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What's up with the name stealing? If you are going to take my name sort of then why put a picture of mouse with a laker jersey as your avatar?
http://www.nba.com/2011/news/07/27/l...lks/index.html
I apologize if someone had already posted this on the 35th page of some dusty old thread, but I felt it needed it's own thread.
Read up.
What's up with the name stealing? If you are going to take my name sort of then why put a picture of mouse with a laker jersey as your avatar?
Roger Mason sucks balls anyway, his name is a disgrace to our franchise
, do I gotta run up on you?!
The meetings are pointless at this point. The union needs to quit jacking around and go ahead and de-certify. It's the only leverage they have against the owners.
get her done
I became much more pessimistic after I heard Keyon Dooling's interview on the Jason Whitlock podcast last week.
Dooling as the #2 man for the union came off so terribly that if he's one of the main guys negotiating, a deal won't ever get done. One of the first things he stressed was how if the players gave into the owners, then the future stars would be lost because players would no longer be able to reach their dreams of buying their parents a home or providing for their families or other such nonsense and would instead turn to other sports.
I don't side with the owners, but their previous guarantee of 2 billion in salaries would have meant what, a player making 15 million now would only make 14 or 13.75 million a year instead? Dooling came off as someone who is incapable of being reasonable his being vice-president of the union just came across as that the players can't be reasoned with at all, necessitating a long, long lockout.
And I sympathize with the players. At every negotiating event in my memory, the players have sacrificed and given away to the owners. Rookies like Glen Robinson making too much? Players give the owners a rookie scale. Rookies on the scale getting free agency too soon? Players give the owners team options and restricted rights. Players on the rookie scale still making too much? Players give in to only 2 guaranteed years. Players making too much? Players give in to maximums on player salaries, the first of the major sports to do so if I recall correctly. Players having too many years (Larry Johnson)? Players agree to 7 year caps. Owners getting burned by 7 years? Players give in to 6.
Every step of the way the past 20 years the players have given in time and again to help the owners for the good of the game. And I'm sure they will again. They'll take shorter years, they'll take less money, they'll take some sort of alteration to free agency to dissuade future Decision type events.
But they probably have to lose a season or two until they finally accept it.
It won't get that far. They union will de-certify and it will head to the courts...just like the NFL. At that point the window will shorten. How long they wait to do that will dictate how long the lockout will last.
Hope this lockout ends soon.
These will just be talks to stay in touch. Nothing significant will come out of them. For the moment, the key of the lockout is the NLRB complaint filled by the NBAPA.
FIBA has allowed NBA players under contract to play overseas during the lockout:
http://www.fiba.com/pages/eng/fc/new...8378/arti.html
Players just got a huge win. Even if there isn't that much money available overseas, players have now a great way to resist at a lengthy lockout. If a NBA player needs some money, he can now easily get a few $100K in Europe or Asia.
DAVE ZIRIN: Oh, this is going to be out for some time, and it’s going to be a much more difficult knot to square than the National Football League, because the main issue in the NBA is that they are arguing that 23 of the 30 teams lost money last year. There’s been a counter-argument of an analysis done by Forbes Magazine that says that that number is grossly inflated, and they’re actually cooking the books Enron-style to make it look like more teams are losing money than they are.
But the fact of the matter is that the NBA situation is very similar to the NFL situation, and it’s very similar, for example, to the fights around state workers in states like Wisconsin and Ohio, because what it comes down to is that the owners in these leagues are getting less public subsidies than they thought they would get, because of the economic crisis in 2008 and the trillion-dollar bailouts of the banks. And they’ve said this publicly. They’re saying, "We need to restore profitability and get more salary back from players, because we’re getting less tax dollars than we thought we would get. And we will lock the doors and end the games, unless we get more money back." And that makes it, to me, a much more broader political and social issue, like, oh, we don’t even get our sports now, because Goldman Sachs needed a bailout? That’s not good.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/2...ers_remarkable
Dooling is also nearing an agreement with a Turkish team. Prominent agents also have said they have "no idea what the players' plan is...do we have one?" Things aren't looking good from that standpoint. Decertification is their nuclear option but the players union leadership probably don't want to go that far or they lose their pull.
But players do have escrow money and the few that go overseas will get $$$. Still I don't see that helping much against the owners that want significant changes especially the Suns and Celtics who demand a hard cap.
The owners reaction to this will largely depend on how many players actually bail and head overseas. With the types of players that have headed that way in the past, it could be a pretty big number. Players that are role players here would be stars in many lower level Europeon leagues.
That's crap though, because it's likely that they are using a facade of exceptional losses. To me it seems like they're using this in lieu of the truth, which is they're parched for that hard salary cap, because owners want their teams to have a larger fighting chance. It looks like one giant owner hissy fit rather than worry of financial losses, because honestly, are the owners really sweating over losing one of their many cots in Cabo?
Kessler is the lead counsel and if follows the same gameplan he is not going to wait on the NLRB and file an rust in federal court. This is probably a good thing because as slow as the federal court docket is, the NLRB moves at an even more glacial pace.
Obviously depends on which federal jurisdiction the case would be under but the NBA offseason is short and even on a fasttrack this process takes months and months. The NFLPA filed in March and didnt get a hearing on the initial injunction request until May.
Kessler likes to play hardball. Its an open and shut case at its core and he has already taken the NFL out behind the woodshed and gutted their free agency system back in 1989. With alternate leagues over in Europe, the players might just be willing to allow him to do that.
If that is the case our only hope is for a shortened season.
NFLPA and NBAPA obviously don't follow the same gameplan since the NFLPA desertify on the first day of the lockout.
5'11 220lb fatass who cant play basketball
I'm failing to see NBA players in europe as a big threat to the owners. Yes, it may keep some players afloat financially leading them to stay unified longer.
But it also proves they're willing to play for less money in Europe with fewer opportunities for sponsorship stateside. I don't see how that helps the players when the owners can just say, "See! Deron is taking $5 net when he's owed $10 net. Just take $7-8 net and stay here with more opportunities to make money on the side. If not, see you in 2012 or 2013 or 2014, we're good."
If I'm the union I'm targeting the TV deal that apparently will pay the owners regardless of if there are games or not. ( if I'm the networks I'm firing the lawyers that agreed to a contract that forces them to pay for games that aren't played.) If they can get that money tied up and out of the owners hands, it forces the owners to the table sooner.
As it is, the owners have nothing to gain by negotiating if they are going to get that money either way.
The reason why they did that was because of wording in the NFL CBA that would have precluded them from filing an rust for a year if they had not done it at that time.
the clause said that they could not sue for an rust for a year after the previous CBA expired. they decertified at the 11th hour and sued so the action occurred before the CBA expired.
He has nothing forcing him in that direction in this case. Quite frankly the NBAPA has a ton more leverage and the same sports an rust precedents.
Anyway my point is that waiting on the NLRB will leave you waiting a long long time.
By virtue of hiring Kessler's office its pretty apparent that they are going to sue an rust in federal court. After all, that is what he does. its not a matter of if rather than when.
There is federal precedent to this just handed down this year. Basically it contends that a portion of that money is by rights the players as well and they just cannot take it all and go willy nilly.
My final solution:
Players get 52% Owners get 48%
HOWEVER, expenses related to the players (coaches, physical therapists, chefs, drivers, trainers, etc) come out of the pot before the split. Business expenses (marketing, PR, etc) do NOT come out of the pot before the split.
2% of each side's revenue gets set aside for team employee and player pensions and healthcare at retirement.
MLE stays but max contract length is two years.
LLE stays and is now yearly. Also max contract length of two years.
Players can extend with their own team for a max of 7 years. Players cannot get the 7 year deal as part of a sign & trade.
-First 4 are guaranteed. 5th year is a team option. 6th & 7th years both the team and the player can opt out.
Players can sign with another team for max of 5 years.
-First 3 years are fully guaranteed. 4th and 5th years have mutual opt outs for player and team.
Rookie contracts are now only 4 years in length. 4th year now becomes the qualifying offer year.
Revenue sharing: 60% of all revenue made by teams through local TV contracts, etc are kept by the teams. 32% goes to a giant pot that is evenly split between all teams yearly. 8% goes directly to players split evenly between each player. These direct payments to players do not count against the cap and are not eligible for agents to get a % of.
Salary cap is locked at 72 million. Luxury tax starts at $72,000,000.01. Teams may exceed the cap to resign their own players (Bird rule) or to sign a player to the MLE or LLE. A team can only have one MLE contract at a time while over the cap. A team is exempt form paying the luxury tax if it has only one Bird exemption player over the cap. If the team has more than one player over the cap, there is a 2 to 1 tax payment. Lux tax payments are split evenly between all teams under the cap plus teams with only 1 Bird exemption player over the cap.
-Referee accuracy grades are made available to the public by the league office. The lowest 5 referees in accuracy every year will be demoted to D League the following season.
-The league office will be required to review any game requested by a team and if it determines a player has flopped the player will be assessed a technical foul at the start of the team's next game. Technical fouls assessed for flopping will count towards suspensions.
-Offensive goaltending is abolished.
-Defensive three second calls are abolished.
-Country music played at basketball game is abolished.
The anti-tanking rules:
-Change the lottery to one envelope per team, same odds for everybody.
-The final seed playoff tournament courtesy of Bill Simmons
"Let's say we cut down the regular season to 78 games, lock down the top seven seeds in each conference, then stage a week-long, single elimination, 16-team tournament between the nonplayoff teams for the 8-seeds. (No conferences, just no. 15 through no. 30 seeded in order.) The higher seeds would host the first two rounds (eight games in all) from Sunday through Wednesday; the last two rounds (The Final FourGotten) would rotate every year in New York or Los Angeles on Friday night and Sunday afternoon, becoming something of a Fun Sports Weekend along the lines of All-Star Weekend. Friday night's winners would clinch playoff berths. Sunday's winner gets two carrots: the chance to pick their playoff conference (you can go East or West), as well as the no. 10 pick in the upcoming draft (that's a supplemental pick; they'd get their own first-rounder as well).
I'll flip this around: Why WOULDN'T we do this? Lottery teams couldn't tank down the stretch or shut down starters for nefarious reasons; not with a possible playoff berth and an extra first-rounder at stake. Fans would remain invested no matter how poorly their team was playing down the stretch (knowing the tournament was coming up). Sponsors would pony up extra money to be involved. We'd get a fun basketball weekend in New York or Los Angeles out of it. The 14 playoff teams would get 10 days off as their bonus."
I knew about the NFL clause but it doesn't change that the NBAPA hasn't decertified and sued just after the lockout. Decertify is an option but there is a reason why they haven't done it for the moment: NBAPA thinks they have other options available.
Some agents think that the union should decertify. Woj has written an article about it: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slu...ication_072311
The latest I've read is 1 or 2 months away from making their decision.
For people interested in this whole lockout issue, Ken Berger, who is the best journalist for that, has a great article about it:
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/story/1...-for-legal-war
It's long but it's a must read.
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