in' 'eh.
This desertification talks are a good news to me because it puts more pressure on owners to do compromises. It's time for small market owners and Stern to stop acting like bullies and it's time for them to understand that they have a lot to lose in this lockout. Put some heat on them
One thing I wonder is if players could break their contract because of the lockout to gain some leverage (I think it would be fair... if I am not getting my money, I want my freedom... but I don't know what the law says).
Rose, Griffin, Wall and some lower profile like Ibaka... if these players threaten to break their contract... teams long term plan would fall apart.
Even if underpaid players succeed at breaking their contracts, it wouldn't give them a lot of leverage. To counter that, the league would just put a rule in the new CBA stating that players, who break their contracts, can only come back in the NBA by re-signing their previous contracts.
The only players, who could realistically try to break their contracts, are the ones not interested in staying in the NBA. Rudy Fernandez is said to want to come back in Spain but I don't know why he hasn't try to break his NBA contract. Maybe he isn't that sure about not wanting to play in the NBA.
BTW, Tony Parker thinks the lockout will end soon:
http://www.sport24.com/basket/pro-a/...mission-513363
"I think we are really close of an agreement, it will be maybe reached in the next 10 days."
what is it that the players want? how can everyone else be tightening their belt while the basketball players make money and scrub players are making millions. small market teams should be able to compete, does'nt make them bullies.. go owners
The players want something resembling the previous CBA, and the owners want something completely new.
BTW, about decertification, I thought I read somewhere that if the players' union decertifies, it would 100% kill the entire 2011-2012 season due to the length of the court battles involved. Is that true?
I think this makes the players look unorganized and fragile. Owners can very well see this as a sign of weakness. From most reports owners were willing to lose a season in order to break the players backs so this could hurt[From a basketball this season point of view].
However, I do see how this gains the players leverage due to the threat and it at least test the owners and how much they really are willing to lose an NBA season before they start to negotiate. The potential ramifications of a favorable ruling for the players is really scary for owners.
I also read though, that the NLRB could block a decertification by the players at the moment.
I agree players should lose a season if the offer doesn't improve although its a horrific option.
Last edited by DPG21920; 11-04-2011 at 08:44 AM.
This is so off base. Before I argue with you, read this and then ask that small market being able to compete question again.
http://www.nba.com/2011/news/feature...ate/index.html
"People say, 'Well, they bought a sports team; they should expect to lose money,'" he said. "No, they shouldn't. Because when you spend the amounts of money that these teams now cost, and the losses pile up because the players' salaries have gone up from a billion that we were arguing about in 1999 to $2 billion plus, I'm not going to say. 'Oh, we shouldn't make a profit; the goal here is to break even.' Wrong."
No one disagrees with that. Even Hunter doesn't disagree with that. His argument is that the players alone shouldn't provide the margin by which teams can be profitable.
There is another leg to the league argument, of course, and that is that it must alter the CBA to ensure that more teams can have a chance to win les. Some folks agree with that contention, saying the league has become a collection of haves in Miami and L.A. and Chicago whose advantages will only grow with time because of their ability to go into the luxury tax year after year to acquire and to keep players.
This argument, though, ignores six decades of history.
The Lakers and Knicks and Celtics have always had a leg up on their compe ors. The NBA has always been a league of dynasties, with few teams able to break through and challenge the hegemony of the dominant franchises.
A recap:
1950-1960: Minneapolis Lakers, four of 10 les
1960-1970: Boston Celtics, nine of 10 les
1980-1990: L.A. Lakers, five of 10 les; Celtics three les; Detroit Pistons, two les
1990-2000: Chicago Bulls, six of 10 les; Houston Rockets, two les
2000-2010: Lakers, five of 10 les; San Antonio Spurs, three les
You'll notice the 1970-1980 decade is missing. That was the only period in league history that can truly be considered democratic. Eight different teams won championships: the Celtics, Knicks, Bucks, Lakers, Warriors, Blazers, Bullets and Sonics. That would seem to be the kind of parity the league is now seeking. And the league was so popular that its Finals games had to be shown on tape delay. To be fair, there were other factors at play then -- the league was overwhelmed by the perception of white fans that its black players were all on drugs, for one. But the bottom line is the bottom line -- in the most egalitarian 10-year stretch in league history, no one watched on television, and people hated the on-court product.
In the NBA's 60-plus years of existence, seven franchises: Boston, the Lakers, the Bulls, the Spurs, the Philadelphia/Golden State Warriors, the Syracuse/76ers franchise and the Pistons -- have won a combined 53 les. Read that again: seven of the league's franchises have won more than 80 percent of the league's championships. If you're judging compe iveness by championships won, the NBA has never been compe ive.
Personally, I'm fine with that. The NBA is no different from baseball (the Yankees have almost one-fifth of all of baseball's world championships in their storied history), or hockey (the Canadiens have one-fourth of the National Hockey League's les in the Stanley Cup era) or the NFL, where the Steelers, Cowboys, 49ers and Packers have almost half of the league's Super Bowl les since 1966.
But maybe the league doesn't literally mean compete for championships. Maybe it is referring to having the opportunity to make the playoffs on a regular basis.
Since the last lockout (1998), though:
• The lower-budget Spurs have made more postseasons (13) than the Lakers (12);
• The Jazz have been in more playoffs (9) than the Knicks (5);
• The Pacers have been in more playoffs (9) than the Bulls (6);
• The Hornets have been in just as many playoffs (8) as the Celtics.
But that's not the point, the league argues. The point is that smaller-revenue teams can't spend the kind of money necessary to build
championship-caliber teams. They have two choices, each bad: go more and more into hock to keep the players they have, or give those players away for pennies on the dollar to the big boys, like Memphis had to do with Pau Gasol, and fall further behind.
Of course, it was the Gasol trade that allowed the Grizzlies to rebuild in three short seasons, to the point where they made the playoffs this season, beat San Antonio in the first round and almost beat Oklahoma City in the second. And OKC has managed to put a pretty good team around Kevin Durant without breaking any banks; to the contrary, the Thunder have structured contracts with Nick Collison and Kendrick Perkins that go down in the years to come, not up, freeing up funds that can be used to extend Durant and Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka.
How did Sam Presti do this? Ouija board? Short-selling on the stock market?
He did it the same way R.C. Buford did it in San Antonio, and the way Joe Dumars did it in Detroit when he built a champion in 2004 out of parts other teams didn't care for, and the way Donnie Walsh did it in Indiana for, oh, 20 years, and the way Kevin O'Connor does it in Utah this morning. Draft the right guys. Sign the right guys. Trade for the right guys. And pay the right guys the right amount of money.
"Dance with me here," the commissioner said Thursday. "You're smarter than I am, as a general manager, and you have $45 million of salary. And I'm not so smart, I have $110 (million), but I hire a decent general manager. Over time, do you think you could compete with me?"
Do the big market teams have a financial advantage? Yes. They always have. But states with no income tax have an advantage over states that do. And states near water have an advantage over states that are landlocked. And states with mountains have an advantage over states that are flat, not that there's anything wrong with flat.
It is not easy to build a contending team in a small market. But it is not unknowable. It does not require magic or spending seven years in medical school.
Last edited by DPG21920; 11-04-2011 at 08:47 AM.
I hope he's right but TP might have been the player furthest removed from these negotiations
Bull . If Parker thought the lockout would end soon, he wouldn't have signed with Asvel.
Disagree.I hope he's right but TP might have been the player furthest removed from these negotiations
Even if he is in France, I'm sure TP knows well the state of CBA negotiations. He is very interested in the business side of basketball and is well connected to other players.
the NBPA. they are going to ruin the whole season due to their greed.
I'm holding out hope that they decertify and start over from scratch.
3.5 -1 on the tax is a living nightmare. They must be out of their in' minds to agree to that.
Decertification does nothing for the players. It is the worst option for them. First, they lose the entire season. Second, there's no guarantee their individual anti-trust lawsuits would even be successful. Third, they run the risk of having all NBA player contracts voided permanently. Their best outcome from decertification is winning an anti-trust case and obtaining treble damages. However, that will take years to play out and will be very ugly and risky.
All this talk about decertification is driven primarily by high profile agents who will have no income this season from their NBA clients. This is their way to bill their NBA clients millions of dollars so they can keep their businesses running. Don't forget that agents are business owners too and they need to find different ways to generate income. This is their way to generate income while the lockout continues.
The players are getting played like violins by both the owners and now their own agents. They need to wise up and understand that this is a new era for the NBA and they need to take the best possible deal they can get tomorrow. They will never see 57% ever again. 50/50 of BRI is the best they can do. Each time games are cancelled it becomes a bigger loss for the players. They have ZERO leverage - no NLRB ruling or decertification threats will scare the owners into doing anything. The owners are better prepared and capable to wait it out until they get a deal that is fair for both sides. For too long, it has been too one-sided in the players favor. It's time to level the playing field and create a fair deal for all parties involved.
SA absolutely needs to have a deal as close to 50/50 as possible. If SA can't be profitable then we lose the Spurs to another owner and another city. It's as simple as that. If you love your Spurs you should be hoping that Holt can get a deal that will give him a reasonable chance to earn a profit each season. I'm tickled by people who consistently favor the players in these negotiations. They don't realize that if the players don't allow the owners a chance to make a reasonable profit then the Spurs will not be in SA much longer.
Did it take years for the NFL?
This is when you get all mad
And BTW, even if players ultimately don't decide to decertify, it only makes sense for them to learn about what options they might have, and that includes decertification.
Under decertification the agents and the big name superstars come out best since they can market their wares to the highest bidder at the highest market price.
The rest of the players probably don't fare so well. No long term contracts, no high veterans minimiums, pay scales, etc. because all the money will to to the top players.
I'm one of the folks who think MOST owners would set a limit on their spending without the salary cap and without a requirement to pay a certain amount of money in salaries, they will reduce the players to cut-throat bargaining against each other for the scraps left by the superstars. It's not as though a lot of NBA players have alternate careers as brain surgeons or real-estate tycoons where they can earn millions.
What would evolve would essentially be a league of four-six Harlem Globetrotters with 24 Washington Generals. That sort of basketball --as an exhibition of special talents on one team-- works pretty well for the Globetrotters, but only on a one-night stand basis. I don't think it would be sustainable over the long run for a league with fixed cities owning team franchises.
Looks like this could be a last gasp of hope for seeing basketball this season.daldridgetnt David Aldridge
Cohen was praised by both sides for trying to find areas of common ground and agreement, but couldn't move the BRI/luxury tax boulder.
25 minutes ago
daldridgetnt David Aldridge
NBA spokesman says mediator George Cohen will take part in Saturday's session w/union. Cohen did 3 days last month but couldn't broker deal.
30 minutes ago
Sure does look like it's do or die. While I was hopeful a week ago, all I've read has me thinking the small market owners and the agents won't allow a compromise. That faction of owners, headed by Michael Jordan, want to put the screws to the players and don't care if there is a season. I'm glad to hear Cohen will be coming back. Maybe he can talk some sense into these hard liners.
The players are finally coming to the realization that they're in a knife fight. They were never prepared for this. It is stunning to see the collective behavior of the owners. They're without conscience. It is a brand new tact for them and to this point has been unbelievably affective. It's absolutely brilliant. They're going in now for the kill with this talk of "really we want 53-47 instead of 50-50." I pray the players turn in the corner like a beaten & trapped animal and lash back with a fury that is equally brand new to both sides.
I do not think it is unreasonable to think that a free market without contract restrictions from the owners would net them a better net than 50% + progressive spending tax would.
Given that reality I would sue the out the NBA.
The o/u for today's meeting with the negotiator is 15 hours.
I don't want to hear any fake reports of progress. Just get a deal done both sides are ok with.
Either they're walking in the door willing to make some compromises or it will be more of the same.... I reckon.The o/u for today's meeting with the negotiator is 15 hours.
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