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

[GarbageTime]

He doesn't say the relationship doesn't exist, he says it's not strong but his logic is a little flawed if I am reading this correctly. You can't just crunch the numbers because you need to individually analyze each particular situation and set of circumstances. Chicago and Oklahoma are prime examples of team who will throw off basic calculations to prove that money isn't a large factor. They are teams who drafted really well recently and have a lot of their top guys on cheap rookie deals. They're would have to spend a lot of money to keep that unit together and a lot more to add to it in the old system.

Money can play a big factor. Your stance, this guy's stance as well, is that if you have two equal managers and two equal rosters but one manager has $20M more to spend over the cap on players then that doesn't mean anything. That extra $20M of money plays little into the scheme of things because your basic comparison of the standings versus labour cost is inconclusive. That's very, very short sighted. The money isn't the determining factor in success but it is a limiting factor to how much success is reached. Bad managers are going to make some bad moves no matter if they have $50M to work with or $90M, no doubt about it. However, as for good managers who tend to make good moves, well, the only thing that can apply the breaks to their rosters in the old system outside of bad luck is resources. Money.

First off they don't 'throw off' the calculation. They are a very real variable in it. The fact is those teams are NOT spending large yet still having success. They are the most obvious evidence that a team does not have to spend to compete (and maybe time for teams to start learning from others success). Thats like saying a 2 rebound game from Bargnani shouldn't be included in his average, because next game he'll probably grab 5 or 7.

Now here's the thing, if we take this year over year we'll find the same thing. Teams don't need to spend to compete.

I know what you are trying to get at this concept on 'continuing success'. And this gets us to a couple points I made you seem to have avoided or skipped.

1) with the, arguable, exception of Detroit... the most constant/obvious/common factor has been a superstar. Whether a team spent or didn't spend, the superstar player was the biggest factor.

2) the ability of a team to spend because of the existence of said superstar. This happens in all sorts of markets (rich, poor, big, small).


And yes you do need to analyze each particular situation or set of circumstance. Think about that next time you bring up salary imbalance and skip the entire point I made about circumstances (ie. a team having a star and therefore being able to afford to spend more... or conversely teams without a superstar being unwilling to spend).

The money isn't the determining factor in success but it is a limiting factor to how much success is reached.

and thats the crux of the error in your statement. The limiting fact is not $ but rather superstars and/or management. Again... all the 'spending teams' that had 'long term success' also had superstars. All the lower spending teams that had 'long term' success had superstars. The 5-10% relationship between spending and wins, is the proof the relationship is small and therefore not limiting nor determining.

Here's a question. When, or how often, are teams either unable or unwilling to pay a superstars salary? When, or how often, are teams unable to or unwilling to 'spend' (in general) when they do have a superstar? I think when we narrow that down we'll quickly see that superstars are why teams win, why they can spend, and when they should spend.

The issue of money is neither a determining or limiting variable. But rather a minor one. We should not allow a minor issue (spending) to have a big impact on a major problem (the lockout).

[Tim W.]

I know what you are getting at, but it needs to be pointed out that this is a business and not discretionary consumer spending.

The old adage of 'it takes money to make money' holds true in the NBA (or any sport) aswell. So what you may see as just spending on a big screen TV for one person, could be buying a big screen for TV for resale (and profit) to another.

No team should be restricted from 'investing' and helping improve their team or profitability. We can both agree that regardless, some spending will end up making a bad investment... and thats a loss that person will and should simply have to accept. At the same time, others can work out great.

But just because one person isn't willing to take a risk on a new TV, doesn't mean his neighboor shouldn't be able to either.

I'm not arguing in favour of a hard cap. Just stating how it will help the owners stop overspending. I am also completely against a free market system, though, that the players want. The problem is that the league restricts where teams can play, so there should be other restrictions to level the playing field to make up for that. For a company, they can pretty much move anywhere they want and draw their customers or clients from anywhere, especially in todays marketplace. In the NBA, the league only allows the Knicks and soon to be the Nets to play in New York, which is the biggest market in the NBA. Only the Knicks and Nets will be able to access the fans, advertising and TV market in that area. Even if there is a compete sharing of revenue, they'll still have an advantage in attracting players. This is patently unfair, but it is also the only viable model for a league like this to function.

The other thing to remember is that each team is not a completely separate organization. All the players, in effect, work for the league, not each team. And each team is simply an arm of the league.

[mcHAPPY]

The first court date in California will not accomplish much towards a resolution anyway because the NBA will surely file a change of venue option arguing "David Stern has a great fondness for the New York minute".

I am curious how many NBA players will find employment overseas in the meantime and how this will help/hurt their case.

I think we are saying the same thing here. Waiting until February for the first court date, which will resolve nothing, ensures no 2011-12 season UNLESS lawyers for both sides start negotiating.

[Hugmenot]

It would appear unless the lawyers for both sides get together to work something out there will be no 2011-12 season in my opinion.

The first court date in California will not accomplish much towards a resolution anyway because the NBA will surely file a change of venue option arguing "David Stern has a great fondness for the New York minute".

I am curious how many NBA players will find employment overseas in the meantime and how this will help/hurt their case.

[Tim W.]

I give you: Vincent Levacalier (31 yrs old, 9 yrs, $8mm per), Illya Kovalchuk ($100mm till 2025). I'd also throw in Scott Gomez, Daniel Briere, Chris Pronger and Marian Hossa. I also present some wonderdful NFL deals: Stanford Routt, Paul Solial, Eric Weddle, Davin Joseph, etc.

There are others but, well, I think the point is clear and I grow weary of having to try and explain that the owners are full of crap over and over again. If you can't look at 30 years of history through the 4 major sports leagues and see this for yourself there isn't anything I can write that will change minds. There is a reason very smart, very rich people buy NBA teams: they are profitable in the long run. There is also a reason a lot of owners and GMs make the same mistakes over and over again: they aren't very good at their jobs. I am not waving the players' banner but don't expect me to buy into this garbage about how this is all for the good of the game cause it's nonsense. I learned my lesson from the 1994 MLB ordeal when the owners went and blew their brains out on signing free agents within days of the deal being signed. NHL fans learned the lesson from their last lockout when "poor" owners signed guys to 10 year deals for $100mm and now, not ten years later, are crying poor again even though they got everything they wanted last time. Looks like a new generation of NBA fans will be learning the same lesson soon.

I don't know who any of those people are (I only follow basketball) but the CBA would not allow long deals like that, and other sports have far more players on the roster, so far more flexibility to spend money. In the NBA, you've got 15 roster spots and you know that the majority of that has to go to the top 3-5 players on the team.

Teams HAVE to go out and try and sign free agents if they want to improve, and that means competition for the few free agents that might make an impact. Unfortunately, there's no clear-cut way of deciding who makes an impact and who doesn't, and that means some teams end up having to gamble. Imagine a world where there are a limited number of workers, especially good ones. Companies are going to offer bigger and bigger contracts to try and entice the best workers if they want to compete as a company.

This doesn't mean those teams and those companies can afford it. Like the guy with the credit card, they're taking a mortgage out to put them in a better position.

And you complain about the owners and GMs, what about the fans? They're the first one to jump on a GM for signing a guy to a bad deal, but they'll also lynch him for letting talent go or not trying to go out and get it. Raptor fans are the perfect example. How many times have I read a comment from a fan that has called MLSE cheap? The Raptors have NEVER been under the cap for more than a season, have (or attempted) to sign free agents and overpaid in the process to do it. They've re-signed or tried to re-sign just about every big name player they've had and they've trade for plenty of big contracts. Yet fans still call them cheap because they don't spend as much as teams like the Lakers.

Yes, bad deals are always going to be signed, but if you've got a hard cap and only 15 roster spots, they are going to be a lot fewer and far between.

[Apollo]

Déjà vu

NEW YORK — There’s a new David in town, possibly a worthy adversary of the other David, aka Commissioner Stern.

This is a copy of the lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court by David Boies, the temporary de-facto leader of what used to be the National Basketball Players Association. In court lingo, it will be called Anthony v. NBA. (Yes, Carmelo is Tom Brady 2.0)

In case you missed it, I was at union (trade association?) headquarters in Harlem last night as Boies spoke to a group of writers who have been closely covering the NBA lockout. Click here to link to the story I wrote last night on Boies saying he is calling David Stern’s bluff.

If somebody wants to call Boies’ bluff, they can cite two quotes from his argument in Brady v. NFL, in which he represented the owners, not the players.

This is from a brief filed in the NFL anti-trust lawsuit after pro football players decertified their union:

“The law is not so easily manipulated. One party to a collective bargaining relationship cannot, through its own tactical and unilateral conduct, instantaneously oust federal labor law or extinguish another party’s labor law rights. A union cannot, by a tactical declaration akin to th flip of a switch, transform a multiemployer bargaining unit’s lawful use of economic tools afforded it under labor laws into an antitrust violation giving rise to treble damages and injunctive relief.”

Later in that same brief, Boise argues:

“When federal labor policy collides with federal antitrust policy in a labor market organized around a collective bargaining relationship, antitrust policy must give way. Accordingly, employees confronted with actions imposed lawfully through the collective bargaining process must respond not with a lawsuit brought under the Sherman Act, but rather with the weapons provided by the federal labor laws.”

Source: Sheridan Hoops

[Apollo]

again that comes back to the idea that money (salary) is one of the deciding factors in success. Which has consistently been shown to be inaccurate.

From Slaw's link:



The two biggest factors deciding how good a team is, and will be in any system, is management and luck.

He doesn't say the relationship doesn't exist, he says it's not strong but his logic is a little flawed if I am reading this correctly. You can't just crunch the numbers because you need to individually analyze each particular situation and set of circumstances. Chicago and Oklahoma are prime examples of teams who will throw off basic calculations to prove that money isn't a large factor. They are teams who drafted really well recently and have a lot of their top guys on cheap rookie deals. They would have to spend a lot of money to keep that unit together and a lot more to add to it in the old system. In other words they break the calculation because their current situations are impossible to sustain.

Money can play a big factor. Your stance, this guy's stance as well, is that if you have two equal managers and two equal rosters but one manager has $20M more to spend over the cap on players then that doesn't mean anything. That extra $20M of money plays little into the scheme of things because the findings from your basic comparison of the standings versus labour cost is inconclusive. That's your stance unless I'm misunderstanding here. That's very, very short sighted. The money isn't the determining factor in success but it is a limiting factor to how much success is reached. Bad managers are going to make some bad moves no matter if they have $50M to work with or $90M, no doubt about it. However, good managers tend to make good moves and the only thing that can apply the breaks to their rosters in the old system outside of bad luck is resources. Money.

OK, maybe there is no obvious example but I am sure they do exist! And it's unfair to say The King has no management experience because he played a major role in the organization of The Decision last Summer.

Yeah he's great and if you're not sold, just ask him.

[mcHAPPY]

Via Twitter.com:

SpearsNBAYahoo Players vs NBA class-action antitrust lawsuit filed in Oakland set for court on Feb. 29, 2012. Court official says date could be moved up.

*EDIT*

It would appear unless the lawyers for both sides get together to work something out there will be no 2011-12 season in my opinion.

[GarbageTime]

Look at it this way. A hard cap is like giving someone a finite amount of money and saying this is your budget. After that there's nothing more. A soft cap is like giving someone that AND a credit card, just in case he needs more money. If you have $100 to spend (and that's it), you're a lot less likely to spend it on something you don't need because you know once it's gone you've got nothing else to spend on food and bills. If you also have a credit card, you now have a way to buy that big screen TV. Now, logically, you shouldn't buy the big screen TV unless you have the money, but you can justify it because you can always pay the money back at some point.
With a hard cap, a GM is going to do the simple math and realize that he won't have the money to pay Kris Humphries $8 million a season and still have enough leftover to get the other players he needs. There's no justifying that when he needs to add more and better players, he can just pay to get more.

Now there are drawbacks to a hardcap and, as a fan, I don't like it, but it would most definitely curtail spending and all those outrageous contracts.

I know what you are getting at, but it needs to be pointed out that this is a business and not discretionary consumer spending.

The old adage of 'it takes money to make money' holds true in the NBA (or any sport) aswell. So what you may see as just spending on a big screen TV for one person, could be buying a big screen for TV for resale (and profit) to another.

No team should be restricted from 'investing' and helping improve their team or profitability. We can both agree that regardless, some spending will end up making a bad investment... and thats a loss that person will and should simply have to accept. At the same time, others can work out great.

But just because one person isn't willing to take a risk on a new TV, doesn't mean his neighboor shouldn't be able to either.

[Hugmenot]

Perhaps the idea is for King James to sit atop mount Olympus and dictate orders to the peasants?

Sure, why not!

History is filled with examples of multi-billion corporations thriving shortly after putting individuals with no prior management experience at their helm. I can name you two dozen examples of the top of my head!

...

(Putting thinking cap on)

....

(Searching Google for an example)

...

OK, maybe there is no obvious example but I am sure they do exist! And it's unfair to say The King has no management experience because he played a major role in the organization of The Decision last Summer.

(Remembering the PR fallout)

We're doomed!

I'm all shook up
Mm mm oh, oh, yeah, yeah!

[GarbageTime]

Look at it this way, most of the teams in the league now have their own internal "hard caps". It's in their individual team budgets. Teams have been operating under a "hard cap" forever. The new CBA simply aligns all those "hard caps" and thus helps to even the playing field. Like Tim said, most teams are going to be more cautious when they're speeding towards a concrete wall. Those who don't fall to the wayside to make room for better run teams. In a hard cap system it's all about management and not about management and money.

But what that self appointed 'hard cap' is, regardless of the market, owner or team, changes from year to year, based on their situation.

Again I'll point to Cleveland. Where their self imposed 'hard cap' seemed to be somewhere in the 85 mil range. Now its likely closer to (or maybe even below) the leagues 'soft cap' range. If Lebron was still on the team, or they draft/obtain the next Lebron James, I guarantee their self imposed 'hard cap' changes again. What happens to Milwaukees ability and willingness to spend with a superstar? Sacramento? Toronto? Utah?

The idea that they can't afford to compete with anyone else is nonesense... they (Cleveland) did it for 4-5 years. Teams do it all the time when they have superstars. Teams that do it without superstars... lose. The reason some teams can't, or are unwilling to do it, currently is they lack a superstar which takes a lot of the risk of spend out of the equation.

So why should OKC, or Chicago, or Toronto or any other team be unable to spend, to build on what they have and what they have been doing (if they so choose to) because Cleveland (or Sacramento or whoever) currently doesn't have the balls or superstars to do it?

Bringing everyone else down to the level of the incompetent or weak... is just making everyone more incompetent and weak. That only makes the incompetent and weak look better, but it doesn't actually make them any stronger.

In a hard cap system it's all about management and not about management and money

again that comes back to the idea that money (salary) is one of the deciding factors in success. Which has consistently been shown to be inaccurate.

From Slaw's link:

NBA.com: One effect of equalizing payrolls is you incentivize good players to go where the money is available. But another might be paying good money to players who might not deserve it, just because more franchises have to spend on ... somebody.

KM: That's a problem. The other thing is, there is some relationship between pay and success but it's not nearly as strong as people think it is. Even if you were to completely equalize pay across teams, there still would be an enormous variation in strength of teams. In a statistical sense, the level of payroll of a team explains somewhere like 5 percent to 10 percent in the variation in outcomes.

NBA.com: That's all?

KM: That's it. I did a little experiment. All you have to do is take the overall distribution of win-loss percentages. Let them tell you what they think the relationship between salaries and wins is. They tell you 'This much spending is worth this many wins.' So then you take everybody's salary down to the mean or up to the mean. Then if you tell me you get an extra win for every $3 million you spend, I'm going to give everyone I'm moving up an extra win for each $3 million. Everybody I move down, I'm going to give one fewer win for each $3 million.

NBA.com: And?

KM: The relationship between salaries and the number of wins in a season is positive, but it's pretty weak. It certainly is not going to have a dramatic change in the distribution of outcomes. It might change who the winners are and who the losers are, but you're still going to have some teams that are much better than others. Because some people spend their money much more wisely than others do.

NBA.com: That's what the owners say they want: A chance for good management to make a difference.

KM: That's a different issue. The problem is, just about for every [owner] who spent a lot and they won a lot, so you're moving them closer to the average, there's some [owner] who spent a lot and didn't win a lot and you're moving them in the other direction.

The two biggest factors deciding how good a team is, and will be in any system, is management and luck.

[Apollo]

I give you: Vincent Levacalier (31 yrs old, 9 yrs, $8mm per), Illya Kovalchuk ($100mm till 2025). I'd also throw in Scott Gomez, Daniel Briere, Chris Pronger and Marian Hossa.

Sorry but what the heck does that have to do with anything? The NBA is trying to limit contracts to up to four or five years at the most. Even in the old system were we talking six years at the max.

I also present some wonderdful NFL deals: Stanford Routt, Paul Solial, Eric Weddle, Davin Joseph, etc.

Also, there are no fully guaranteed contracts in the NFL. For example, how much guaranteed money did Weddle get? I'm thinking half. So the worst case scenario was them dropping him immediately after signing him and being on the hook for less than $4M/yr out of a cap that's well over $100M/yr. And he's one of their stars and captains.

Yeah, management is going to make mistakes at times no matter the sport but your logic of if it can't be perfect then why bother doing anything is very flawed.

[slaw]

Now there are drawbacks to a hardcap and, as a fan, I don't like it, but it would most definitely curtail spending and all those outrageous contracts.

I give you: Vincent Levacalier (31 yrs old, 9 yrs, $8mm per), Illya Kovalchuk ($100mm till 2025). I'd also throw in Scott Gomez, Daniel Briere, Chris Pronger and Marian Hossa. I also present some wonderdful NFL deals: Stanford Routt, Paul Solial, Eric Weddle, Davin Joseph, etc.

There are others but, well, I think the point is clear and I grow weary of having to try and explain that the owners are full of crap over and over again. If you can't look at 30 years of history through the 4 major sports leagues and see this for yourself there isn't anything I can write that will change minds. There is a reason very smart, very rich people buy NBA teams: they are profitable in the long run. There is also a reason a lot of owners and GMs make the same mistakes over and over again: they aren't very good at their jobs. I am not waving the players' banner but don't expect me to buy into this garbage about how this is all for the good of the game cause it's nonsense. I learned my lesson from the 1994 MLB ordeal when the owners went and blew their brains out on signing free agents within days of the deal being signed. NHL fans learned the lesson from their last lockout when "poor" owners signed guys to 10 year deals for $100mm and now, not ten years later, are crying poor again even though they got everything they wanted last time. Looks like a new generation of NBA fans will be learning the same lesson soon.

[GarbageTime]

Interesting interview with Kevin Murphy, NBPA economist for the CBA negotiations. RTWT, but there are some interesting asides:






http://www.nba.com/2011/news/feature...phy/index.html

Its actually an amazing read and covers so many things we have all discussed here. I will say that we do have to consider he is paid by the PA, but I think it should put alot of whats been going on in perspective.

Great find Slaw.

[Apollo]

Look at it this way, most of the teams in the league already have their own internal "hard caps". It's in their individual team budgets. Teams have been operating under a "hard cap" forever. A hard cap would simply align all those "hard caps" and thus helps to even the playing field. Like Tim said, most teams are going to be more cautious when they're speeding towards a concrete wall. Those who don't fall to the wayside to make room for better run teams. In a hard cap system it's all about management and not about management and money.