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Hard cap isn't going to happen. The players will lose the season before agreeing to it.
http://m.ocregister.com/sports/laker...-buss-nba.html
lol even playing fieldLakers accept hard salary cap, revenue sharing
By KEVIN DING
09/15/2011 8:19 AM
If you’re one of the many Lakers fans out there ignoring all this lockout stuff and simply waiting until your team gets back to all its usual winning, the awakening is going to be quite rude.
And the alarm clock here is more like a final horn.
The Lakers’ most golden age is already over.
The landscape that enabled the Lakers to live like kings on everyone’s courts is being wholly redesigned in the current collective bargaining, and there’s only one word to describe how the hedges will be trimmed from here on out: evenly.
So unstoppable are the forces at work here – take note, NBA Players Association – that even Lakers owner Jerry Buss, who mastered every angle of this game set up for him to win, knows it’s pointless to stand in the way.
While Buss and the Lakers showed off jewels and staged parades, most other NBA owners in smaller markets with smaller budgets felt their compe ive spirits nearly broken by all their on- and off-court losses.
This lockout, this opportunity to reshape the league’s structure, is their NBA Finals.
With three-fourths of the owners baring wounds dripping red ink – self-inflicted or not, convincing or not – it’s simple math to a logician like Buss. He started out as a chemist and also worked as an aerospace engineer. Now he spends much of his time playing professional poker, leaning on solid odds while also knowing what others’ cards are by the way they hold their eyes.
And for sure, in the eyes of owners such as Sacramento’s Joe and Gavin Maloof, Phoenix’s Robert Sarver, Cleveland’s Dan Gilbert and Charlotte’s Michael Jordan, there is fire now.
Although cash can’t buy championships (see Knicks, New York), there’s no disputing how high the Lakers’ payrolls have been as they’ve been winning lately. Kobe Bryant’s league-high $25 million pay aside, Buss is set to spend $34 million next season on Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum – and then another $9 million on Lamar Odom just to back those two up.
NBA commissioner David Stern went so far as to invoke the Lakers’ name Tuesday in explaining why owners are entrenched in getting a hard cap from the players during collective bargaining.
“A team like the Lakers with well over $100 million in payroll and Sacramento at 45, that’s not an acceptable alternative for us,” Stern said. “That can’t be the outcome that we agree to.”
As much as Buss loves his rum and Coke, he has held a Molotov tail with the NBA’s limited revenue sharing and soft salary cap. It has allowed Buss and his minority investors to make a lot of money and feel comfortable spending a ton of it on great players others can’t afford.
But dramatically increased revenue sharing will inhibit the Lakers’ spending. A hard cap will flat-out prevent the Lakers from spending. It’s lose-lose when Buss is 77 years old and determined to come from behind the Boston Celtics in total championships, 17-16.
Yet the Lakers have accepted it. Why?
For the greater good.
And you can’t play in a league of your own anyway. However much he leads his unfettered, playboy lifestyle – his latest summer vacation to enjoy was through Europe – Buss is married to these other NBA owners, for better or worse.
So with their days of shopping alone on Rodeo Drive ending, the Lakers intend to go out gracefully – and loyally to Stern, for whom Buss has always had an appreciation.
The many specifics of revenue sharing still need to be worked out – and progress is expected on that front Thursday in the NBA’s board of governors meeting in Dallas – but Buss is fully accepting that his pockets will be where most of the grabs go. He’s hopeful the revenue-sharing system leaves him some protection, but wherever the details of the sharing and capping go, Buss considers himself – bottom line – a team player on the owners’ side.
And speaking of sides and players, you could make a tremendously compelling argument that Buss has more to lose the way these negotiations are going than the NBA’s actual players do.
This is not to say the Lakers are giving up. For one thing, Buss knows the deck will still be somewhat stacked in his favor through the Lakers’ marquee image and desirable location.
The business side of Lakers’ operation has long been careful with its spending, falling back on the realities that people do want to work for the Lakers because they’re the Lakers. Along the same lines, the Lakers will remain confident about attracting outstanding employees on the basketball side.
And while the finances help considerably, did the money train or the most super of superstar players matter more when the Lakers, Bulls, Celtics and Spurs won 24 of the past 32 NBA championships?
That’s the sort of question the Lakers will try to answer in the future, without a system that so helps build in Hollywood endings for them.
Buss has gotten to hold ‘em. He knows when it’s time to fold ‘em, too.
Lakers = fcked
Hard cap isn't going to happen. The players will lose the season before agreeing to it.
Negative homey. FAs will still flock to LA. Let's see, if I'm an upper echelon FA and it is time for me to choose a city to play in. The Lakers have cap space, nice weather, and most important: millions of beautiful groupie women. What should I do?
2014 is when all of the big KTs on the Lakers' payroll will be gone (including Kobe's $30+M). The Lakers' championsip window is still open in the mean time. In 2014 we just reload.
/Thread fail.
We're trying to freak out Lakerfan here, and this isn't helping!
The owners' unified demand for a hard salary cap is already falling apart. Sarver and Gilbert are gonna quickly be in the minority.
fail thread.
Even if a hard cap did happen (which it won't) teams like the Lakers would still have an advantage over the spurs because players are always going to want to live someplace better than holes like San Antonio. Welcome to the cold hard realities of life spurfan.
Sure, players may want to flock there, but they can't sign all of them, especially under a hard cap. LA can't just pick up everybody who likes the damn beach, and this day in age, players seem to go after the almighty dollar before they go for location.
Agreed that the chances of it happening are slim....but personally, I think the league is better off if guys like Buss and Cuban can't spend nearly double what other teams are. How its managed to be compe ive as it is (and how teams like the Knicks manage to suck as much as they do) is beyond me.
JJ Hickson who gave you permission to call 4 down, iso it in the post like you think you're prime shaq and throw down some chocolate thunder on these fat s!?
Lakers will have trouble with Kobe's contract, but still it's the most desired team to play on. Like it or not
Is that why Lebron left ty Cleveland to play in Miami?
Yes, that's exactly why. Thanks for providing a great example which perfectly proves my point Lefty.
Lakers playing without advantage.....lol right.
You're welcome hick
Even playing field will never happen.
More people will want to live in LA than SA, Charlotte, NO or Milwaulke.
Besides, players will make much more in endorsements in large cities.
Lakers were dealt a good hand, and they made the most out of it, building stacked teams year after year.
The Lakers always find ways, deal with it.
Hey you sucker from yesteryear...stop stealing my shtick deal with it...
Now deal with it es...
30 million to Kobe's dead corpse
Short term- Lakers will be fine their will be some type of amnesty clause. No way they breaking up the Heatles, knicks, Lakers or Mavs. so spur fan stop dreaming.
Near future: Lakers will be focked due to Kobe, Odom Pau Artest being just past or passed their peak.
Long-term: If the playing field IS level ... cap wise then here are the things that players will look at when deciding their future:
1. Money will always be number one so just by having cap space you will get players. But if multiple teams have equal space then player.
2. Endorsements (NY, LA, CHI and BOS) will have the advantage there.
3. State tax FL/TX teams benefit, weather: CA/FL have the advantage there.
4.Winning tradition: LAL, BOS, DET, CHI, SA all have won multiple les the past few years.
5. A star in his prime to attract others: MIA, OKC, CHI, ORL (for now) probably havethe advantage here.
Bottom line is if you at the top pf the food chain (money/star power wise), why would you choose SA or NO over LA, NY or Miami? Small market teams will have to OVERPAY still to get stars. All this does is minimize the amount they will have to overpay to do so. Unless NO or SA luck in to a Tim duncan they are the ones STILL focked!!
Am gets it ... the OP is just hoping ...
You understand that am "gets it" because he is actually giving a real take and the "op doesn't" because he's trolling, right?
dpg gets it.
Well, at least the Clippers have a lot of talent.
Yup this would never work as proven in the NFL....all the player there flock to NY, San Fran, and Chi-town because the markets are so huge.....a team form a small town like, say, Green Bay could never win .....
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