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

[mcHAPPY]

I hope Sheridan is right.....

..... because if he is not, the league will suffer for years to come in my opinion.

NEW YORK — “It demonstrates the potential for more movement on our part.”

Those words came out of the mouth of NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver on Tuesday after the owners offered the players a 50-50 split of revenues. So although some are writing that the players will never get an offer like that again, I’ll take the word of Silver over the word of a fellow blogissist.

There is a fair chance there will be contact between the league office and the players association today, if not for a brief sitdown (the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur begins at sundown, shortening the workday), then to set the table for a final round of negotiations to bring an end to the lockout before Monday — the date commissioner David Stern has set as the deadline to save the scheduled Nov. 1 start of the regular season.

To properly appreciate how eager Stern is to get a deal done, consider this: When he knocked on the door where the players were caucusing Tuesday and upped his offer from 47 percent to 50 percent, he moved further in the space of one minute than he had over the course of the entire summer. I still maintain that if Stern had made the 50-50 offer before the sides separated to caucus, the deal would have been done by now. Moving from 46 to 47 percent, as he did, was a slap in the face to the players (especially with a hothead like Kevin Garnett in the room) and left them predisposed to react angrily toward whatever words were the next to come out of Stern’s mouth. It was a tactical error on the commissioner’s part.

SheridanHoops.com has learned that the players’ most recent offer requested a 52.4 percent share of revenues in the first year of a six-year deal, rising gradually to 54 percent by Year 6 and averaging out at 53 percent.

So the sides are not 2 or 3 percentage points apart, they are 2.4 percentage points apart — at least in terms of Year One, or to use Ken Berger’s math, they are $80 million apart in a business that took in $4.2 billion in revnues last year. That is a bridgeable gap – especially when taking Silver’s aforementioned quote into account.

So I’ll say it again: The deal will get done, and no regular season games will be lost. That has been my prediction all along, and I ain’t budging. I’ll leave the budging to the guys in the negotiating room.

[jimmie]

Are you even allowed to cite Sheridan on this site? The Worldwide Leader might not be amused at quoting an embittered former employee who appears to be scooping the rest of the industry on this (if he turns out to be right)... ;-)

[mcHAPPY]

Looks like a Monday meeting may not be a given afterall - granted it is only Friday:

The National Basketball Players Association requested a meeting with league negotiators for Monday before the first two weeks of the regular season are canceled and could not agree with NBA officials on the parameters, a union source told CBSSports.com.

NBA officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the information released by the union, which is now planning regional meetings Saturday in Miami -- in conjunction with the All-Star exhibition game involving LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and other stars -- and Monday in Los Angeles.

According to the union source, the league would agree to a meeting Monday -- the deadline set by commissioner David Stern for canceling the first two weeks of regular season games -- only if the players agreed beforehand to accept the NBA's offer of a 50-50 revenue split. The union declined, the source said.

This latest round of posturing comes as negotiations reach the potential home stretch after the sides trimmed $1.6 billion off the cap between them Tuesday but couldn't agree on the final number on the split of the league's $4 billion in revenues. When the two sides walked away Tuesday, the league had put an offer of 49-51 percent for the players, and the players had responded with a 51-53 percent band.

The league should just cancel the first two weeks and make the offer again.

[mcHAPPY]

Again, only Friday but things are not looking good for Monday.

Twitter is all lit up. Best tweet I've seen:

Mike Wells (reporter for Pacers in Indianapolis):
@KBerg_CBS reports no meeting Monday cause players still won't accept 50-50 split. What makes them think they'll get a better offer later?

[mcHAPPY]

Once BRI is determined, there are still other issues to look at which were linked by Apollo in another thread and can be viewedhere.

The idea of an excessive luxury tax has been discussed but the union looks at it as a quasi-hardcap. Zach Lowe provides some options:

The result has been a discussion of creative ways in which the league can “punish” teams that pay the luxury tax without raising tax levels so high, sources told SI.com. The two sides have kicked around a system in which teams would not be allowed to exceed the luxury tax every season, though it is unclear exactly how that would work, in terms of how and when a tax-paying team would have to get itself under the next tax threshold.

Perhaps most promising, the two sides have discussed potential tradeoffs, so that teams that pay a certain amount in tax one year would be deprived of various cap exceptions the next year. In other words, if Team X spent $90 million on player salary in one season, or was set to exceed certain tax level in the following season (the timing is unclear at this point), that team would not have access to the mid-level exception during the summer free-agency period. Or perhaps it’d face stricter limitations on Bird Rights than the rest of the league, making it harder for the team to retain outgoing free agents.

The horse-trading here is interesting. On the one hand, teams wouldn’t live in fear of a luxury-tax bill so massive as to curtail the kind of adventurous spending the union wants. On the other hand, some tax-paying teams would lose access to handy team-building mechanisms, and (given a loss of some Bird Rights), they might have to construct their rosters with an eye on timing the expiration of contracts just right.

Interesting concepts. I still think a hard cap would be the way to go with a salary cap around the current luxury tax.

[mcHAPPY]

Read this in reverse order via HoopsWorld.com Twitter feed:

tribjazz ... play. We offered to extend the current system. We made concessions off our initial stances. The NBA seems to be the one who won't play."
about 1 minute ago · reply · retweet · favorite

tribjazz Bell: "To your average fan out there, it will come across as a player being greedy. When in fact, we are not the ones saying we won't ...
about 1 minute ago · reply · retweet · favorite

tribjazz Jazz's Raja Bell, player rep, on NBA lockout PR battle: "Obviously that was the NBA's agenda and they control most of the media."

I think what Raja doesn't understand is that the old system didn't work for the league as a whole and they will be in the hole on this year in 2 weeks and on a 6 year contract by December 16th. Good luck gentlemen, clearly you need it.


EDIT: again read in reverse order:

daldridgetnt NBA spokesman Tim Frank: "We told the union today that we were willing to meet as early as Sunday...
about 1 minute ago · reply · retweet · favorite

HowardBeckNYT Tim Frank: "We told the union today that we were willing to meet as early as Sunday."
2 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

HowardBeckNYT Tim Frank of NBA PR issues statement confirming league stance: willing to talk with union, not willing to move beyond 50-50.

[mcHAPPY]

Maybe Sheridan is wrong. Things are not looking optimistic now.

The N.B.A. has informed the players association that it will not resume negotiations on a new labor deal unless the union first agrees to a 50-50 split of revenues — a condition that has been rejected by union leaders, according to two people who have been briefed on the talks.

The standoff effectively guarantees that the N.B.A. will cancel the first two weeks of the regular-season games when its offices reopen on Monday.

Union leaders are pushing to resume negotiations, but without any preconditions, said the people who have been briefed on the talks, who have ties to the players’ side. The union wants to negotiate other aspects of the new labor deal, with the hope that the parties could then bridge the gap on the revenue split. There had been some hope that talks could resume this weekend and perhaps avert the cancellation of games.

But there will be no talks this weekend, and perhaps for the foreseeable future. With talks at a standstill, union leaders have instead scheduled a regional membership meeting for Monday in Los Angeles.Adam Silver, the N.B.A.’s deputy commissioner, confirmed that the owners are standing firm at 50-50, although he disagreed with the union’s portrayal of events.

“What we told the union was that we were not prepared to negotiate over the B.R.I. split beyond the 50-50 concept that had already been discussed,” Silver said, referring to the N.B.A.’s acronym for basketball-related income.

Silver added, however, that the league was “prepared to continue negotiating over the many other issues that remain open” — such as the salary-cap system, the luxury tax and the length of contracts.

Negotiations broke down on Tuesday despite considerable movement by both sides. The players, who have been earning 57 percent of league revenues, offered to reduce their share to an annual average of 53 percent. The owners offered 47 percent, then moved to 50 percent in a last-ditch appeal, which the players refused.

The 50-50 concept, floated by Commissioner David Stern in a sidebar discussion with union leaders, was framed as an informal proposal — one that each side would have to sell to its executive committee. Stern later told reporters that he had enough support to make a deal.

The union has repeatedly hinted that it might come down as low as 52 percent, meaning the two sides may be only 2 percentage points apart. Each point represents about $40 million in today’s terms. When labor talks began last year, the gap was nearly 20 percent, with the owners seeking a giveback of up to $800 million a year.

The narrowing gap inspired some modest optimism even as the two sides parted Tuesday afternoon. Now it appears that both sides are digging in for a longer fight.

Stern has already canceled the preseason. He said the first two weeks of the regular season, which is scheduled to start Nov. 1, would be canceled on Monday, barring a last-minute breakthrough.

The union is referring to Monday’s event in Los Angeles as a regional gathering, not a full membership meeting. No votes will be taken. However, the union is expecting larger numbers than usual because of the state of negotiations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/sp...ks.html?src=tp

[mcHAPPY]

Union calling move by NBA as total hardball move. Well, no sh!t.

“This is a total hardball move,” a union source told Y! Sports. “This just confirms what we suspected all along: The NBA was never serious about negotiating until [players] missed checks.”

The latest standoff could be an attempt by NBA commissioner David Stern to reach out to rank-and-file players, get them to rally against the union’s stand and accept the terms on the table.

Union officials have scheduled regional meetings for the players Saturday in Miami and Monday in Los Angeles. Players Association executive director Billy Hunter will attend the L.A. meeting.

“If the league wants to meet with us Monday, they’ll have to get their asses out to L.A.,” another union source told Y! Sports.

Stern said the league will cancel the first two weeks of the 2011-12 season if a deal isn’t reached by Monday. Talks broke off between NBA owners and players Tuesday when Stern suggested the owners would be willing to agree to a 50-50 split in the league’s basketball-related income while the players have been seeking a deal that guarantees them at least 52 percent.

Stern didn’t have overwhelming support among owners when he suggested the 50-50 split, league sources told Y! Sports, and many owners never wanted to go north of 48.5 percent for the players’ share.

In addition to the revenue split, the league’s owners and players still need to finish negotiating the luxury tax on the salary cap, the future of the midlevel and bi-annual exceptions and other major system items.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_yl...r_talks_100711


The NBAPA are quickly going to find themselves in the NHLPA situation: the last offer before the season was lost was better than the one they eventually agreed to. Obviously they either don't care or don't realize that the amount they are haggling for the next 6 years will be over will be lost by December 16th.

[NoPropsneeded]

50/50 sounds good, players need to shut up and sign this deal so we can watch our damn basketball.

[Apollo]

If they don't take this it's going to hurt their public image. A 50/50 split isn't exactly a bad deal.

[mcHAPPY]

If they don't take this it's going to hurt their public image. A 50/50 split isn't exactly a bad deal.

Especially considering there are no expenses deducted initially. This is straight up 50/50.

Initially, Hunter and union sources claimed that the league's 50-50 offer came with the condition that the league be able to first take off $350 million in expenses off the top for its arena maintenance costs, growing endeavors such as NBA China and other deductions, meaning the actual split would be 53-47 in favor of the league. But Fisher and Hunter's letter to the players on Wednesday indicated the NBA's offer was for a straight 50-50 split without the $350 deduction, and a union source on Friday confirmed the "clean" 50-50 proposal. The union, however, indicated after the last formal meeting Tuesday, and reiterated in the Wednesday letter, that it thought that split was unacceptable.

http://www.nba.com/2011/news/10/07/a...bor/index.html

Fisher does not seem to understand the NBA provides the stage to which they perform and get richly rewarded:

"The reality is that we believe that we're the most significant and important asset to this particular business," Fisher said Tuesday. "And with the level of revenue that will be continue to be generated as this business grows, that there's just a fair place that the compensation should start for this particular group. We're not saying it should be all ours. We're not saying we're the only thing that matter. But it's just a fair place that that should be for the talent and the skill that drive the business. That's, conceptually, where we are."

Obviously the lack of mega-offers coming from Europe and China is not sinking in for the NBAPA. Deron Williams is certainly not helping the cause for European teams wishing to spend either. Australian teams cannot even pay the insurance premium for Bogut and he doesn't even want a salary!

Wake up, union. This is the best you will get.

EDIT: Actually on second thought, the owners should give the players 52%. After that is done, the new forms of transportation becomes economy class. Just think of the endorsement money that will come from an airliner to be "the official airline carrier of the NBA." So there goes the private or chartered jets. Next up, no more "Four Seasons" or 5-star hotel stays. The new hotel of the NBA will the Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express.

So there, the owners just cut their costs by hundreds of millions of dollars and gave up $80M per season.

F*CK YOU, players.


Back to Derek Fisher above and the "...we believe we're the most significant and important asset..." comments. You, sir, are only partially correct. LBJ, Dwayne Wade, Kobe, Dwight, Yao, Duncan, Shaq, Jordan and the other top stars are the most significant and important assets. The league is promoted around superstars and their popularity. The rest of you, and yes I mean you too, Derek, are parasites, free loading off top talent. I said this before, and I'll say it again, it is the top stars in the league who should be pissed off at both the owners and the role to fringe players - both of those groups are taking money from their pockets. As sad as it is to say, Kobe is worth more than $30M to the Lakers.

EDIT 2:

Here is Shannon Brown, another Kobe parasite, telling it 'like it is':

Shannon Brown joined ESPN Radio in Los Angeles and addressed Stern's 50-50 claim. And he doesn't sound like he's buying it.

Everybody wants everybody on their side so if he told the media whatever he told them that is just to get everybody who doesn’t really know what is going on on their side. That’s the way he wants to play the game and that’s the way he’s playing the game. Everybody, the truth will come out when it’s all said and done. The books haven’t been all the way open so you never know know what’s not being said. I just try to leave that part alone and just focus on coming to this agreement.

Of course Brown has been teammates with Derek Fisher for the past few years so it's likely they've talked since Monday. But Brown's pretty much calling Stern a liar here. A lot of players evidently feel this way but saying "the truth will come out when it's all said and done" is a pretty strong indication Brown thinks Stern is lying.

http://eye-on-basketball.blogs.cbssp...48484/32539592

Here is a comment from that clip. Redsfan1507 at CBSsports.com nailed it:

Here's the truth...

Stern is a commissioner of a league where the employees think they deserve a majority of BRI (Basketball Related Income) without paying any of the BRE (Basketball Related Expenses)...and it's ALL BSS. (Bull Schidt Stupidity). The players are offended that owners didn't jump at the concession to only lose $100 million a year instead of $300 million a year, so they can continue to make 10 times more money than they can elsewhere, until the NBA goes bankrupt.

Players are attempting a robbery by holding the gun to their own head. Eventually, owners are going to give up and tell them to "go ahead and shoot".

The only people on the players "side" are people that don't understand the simple rule that the first priority of business HAS TO BE TO STAY IN BUSINESS...unfortunately, the players don't understand...they don't trust owners that pay them millions, but they trust agents that will drop them for NFL, NHL, MLB and MLS players them minute their checks stop....go figure.

Go ahead and shoot, already.

By the way, everything in here is my opinion - well, and Redsfan1507 who I share the opinion with.

[GarbageTime]

Fisher does not seem to understand the NBA provides the stage to which they perform and get richly rewarded

so did the company make the product or the product the company?

I'm assuming it was the Raps that put Vince on "the map" and not Vince that put Toronto on "the map"

Wake up, union. This is the best you will get

heard this a few times already and yet the deals the owners have been offering have been getting better and better. Don't forget the owners have more to lose than the players do.... the players lose salary, the owners lose their investment which they still owe money on.

As sad as it is to say, Kobe is worth more than $30M to the Lakers.

then why aren't you upset with the owners for creating a salary cap and a max salary? Thats the only reason Kobe and Lebron etc. don't get payed more. Even if no one else played on their team, or their entire team was min. salary players those players can only make X dollars. The owners want to make that amount even smaller not the players... it has nothing to do with their teammates.

F*CK YOU, players

How quickly people forget this is a lock out and not a strike. The Owners brought this on and not the players. They could have continued the season under the old agreement and tried to reach a new one along the way....

[jimmie]

so did the company make the product or the product the company?

Clearly the "product" is not what you think it is. The product is basketball. Not the players. If you don't think people would pay to watch a completely different set of players play the same game, you're crazy, because the Euroleague, NCAA, and hell, even US high school basketball are still drawing big crowds. What made the NBA what it is today is David Stern. I don't like the way he's playing this current lockout game, either, but you have to give credit where it's due. The owners' money (and granted, subsequent bad decisions with said money) combined with Stern's marketing and organizational acumen are the reason the players are making such ridiculous salaries today.

Sure, I'm on board with the argument that the owners made their own bed by offering those salaries, and I certainly don't blame the players for taking them. But the players thinking that THEY'RE the primary reason basketball is so popular today, and therefore they deserve a bigger piece of the pie -- well that's crazy, and has nothing to do with a union protecting the "rights" of its members.

Professional basketball isn't a 'partnership' between the owners and players -- never has been, never will be -- and the sooner the players get back to begrudgingly realizing they are glorified employees, like the rest of us in unionized jobs who DON'T make multimillions a year, the sooner we'll get to watch basketball again.

[mcHAPPY]

so did the company make the product or the product the company?

I'm assuming it was the Raps that put Vince on "the map" and not Vince that put Toronto on "the map"



heard this a few times already and yet the deals the owners have been offering have been getting better and better. Don't forget the owners have more to lose than the players do.... the players lose salary, the owners lose their investment which they still owe money on.



then why aren't you upset with the owners for creating a salary cap and a max salary? Thats the only reason Kobe and Lebron etc. don't get payed more. Even if no one else played on their team, or their entire team was min. salary players those players can only make X dollars. The owners want to make that amount even smaller not the players... it has nothing to do with their teammates.



How quickly people forget this is a lock out and not a strike. The Owners brought this on and not the players. They could have continued the season under the old agreement and tried to reach a new one along the way....

Good cherry picking.

The NBA put both Toronto and Vince on the map.

Both players and league/owners need one another - one cannot survive without the other - which is why a straight 50/50 split with no initial deductions for expenses by the owners seems more than fair. Sure players can play elsewhere but the lockout has shown how limited opportunities are for the majority of the league's players elsewhere.

Do not forget there were only 22 people associated with the NBA that lost money last year.

The offer has gotten better - up until the point revenues are lost and part of the season is in jeopardy which has been said all along. The final offer was just given to which many owners still do not agree with. Look back through Coon's article and the article from eightpointnineseconds.com. The players careers last on average 5 seasons. They will never make back the money they are about to lose. Owners can make back losses over years and decades and many have other streams of income. The first 2 weeks of the season lost will put the players in the hole for this season even with a 53% share. December 16th will be the date at which the money the players are fighting for over a 6 year contract will be lost.

Unfortunately a salary cap is needed to control expenses for the over 95% of the league that are not superstars and do not pay for themselves and then some. The problem here is not the stars, it is the rank and file union reps (Derek Fisher, Etan Thomas, Roger Mason, etc.) getting paid much more than they deserve in this system.

It is a lockout because the majority of owners are losing money operating their franchise. That is not a business model that will yield long term success. If you truly don't believe many of the owners are losing money in their operations of a franchise, then we'll never really agree on anything with regards to this. If you think this is 100% the fault of the owners and management then we have a philosophical difference of opinion on how the current agreement differently effects certain franchises.

[jimmie]

And by the way, this is what I think is really at the root of the stalemate:

"the players thinking that THEY'RE the primary reason basketball is so popular today, and therefore they deserve a bigger piece of the pie"

It's all rhetoric at this point -- egos are involved, and nobody has bigger egos than athletes and billionaires. In my opinion, this thing started because some owners are losing money and parity is declining more and more every year. But it's dragged on this long because the players really do believe they're the reason the league is successful, and simply want a bigger piece of the profit pie. Without them either being backed against a wall to the point where the rank and file are financially affected, as Matt mentions above, or where they let go of their massive egos long enough to stare reality in the face, this lockout continues.