The Lockout & the Raptors: Players approve CBA, Owners too! (1944)

[MyMomLovesMe]

"But if there's going to be contraction, then revenue sharing will be the driving force. At some point the owners of money-making teams (who will consistently be feeding into the revenue-sharing system) will tire of supporting teams that will never turn a profit on their own. The more revenue sharing, the greater the call will be for contraction -- or at the very least "

This also says that in the bigger markets (without meddling and given free market conditions), players could be earning substantially more.


So the CBA, in essence is equalizing the owners playing fields by limiting the earning potential of the players using the weakest market in the union as their earning ceiling.


You can see why the PA has a problem with this.



As for revenue sharing and bigger clubs growing tired. I honestly don't see much of a choice for them, if the commissioner wields a real hammer of the 30 clubs. What is best for all teams is more important than what is best for a few. Houston working out a deal with Yao's Chinese team was as important for the Lakers as it was for the Rockets. Their brand was opened to a new market where consequently the demand for Kobe's jersey was 2nd to Yao's.

The reason this league earns the revenue it does, is because it is considered the BEST in the world. This is why a lot of foreign fans demand this product. Any wilful steps to take away from this image by allowing supporting clubs to errode will do as much damage to the Lakers brand as it will to the market in question.

So regardless of how unfair the owners of the Laker's and Knicks may find revenue sharing, the health of the other clubs is crucial to the marketability of their own product. A perception of weakness due to uncertainty or inferiority in their competition only fouls up their own image by comparing their refined product to an inferior yardstick (who cares if the Knicks or Lakers have the best players in the world, if they play against clubs whose players are a bunch of hacks).



We are really talking 2 of 30 clubs that will be extremely pissed but if the primary objective is what is best for the "majority", than this is a very efficient option for striking equality with the least ruffled feathers. (Scientists would ignore the 2 dots for the favour of 28 if it was a plot on a graph.)

I don't know what the writer is alluding to that "one day" clubs like the LA and NY will grow tired, and do what? Leave the league? Ask for a contraction from owners that hold independent deeds? Whose position in the union also happens to be fundamentally equal? (This makes no sense to me, unless the league is being run by the big clubs due to their revenue intakes, but than if such an imbalance exists, than it is even more paramount for the remaining owners to equalize the playing field.)


In fact, by allowing 2 teams to reap an inordinate share of the leagues revenues it is reminiscent of a bent spoke in the wheel, it will always thwart any attempt at proper equalization and causes future difficulties by adding to the propensity to warp rules over time.


In a free market system, some of these teams need to fold. An economy is healthy when we allow for businesses to both succeed and fail. Failure is very important, by not allowing it, we in essence weaken the competitiveness of the herd. All these rules and caps and protectionism, even for its weakest about to die member can be very detrimental to the league itself.


Funny that in a business where the spotlight is on the fittest and most competitive, the league is trying to adapt a policy that rewards the weakest and the most mismanaged.




Anyway, I think the league needs a better revenue sharing model, but at the same time, there needs to be incentives for those members that are more efficient at running their franchises. IMO revenue sharing should be on a case by case basis. Only handed out to clubs that lack the fundamental conditions for revenue streams. The Clippers should not be getting cheques from the league considering where they are located and how badly they have been run. Donald Sterling should not get the same subsidies as Glen Taylor.

[mcHAPPY]

I understood the contraction comments as hypothetical for when a new system is brought in that brings the majority in to profitability. If 24 teams regularly make money and the same 6 are losing money year after year, the majority will eventually tire. The current system has 8 profitable teams, it is more than NY and LA. The players insistence on not helping out struggling franchises could cost the union 15 jobs per team that is contracted - if it comes to that of course.


The Clippers are actually one of the 8 profitable teams in the league - despite Donald Sterling. Raptors too.

[Apollo]

Union in favor of players heading abroad to find temporary employement

If the locked-out NBA players choose to take their talents overseas, they will do so with the spirited support of their union's leadership.

In a letter sent to 450 players this week, Billy Hunter, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, said that playing abroad would keep the pressure on owners while allowing union members to continue making a living.

"This lockout is intended to economically pressure our players to agree to an unfavorable collective bargaining agreement," Hunter said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. "It is important for owners to understand that there may be significant consequences to their decision to put their own players in these difficult economic circumstances."

Hunter said, "If the owners will not give our players a forum in which to play basketball here in the United States, they risk losing the greatest players in the world to the international basketball federations that are more than willing to employ them."

Source: NY Times

Yeah, they're willing to employe them at a rate much less than the NBA's current CBA offer. As a side note, FIBA has a verbal agreement with the NBA to not touch players under contract. FIBA hasn't stated if they're going to disregard that agreement or not.

[Apollo]

J-Rich on the lockout

“I don’t have a job,” Richardson said. “I’ve taken care of my money and it won’t be a problem for me financially. I would guess that it won’t be a problem for 85 to 90 percent of the players. But you’re seeing some players going overseas for a lot less money. They just want to play.”

Source: mlive.com

[mcHAPPY]

Super Agent David Falk

http://sportsradiointerviews.com/201...ichael-jordan/

On what he thinks are the most broken aspects of the current NBA system:

“I think the problem in the system, in my opinion, is basketball in the post-cap era…the cap came into the league in ’82 for 6 teams and for the rest of the league in ’83. And what the cap has done in both basketball and football is it’s made it in order to win…pop quiz, how many teams won a title in the NBA since 1980 in the last 31 years? Eight. Each of those teams have a formula. If you look at the Lakers, San Antonio, Miami almost won it last year — they have three stars that make almost all the money. When the Celtics won in 2008, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett made 75 percent of the money. The fourth highest paid guy, Kendrick Perkins, how much did he earn? $3.6 [million]. Now, when your fourth guy is earning $3.6 and you say ‘Kendrick, I want you to be a role player, play great defense, rebound…’ He doesn’t turn to you and say ‘are you stupid? I’m making $9 million, I’m a star.’ Okay, so the formula for almost every team that’s won since 1980 in the cap era is to have three stars and a bunch of role players. What’s happened by putting a maximum salary on the LeBron’s and the Kobe’s and the Iverson’s over the last ten years, we’ve taken the money that we’ve saved from the stars and we pay guys that are probably worth $3 million, $9 million. That’s the problem in the system. They’re hard to coach, some of them aren’t heavily motivated, and you brought it up earlier, in 1998 when I was in my prime, Patrick Ewing was the president of the union. Stars ran the union. Today, the rank and file is running the union, and there’s a lot more rank and file players — they are passing the rules that disadvantage the stars that the people come to see and buy their merchandise or watch their commercials. And they’re overpaying the middle guys, so you have guys that are really out of shape…I’m not going to name names….there are certain guys that I watch when I come to the games here that I wouldn’t pay a nickel to watch because they’re in worse shape at age 22 than I am at 60.”

If he thinks David Stern is making a big mistake with this developing labor impasse by not stepping in more forcefully:

“No, no, I don’t think David’s being a hard-liner at all. I think there’s probably a lot of young owners that think David’s not being hard enough. But the truth is that there are a significant number of teams that are losing money. You can argue over how much they’re losing, you can argue accounting and say maybe you shouldn’t put depreciation of franchises which is a non-cash item in the loss, but they are losing money. But at the end of the day…and I’m a player guy, Mike…but the players in the aggregate are making $2.166 billion dollars. So let’s say you’re a player and I’m an owner, and I say ‘Mike, I’m losing money, I’ve got to change your salary, I’ve got to reduce it, I’m losing too much money.’ And you say ‘I don’t believe you’re losing money.’ I say ‘Really?’ I use my favorite David Falk expression — ‘are you bettin’ or are you talkin’? I’ll bet you $2.166 billion dollars that I’m losing money. If you’re wrong, you’re going to lose all your money, and if you’re right you’re going to get it.’”

[Apollo]

The thing is, the "rank and file" guys should be running the union because they make up the majority of the union. That's the whole point of the union, working together for the greater good of the collective and not the greater good of the few "haves". They best way to take care of the lazy, disinterested, overpaid players and to obilish guaranteed contracts. There should be signing bonuses which are guaranteed, performance bonuses to reward hard work and then actual salary which is not guaranteed. I'm telling you, if there weren't guaranteed contracts you wouldn't see guys like Eddy Curry pretty much holding teams hostage.

I love this part:

So let’s say you’re a player and I’m an owner, and I say ‘Mike, I’m losing money, I’ve got to change your salary, I’ve got to reduce it, I’m losing too much money.’ And you say ‘I don’t believe you’re losing money.’ I say ‘Really?’ I use my favorite David Falk expression — ‘are you bettin’ or are you talkin’? I’ll bet you $2.166 billion dollars that I’m losing money. If you’re wrong, you’re going to lose all your money, and if you’re right you’re going to get it.’”

It captures the idea I've been expressing from the get go.

[mcHAPPY]

The thing is, the "rank and file" guys should be running the union because they make up the majority of the union. That's the whole point of the union, working together for the greater good of the collective and not the greater good of the few "haves".

I love this part:


It captures the idea I've been expressing from the get go. T

That is very true. Unfortunately, Falk has a very valid point: many middle tier, if you will, players are making too much money. The superstars pay for themselves.

[Apollo]

I added a piece after you quoted me which covers that.

[mcHAPPY]

I added a piece after you quoted me which covers that.

I agree with what you're saying.

[planetmars]

Bill Simmons' take on the NBA lockout

I don't believe this was posted already.

I thought this was a very good read:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...uled-nba-world

[mcHAPPY]

Another bit from Falk:

"What they're arguing about mostly is the percentage of the pie. The players are making 57 percent of the pie, the owners want to make it less. And I think there are many ways to solve it. In many ways, having done this for 37 years, and having owned a business that's bigger than most of the teams, and having been an agent for so many years, I'd love to mediate the dispute because I think there are solutions that are acceptable to both sides. But at the end of the day, this is different than the football situation because the owners are printing money and the owners want a deal in football because they know if they start missing preseason games, for every game they miss, they're going to be losing money. There are about 14 to 20 teams in the NBA, if they miss games they're going to make money because the losses are going to stop."

Read more NBA news and insight: http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?...#ixzz1S8ExyMj2

[MyMomLovesMe]

I understood the contraction comments as hypothetical for when a new system is brought in that brings the majority in to profitability. If 24 teams regularly make money and the same 6 are losing money year after year, the majority will eventually tire. The current system has 8 profitable teams, it is more than NY and LA. The players insistence on not helping out struggling franchises could cost the union 15 jobs per team that is contracted - if it comes to that of course.


The Clippers are actually one of the 8 profitable teams in the league - despite Donald Sterling. Raptors too.

First of all, I don't buy those numbers, but lets use them.

I have a feeling that 2 of those 8 make a lot more together, then the remaining 6.

I also feel that the bottom 2 of the league, are probably loosing more than 6 above them combined.


Therefore snipping the ends is not a bad strategy when looking at the general atmosphere in the league.

If the "top two" have a disproportionate share of revenues, than maybe the league needs to come up with a fairer revenue sharing model. Maybe NY and LA need to have their markets shrunk, just like Toronto had its extended to Canada. It may be better for the league as a whole, rather than seeing inordinate waste of money by someone like Dolan and Thomas year after year and his club still in the black.


EDIT: I don't see why Density can not be an issue in market determination. It's just seems more advanced and fairer that way. (And its simple and efficient solution, everything else gets tossed into the kitty for teams to split, and league to run itself.)

[ezz_bee]

I don't believe this was posted already.

I thought this was a very good read:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...uled-nba-world

Me too. I don't always agree with Simmons but he is an entertaining read. His idea for an exciting as hell tournament would be just that. Maybe he'd be more risk averse if he actually was an owner but he does have a bit of a Jackie Moon flavour that would be fun to see. Like Marc Cuban with polytechnics...

[planetmars]

Not sure about owner, but I think he'd make a pretty good GM. And I'm not actually joking about that - I think he has been around the game for a long time and knows what works and what doesn't. He may need to hire an assistant that has the experience but hell if Isiah can be a GM, then I'm sure he'd be able to as well.

I love the idea of the Exciting as Hell tourney, but the other ideas I liked were how he would reward a superstar such that they'd be happy and have a harder time leaving the team that they were playing for and putting sponsors on team jerseys.

It'd be funny as hell to see a Primo add on the Raptors jerseys

[mcHAPPY]

It's the players' salaries, right?

The reason the NBA owners have put their own business on hiatus has nothing to do with revenue, which continues to pour in to the wildly popular league, or the business practices of each franchise. The problem, we've been lead to believe, is that the last collective bargaining agreement gave the players too large a share of the basketball related income (57%) and a majority of teams can't be sustained on the leftovers.

Of course, that line of thinking is being thoroughly tested these days.

Recently the league's claims of poverty have been put into question by Nate Silver's blog post on The New York Times' website—a piece the NBA rebutted the following day on its own website. But even if the league was in fact losing money, could the owners' liberal spending—and not players' salaries—be at the heart of the problem?

Cork Gaines of The Business Insider posted a chart Friday, which showed a 12.7 percent increase in spending on things besides player salaries over the course of the current CBA. Oddly enough, the players' compensation has grown only 5.4 percent (adjusted for inflation) during that time. Since revenue is up 5.3 percent, that seems to be a wash.

The Business Insider chart is only a snapshot and it does use the data provided from Forbes.com (which the league referred to as "incorrect" in its statement), so this shouldn't be taken as gospel. But even if the numbers are a bit off, the league might want to address the issue before more fans start leaning toward the players' side. Why has the cost of running teams gone up nearly 13 percent in five years, allegedly, and could that be the real reason 22 of 30 NBA teams claim to be losing money?

Read more NBA news and insight: http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?...#ixzz1SDDJBzf8

If the NBA's costs have only gone up 12.7% on things other than salary over the course of this CBA (6 years), they are doing pretty darn good.

In Ben Bernanke's quarterly theatric of sitting in front of Congress jumping through hoops and answering little question of real substance, Ron Paul pointed out real inflation in the US over the last 4 years is around 35% - about 9% annual.

If you use the old methods of calculating inflation you'll see in the winter/spring it was running at
near 10% in February and that was before oil hit over $100 again.