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I wonder how the cities which are left with now empty arenas will react?
Yep the owners were bluffing. They thought the players would fall for it. But the players are for real. They are willing to lose a season to get the upper hand on the owners.
I wonder how the cities which are left with now empty arenas will react?
DP, Bruno also mentioned at one time we would have NBA playing again on dec. 15th....If the players believe this process is starting over they are very mistaken. The players are still gonna lose alot, at this point its all about keeping there heads above water so they dont killed with this new deal.
The league could quickly find itself having 6 billion reasons to go back and recapitulate. That's the player's move. It probably won't start things over, but it will very likely allow them to get the system concessions they were seeking, and a BRI over 50% isn't out of the question either.
It's definitely not a sure thing, but it's the only way for them to gain any leverage.
The whole "owners are prepared to lose a season" argument always rang untrue to me. Everybody has been repeating it because... the owners said it was true?
Horse . If they were struggling to carry their debt loads WITH the income from gates & TV, lets see them do it w/o that money.
So is this thing dragging into court no matter what now? I kind of stopped paying attention after the players rejected that last deal.
Or is there any chance the 2 sides work on another deal before it goes that far?
It seems like there is still a chance. The Players are posturing with these moves to get the League to actually negotiate better offers instead of the crap on a shingle they've been offering. IANAL, so I don't know. But I believe the League could see the crap stretched out before them and put in a better offer. Y'know, like they should have been doing.
Lawsuits have been filed, AFAIK. That means any negotiation would have to be through lawyers now.
From Stern's last comments, league strategy now is to stall lawsuits as long as they can. Problem is that they're not in control anymore.
Right. Obviously there is nobody for the league to negotiate with anymore, correct?
If the owners did want to make a better offer though, is that even possible? Could they offer a better deal to the players, say next week and let them vote on it? Or does it have to be resolved in court now?
So you're telling me there's a chance?
Making a minimum of $473,604 to play basketball sounds like a pretty great deal to me.
Hunter had a comment where he said the phone was still open to Stern's calls. But I don't know at what point the sides are basically done and have to do this through courts. I may not understand it correctly, but I think the sides can still do something, but it does look bleak.
That's great. The league will be calling around for scab players pretty soon.
Nah, fixing the market so you can artificially control supply costs to a percentage of gross is a fantabulous deal. I wish every industry was like that. I would get into the restaurant business in a heartbeat. We will just control the meat market so that I am guaranteed to make money.
That was owners main argument: players will suffer more than us form a lost season.
Players could have ended the lockout by accepting owners' offer last Monday but they decided to take the risk of losing the season instead of that. Maybe it's just a bluff, but they took that risk.
I would say that players could afford losing a season:
- Every single player with a few brain cells has save some money for his future.
- Players have received a check from the NBA last November 1st through the escrow system. They got $188M (about a tenth of their last year salary).
- If a player is desperate for money, he can go in Europe where he would get few $100K.
Players have no incomes but have too no cost while owners have no incomes but they have too costs. They must pay teams staff and most of the teams have loans to pay. Some teams manage too their arena and they are hurt in their area too.
Some teams staff members have been waived but the vast majority are still employed but have taken a pay-cut.
Sure they can talk. They just have to talk through the lawyers and settle the lawsuits by agreeing to a deal.
This is just like any other lawsuit. If both sides want to sit down, talk and settle, they can dismiss the lawsuits and that's the end of that.
It would just be a little different from collective bargaining.
Nvm, just saw your second post . . .
They can negotiate still I believe. They have 44? days now.
Doesnt sound like much will be happening soon from what I heard at work . As someone who works for nba headquarters.
When things of this nature happen, both sides are a little right and a little wrong.
Both sides, regardless of what your opinions are, really let this thing get out of hand. It sucks really. And we should all really hate this because we as fans only want basketball. Owners and players, their greed and arrogance will be the root cause of the end of the NBA as we know it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/sp...he-league.html
In Attempt to Force Talks, N.B.A. Players File An rust Suit
By HOWARD BECK
Published: November 15, 2011
Locked-out players began their legal assault on the N.B.A. on Tuesday, filing an an rust lawsuit that demands an end to what they contend is an illegal boycott of the work force. They are seeking monetary damages for lost wages, which would be tripled under an rust law.
Resolution of the lawsuit could take months or years, but the immediate goal is to push N.B.A. owners back to the bargaining table and salvage some part of the 2011-12 season.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in the Northern District of California by the lawyers David Boies and Jonathan Schiller, who were retained by the players on Monday when they disbanded their union.
“I hope it is not necessary to litigate this all the way,” Boies said during a news conference at the Harlem headquarters of the union, the National Basketball Players Association. “I hope at some point the N.B.A. and the teams will have enough concern for basketball fans that they will resolve these issues and allow the players to start playing.”
The lawsuit was filed in collaboration with the N.B.P.A., which continues to operate as a trade association under the leadership of Billy Hunter, its executive director. The lead plaintiffs listed are Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups of the Knicks, Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder, the free agent Leon Powe and the San Antonio Spurs rookie Kawhi Leonard. Those players were chosen because they represent a wide range of classes within the association.
An N.B.A. spokesman said the league had not seen the complaint, but added: “It’s a shame that the players have chosen to litigate instead of negotiate. They warned us from the early days of these negotiations that they would sue us if we didn’t satisfy them at the bargaining table and they appear to have followed through on their threats.”
A separate, similar lawsuit was filed earlier Tuesday in Minnesota, by a law firm representing the free agent Caron Butler, Ben Gordon of the Detroit Pistons, Anthony Tolliver of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Derrick Williams, a Timberwolves draft pick. That lawsuit asks for both monetary damages and a permanent injunction.
Both lawsuits were filed in circuits that are considered to be player-friendly. The N.B.A. pre-emptively sued the players union in August, in the Southern District of New York, in the Second Circuit, which is viewed as more owner-friendly.
More lawsuits are expected now that the collective bargaining process has collapsed, and the players are no longer protected by a union. A separate faction of players, who had been pushing for decertification of the union before it disbanded, may pursue its own lawsuit. Another suit could be filed on behalf of rookies, who could be considered a separate class since they have never had a contract or paid union dues.
Eventually, all the lawsuits will have to be combined, with the players and the owners each arguing to have the case heard in the jurisdiction it favors. That could create a further delay, although Boies said he hoped it would not slow down the process. He said he hoped for a summary judgment on the damages before the season is canceled.
Labor talks broke down last Thursday, with the league saying it had made its final offer and Commissioner David Stern saying that negotiations were over. Stern asked the players to approve the league’s proposal, or have it replaced by one less favorable to them. The players rejected the ultimatum and instead disbanded the union.
Boies said Stern’s ultimatum “turned out to be a mistake.”
“If you’re in a poker game and you run a bluff and the bluff works, you’re a hero,” Boies said. “If somebody calls your bluff, you lose. I think the owners overplayed their hand.”
The N.B.A. players are not asking for a preliminary injunction, as the N.F.L. players did in challenging a lockout last spring. Boies, who represented the N.F.L. in that case, said that an injunction “would be very difficult to get” and that pursuing it “would delay the case perhaps for many months.”
Instead, the players are seeking summary judgment for monetary damages.
“We believe the right way to address the players’ damages is to ask the owners to pay for it,” Boies said. “And since under the an rust laws they have to pay three times damages, that’s a pretty good incentive to end” the lockout.
Coincidentally, Tuesday was the day that N.B.A. players missed their first paychecks, which would have totaled in excess of $170 million. Anthony, the All-Star forward, would have received a check for $1.5 million.
While the lawyers wrestle in court, the players and the owners could conceivably return to the bargaining table, just as the N.F.L. players and owners did last spring while their litigation proceeded. There would be limits on what issues could be negotiated in the absence of a union, which would have to be recons uted to complete a labor deal.
Stern, however, has repeatedly declared that the league will not negotiate beyond the offer it made last week: a 50-50 split of revenues, combined with a matrix of new restrictions on free agency and player payrolls, which the players oppose. Stern said last week that if the players rejected that proposal, the N.B.A. would replace it with an offer based on a 47 percent share for players and a hard salary cap.
In an interview with ESPN on Monday, Stern said, “Now there’s no one to negotiate with, because the union’s not there, and we won’t be doing anything soon with respect to their lawyers, whoever their lawyers may be.”
No doubt. Leadership failed tremendously on both sides. They were both in charge of negotiating a deal, and failed miserably at it.
Someone's bluff got called....we will find out who that is soon enough.
Don't the owners want decertification? I thought I read most of the owners want 47% and a hard cap.
That makes the most sense to me. Having a tax system in place does nothing. It never was a barrier before.
It seems that most teams were losing tons of money anyway. Running a business to make payroll. Not sure if any of you have run a business before but that's not a business, that's stupid.
Also, I think the Lebron show last summer pissed everybody off.
I got a call from the Spurs today with an update on the lockout. It's funny, they insist there will be a season. They don't want to refund my money until February. I wonder when fans will start suing?
If I call and say refund my money, why wouldn't they do it immediately?
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