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Pretty much although I feel that if no progress was really being made then Stern would have "pulled" his offer like he said he was going to.
If they're gonna meet again tomorrow, let's just assume nothing's gonna change tomorrow either. You know it's coming.
Pretty much although I feel that if no progress was really being made then Stern would have "pulled" his offer like he said he was going to.
Now you have something to look forward to tomorrow.
More of the same semantics. Don't even know why we bother following this stuff anymore. When and if a deal gets done, it will hit all the major news outlets, and anything before that is just bordering between frustration and masochism.
I agree with this.
They're not going to be overly exited about the progress because it would mess up their negotiating power. In away it would be showing their cards. I think they must be pretty far away on a lot of issues because if they were really close they wouldn't be hesitant to reveal progress. Nonetheless I feel like they want to get a deal done and will get one done within the next week.
What I read into this is that there will be no deal, because the NBA's main desire is to bust the union. They would like to see them decertify and break this union that they hate. They are probably shocked they didn't decertify in the summer. I think Stern and the NBA, more than anything, want Billy Hunter and Kessler out of the picture. The NBA doesn't want a deal and there won't be one. I can't believe I didn't see this before. We are witnessing a coup against a once powerful union.....at any expernse.
Players just need to dissolve the league and start a new one. Anything so long as that er David Stern isn't involved.
Yeah because they have great business sense. If these successful billionaires, who actually worked for their money (for the most part) and built themselves up from nothing, made a dumbass mistake and gave the players too much then these guys who spend all their money on tatts and cars will jack up thier league within the first couple of months.
The union wants to take the deal against their better judgment. It's a tragic deal, that will totally wipe out with the stroke of a pen a quarter century of achievement/advancement. This union has gone to seed--fattened up on the sacrifice and labors of the ones who have gone afore them...the ones who looked ahead further than that every two week check.
again, owners want their bailout. They are the ones who overvalued these players, they are the ones who made the contract offers, they are the ones who paid Jefferson 12 million.
boohoo, you cannot afford your luxury yatch and keep your team at the same time. So you want the stupid negros to give you some of their money.
I say let these rich white mother ers crash and burn. Yeah, they will take a dozen or so teams with them, but the NBA will be slimmer and better a few years down the road.
Like michael jordan...He giveth and he taketh
I think this is wrong.
The anti-trust exemption doesn't require the owners to abstain from taking measures to improve their bottom line. If anything, it probably protects the owners (and players) in their attempts to get the most out of the other side.
For starters, the NBA's anti-trust exemption isn't a protection for the owner's per se. Rather, it protects collective bargaining agreements between the union and the league from anti-trust liability. The exemption under the Clayton Act was originally intended to protect unions as they demanded better working conditions (hours, wages, etc...) from the threat of suits claiming such demands restrained trade. While it's true the exemption has been broadened to protect management, it is not true to claim the NBA's exemption is a one-sided immunity for management alone.
Also, the league opened up its books and the union has agreed that there are losses:
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...rs-split-growsThe league’s assertions that they are losing upwards of $300 million per season have been met with skepticism from the players association and fans alike. After being given the opportunity to examine the league’s books, the union admitted the league was losing money, but said the losses were closer to $100 million than $300 million.
Yah, it's not the 300m they originally claimed, but a 100m loss is still a loss.
The dispute is about coming up with ways for teams to be more profitable. If a business is losing money, one of the ways you can turn things around is by cutting down on your expenses. Player salaries are obviously one of the largest expenses teams incur. Cutting down on the % players take is just teams reducing their expenses.
You're right that it's smart business to scrap bad parts. But you shouldn't scrap those parts if they can make you money via a tweak. This is all about helping the owners bottom line. They're trying to milk as much out of the players as possible -- which is no different than what happened when the recession hit. People saw their salaries drop as business tried to save themselves. This is not a case of owners asking the players to foot the full bill - it's about trying to turn some businesses around.
There's a difference between appreciation and making money. You're absolutely right to say that the value of franchises has increased over the past 2-3 decades. The appreciation is only realized when the teams are sold. Those gains don't translate to a year-by-year loss some franchises are suffering. And, why isn't it the right of the owners to demand a model that both lets them turn a yearly profit and also realize a gain when they flip their team?
Nice VY...good take
Jordan is a beast. Altering the results of 2 CBA deals.
Good post. I would like to point out though that the players walked into these negotiations with an offer that covered half of the losses as described by the NBA ($150m salary reduction through the BRI going from 57% to 53%), and concessions on the system to allow owners to get out of costly mistakes by reducing contract lengths.
And they went in with that offer fully aware that they would need to come down even more, as it always happens in negotiations when you have to find a middle ground. I think they've been more than reasonable and accommodating to the owner's perceived problems.
One other thing to point out is that while some teams have lost money, the league overall has seen it's income grow constantly over the last few years. So it's not the system that precluding the league from growing, but whatever redistributive system in place is simply not good enough. Not so sure that isn't strictly an owner's problem.
Just saw this - which seems to support your point:
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...0-despite-talkFor a period during these NBA collective bargaining talks, the players built a lot of strong rhetoric around the idea of needing 53 percent of basketball related income.
That was about five weeks ago.
Since then, there have been mediators, ultimatums, deadlines and more ... and nonetheless, we are back in the throes of the conversation the negotiators were in before the players found religion at 53 percent.
We are back at 50/50.
Sources inside these talks have long insisted that both sides know the final agreement will be at 50/50. Any suggestion otherwise is rhetoric.
Fifty percent is as high as David Stern can convince the owners to go, and it's just enough to get the players to agree. It's also a number both sides have suggested to each other for weeks, if not months. It makes sense.
Last weekend, the NBA sent the union a letter swearing that at the stroke of 5 p.m. ET Wednesday, the owners' offer would revert to 47 percent and a hard cap. To the extent that was sincere, it was unlikely to be permanent. And, of course, the NBA has entirely abandoned that promise, even on a day when, in Stern's words, "Nothing was worked out."
Makes you wonder how serious that threat ever was.
"It was our understanding going in," the commissioner said by way of explanation, "that at the end of the negotiating session, whether it ends today or it ends tomorrow, that's when our offer reverts [to 47 percent]."
The NBA's commitment to 47, however, is much like the players' commitment to 53. Temporary, political, a delusion. Even if there is no deal Thursday or Friday, there will be more bargaining so long as a shortened season is possible. The two sides are too close to a deal, and a lost season is too costly. It makes no sense to mess things up like that at this point.
And despite yet another deflated set of news conferences, there's plenty of reason for hope, which Stern knows.
As he left the news conference early Thursday morning, after 12 hours of bargaining, Stern stopped in the crowded hallway to converse with union economist Kevin Murphy, who says he is trying to arrange his schedule to be here for the next session to start at noon.
Stern encouraged Murphy to show up, saying, "It will be a good day to be here."
It was late. Stern was tired. The comment was vague. It didn't sound like a real promise of a deal. But it certainly didn't sound like a guy preparing to blow apart the talks with a dramatically lower offer, either.
Also, the NBA's anti-trust exemption is only a partial one geared more towards protecting its TV contracts than anything else. The government protects the pooling aspect of the league's ESPN, ABC, etc... contracts.
I don't see why this kind of protection prevents the owner's from altering league economics to make their franchises more profitable. In other words, why does anti-trust protection of TV contracts preclude owner's from aggressively negotiating with players regarding salary and other system issues?
Last edited by vy65; 11-10-2011 at 12:12 PM.
While it might be geared towards that, things like the Draft where teams basically collude to distribute talent is entirely based on the premise of an anti-trust exemption existing.
That's why I don't think you can just say the NBA franchises operate just like any other free-market business.
That said, there's nothing preventing the owners from negotiating as they see fit. The only risk they run into is that if the union decides to dissolve, they effectively would lose said anti-trust protection, and that's where it can get risky for the owners.
That's why I personally would like a deal to be done ASAP, or if they do not reach an agreement, I'd like the union to get it's gears moving towards dissolving. The time for waiting up for cooler heads to prevail has passed a long time ago.
Explain how this is a "bailout" for the owners? This is THEIR league and THEIR teams and as such they own all expenses and revenues generated. The players are not forced to accept anything. They're free to leave and form their own league if they think they can get more. That's the way it works in America my friend. NBA players will continue to be the highest paid players in all modern sports. Not exactly sure what the problem is here.
I think this is more or less right. Although I'm not quite sure how the distribution of talent aspect of the draft is anti-compe ive -- it could be, but I just don't see it.
But you're right to say that the NBA doesn't operate like an open-market business. That's not just because of pro-ownership aspects to the CBA. Pro-player aspects to the CBA - like guaranteed contracts - are just as anti-compe ive as pro-ownership aspects such as caps on max contracts.
Another interesting thing to note is how the rookie scale is both pro-owner and pro-player. It's pro-owner in cases like Derrick Rose's or Manu Ginobili's rookie contracts -- it's hard to see those as anything but highway robbery for the owner. But on the other hand, Memphis got locked into Hasheem Thabeet's rookie contract (which he probably didn't earn) and the Wiz got locked into paying Kwame Brown's astic rookie contract.
The point of all this -- which I don't think you necessarily disagree with -- is the fact that the anti-trust exemptions (which benefit both player and owner and which place NBA franchises outside the realm of "normal" business) don't preclude the owners from running their businesses as profitably as possible. That is to say that just because the owners benefit from the anti-trust exemption, they are still en led to maximize the most they can from their adversarial position viz. the players.
Well put.
Last edited by vy65; 11-10-2011 at 01:58 PM.
I'd see your point more if the rookie scale deals were guaranteed for the full 4 years they can bind a draft pick, but the 2005 CBA changed the contract to two years guaranteed followed by two years of team options. Thabeet is the only player I can think of in recent memory who was picked top 5 and was so bad his team would want to cut their losses after only one season. I don't think it's a huge gamble when your worst case is paying less than MLE for one extra season if a guy shows himself to be a complete bust his rookie year.
I'm not the best judge of NBA talent - but what about Adam Morrison and Greg Oden?
Owners have won the war. Players are taking a 12.3% paycut an the system will be more owner friendly than the previous one.
Now, the question that will never be answered is if it was unavoidable or if players would have done better y being more aggressive (desertification and threat of creating a new league).
I'm also quite pessimistic about Spurs' future given Holt at ude during the negotiations. With Duncan being done, Spurs were in a awfully difficult spot and I can easily see now some agents pushing for their players not to go to SA. It's going to get ugly.
Both of those guys had team options picked up by the teams that drafted them. Morrison even had his fourth year option picked up by the Lakers (they must have figured the expiring would be useful for trade value). I forgot about Tskitishvili though; he probably wouldn't have gotten a second year from the team that picked him if he could have been dumped.
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