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

[mcHAPPY]

If the season happens KG doesn't loose much, but if the season is lost he looses his last (and biggest?) pay year.

You are also only looking at current paycheques. One of the reason KG is 'standing strong' (that the article refers to anyways) is for players future pay, which he is going to benifit very little from as his NBA tenure is closing fast.

KG has alot to loose and little to gain from this lockout. hence the idea of matyrdom

I'd also mention if we are going to criticize the players for not sacrificing more than a drop in the bucket compared to what they already have.... how do we not use the same reasoning with the owners?

Assuming its true the owners lost 300 mil combined, thats 10 mil per owner. A 4% drop in BRI (at 4 bil per season) changes this to an assumed loss of 140 mil or 5 mil per owner. Which is "a drop in the bucket" to these guys aswell which the owners are unwilling to sacrifice.

How is the team that has lost $10M (and that is an average so there are teams losing more, teams losing less or profitable) to add another $40M in salary to have a chance to compete?


From the owners side this is more than dollars and cents. As a fan it is more about dollars and cents to me as well.

[Apollo]

If the season happens KG doesn't loose much, but if the season is lost he looses his last (and biggest?) pay year.

You can't say that unless you can see the future and know what will be agreed upon.

KG has alot to loose and little to gain from this lockout. hence the idea of matyrdom

So what are you saying? He's figuratively going to die for the player's sins? The public is not going to see him as a martyr. There will be no children's egg hunts on "Garnett Sunday".

I'd also mention if we are going to criticize the players for not sacrificing more than a drop in the bucket compared to what they already have.... how do we not use the same reasoning with the owners?

I'm criticizing Garnett for aggressively giving the players making far less than him bad advice.

Assuming its true the owners lost 300 mil combined, thats 10 mil per owner. A 4% drop in BRI (at 4 bil per season) changes this to an assumed loss of 140 mil or 5 mil per owner. Which is "a drop in the bucket" to these guys aswell which the owners are unwilling to sacrifice.

The change means they're not losing money. Half the league was losing money, so it's more like 300/15, which is $20M in losses per season by half the league. Then you need to consider that some of those teams were hurt far more by it. Some of them could have lost $30M/year for all we know.

[GarbageTime]

[QUOTE=Matt52;98497]How is the team that has lost $10M (and that is an average so there are teams losing more, teams losing less or profitable) to add another $40M in salary to have a chance to compete? [QUOTE]

Why do we keep assuming that a team HAS TO add dollars to compete. Teams acting much more intelligently and efficiently will also improve their ability to compete.

As has already been discussed only 5 teams spent into the luxury cap this past year. Only one team that did made it to the conference finals.


Yes teams, as a whole, will always spend a % of BRI... but paying Gilbert Arenas 22 mil, Hedo 11 mil, Drew Gooden 7 mil... is simply wasting resources. Wasting resources is never profitable. If GMs stopped doing stupid things, they'd, at the very least, get less stupid results.

From the owners side this is more than dollars and cents. As a fan it is more about dollars and cents to me as well.

and this is where you have fooled yourself into believing this is true. We discussed for most of the day about revenue sharing vs a hard cap.... IF the owners were truelly concerned about 'competitive balance' they have other options. You said yourself that owners shouldn't have to share $. While it may not be about dollars and cents to you (which I completely believe) its ALL about dollars and cents to these guys. Like I said many times before red herring.

[GarbageTime]

You can't say that unless you can see the future and know what will be agreed upon

well that same logic applies to the owners then to no? We can't say they'll loose money, or won't make a fortune, until we see what happens.... ofcourse if we are actually willing to be LOGICAL, we can expect owners under the current system to have a season comparable to the last few, and no one to offer KG anything close 20+ mil again.

So what are you saying? He's figuratively going to die for the player's sins? The public is not going to see him as a martyr. There will be no children's egg hunts on "Garnett Sunday".

I am.

I'm criticizing Garnett for aggressively giving the players making far less than him bad advice.

You see it as bad advice, others see it as good advice. Only time will tell that.

But, again, this idea of not sacrificing much works both ways.

The change means they're not losing money. Half the league was losing money, so it's more like 300/15, which is $20M in losses per season by half the league. Then you need to consider that some of those teams were hurt far more by it. Some of them could have lost $30M/year for all we know.

Well there in lies one of the huge problems there is with this debate. Who's loosing what? If half the teams are loosing money, then there is half that aren't and don't need this change in BRI/salaries. Of that half that are loosing, how many intentionally lost money? For example a guy like Cuban has stated publically he was always willing to loose money (and historically was) because he wanted to win so badly. So if one owner was willing to do that... how many else were?

Plus I'd mention if it was fair to average out player's salaries to show they were making to much, its just as fair to average out ownerships profits or losses.

[mcHAPPY]

[QUOTE=GarbageTime;98501][QUOTE=Matt52;98497]

How is the team that has lost $10M (and that is an average so there are teams losing more, teams losing less or profitable) to add another $40M in salary to have a chance to compete?

Why do we keep assuming that a team HAS TO add dollars to compete. Teams acting much more intelligently and efficiently will also improve their ability to compete.

As has already been discussed only 5 teams spent into the luxury cap this past year. Only one team that did made it to the conference finals.


Yes teams, as a whole, will always spend a % of BRI... but paying Gilbert Arenas 22 mil, Hedo 11 mil, Drew Gooden 7 mil... is simply wasting resources. Wasting resources is never profitable. If GMs stopped doing stupid things, they'd, at the very least, get less stupid results.

Because the most competitive teams in the league that are small market are also the best run and managed. So a small market team has to have one of the best front offices in the league whereas a large market team can just fix their mistakes with a stroke of the pen in the cheque book.

As for the teams that made it to the conference finals: OKC and CHI both have top players (Rose and Durant/Westbrook) who are still on their rookie contract. That makes a huge difference to the payroll and both will be tax payers once their top players rookie contracts expire.

MIA, under the current system, will have a payroll of over $100M in 2 seasons if they take advantage of their exemptions (which you can count on they would have in the old system).

And Dallas is the other you mentioned who have been buying talent for years.

You can continue to tell me that I have fooled myself and other disparaging remarks but I have taken the time read a little further in to the situation than just the basic numbers.

and this is where you have fooled yourself into believing this is true. We discussed for most of the day about revenue sharing vs a hard cap.... IF the owners were truelly concerned about 'competitive balance' they have other options. You said yourself that owners shouldn't have to share $. While it may not be about dollars and cents to you (which I completely believe) its ALL about dollars and cents to these guys. Like I said many times before red herring.

Because you say it doesn't make it so. Nor does what I am saying make it so. What you have is an opinion on revenue sharing versus hard cap, as do I.

As I said many times, and the last example I gave on Saturday you did not reply, players do not share their revenues outside of a limitation on max contracts, why should the owners share revenues outside of the BRI?

Back to my point - the examples I have given actually have more money going to the players with less restrictions. I do not know why the players wouldn't want an extra $500M in guaranteed salary going to their association without having to rely on exemptions which are not guaranteed to be used by every team as every team may not be above the salary cap.

[jimmie]

Seems to me that, as Groundhog Day enters post #844, this boils down to personal bias:

You either believe that the owners deserve to be "punished" for not managing to compete in the previous system, or that the previous system was ginned in a way that made it impossible for them to both compete on the court and be bottom-line-viable. It's their "fault" for spending unwisely, and they should have been able to both be profitable and competitive if only they had spent smarter.

The previous system basically guaranteed a choice for small-market owners: Make a profit for your investors, OR pay out the ying-yang to compete on the court. You can have one or the other, but not both.

This lockout is about changing the system in ways that make it more difficult to simply pay talent indiscriminately and unbalance the market by overspending to amass big-money talent in a small number of large markets.

You can certainly say that creative, smart-spending owners deserve to get the best players and win the championships, but if that's the case, you also need to ensure that the system they operate in encourages it and discourages the opposite. The current situation encourages over-spending in order to compete, essentially putting the "smart" GMs at the mercy of the dumb/overspending ones.

System needs to change. Owners want to change it. Union doesn't want to change it, and if they do, they only want it changed in ways that still allow teams to overpay for players. Whether either side ends up making more money or not matters not to me. As long as the changes they make ALSO make for a more competitive NBA, then I'm on board. And at this point, it seems like the owners are the only ones pushing for such significant changes.

[Apollo]

Seems to me that, as Groundhog Day enters post #844, this boils down to personal bias:

You either believe that the owners deserve to be "punished" for not managing to compete in the previous system, or that the previous system was ginned in a way that made it impossible for them to both compete on the court and be bottom-line-viable. It's their "fault" for spending unwisely, and they should have been able to both be profitable and competitive if only they had spent smarter.

The previous system basically guaranteed a choice for small-market owners: Make a profit for your investors, OR pay out the ying-yang to compete on the court. You can have one or the other, but not both.

This lockout is about changing the system in ways that make it more difficult to simply pay talent indiscriminately and unbalance the market by overspending to amass big-money talent in a small number of large markets.

You can certainly say that creative, smart-spending owners deserve to get the best players and win the championships, but if that's the case, you also need to ensure that the system they operate in encourages it and discourages the opposite. The current situation encourages over-spending in order to compete, essentially putting the "smart" GMs at the mercy of the dumb/overspending ones.

System needs to change. Owners want to change it. Union doesn't want to change it, and if they do, they only want it changed in ways that still allow teams to overpay for players. Whether either side ends up making more money or not matters not to me. As long as the changes they make ALSO make for a more competitive NBA, then I'm on board. And at this point, it seems like the owners are the only ones pushing for such significant changes.

Very good post. You described a lot of what's what's important. Now that we know far more than a few months ago, the sad thing is that collectively the hard cap and non-guaranteed contracts have no impact on the union. They will still get ever penny promised, it's just the teams will be more competitive and contracts priced based on past performance will be impacted by performance over the term of the contract. I hated how the owners moved away from these two points but now I'm thinking they may reappear as soon the players may be playing tennis against a brick wall.

I wonder what the union's breaking point will be? I personally don't think they know what it is themselves but I'm guessing once the one month of union pay runs out, things will begin to weaken.

[Apollo]

Players' League

It sounds great, doesn’t it? It’s the perfect solution. The NBA owners have locked out the players, so who needs them? The players can just take their ball and go start their own league, where the NBA owners have no say at all.

When does it start, right? Let’s all line up to go buy tickets!

That’s the sentiment expressed by New York Knicks All-Star forward Amar’e Stoudemire.

“If we don’t go to Europe then let’s to start our own league,” Stoudemire said in a recent interview. “That’s how I see it. It’s very serious. Yeah. It’s very, very serious. It’s a matter of us coming up with a plan, blueprint and putting it together. So we’ll see how this lockout goes. If it goes one or two years, then we got to start our own league.”

The important part of what Stoudemire said was towards the end, where he referred to “one or two years.” Realistically, it would take at least that long for the players to put together anything meaningful in terms of a real basketball league. It sounds easy enough to talk about booking venues, splitting up into teams, and just playing games, but when you start to think about the logistics, from actually booking venues to finding consistent revenue streams, the entire affair could quickly become a nightmare for the players.

Right now the NBA players are scattered to the four winds, with many playing in China, Europe, even Australia, where they are making a decent amount of money to play teams that are already established in leagues of their own. Those who aren’t currently playing for a professional team are all over the place in terms of organizing charity games or just trying to work out and stay in shape while waiting for the lockout to end. Trying to get everyone together to organize a new league would be no small feat in and of itself.

Then there’s the revenue to address. For a new league to get any kind of corporate sponsorship – which is the only way players could make anything close to even international basketball money – there would have to be a unified front. Someone would have to be the official representative of the league, and that person would have to have a staff of people helping coordinate the sponsorship effort. There is big money coming into the NBA, but that doesn’t mean there would be big money would automatically come into a new league, even with the star power of Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Chris Paul and Dwight Howard headlining. The NBA grabs huge corporate dollars because they have a world-wide audience that can be seen in myriad ways, from ESPN to NBATV, NBA League Pass and the national television audience, there are established ways that sponsors know their brands will be seen. It would be awfully tough for players to set up similar deals with a great deal of organization.

That brings us to the next issue – organization. Anyone who has been to an NBA event knows that it’s just about all the NBA can do to get the players in the right place at the right time. I laugh at the idea that NBA games could be rigged, simply because I know how hard it is to get the right teams in the right places at the right times. The idea that the league could somehow predetermine outcomes is beyond insane. If the NBA, with all of its established transportation infrastructure, can barely get everyone where they need to be, how would a new league propose to pull it off without any of the people who have been responsible for getting the NBA to where it is?

It’s not as easy as it sounds.

“Obviously, we’re trying to get things started now as far as, you know, getting the lockout resolved,” Stoudemire continued. “You know what I mean? We want to play NBA basketball. But if it doesn’t happen, what are we going to do? We can’t just sit around and not do anything.”

The best thing the players can do is to sign the deal the owners have on the table today, before it gets any worse. As we discussed in this space yesterday, the players have already lost any benefit they may have gained by losing the first two weeks of the 2011-12 season. They can’t afford to lose any more. And they certainly can’t afford to spend a year or two trying to organize a new league that would have little hope of getting them a payday anywhere close to even the cheapest offer the NBA owners could put on the table.

For now, Stoudemire is confident that the players can stick together and come out of the current negotiations without getting what they feel they need.

“Without question. We’re solid with where we stand. We just feel sorry for the fans. They want to see us play. They’re so hyped about the upcoming season. I know the New York fans are extremely ecstatic about Carmelo and myself this year, so it’s kind of a tough thing to swallow.”

Source: Hoopsworld.com

[GarbageTime]

Because the most competitive teams in the league that are small market are also the best run and managed. So a small market team has to have one of the best front offices in the league whereas a large market team can just fix their mistakes with a stroke of the pen in the cheque book.

As for the teams that made it to the conference finals: OKC and CHI both have top players (Rose and Durant/Westbrook) who are still on their rookie contract. That makes a huge difference to the payroll and both will be tax payers once their top players rookie contracts expire.

MIA, under the current system, will have a payroll of over $100M in 2 seasons if they take advantage of their exemptions (which you can count on they would have in the old system).

And Dallas is the other you mentioned who have been buying talent for years.

that is still evidence that a team can do it though.

Yes some teams have an easier opportunity to fix their mistakes, or absorb their mistakes, I'm not denying that. But thats life.... what you are advocating is OMG socialism (). Ironically enough telling LA or NY or whoever, we will no longer give you that ability is more or less telling them we won't allow you all opportunities to maximize your dollars (if dollars lead to wins and wins lead to dollars, limiting some teams spending will in turn limit their potential profitability). Something you felt the owners had a right to no?

You can continue to tell me that I have fooled myself and other disparaging remarks but I have taken the time read a little further in to the situation than just the basic numbers.




Because you say it doesn't make it so. Nor does what I am saying make it so. What you have is an opinion on revenue sharing versus hard cap, as do I.

As I said many times, and the last example I gave on Saturday you did not reply, players do not share their revenues outside of a limitation on max contracts, why should the owners share revenues outside of the BRI?

Back to my point - the examples I have given actually have more money going to the players with less restrictions. I do not know why the players wouldn't want an extra $500M in guaranteed salary going to their association without having to rely on exemptions which are not guaranteed to be used by every team as every team may not be above the salary cap

But you have, regardless of whether you are willing to see it or not. A hard cap may or may not be an easier method, a more fair method, a better method or whatever, than revenue sharing. But it is not the only method. If ownership priority wasn't on $ they would use any method at their disposal to achieve competitive balance. But they aren't, they are talking about the method that helps limit their costs.

So to say this is not about dollars and cents for one side or another is either misguided or blantantly untrue. And I don't think for a second you are lieing about your position.

This ownership vs union battle is the same as every other one in history.... a battle over $.



(And I never bothered responding because it was getting amazing repetitive.)

[jimmie]

"Ironically enough telling LA or NY or whoever, we will no longer give you that ability is more or less telling them we won't allow you all opportunities to maximize your dollars (if dollars lead to wins and wins lead to dollars, limiting some teams spending will in turn limit their potential profitability)."

This is absolutely true. Building a new system where the "have" teams can't spend more than the "have-not" teams can. The mechanic are not important, the principle is. It's unavoidable that teams will try to find loopholes in the system, as they have to date. This is why it's important to put (better) checks and balances in place that discourage/disable the "have" teams from doing so and forcing the "have-nots" into playing the same game (overspending) or else they can't compete.

The issue is that you seem to want a true free market system, where the Lebrons and Carmelos can make upwards of $50M/year playing for the Knicks while their supporting cast each makes $2M/year (or makes more, with the Knicks spending well past the cap) and the Bucks have to then overpay Kevin Love $35M/year just to stay in Milwaukee, and Milwaukee *still* can't compete because they aren't willing to spend luxury cap money. Untenable.

[Apollo]

"Ironically enough telling LA or NY or whoever, we will no longer give you that ability is more or less telling them we won't allow you all opportunities to maximize your dollars (if dollars lead to wins and wins lead to dollars, limiting some teams spending will in turn limit their potential profitability)."

This is absolutely true. Building a new system where the "have" teams can't spend more than the "have-not" teams can. The mechanic are not important, the principle is. It's unavoidable that teams will try to find loopholes in the system, as they have to date. This is why it's important to put (better) checks and balances in place that discourage/disable the "have" teams from doing so and forcing the "have-nots" into playing the same game (overspending) or else they can't compete.

The issue is that you seem to want a true free market system, where the Lebrons and Carmelos can make upwards of $50M/year playing for the Knicks while their supporting cast each makes $2M/year (or makes more, with the Knicks spending well past the cap) and the Bucks have to then overpay Kevin Love $35M/year just to stay in Milwaukee, and Milwaukee *still* can't compete because they aren't willing to spend luxury cap money. Untenable.

Revenue sharing is something the owners are promising so the Knicks and Lakers will lose some of their revenues. Again, the players will always get the full BRI share amount regardless who can spend what. So if the Lakers cut their spending in half the players lose nothing. The difference is instead of it all going to Kobe and Pau, it will now go to the whole union.

[Joey]

Again, the players will always get the full BRI share amount regardless who can spend what.

This is incorrect.

I've pointed it out a few times, that the owners are NOT on the hook if total Salaries come in under the BRI% Split.

Unless there was a change. But currently, this is not the case.

[jimmie]

Revenue sharing is something the owners are promising so the Knicks and Lakers will lose some of their revenues. Again, the players will always get the full BRI share amount regardless who who can spend what. So if the Lakers cut their spending in half the players lose nothing. The difference is instead of it all going to Kobe and Pau, it will now go to the whole union.

Exactly. Which is why I find the union's stated motives to be slightly disingenuous. They don't really care a rat's ass whether the league as a whole remains viable and/or whether teams like the Bucks and Pacers ever have a chance to win a championship, as long as they have the opportunity to make as much as they can, as quickly as they can. The sad thing is that the rank-and-file doesn't understand that, if the union gets what it says it wants, they'll be the ones making less money (and likely on very short-term contracts) over the long haul while the elite 5% or so make the majority of available salary money.

95% of these guys, if GarbageTime had his way, would be fighting tooth and nail to get on a team that has a chance to win a championship, and would have to give up millions per year to do so. The remaining teams would be left to pick the scraps, having to overpay them just to get the "best" of the scraps, and would never be able to rise to competitive stature.

[GarbageTime]

"Ironically enough telling LA or NY or whoever, we will no longer give you that ability is more or less telling them we won't allow you all opportunities to maximize your dollars (if dollars lead to wins and wins lead to dollars, limiting some teams spending will in turn limit their potential profitability)."

This is absolutely true. Building a new system where the "have" teams can't spend more than the "have-not" teams can. The mechanic are not important, the principle is. It's unavoidable that teams will try to find loopholes in the system, as they have to date. This is why it's important to put (better) checks and balances in place that discourage/disable the "have" teams from doing so and forcing the "have-nots" into playing the same game (overspending) or else they can't compete.

The issue is that you seem to want a true free market system, where the Lebrons and Carmelos can make upwards of $50M/year playing for the Knicks while their supporting cast each makes $2M/year (or makes more, with the Knicks spending well past the cap) and the Bucks have to then overpay Kevin Love $35M/year just to stay in Milwaukee, and Milwaukee *still* can't compete because they aren't willing to spend luxury cap money. Untenable.

Actually I don't.... which is actually amazingly far away from the other day when Matt52 said I was advocating communism (my socialism comment was sarcasm). I would actually, more or less, be most supportive of a system similar to what there is now but with less exceptions, tougher taxation penalties and greater revenue sharing.

In this way teams would have the choice to spend what they wanted to but would have more limitations through greater taxation and less exceptions. Greater revenue sharing would give the 'have not' teams more ability to spend if they chose to, but at the very least would offer some return if they loose their stars to others.

[mcHAPPY]

that is still evidence that a team can do it though.

Yes some teams have an easier opportunity to fix their mistakes, or absorb their mistakes, I'm not denying that. But thats life.... what you are advocating is OMG socialism (). Ironically enough telling LA or NY or whoever, we will no longer give you that ability is more or less telling them we won't allow you all opportunities to maximize your dollars (if dollars lead to wins and wins lead to dollars, limiting some teams spending will in turn limit their potential profitability). Something you felt the owners had a right to no?

No one is questioning it can't be done - I'm certainly not. What I'm saying is more opportunities are provided to teams when payroll or going in to the luxury tax is not an issue. That is not competitive balance which is what I thought we've been discussing.

But you have, regardless of whether you are willing to see it or not. A hard cap may or may not be an easier method, a more fair method, a better method or whatever, than revenue sharing. But it is not the only method. If ownership priority wasn't on $ they would use any method at their disposal to achieve competitive balance. But they aren't, they are talking about the method that helps limit their costs.

So to say this is not about dollars and cents for one side or another is either misguided or blantantly untrue. And I don't think for a second you are lieing about your position.

This ownership vs union battle is the same as every other one in history.... a battle over $.



(And I never bothered responding because it was getting amazing repetitive.)

Let me be clear. Through our discussion I've come to see your point. Yes, things could be made more fair through revenue sharing for the players and teams. HOWEVER, a hard cap would be an easier method, a more fair method, and a better method than revenue sharing for both players and owners alike.

Owners and the league have already committed to increasing revenue sharing and the players have already committed to decreasing their share of the BRI pie. Those teams that are struggling to make a profit will get a split of up to $240M under new revenue sharing plans plus an additional $160M of the BRI. A cap on salaries would certainly make well run team more competitive thereby, possibly, raising their own profitably on their own.

When each side has come out and said the money is no longer the deciding factor, rather it is the system, I'm inclined to think the share of money is no longer the problem.

This is why the players argument is no longer clear and they are in fact lying about their position and motives.