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

[Bendit]

@ Joey

Re existing contracts still being valid

I believe there is a yes/no answer here. The contract fulfillment ends with the cba in force. The contracts of course are not paid during the lockout and the new cba can negotiate whether the unexpired contracts will be valued differently. I dont think there is historical precedent where this has changed but it can if a clawback is needed to accommodate a new cap for example.

I remember reading this some where but unfortunately dont have a link

[GarbageTime]

Joey those are good examples. Personally, what I see as a concern is the trend of players with the desire to form big 3's. It is a touchy subject for many fans. On the one hand I really am for free agency and understand theplayers might want to be in a certain city for different reasons. But on the other hand, I have a problem when the system is suchwhat I see as a concern is the trend of players with the desire to form big 3's. It is a touchy subject for many fans. On the one hand I really am for free agency and understand the that 3 max players can join a team under the softcap and then expand the payroll to over $100M in 2 years. I also have a problem when a player can totally screw over a franchise that was good to them for a long time (I really don't want to start another one of these conversations as they have been had numerous times, I just think it is fair to say not all players are forthcoming with their intentions which is why the Carmelo Anthony rule is a must in my opinion). I don't know what it is but something about that doesn't seem right or fair. If I was a fan of the Heat or Knicks I might have a different view. Obviously I am biased given what happened to the Raptors.

This is something I agree with, but the league needs to be punitive to prevent these sort of things aswell. For example, the league put the burden on Cleveland or Toronto to demand an investigation into this. Why not just start an investigation on their own? The league, if I'm not mistaken, has the right the refuse any FA signing or trade should they choose to.

I'd also say that any player paid by a team could be considered an 'agent' of that team. In this way, no player could discuss Free Agency with players on other teams, atleast prior to the FA period. They already act as an agent of the team regularily (ie. Players call other players on behalf of the team to try and convice a player to come). Make it an fineable offense. It may not prevent it completely, but it can only help.

I don't think there is anyway to completely prevent a big 3 (and I definetely wouldn't want a big 3 prevented if a team was able to home grow those big 3). But I think there are ways, outside of the scope of 'the system' itself, that could be used to hinder abuse.

[Joey]

@ Joey

Re existing contracts still being valid

I believe there is a yes/no answer here. The contract fulfillment ends with the cba in force. The contracts of course are not paid during the lockout and the new cba can negotiate whether the unexpired contracts will be valued differently. I dont think there is historical precedent where this has changed but it can if a clawback is needed to accommodate a new cap for example.

I remember reading this some where but unfortunately dont have a link

Interesting. Thanks for that Bendit.
I didn't know there was a choice on the matter, of whether to pay them out or not, after the Negotiations are through. I had figured a Guaranteed Contract was a Guaranteed Contract.

Well then, Apollo, I guess I owe you an apology. Seems I was ill-informed.

[Joey]

This is where there's a fundamental disagreement. I don't believe the players are the product. I believe the game is the product. The players are what help the NBA be a better product than the NCAA, NBDL, Euro, etc. If the NBA ceased to exist, there would still be a competitive environment for basketball players. If basketball ceased to exist, though, all these players would be pumping gas.

Interesting ...

But then, if we are to look at our 'Tech' analogy:

-If Basketball is the general product. Or the "mp3 player", lets say...
-Then the guts (read: players) are what make that specific brand of product successful. Correct?

ie iPod greater than Xune. (mp3 players)
Apple greater than Microsoft. (computers)
Mercedes greater than Hyundai. (cars)
NBA greater than Euroleague. (Basketball)

The Elite Players are STILL what will seperate the NBA from Euroleague.
Not the amount of money being thrown around.

The greatest Players in the world, make the NBA the greatest League in the World. Correct?
The finances are simply a reflection of what the Arena costs, Advertising, Overhead etc.

[jimmie]

Interesting ...

But then, if we are to look at our 'Tech' analogy:

-If Basketball is the general product. Or the "mp3 player", lets say...
-Then the guts (read: players) are what make that specific brand of product successful. Correct?

ie iPod greater than Xune. (mp3 players)
Apple greater than Microsoft. (computers)
Mercedes greater than Hyundai. (cars)
NBA greater than Euroleague. (Basketball)

The Elite Players are STILL what will seperate the NBA from Euroleague.
Not the amount of money being thrown around.

The greatest Players in the world, make the NBA the greatest League in the World. Correct?
The finances are simply a reflection of what the Arena costs, Advertising, Overhead etc.

Essentially, the players in combination with those other things are the product. All together, they = "the NBA brand of the product that is basketball". The system that governs the brand is the KEY part of the brand, because it determines how all the disparate parts fit together -- players, GMs, marketing, arenas, merchandise, etc. -- with an end goal of making money for the brand. There's more to what defines the value of the NBA brand than just the players is the point I'm trying to make. Without the brand, the players wouldn't have the opportunity to earn that they do. They'd be forced to work for another "brand", and would be bound by the system that brand uses to produce its particular basketball product.

In the absence of the NBA, the "elite" players would be in the same boat as the crappy players -- competing for contracts overseas, and being bound by the competitive systems in place in those overseas leagues. In other words, they'll be playing for less money in a market that's arguably worse (to them in terms of lifestyle, etc.) than the current worst NBA outpost (be that Minnesota, Milwaukee, whatever).

And it also matters who the "consumer" is in this scenario.

The consumer wants the best product possible. We can all say at the moment that the brand with the best product = the NBA. But when it's become obvious that even the best brand of basketball on the planet is starting to suffer and appears to be on a long decline without hope of incline unless the rules governing how the brand is managed are changed, and yet the product cost to the consumer remains the same or increases, then the consumer is going to get antsy and either move to another brand or stop buying the product at all. Which, in turn, decreases the market value of the product generally and the brand specifically.

When a business ceases to be profitable, for whatever reason, it adapts or dies. The NBA is trying to adapt, but "principles" and perceived "fairness" are getting in the way.

To say the owners made this bed is true, for the most part. But I'm a firm believer that you can't let billionaires run loose without rules to keep them under control. They'll lie, cheat, and steal to get what they want. Witness Wall Street. The system needs to encourage competitive balance while at the same time not inhibiting elite performers (GMs/owners) from excelling. It doesn't need to be more "free market" just so players can get something that they feel undeservedly entitled to.

The owners probably thought they had a decent system/CBA in place to foster league growth in '98. They've watched the last 10 years unfold in a way that (most) of them probably didn't envisage when that last set of rules was developed; it worked in favour of the big spenders in big markets, but didn't work for most others. Now they're trying to strengthen the checks and balances accordingly.

The physicians are finally trying to heal themselves. The players don't want the cure, because they know they'll be rich and dead long before the next generation suffers for their ignorance of the bigger picture.

[Apollo]

Not sure what I'd Google for that one ... either way, not sure why a team would have to 'Move' when its just the owner that is the problem... doesn't make much sense to me ... moving wouldn't allow the owner too suddenly be able to afford the system ...

That's up to you to figure out. I'm not about to go back and find all those reference. If you care enough then good luck to you.

Wrong. The CBA is expired. Not the player contracts.
Any contract that was signed during the previous CBA must still be honoured.
This has nothing to do with me 'using logic', or whatever.

You are implying every player contract must now be renegotiated, because the CBA expired.

"Real World Logic" or not, thats just wrong.

No it's not wrong. Those contracts were negotiated under the umbrella of the expired CBA. If the two parties agree they should be honored then they will but the owners don't have to honor them, that's why we have a lockout right now Joey. That's why other pro leagues have used scabs in the past.

Well whats the sense in Negotiating when you've already been told what the Final Decision will be? If there is an inevitable, then it is NOT a proper negotiation Apollo. That simple.

Sure it is. The owners have moved away from their starting point and so have the players. Just like any negotiation.

Actually "Good Faith Negotiating" implies that both sides maintain sincere intentions to rectify the situation fairly, while satisfying both sides.

Then the players aren't negotiating in good faith.

[mcHAPPY]

This fight has grown nastier, more personal, in the past weeks. Privately, management insists that everything changed when the Boston Celtics’ Kevin Garnett(notes) walked into the negotiating room on Oct. 4. The owners knew it wouldn’t go well when Garnett started glowering across the table, sources said, like the league lawyers, owners and officials were opponents at the center jump. He was defiant, determined and downright ornery. He was K.G. Everyone knew Hunter had to cede to the wishes of the stars, and the stars demanded that the players stop making concessions to the owners.

As one league official said, “We were making progress, until Garnett [expletive] everything up.”

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slu...s_union_101711

Something to consider:

The theme of how much the players are giving back ($160M per season) is valid. However, with revenue sharing going up by $180M (to $240M) that is a sacrifice by profitable owners as well - of which less than half the league is profitable.

The more I think about this, the more the players position becomes more and more silly.

I really do hope a hard cap comes in because as the conversation has shown, it really is the only way to achieve any competitive balance.

Even if the owners shared ALL revenue, it would not stop wealthier owners from having an advantage to run negative for the sole purpose of winning.

Players have given back 4%.

Profitable owners are going to share 400% more.

The league needs a hard cap with the BRI of players divided over 30 teams and a guarantee in place for players to get that (think reverse escrow account with money going from owners to players).

Just my 2 cents.

[GarbageTime]

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.

I don't know if anyone addressed this, but I'm curious if this is true or not. I was always under the impression that the % of BRI had to be payed. After reading that section of the Coon salary cap explanation what Big Country, I mean Joey, said appears to be true. BUT it also doesn't explicitly say it as the discussion is about the player cost side of the BRI and not about the owner's responsibility side of it (ie. it doesn't say the owners have to pay the difference, but it also doesn't say the owner's don't have to pay the difference).

If it is true (that owners aren't on the hook if they pay less than the BRI) that has to change this entire discussion.

But, regardless, I did find it interesting that if owners do go above the BRI, the players actually pay for that part of the salary themselves. Really its free labour. When salaries go above the BRI to a point above the escrow amount, future salaries pay that difference. (as it did in 2008/09). Really thats incentive to pay salaries up to and above the BRI (which they have, and probably not coincidentally, every single year).

[mcHAPPY]

Ken Berger at CBSSports.com with something new to add to the discussion.

Listen to the rhetoric, and you would think the NBA and its players are at opposite ends of the Earth in discussions to restore competitive balance without trampling on precious buzz words that the union holds dear.

That's what rhetoric is for, though: to make things seem like something they are not.

The league would have us believe that the competitive imbalance it suffers is as simple as the Lakers' $90 million payroll vs. the Kings' $45 million payroll. The players respond that spending has little or nothing to do with success, and that teams should make better decisions.

They're both wrong. Surprised?

Just as I've explained that there's a middle ground on basketball-related income -- it's between 51 and 52 percent for the players, and should have been agreed to already -- so, too, is there a fairly simple way to solve the bargaining impasse over how to more fairly distribute team payrolls to mute the competitive advantage of big-spending teams.

I can't take credit for the concept, as sources indicate that the two bargaining committees have discussed it already -- and in fact, have indicated a willingness to explore it as a solution. I'll take credit for the name, though, for as far as I know, nobody has yet referred to the key to ending the lockout using this term: the "flex tax."

It's a magical name for a sublimely simple compromise -- an intersection of the owners' bid to flatten payroll disparity and the players' desire to maintain some degree of choice in spending rather than have that choice imposed on teams by the system.

First, we must quickly review how we got here and why each side has no more excuses now that federal mediator George Cohen is involved -- interviewing both sides separately Monday and then overseeing a bargaining session Tuesday with the potential for more lost games around the corner.

As we can all hear deputy commissioner Adam Silver saying in our sleep, the NBA came into this negotiation with two goals in mind: to create a system in which all 30 teams can compete for a championship and, if well managed, have the opportunity to make a profit. With the National Basketball Players Association having agreed to reduce its share of BRI to 53 percent from 57 percent, the owners already have achieved the lion's share of their economic goal. Based on the infamous letter that seven super agents sent to their clients recently -- and corroborating information from multiple sources -- the players appear prepared to go as low as 52 percent. Such a percentage would represent a transfer of $1.3 billion from players to owners over a six-year deal -- more than $200 million of the $300 million the league says it is losing on an annual basis.

But the owners remain committed to addressing not only their aggregate losses, but also a system that they believe is tilted too much in favor of big-market, big-spending teams. Initially, they wanted an NFL-style hard salary cap; the players rejected it. They shifted gears to an NHL-style flex cap, with a spending band for each team; the players rejected it and suggested a more punitive luxury tax instead. So the owners obliged, proposing an increase in the dollar-for-dollar tax to $1.75 for the first $5 million over the tax threshold, with 50 cents added for each subsequent $5 million. Under such a system, the Lakers -- with a $90.4 million payroll -- would've paid $50 million in tax as opposed to $20 million under the old system.

The problem is, neither the Lakers nor anybody else would pay such an exorbitant amount. In other words, assuming Jerry Buss was willing to pay not a penny more than the $110 million he spent last season in payroll and taxes, the Lakers' payroll would need to be reduced to $80 million to avoid exceeding that expenditure. So basically, Derek Fisher -- the union president himself -- would no longer be a Laker.

There are several problems with all of this:

• The tax system the owners have proposed is far too punitive, and thus would not generate much, if any, new tax revenues because teams at the high end would simply retrench and not spend above the new, more punitive levels.

• The players continue to say that a hard cap, or something else that acts like one, would compress salaries. This is incorrect and impossible under a system that guarantees the players a certain percentage of revenues.

• While it carries a disincentive for big-spending teams to spend, the owners' tax proposal also doesn't incentivize the outliers at the bottom of the payroll spectrum to spend more.

• It also doesn't address the problem already inherent in the previous tax system: the so-called "cliff" or hard-cap characteristic of the tax threshold.

He goes through each of these points, but here are the money-shots:

But the key to making this work and smoothing out the luxury-tax cliff is changing the distribution of luxury tax payments. Under the old way, each team below the tax received 1/30th of the amount contributed by the tax payers. Last season, seven teams paid about $71 million in tax, which was distributed to the other 23 teams at $2.4 million each. The other $16 million or so went into the revenue-sharing pool.

Such a method couldn't run any more counter to the goal of competitive balance, especially when you consider that the Knicks, Heat, Bulls and Warriors -- teams in four of the NBA's most glamorous markets -- all received luxury tax money last season. The total tax payments -- which would rise even as the top spenders' payrolls fell under a properly calibrated flex tax -- must be distributed 100 percent based on financial need, not payroll.

and

But in order for the league to fully achieve a flattening of the payroll disparity, the teams at the bottom must be incentivized to spend -- through properly allocated tax money and massively enhanced revenue sharing. But some of them, indeed, need to be forced to spend. The previous minimum payroll (75 percent of the cap, which is exactly where Sacramento came in) has to be increased to at least 85 percent. (You heard me, Donald Sterling.) In the CBA that ended the NFL lockout, the cash minimum for team payroll is 89 percent of the cap.

http://raptorsrepublic.com/forums/sh...-(-781)/page44

Make the bottom spend more and make the luxury tax sharing available only to teams losing money.

Good starting points for tomorrow I think.

[Joey]

I don't know if anyone addressed this, but I'm curious if this is true or not. I was always under the impression that the % of BRI had to be payed. After reading that section of the Coon salary cap explanation what Big Country, I mean Joey, said appears to be true. BUT it also doesn't explicitly say it as the discussion is about the player cost side of the BRI and not about the owner's responsibility side of it (ie. it doesn't say the owners have to pay the difference, but it also doesn't say the owner's don't have to pay the difference).

Well, he does kind of does imply it:

In order to keep salaries & benefits at or below the designated percentage... yada yada yada.

If it is true (that owners aren't on the hook if they pay less than the BRI) that has to change this entire discussion.

Damnit, this is what I've been trying to say!! hahaha

[NoPropsneeded]

do u guys think they'll get it done tomorrow? cross your fingers guys. I want my raps!

[WhatWhat]

Stern will probably be like: Before we were THIS far from reaching a deal. Now we're THIS far.

[Apollo]

Progress was being made in negotiations until Garnett got involved...

This fight has grown nastier, more personal, in the past weeks. Privately, management insists that everything changed when the Boston Celtics’ Kevin Garnett(notes) walked into the negotiating room on Oct. 4. The owners knew it wouldn’t go well when Garnett started glowering across the table, sources said, like the league lawyers, owners and officials were opponents at the center jump. He was defiant, determined and downright ornery. He was K.G. Everyone knew Hunter had to cede to the wishes of the stars, and the stars demanded that the players stop making concessions to the owners.

As one league official said, “We were making progress, until Garnett [expletive] everything up.”

Source: Yahoo Sports

You have to love how he's looking out for the average NBA player who probably can't afford a long lockout.

[TheGloveinRapsUniform]

Source: Yahoo Sports

You have to love how he's looking out for the average NBA player who probably can't afford a long lockout.

This is exactly what i said before. If the low salary players keep quiet and let the higher salary players do the talking for them, this thing aint going nowhere.

[Apollo]

I think the union shouldn't bring the hot heads like Garnett and Wade to the table. Acting hostile and visibly taking it personal like that shows weakness. Not to mention it's only natural for a person's defenses to go up when approached by someone with an extremely aggressive stance. Garnett needs to learn that his bully mentality isn't going to win intellectual battles. Time for him to go back to the kiddies table for a timeout.