact the family of George Mikan accepted O'Neal's gracious offer to pay the funeral expenses for Mikan serves to underscore the woeful manner in which the NBA has taken care of the men who were the league's pioneer players. Mikan, the league's first great big man, died Wednesday after a long battle with diabetes and kidney ailments.
Mikan's family already had sold most of the basketball Hall of Fame player's memorabilia to help cover his medical expenses. There wasn't much left for a funeral service befitting a man who was so dominant in his day that rules were changed to minimize his strengths.
What does this have to do with George Karl and the Denver Nuggets being fined $200,000 because Karl, back in mid-March, attended a workout at which his son, a player at Boise State, participated, along with several other college underclassmen?
Nothing, and everything.
The $200,000 the Nuggets have to send to the league office goes into a fund that league spokesperson Tim Frank said eventually is disbursed to "charitable endeavors." Frank didn't have a total for fines (and suspended pay) collected this season, but when you consider just the financial penalties meted out in the Nov. 19 brawl at the Palace of Auburn Hills, the amount clearly is many millions.
And while this season may set a record for money collected for bad behavior, mostly because of that one incident, it is clear the league has been putting millions into its "charitable endeavors" for many seasons.
Charity is supposed to begin at home. But the league and its players, who make an average salary of more than $5 million, turned a deaf ear to the pleas of old-timers like Mikan.
Simply stated, the players who played in the NBA from its 1947 inception, until 1965, are paid a paltry pension that has kept some of them in dire financial straits.
Some history: The NBA Players' Pension Plan was first created in 1965 through collective bargaining between the NBA and the Players Association. As originally implemented, the Plan covered only individuals who played in 1965 or beyond. Two decades later, in recognition of those individuals who had contributed greatly to the foundation of the NBA, and pursuant to the 1988 collective bargaining agreement, the NBA and the Players Association extended a pension benefit to those players whose careers ended before 1965.
Pre-1965 players were brought into the system, all right, but the formula for determining their annual pensions is a joke. Except none of them is laughing. The formula for pre-1965 players: Those who had five or more years of service receive $200 per month per year of service, up to a maximum of 10 years. In other words, a player like Mikan, who played in the NBA for seven seasons (he was in a rival pro league in two earlier seasons) received $1,400 a month.
Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton, one of three African-Americans who, in 1950, became the first black players in the league, still was driving a cab in Chicago when he suffered a fatal heart attack in 1990. He had collected only a few thousand dollars in those belated pension benefits.
The formula for players from 1965 on: Each gets $357 per month per year of service, up to a maximum of 10. So a player like Walt Frazier, who turned 60 recently and must be eyeing the day when he will be eligible for his full pension benefit, will get $3,570 per month.
When you consider there are only about 100 living eligible players from the league's early years, the amount needed to bring those pioneer players up to the same benefit the 1965-and-onward players are to receive comes to only about $2 million a year.
What better endeavor could there be for the league's charitable use of the money it collects from players, coaches and executives for their occasional stupidity?