What's ridiculous is that it took this long for this option, I agree. But even more ridiculous is that they were so close that it wasn't about the money anymore. Players even conceded cutting down the years on deals, one of the major fixes for poor owner's decisions. The lux tax was really the factor, and owners could've backed down a bit. It's stupid too, because I feel that if they move it to a 2:1, we might be playing basketall right now. And if the players would've taken that offer, the owners could push for a harder cap the next CBA.
But now it's all in the air.
While that seems to be the biggest beef against the players (waiting so long to decert or disclaim) I find it difficult to be angry at them because it came from a good place. They thought they could (naively) get the owners to negotiate but the owners flat out didn't care. While somewhat foolish on the players part, they tried.
It was never close.
The owners want structural change. The players tried to placate them with cyclical maneuvers changing about the BRI from 53-47 to 50-50. It was an exercise in futility. The owners are after vengeance and the vehicle they've chosen is structure via crushing player freedom. It's not about a million here on the MLE, or, a year there on contract length. BS. Anything that brings about a chilling affect to movement and freedom is poison to the players. You can't permit even a small amount of it thru the door.
The players could give them 60-40 on the BRI if the owners would let the status quo reign on everything else and the owners would tell them to off. They'd take the 60-40 and give nary an inch on the structure.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baske...eal/51275552/1
Ex-NBA union executive says players should have taken deal
By J. Michael Falgoust, USA TODAY Updated 3h 23m ago
Comments 13 Reprints & Permissions
The rift between NBA owners and players isn't so much about the split of revenue in the next collective bargaining agreement but about the system to deliver it as the lockout enters Day 141.
By Richard Drew, AP
Charles Grantham, left, former executive director of the NBA players union, had his share of dealings over the years with NBA Commissioner David Stern, left.
Enlarge
By Richard Drew, AP
Charles Grantham, left, former executive director of the NBA players union, had his share of dealings over the years with NBA Commissioner David Stern, left.
Players have come down 7% from the last CBA, roughly $280 million-plus a year in salaries, by agreeing to a 50-50 split of d basketball-related income. Their goal now is to force owners to tender an offer that is less restrictive towards free agents and mid-level players.
Charles Grantham worked for the players union from 1978-95, the last seven as executive director. He saw the league go through expansion and explosive growth in revenue and was part of four CBAs from 1980-95 but resigned over differences with the executive committee and then-union president Buck Williams.
"Today, we spend too much time in the court, with too many lawyers. … Instead of having 10 lawyers and an economist you should probably have 10 CPAs or forensic accountants and two lawyers," said Grantham, a guest lecturer on professional sports negotiations at Seton Hall's Stillman School of Business. "In this case, (the players are) looking to use the law to gain leverage, to get a better business deal, when, in fact, the negotiations that should be taking place is with regard to how you divide that (every) $100."
Thursday on CNN, all-time NBA scoring leader Kareem Abdul-Jabbar took issue with the players' position, as well. If they had accepted the owners' latest offer, a 72-game season could have tipped off Dec. 15.
"I think they've gone a little bit too far. … I think the deal was reasonable," Abdul-Jabbar said. "They might lose 5% or 6% of their salaries, but in today's economic times, everybody's dealing with something like that. So for them to decide that they're going to, like, not play the season if necessary — 100% of nothing is still nothing.
"They're going to lose a year's pay. It doesn't make any sense."
Asked if the deal would have been accepted if presented to all players for a vote, free agent Shane Battier said: "I talked to a bunch of guys to try to take a pulse … but I don't know."
Grantham seemed to believe they should have.
"My philosophy was to keep the guys working, because they lose income that's not recoverable," he said. "They're employees. They're not partners. … Let's not get this twisted, (players) don't sit in the boardroom."
Overseas option: Bodog.com lists the odds against a game being played by Jan. 1 as 1:3.
With prospects looking bleak, playing abroad is getting reconsidered. San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginobili is unsure.
"We field offers every day from teams in Europe, but he's going to definitely wait to see how the collective bargaining negotiations move ahead," said agent Herb Rudoy of Interperformances. "He's made no commitment to go overseas. We've had great offers on the table for months but he's not prepared to make that decision yet."
Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade said Thursday he has authorized his agent to listen to all viable offers — but he won't sign until all hope for an NBA season has vanished.
"There's a possibility that we're not going to have a season. We've got to see what's out there," Wade, who turns 30 in January, told the Associated Press. "I want to play compe ive basketball this year. … I don't have too many years of basketball left."
Spurs forward Tiago Splitter did agree to play for Spanish club Valencia Basket. Phoenix Suns restricted free agent Aaron Brooks agreed to a $2 million-plus deal with Chinese Basketball Association champion Guangdong, The Arizona Republic reported. He can't return to the NBA until his season is done.
Also: NBA Commissioner David Stern had a conference call with the owners Thursday, but the league had no comment about what was discussed.
It was pussy though.
The owners, for as much as I detest them and what they're trying to do with the system they're the ones who have been ruthless and effective. The players knew from day one that it was not about BRI, but, yet they still gave away 7 points to the owners because they were afraid to confront the only issue (the system). The players negotiated from the back door in. And the owners let 'em cut their own throats knowing they would take every point and still not grant the players relief.
Afraid to confront reality is what had the players on the banana peel. They seem to have recovered at this point and have stopped the hemorage at 7 points without any ROI, but at least it's stopped.
Bingo Baby!!! Thanks for sharing.
This is going to go down as one of the absolute stupidest moves by a collective group of individuals in the history of mankind. Somehow, I think that these players really don't believe they will lose the season. They are really that naive. They honestly don't believe they will lose the season. God help those poor men.
If I'm TD or Manu or any other star player making upwards of $10 million, I instruct my agent and player representative long time ago that you take the best deal they offer and let's play ball. There's no way in that I'm losing that kind of money.
The only winners in this whole deal are all the lawyers collecting millions of dollars in fees. Heck, the cost to litigate this thing all the way to trial is enough to bankrupt the players association. I guarantee the player agents are all receiving referral fees for pursuing the various cases across the country.What a big waste of money!
The funniest part of all this is the players and their lawyers are trying so hard to win the PR battle. The fact is that nobody cares! The average sports fan doesn't give one rip about "system issues" or "BRI". I guarantee that a trial jury of average people who most likely won't be sports fans will be very reluctant to award serious damages in a case like this where the "victims" are paid tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in salaries. Especially when the jurors will most likely be blue collar workers that don't care about the NBA. The last time a case like this when to trial was back in the '80's when the NFL players sued the NFL and got a favorable verdict from the jury by declaring the NFL an "monopoly" which led to greater free agency and player movement. That was great for the players...however, the jury only awarded damages in the amount of......$1 which were then trebled for a grand total of $3 in damages to the players. The jury saw clearly that the players rejected several proposals that would have paid them more money than any other NFL players in history. The NBA Players are going down this same path. Their case on player movement is very shaky but there's no way a jury is going to award them the $6 billion in damages that their lawyers are promising to them. It's just not going to happen. The owners are actually hoping the players want to go to trial. They know they have nothing to worry about on damages since they presented the players with multiple offers that would make them the highest paid players in all professional sports. The owners are willing to defend it all the way to trial and if a jury says give them more player movement with a 50/50 split then the NBA will just gladly accept it and move on. The players would then lose 2 -3 seasons of lost paychecks for nothing. There's no way it will get that far.
The best way for this matter to be resolved is for both sides sit down and talk it out and get this thing hammered out. You don't need all these dang lawyers and lawsuits. This is all just a silly and expensive tactic by the players to try and gain some leverage. They have no leverage and nobody has bothered to tell them the sad truth.
This really sucks because I love the NBA. This is all on the players.
Birn once again with logical inconsistencies. I fail to see how "its all on the players,' 'they need to sit down and work it out,' and Sterns repeated 'this is our final nonnegotiable offer' make sense to anyone with a shred of intelligence.
I do think that the players have obfuscated reality by focusing on BRI when in reality its a function of "BRI% + increase over BRI percentage due to overcap spending," but your sucking of ownership is pretty transparent. Anyone who has read this thread at all knows you are just a partisan dumbass.
The owners gotta be laughing it up right now. The players are so ing stupid.
the ones that are stupid are the guys earning or on max contracts who dont wanna take the 20% decrease in their payment, its better then not earning a dime for the season...
hence the guys like rookies and on ty low paid contracts, i doubt they have a say in any of the issues, but if there is a vote, most likely would be in favor to get the season running....
I don't think anyone watching 4 billlion dollars going down the drain is "laughing it up."
This isn't about the money. The money part was already agreed upon. Which basically undermines his argument entirely.
And@ Birn... Now the owners have the free market you trumpeted all along... why aren't we watching games?
Not all owners are billionaires... heck... Lebron is worth more than Peter Holt right now... And a bunch of them have loan payments to make...
I don't think either side is terribly happy with this.
i dont know about laughing it up, celebrating that they will get to rape the system sure. but at the cost of destroying its momentum. but i think the lockout is happening precisely because of last season. the great markets are good now, and it was because the players dictated their futures. hence we see all of these plantation remarks. minus the hyperbole their points are good, its about getting your employees in check.
I wonder how much the owners AND players will lose on the next TV deal...
This lockout could really screw the NBA on tv deals. In a few years, nationally televised games might be on Fuel TV or SPEED. Yep, it could get that bad.
America, eatin' my lunch from a single bowl in my parents basement, where I'm livin'. Happy Birthday, I'm forty-three.
Don't want to waste those precious calories...chewin'. Jesus come move my jaw for me, help me get my sloppy food down my throat.
I don't think the players give two s about the PR battle. We're/fans not part of the equation. & we shouldn't be. We have no monetary stake in it. And everybody knows it.
It seems to me that it will be pretty hard to show the owners weren't negotiating in good faith when their proposal would have still left the players as the highest paid team athletes in the world. It is a percentage higher than either professional sports league that recently went through lockouts--the NHL and the NFL. Plus, a labor union that insists on trying to get a deal that does not allow for the employer to make a reasonable return on investment is short-sighted indeed.
Fml
^Stern is on the record as saying "we're done negotiating"
That won't look good in court.
I haven't read anything written in this thread or the lockout in general, but....
It seems to me that it will be pretty hard to show the owners weren't negotiating in good faith when their proposal would have still left the players as the highest paid team athletes in the world. It is a percentage higher than either professional sports league that recently went through lockouts--the NHL and the NFL. Plus, a labor union that insists on trying to get a deal that does not allow for the employer to make a reasonable return on investment is short-sighted indeed.
http://twitter.com/#!/WojYahooNBA
If owners are waiting December 1st, Christmas games will be canceled. Another high revenue event lost, great...One thing seems certain: Stern, owners want to meet with Hunter to negotiate, not anti-trust lawyers. Appears league will wait for call.
For now, owners will review lawsuits, wait for players to miss checks on Dec. 1, sources say. They're still doubting resolve of players.
Owners showing no urgency to return to talks, waiting on Hunter to call Stern, league sources say. No dialogue expected before Thanksgiving.
Am I seeing double!? Four Krustys!?
I wish good luck to judges on that because I don't see how they can come with a fair judgment.
A judge can state that each side has been harsh during this negotiating process. He can conclude that Stern threat of a "reset" offer was illegal. However, I don't see how it will be enough to take side on the lockout issue. The NBA is a so weird system mixing some capitalistic sides with some anti-capitalistic sides that it's impossible to decide who is wrong between players and owners.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
