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

[Employee]

Without claw backs the Raptors are sitting pretty. I really understand why Colangelo has made it known he's not going to be a major player in free agency. When Val gets here they're probably going to be set in the paint. They need to get a wing in the 2012 draft and another PG wouldn't hurt. At that point they'll have one of the nicest young cores in the league.

Agree and agree. I will say that this year's draft class (so far) is not very deep on PG's. Right now Marquis Teague is the highest rates PG on Draft Express at 18. There ARE a lotta solid SF prospects. Things could change a lot though.

[Apollo]

Val not coming here is only going to increase their odds of getting a high pick to take a guy like Barnes. Maybe they hit the market next off-season and spend some money on a PG?

Hinrich would be a quality PG to add to the club. He's not going to dazzle but he's fundamentally sound and unlike Calderon, Hinrich can play defense.

Ray Felton will be on the market next year too. It goes without saying he should be the #1 target but he's going to cost some money...

[mcHAPPY]

Val not coming here is only going to increase their odds of getting a high pick to take a guy like Barnes. Maybe they hit the market next off-season and spend some money on a PG?

Hinrich would be a quality PG to add to the club. He's not going to dazzle but he's fundamentally sound and unlike Calderon, Hinrich can play defense.

Ray Felton will be on the market next year too. It goes without saying he should be the #1 target but he's going to cost some money...

Steve Nash?

I hate to say it but it is possible. Before he signed his 2 year extension in 2009 he talked about playing with D'Antoni in NY and playing with the Raptors (he may go chase a championship as a lot could have changed for him in 2 years since giving that quote). If the Raptors can trade Calderon (or save their amnesty for him) and have a back up PG such as Barbosa (or Lou Williams if trade rumours are accurate) or if they draft a talented young point guard who can play 18-20 minutes a night, I see no reason why Nash cannot play 28-30 minutes per night at a high level. If you watch some of his off-season training videos - barring injury - there is no reason why he should not continue at a high level for a few more years - much like John Stockton did in to his 40th year.

[LBF]

I don't see Nash coming here until he's at least 40.

I don't see him spending more than a year here unless we become contenders.

[Apollo]

Steve Nash?

I hate to say it but it is possible. Before he signed his 2 year extension in 2009 he talked about playing with D'Antoni in NY and playing with the Raptors (he may go chase a championship as a lot could have changed for him in 2 years since giving that quote). If the Raptors can trade Calderon (or save their amnesty for him) and have a back up PG such as Barbosa (or Lou Williams if trade rumours are accurate) or if they draft a talented young point guard who can play 18-20 minutes a night, I see no reason why Nash cannot play 28-30 minutes per night at a high level. If you watch some of his off-season training videos - barring injury - there is no reason why he should not continue at a high level for a few more years - much like John Stockton did in to his 40th year.

Steve Nash will be 39 years old then. He more than likely will not have a ring on his finger. Nash doesn't give the Raptors what they need. The Raptors don't give Steve Nash what he needs.

[mcHAPPY]

Steve Nash will be 39 years old then. He more than likely will not have a ring on his finger. Nash doesn't give the Raptors what they need. The Raptors don't give Steve Nash what he needs.

He would turn 39 in February of the '12-13 season.

Who knows what Steve Nash wants or needs. Maybe the allure of retiring in his home country would trump winning a championship. I could very well be wrong - and probably am.

However, if he can continue to perform at a high level for 2-3 seasons past '11-12 season, why not? The Raptors would have a great mix of young talent with DD, ED, JV, 2012 pick, Amir.

His guru friend of McKechnie will be here as is possibly JT and BC.

I don't think it is likely but it certainly isn't bullocks.

[Apollo]

I'm not entirely against it. I just don't see the point.

[mcHAPPY]

Extremely long but by far the best write up on the current situation of the NBA lockout I have read in the last week. David Aldridge is certainly telling it like it is. This is not about fair - unfortunately.

The union must take the deal now. For it will take a far worse deal a month from now, or later, and lose half a billion or more in the process.

No NLRB ruling nor decertification nor Solidarity Forever chant is going to change that now. The NBA's owners are not looking for a decision; they want a knockout, and they're going to get it. They will blow up the season if they don't like the deal, and they're going to, unless the union folds its 2-3 hand with the flop coming, calls it a day, gets this season started by mid-December and lives to fight again. It is out of moves.

The union has made the argument that revenue sharing is as important for the future health of the league as its players' givebacks. But the league has made it clear that it won't release the totality of how it will enhance revenue sharing until after the CBA is resolved. The players must give first.

In the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, the league is going to get, at minimum, a 50-50 split of Basketball-Related Income with the players, and a system with severe restrictions on teams that exceed the luxury tax threshold, from not being able to use many (if any) cap exceptions to being limited in their ability to make trades. Or the new CBA will allow teams over the threshold those exceptions, but take 53 percent of BRI to the players' 47. Those are the choices now, and they will only get worse, because now that a month of the season is officially gone, and $800 million is down the tubes, there's no reason for the league to stay at 50-50, and it won't.

This clarifies the snookered comments from Billy Hunter. Of course it took a few days to find out the context of it - 47% with exemptions to tax payers or 50% with no exemptions to tax payers. Have the freedom of movement or more money - but not both.

The players aren't going to get 52, or 51, or 50.5, or 50.000001, and if they hold out for those numbers, they're not going to have a season. You'd have to be crazy not to see that now, so it's this for the players: take the deal this week or next, or lose the season. If they are willing to die on principle, they wouldn't be the first. But they will die, in the metaphorical sense.

Chuck said this a few weeks ago.

This is what the union's executive director Billy Hunter meant Friday afternoon when he said the league "moved" back to 47. Those were the choices the league laid out to the union in Friday's disheartening session, according to numerous sources. Fifty-fifty with almost nothing for the tax threshold-breakers, or 53-47 for the league with the negotiations the two sides had worked out all week.

Doesn't sound like you were snookered, Billy. It sounds like you were given a choice.

"Every time we try to make a deal," a member of the union's negotiating committee said Friday evening, "they try to go for the jugular."

The union agreed to the league's concept that there should be harsher tax penalties for teams that exceed the threshold, and the compromise came relatively easy -- $1.50 on the first $5 million a team exceeded the threshold, exactly between the NBA's initial offer of $1.75 on the first $5 million and the union's $1.25 on the first $5 million, as we reported Friday on GameTime and NBA.com. Teams would then pay $1.75 for the next $5 million they're over the cap, between $5 million and $10 million over the threshold.

The New York Times had the rest of the plan in its Sunday editions: $2.50 for the next $5 million over (between $10 and $15 million over the tax), and $3.25 for the next $5 million (between $15 and $20 million over the tax). The players agreed to that, and thus a team like the Lakers who finished last season $20 million over the tax threshold -- and paid $20 million in penalties (dollar for dollar) under the old system -- would pay $45 million in penalties under the new one. The union also agreed to kill the bi-annual exception for teams over the tax threshold.

The league had compromised on the luxury tax, too. It had initially proposed that no team be able to pay the tax two times in a five-year period. But it backed off of that, adding a third year for luxury payers in a five-year period -- though those teams will have their taxes tripled to $4.50 on the first $5 million they exceed the threshold in the fourth and fifth years after three-time as taxpayers.

And the league also agreed to keep a smaller mid-level exception in place for teams under the tax threshold. It also agreed to the union's proposal of five-year deals for Bird free agents and four-year deals for non-Birds, instead of its own four and three proposals, respectively.

Both sides giving and taking.

Slowly, with both sides compromising, the deal was being done -- 14 hours Wednesday, seven-and-a-half Thursday. But it was getting done. There were compromises on both sides, and both sides could see the finish line; perhaps as early as Saturday, but surely by Monday or Tuesday. There was one more compromise to be made, and then you'd have basketball again. And then, something changed. Whether owners on the Labor Relations Committee got their backs up Thursday night or Friday morning, something changed.

One very senior team official had said Thursday night that even though the outside world was hopeful, he expected owners to hold at 50-50 and go no further, even though the conventional wisdom would seem to indicate the deal would be a compromise somewhere around 51.25 percent for the players -- between the owners' 50-50 offer and the players' current 52.5 percent stance.

"That's not the one that has the votes," the official said. "I think they're going to get 50-50. That's as far as they'll stretch."

And that was, indeed, as far as they stretched -- and even that came with conditions that the players could not swallow. But they will have to if they want to play this season. The players say it's unfair that they've moved so far, from 57 percent of BRI in the old deal to 54.5 percent, and then 53, and 52.5, that they've already agreed to $180 million per year in salary givebacks, $1.8 billion over 10 years if they accept the league's terms.

But this isn't about fair. This is about the NBA putting its house back in order -- naked, real-world realpolitik. If you understand nothing else about these negotitations, understand this: this isn't just about money, at least not totally; this is about re-establishing who's in charge.

For three years, starting in 2008, NBA teams twisted themselves into pretzels to clear cap space for the free-agent class of 2010. No single group of players ever wielded more brute force than that one, headlined by LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Amar'e Stoudemire. On the mere hope of getting James, the Knicks basically went into receivership for 36 months. The Bulls similarly cleared the decks; having lucked into Derrick Rose via the 2007 Draft, Chicago dumped the likes of John Salmons and Kirk Hinrich for almost nothing while it waited. Miami became a JUCO team for two seasons, while Riles and Andy Elisburg -- the smartest cap guy in the league -- bided their time and worked their spreadsheets.

And James lorded it over them, making them come to him in Ohio those first two weeks in July last year, then making the whole league watch his Decision on the Four-Letter Network, reality TV writ large, making all these billionaires and multi-millionaires nothing more than pawns, waiting for LeBron Trump to tell them who was fired and who was hired. Dan Gilbert went Comic Sans Crazy as his franchise lost $100 million in worth in the blink of an eye, and it scared the other owners out of their minds. It ticked them off, too.

Carmelo Anthony -- also, like James, Wade and Bosh a member of the Draft class of 2003 -- would wield his cudgel a year later, holding the Nuggets hostage for more than six months before he got traded to the team he wanted to be traded to all along, the Knicks (who, coincidentally, signed Stoudemire after missing out on Bosh, Wade and James). And the owners in small markets, already mad at the Commish for not having more "robust" (the league's favorite word on this topic) revenue sharing, already feeling like they were falling further behind, got their backs up. The Jazz didn't even wait for Deron Williams to humiliate them, sending him on his way to the Nets a year before they had to.

The inmates running the asylum does not appear to be good for fans in the majority of cities.

But the Players' Spring has ended, cracked down with brute force, and now their options are bad or worse, and bad is on the 3:30 train out of town. They can either go through the motions of two more months of negotiations, and capitulate in late December or early January, as happened in the '98 lockout, or they can grit their teeth and take Version I or II of what's on the table now. (If they asked me, I'd take the 50-50 and let Jim and Jeanie Buss figure out how to fill their roster. Of course, they haven't asked me.)

The extremely senior team official says although he has reservations about the 50-50 split, his team will not vote against it if the union capitulates. I didn't ask him, but he surely can't believe getting $280 million back per season from the players -- which would cover 93 percent of the league's claimed $300 million losses last season, and $2.8 billion over 10 years -- is a bad deal. He knows it isn't. We all know. This is target practice.

You will certainly hear in the coming days that there are dozens of players who will take 50-50 now if the union puts it up for a vote -- formal, informal, whatever -- and you wonder how long Derek Fisher and Hunter can hold out, even as those powerful agents are pushing them to hold the line, hold 52 percent, that far and no further. There is likely time to make up at least some of those canceled November games down the road, and that will be a powerful force on the union as well, and although there were no communications between the sides this weekend, the pattern is that a blowup is followed by a meeting within a few days, and that's probably what will happen again this week.

The union doesn't have much choice, now.

http://www.nba.com/2011/news/feature...s=iref:nbahpt1

The bolded section pretty much says it all - unless they want to forfeit a season. Remember Chucks words.

[mcHAPPY]

Arison Fined $500K for tweets

David Stern has fined Miami Heat owner Micky Arison $500,000 for Friday tweets on the lockout, league sources tell Y! Sports.

Via Woj Twitter

IraHeatBeat Sun Sentinel has confirmed @ WojYahooNBA report that Micky Arison has been fined $500,000 for Friday tweets on the lockout.

[Bendit]

This is about the NBA putting its house back in order -- naked, real-world realpolitik. If you understand nothing else about these negotitations, understand this: this isn't just about money, at least not totally; this is about re-establishing who's in charge.

And

Arison being fined $500K

Both cases can be directly attributable to LeBrick, Wade & Bosh with Riley running the dog & pony show that summer. Wonder if Bosh is filming a documentary of the CBA negotiations. I still believe that Miami transaction was total collusion along with agent Leon Rose (who was connected as agent and management of all three) ably abetted by Riley. Arison of course OK'ed everything. No wonder he is pissed. As I see it Stern is determined to break up that team and no other team will/can try that manouever again. Love it. MI think they forgot what happened to David Falk (MJ's agent) when he tried something similar in the 90's. Stern knee capped him too and now I dont think he is in the agent business anymore.

[Apollo]

And

Arison being fined $500K

Both cases can be directly attributable to LeBrick, Wade & Bosh with Riley running the dog & pony show that summer. Wonder if Bosh is filming a documentary of the CBA negotiations. I still believe that Miami transaction was total collusion along with agent Leon Rose (who was connected as agent and management of all three) ably abetted by Riley. Arison of course OK'ed everything. No wonder he is pissed. As I see it Stern is determined to break up that team and no other team will/can try that manouever again. Love it. MI think they forgot what happened to David Falk (MJ's agent) when he tried something similar in the 90's. Stern knee capped him too and now I dont think he is in the agent business anymore.

I agree with most of this except for the Stern having an agenda to oust the Heat. I think he does have an agenda to hopefully prevent this thing from easily happening in the future though. The 2011 Heat are an example of the pinnacle of the Players' power. Now they're on the decline.

[slaw]

The union has made two mistakes that are costing it now. First, it should never have given up its strike rights. That was stupid. They could have threatened to strike on the first day of the playoffs and this would have been resolved a year ago.

Two, they didn't decertify. This should have been done one second after the lockout was imposed. This scenario is potential financial armageddon for the owners and the NBA. The owners would not have risked having to pay $6-8 billion in damages, plus having their entire league model blown up., no matter how likely that outcome.

The union only has itself to blame for how this is gone. Hunter et al. underestimated the owners and overestimated the effectiveness of the collective bargaining process. Unfortunately, I do believe that this CBA will likely mean the end of the NBPA and that is going to have unknown consequences for the league.

[mcHAPPY]

The union has made two mistakes that are costing it now. First, it should never have given up its strike rights. That was stupid. They could have threatened to strike on the first day of the playoffs and this would have been resolved a year ago.

Two, they didn't decertify. This should have been done one second after the lockout was imposed. This scenario is potential financial armageddon for the owners and the NBA. The owners would not have risked having to pay $6-8 billion in damages, plus having their entire league model blown up., no matter how likely that outcome.

The union only has itself to blame for how this is gone. Hunter et al. underestimated the owners and overestimated the effectiveness of the collective bargaining process. Unfortunately, I do believe that this CBA will likely mean the end of the NBPA and that is going to have unknown consequences for the league.

Decertification would not have necessarily meant the players would get what they were looking for. It also could have meant $4B in cancelled contracts for the players. There was risk for owners and players alike.


I don't think this will be the end of the NBAPA. Despite the numerous concessions they have made relative to the old agreement, they still did ensure the changes the owners were looking for were not as drastic. Tied in to this is they still have guaranteed contracts. That is a huge win for them as it was one of the things owners were looking axe initially.

[mcHAPPY]

Good news for free agents and fans of teams with cap space

According to multiple sources, one of the resolved issues in a new CBA is the 2011 salary cap will remain at the level as it was in 2010 -- $58 million.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knick...#ixzz1cSyJ05nX

With the same salary cap, that must mean the spread between soft cap and luxury tax will be lowered?

EDIT: This is also, in my opinion, a huge win for players. I think it is time to offer 51.25% (split the difference) and take whatever offer comes next.

[Apollo]

...how this relates to the Raptors.

Score! So if the Raptors drop Calderon with the Amnesty Clause they'll have roughly $21M to play with. What I think is more likely now though is that they don't use the Amnesty Clause at all and Calderon's contract run out on it's own. The reason I say this is because no matter what they have to pay the money, they currently have ten guys on roster and Colangelo has recently stated they're going to build from within and have no plans of going after a star in free agency this year. Also consider that Colangelo is free to use the clause going forward on any one person who is currently signed to a deal. So, next summer for example when Ray Felton is available he could use the clause on Calderon then if he wishes. Alternatively he could save it to use on one of his long term deals(Andrea or Amir) later if they don't pan out.