Resuming CBA talks

[ElNono]

Extremely harsh?

Harsh compared to the previous CBA and basically how the league has been operating since it's inception.

[Jacob1983]

What happens first? Obama gets re-elected or a regular season game?

This whole lockout has been an epic fail from the beginning. Why didn't the players make a deal earlier? This current deal is extremely ty but there are a lot of players that don't make Kobe Bryant money. I'm sure Delonte West wants to take the deal. He'd probably rather play in the NBA than deliver furniture. The whole problem with the lockout is that the NBA is trying to fix a problem that has been present for a long long time. That problem is that the sport just isn't compe ive and doesn't have any parity. The NBA has a lot of teams that have never even been to the Finals. That right there says that there are teams that have never even had a legitimate shot at a championship. Teams like the Hornets, Raptors, Grizzlies, and Bobcats have never even made it to the conference finals.
The NHL, NFL, and MLB are way more compe ive than the NBA. Just look at the histories of all those sports. The Carrolina Hurricanes have won the Stanley Cup. A team from North Carolina has a stanley cup championship.
Why do people have such a dislike for small market teams being successful in the NBA?

If the NBA loses a season, this will be way worse than the baseball strike of 1995 and the lockout that cancelled the 2004-2005 NHL season. The NBA will lose a lot of fans but that's on Stern, the owners, and the players.

Here's one solution to the problem: stop giving ty contracts to players that suck ass ie Darko Millicic, Rashard Lewis, and Gilbert Arenas. That one is on the owners.

[Nathan89]

tbqh, I don't get how big market owners are not revolting too. You don't hear much of anything from the owner's side, but I can't think everybody is terribly happy with this deal either. Like Bruno said, this deal is extremely harsh not just on players, but also on big market teams.

Stern has a 500,000 dollar muzzle on them.

[mavsfan1000]

So Stern is basically choosing the owners he prefers to make the proposal to the NBPA? No wonder it is so lopsided. The big market owners don't even have a say?

[Jacob1983]

So since the NBA will be gone this season, will the NHL be king from after the Super Bowl to mid June?

[ElNono]

So Stern is basically choosing the owners he prefers to make the proposal to the NBPA? No wonder it is so lopsided. The big market owners don't even have a say?

Between league expansion, recent change of ownership in some markets (Detroit, Atlanta, Warriors, Philly, Nets) plus the NBA owned team (Hornets), big market teams just don't have the votes.

[Mel_13]

So Stern is basically choosing the owners he prefers to make the proposal to the NBPA? No wonder it is so lopsided. The big market owners don't even have a say?

Between league expansion, recent change of ownership in some markets (Detroit, Atlanta, Warriors, Philly, Nets) plus the NBA owned team (Hornets), big market teams just don't have the votes.

How "small market" owners took control:

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...s-took-control

[Bruno]

Big marker owners biggest fear was that the implementation of a big revenue sharing system. Even if more money will be shared than in the past, what was said is that the money sharing system will be quite light.

The new CBA makes it harder for big market owners to build a great team by overspending other franchise but it still allows them to have a franchise that generate a lot of money.

All in all, it's not that bad for big market owners. Winning a le will be more difficult but they will still make a lot of money and maybe even a little more than in the past given the pay cut taken by players. It's bad for big market franchises fans because they don't care about their owners making money.

[Bruno]

I'm curious to see when the repeater tax will kick in. If it starts as soon as this year, teams like Lakers and Mavs will be in trouble because they have paid the luxury tax in the previous 4 years.

The team that will be helped the most from the amnesty rule is Orlando. Using it on Arenas will just solve all their luxury tax troubles.

[silverblk mystix]

What do the Lakers have the Spurs haven't gotten? quit your ing...blame Pop and RDWIC for the ty pickups they have signed...

matt bonner....fire pop

This.

This is the #1 reason why I don't want an NBA season...Pop and his bull ruined the pleasure of watching Spurs basketball for me last year...and the few years before that....

#2--reason....I sincerely hate Stern and his machinations and rigged outcomes and I hope the owners lose so much that they turn on him.

#3) The players are stupid and should have started looking for ways to start their own league...and they should have started looking about five years ago to be ready in case of a lockout.

[baseline bum]

This.

This is the #1 reason why I don't want an NBA season...Pop and his bull ruined the pleasure of watching Spurs basketball for me last year...and the few years before that....

#2--reason....I sincerely hate Stern and his machinations and rigged outcomes and I hope the owners lose so much that they turn on him.

#3) The players are stupid and should have started looking for ways to start their own league...and they should have started looking about five years ago to be ready in case of a lockout.

Only a fan when they win les

[Seventyniner]

Big marker owners biggest fear was that the implementation of a big revenue sharing system. Even if more money will be shared than in the past, what was said is that the money sharing system will be quite light.

What if the new tax rule *is* the revenue sharing, forcing big-market owners to decide between flexing their financial muscle, but having to pay lots of tax (and thereby sharing revenue), or staying under the tax like the rest of the league. The small-market owners may not be able to get compe ive balance and heavy revenue sharing, but this tax rule would ensure they get at least one.

[Giuseppe]

^It will be the compe ive balance. No owner (((?Cuban may brazen it out?))) is going to pay that penalty. Sit with a calculator for a couple minutes and it's actually physically upsetting. They won't do it. Even the old 1-1 is so foreign to an American business concern, but, they fell into it, it got to be habit, Buss got a regular diet of payback ( les) out of it so they whistled past the graveyard. This new set is untenable. It was a 20 year run that went by in a blink. But, it's over. And Buss/the guy in Florida are NBA soldiers, not company men per se, but, they know when the jig is up and they'll do the right thing here. Cuban? He'd burn the entire village down to spite himself. He's never soldiered.

[Bruno]

What if the new tax rule *is* the revenue sharing, forcing big-market owners to decide between flexing their financial muscle, but having to pay lots of tax (and thereby sharing revenue), or staying under the tax like the rest of the league. The small-market owners may not be able to get compe ive balance and heavy revenue sharing, but this tax rule would ensure they get at least one.

The luxury tax system is mainly a system to keep a compe ive balance and not to share revenue even if it did it indirectly. If it was seen as a revenue sharing tool, owner's proposal wouldn't include tools to limit payrolls of luxury tax teams (mini MLE and no S&T).

The main reason why the luxury tax is changing is because owners are scared of Lakers new TV deal. With all this new money incoming, they thought that the old luxury tax wasn't enough to keep Lakers payroll at a reasonable level. Knicks were also a concern.

[Giuseppe]

It's a sea change. It was one way prior to 20 years ago and then it changed for the past 20 years. Now the owners have decided to roll it back. It's a fraternity. Buss won't crap the bed. Stern took care of him during Daddy's & Kobe's divorce, took care of him again during Kobe's rape. It's time for Buss to be still and he'll do it.

[mountainballer]

I will try to add a different view.
IMO it's NOT in the first place a fight (a war) between the league and the union, it's NOT players vs. owners, it's not small markets vs. big markets.
what the league (the owners) want to achieve in the first place is breaking the power and influence of the agents.
this league has become an agents league much more than a players league or an owners league. (or even a fans league)
do we really believe that the whole "we take our talents to South Beach" was based on some friends doing some phone calls? or that the Melodrama works out like this just b/c he cried loud and long enough that he wants to go to NY?
agents have become the major force behind the sceens (they always were powerful, if they played their cards right, but there still was kind of a nuclear balance).
agents power is based mainly on the Bird rights. (even more with the s&t option). most of the most absurd contracts from the last years are NOT MLE signings (to many still are), it's been Bird rights signings. teams more often overpayed their own players to stay than FAs to come in. teams can pay almost any number on bird rights and agents used that fact excessively. how often did we even hear the "disrespect" word, when teams were not willing to overpay when they theoretically could.
the league could terminate Bird rights, but this would also (or maybe even more) hurt the small teams, when it comes to keep the franchise player. (it's never the paying of the Duncans and Durants, that blow the payroll, it the overpaying of the mediocre talents, the borderline starters)
so Bird rights are a holy cow. what to do? make it almost impossible to use Bird rights more than once or twice in a certain time span. no agents can just come up in a negotiation whith the usual "hey, you got his Bird rights, just use it", when this costs the team 3,4 or 5 times the number, that already would have been to much without any taxes.

we always talk about small teams fighting against big market teams. that's only half the truth. why don't the big market teams cry out loud about such proposals? or take the side of the decertification group? it's b/c the big market teams want to reduce the influence of the agents as much as all the other teams.
I think agents (the big 7)realized in the last weeks that it's mainly against them and that's why they panic now. they claim that they would have prefered a decertification for months. why do they push now? owners and league position was well known before. I think they always thought that the new tax rules will be dropped in favour of the split and that this is just a negotiation tactic. when they learned how much weight this point has for the owners, they finally saw that in reality it's an attempt to destroy the foundation of their power.

[Mel_13]

http://twitter.com/#!/ESPNSteinLine

Just heard two more wrinkles in NBA's offer. No. 1: Teams can only add total of $3 mil per SEASON in trades. Previous max: $3M per DEAL

New wrinkle No. 2: Teams would only have 3 days to match offer sheets to restricted FAs like Marc Gasol/Arron Afflalo. Previously had 7 days

[Mel_13]

what the league (the owners) want to achieve in the first place is breaking the power and influence of the agents.

Good post.

The war on the agents has been going on for more than a decade. Their influence peaked in 1998 (the union's executive committee was dominated by David Falk clients) and was among the biggest casualties of the 1999 CBA (the implementation of max salaries and the rookie scale). The 2005 CBA nibbled away a bit more influence (shorter contracts/smaller raises) and the current proposal from ownership clearly has a further erosion of agent influence as one of it's goals.

[Giuseppe]

By restoring compe ive balance that act in & of itself at default will cure a myriad of the owner's other concerns.

The money will dry up. What's left will be centralized & every dime accounted for.

It's a new NBA era. As heart wrenching as that is for the players they must reconcile themselves to that reality.

This didn't happen over night. The players were reckless in understanding the evolution of this sea change. They didn't see the tidal wave coming at them. Upon reflection they never stood a chance. They were forsaken by the big market owners who were given their marching orders before this ever started. They stepped aside and permitted Stern and the small market contingent to slaughter the rank & file.

[ElNono]

All in all, it's not that bad for big market owners. Winning a le will be more difficult but they will still make a lot of money and maybe even a little more than in the past given the pay cut taken by players. It's bad for big market franchises fans because they don't care about their owners making money.

Agree, but that also has other consequences. The Lakers TV deal has everything to do with them building and keeping a successful team. Without 4 finals appearances in a row, not sure that amount of money is on the table.

Then there's guys like Cuban that spent to the limit to really go for that championship. Ask any Mavs fan, and they love that Cubes did that. He was as much a fan as any other, aggressively pursuing that 'ship by spending when he had to. He didn't care about turning in coin. Things will change with a system like this, in that I think you'll see a lot less of that aggressiveness. The economics just don't bear it out.

[mountainballer]

Agree, but that also has other consequences. The Lakers TV deal has everything to do with them building and keeping a successful team. Without 4 finals appearances in a row, not sure that amount of money is on the table.

the rule is, whenever we are indoubt about a number, in case of the Lakers, we rather downplay. so it's 2 finals appearances in a row.

[baseline bum]

I will try to add a different view.
IMO it's NOT in the first place a fight (a war) between the league and the union, it's NOT players vs. owners, it's not small markets vs. big markets.
what the league (the owners) want to achieve in the first place is breaking the power and influence of the agents.
this league has become an agents league much more than a players league or an owners league. (or even a fans league)
do we really believe that the whole "we take our talents to South Beach" was based on some friends doing some phone calls? or that the Melodrama works out like this just b/c he cried loud and long enough that he wants to go to NY?
agents have become the major force behind the sceens (they always were powerful, if they played their cards right, but there still was kind of a nuclear balance).
agents power is based mainly on the Bird rights. (even more with the s&t option). most of the most absurd contracts from the last years are NOT MLE signings (to many still are), it's been Bird rights signings. teams more often overpayed their own players to stay than FAs to come in. teams can pay almost any number on bird rights and agents used that fact excessively. how often did we even hear the "disrespect" word, when teams were not willing to overpay when they theoretically could.
the league could terminate Bird rights, but this would also (or maybe even more) hurt the small teams, when it comes to keep the franchise player. (it's never the paying of the Duncans and Durants, that blow the payroll, it the overpaying of the mediocre talents, the borderline starters)
so Bird rights are a holy cow. what to do? make it almost impossible to use Bird rights more than once or twice in a certain time span. no agents can just come up in a negotiation whith the usual "hey, you got his Bird rights, just use it", when this costs the team 3,4 or 5 times the number, that already would have been to much without any taxes.

we always talk about small teams fighting against big market teams. that's only half the truth. why don't the big market teams cry out loud about such proposals? or take the side of the decertification group? it's b/c the big market teams want to reduce the influence of the agents as much as all the other teams.
I think agents (the big 7)realized in the last weeks that it's mainly against them and that's why they panic now. they claim that they would have prefered a decertification for months. why do they push now? owners and league position was well known before. I think they always thought that the new tax rules will be dropped in favour of the split and that this is just a negotiation tactic. when they learned how much weight this point has for the owners, they finally saw that in reality it's an attempt to destroy the foundation of their power.

Removing Bird rights would be devastating to the Spurs. Their real compe ive advantage (other than getting lucky and being able to pick Duncan) is their ability to draft, and not having Bird Rights would mean they would need to gut the team every time they pick a Tony Parker or a Manu Ginobili. No one wants to see the situation like Golden State had when they couldn't hold onto Gilbert Arenas and thus got very little out of a great draft pick.

[mountainballer]

Removing Bird rights would be devastating to the Spurs. Their real compe ive advantage (other than getting lucky and being able to pick Duncan) is their ability to draft, and not having Bird Rights would mean they would need to gut the team every time they pick a Tony Parker or a Manu Ginobili. No one wants to see the situation like Golden State had when they couldn't hold onto Gilbert Arenas and thus got very little out of a great draft pick.

that's what I said.

[Bruno]

Agree, but that also has other consequences. The Lakers TV deal has everything to do with them building and keeping a successful team. Without 4 finals appearances in a row, not sure that amount of money is on the table.

I disagree.

First, it's a 20 years deal and nobody knows how good Lakers will be in 4 or 5 years.
Second, the team with the biggest revenue is the Knicks, a team that hasn't won a playoff series for more than a decade. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/32/...s-11_land.html

TV deals that could be hurt by this new CBA are national TV deals. A final with small market teams will do less TV ratings.

[ElNono]

the rule is, whenever we are indoubt about a number, in case of the Lakers, we rather downplay. so it's 2 finals appearances in a row.