NBA Offseason Discussion Thread

[Killswitch]

In essence, the season probably has to be lost to help things, but as an avid NBA fan it's the last thing I want. But I do see the necessity.

 

[SAIYANS]

I can't believe that the lockout is still continuing. I don't know why they can't just agree to a 50/50 split of the revenue. Most of these teams ran at a loss last year so the teams needed a bigger cut than they were getting so that all the teams stay alive. Just make it fair with 50/50, the players are still making millions upon millions each season. All this is doing is turning the fans against the teams and players. Hopefully common sense prevails and both sides agree on a deal ASAP.

Because operating costs are taken off the top before the 50/50 split. Spero said the players were talking about how Dan Gilbert for example was having the Cavs pay its operating cost to Quicken Loans, which he owns. That is a case of double dipping, legal, but double dipping which is why the players want more than 50% to balance against owners like him.

 

[No More Sorrow]

NEW YORK -- Union president Derek Fisher says his orders from NBA players are clear: No deal. "The current offer on the table from the NBA is one that we cannot accept," he said Tuesday.

Instead, the players said they will ask for another meeting with the owners before commissioner David Stern's Wednesday afternoon deadline.

Stern has said that if the players don't take the current deal by then, the league's next offer will be much worse.The players insisted they will not be forced into taking a bad deal by an ultimatum.

"The players are saying that we understand their position, but unfortunately we're not intimidated by that," union executive director Billy Hunter said.

The union did not conduct a formal vote of the 46 players assembled in the room Tuesday, but sources told ESPN.com's Marc Stein that the group reached more of an informal "everyone agrees" position that authorizes Hunter and Fisher to accept a 50/50 split of basketball related income in future negotiations as long as the league makes some concessions on certain system issues.

After Tuesday's meeting Fisher said that without concessions "we don't see a way of getting a deal done between now and end of business" Wednesday.

Sources on the league side, however, continue to dispute Hunter's stated belief that the owners will improve upon Saturday's last offer.

"It's sad," one ownership source told ESPN.com on Tuesday. "I think they've seen their best offer."

The league's current proposal calls for players to receive between 49 percent and 51 percent of basketball-related income, though players argue it would be nearly impossible to get above 50.2 percent.

 

[SAIYANS]

Read that the players union agreed to be willing to do 50/50 on BRI, but they want the system changes they agreed on at the last meeting tweaked for that concession. That makes sense to me, they give a little and want some back as it relates to the MLE and sign and trades for tax paying teams.

I also read that 16 of the owners are willing to agree to a deal tomorrow after working out the system tweaks, 13 are opposed (Jordan's group who seem to want no season to cut costs) to any 50/50 deal, and 1 undecided.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Well maybe they can get those last few tweaks all figured out and they can get everybody to agree on the deal some time this week.

 

[SAIYANS]

I hope so. I hope the 13 owners who don't want a season without the players and other owners taking it lube less (37%, revenue sharing, high tax, no exemptions) get their asses waxed this season. I'm looking at you Jordan, Sarver, Holt, Allen, and Gilbert (plus 8 more).

 

[PHX]

This is really dumb that Jordan is the main one being dick about this considering over a decade ago he was on the other side of it. Just really catches me off guard that he of all the owners seem to be the one who don't mind if the season is lost.

 

[No More Sorrow]

I'm optimistic. I feel like a deal can get done but some of the owners are going to have to get their heads out of their asses and be realistic.

 

[Killswitch]

The players have no leverage right now and the longer things go, the more desperate and divided they will become. The owners are looking at what happened in the NHL and how much salary roll back they got by sitting out a whole season.

 

[SAIYANS]

NBA players generate the most revenue per player of any league. In fact their stars are by far the biggest earners in terms of what they bring into any of the league. Nothing like the NHL

 

[SAIYANS]

Looks like Sarver and Gilbert are getting more willing to compromise, but there are 9 owners who don't want a deal to be made and are sticking together still

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/story/16039362/despite-the-risks-nbas-hardline-owners-not-backing-down

...In recent days, multiple people with direct knowledge of negotiations have identified the nine teams pushing the hardest for a draconian rollback of salaries and rules governing player contracts and team payrolls. According to those people, the teams holding the hardest line in negotiations have been Atlanta, Charlotte, Indiana, Memphis, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Philadelphia, Portland and Washington. These nine owners or ownership groups have been trying, with increasing success in recent weeks, to recruit more moderate owners to their cause. If the players reject the deal on the table, the NBA will be turned over to the Hard-Line Nine, and it won't be pretty. "Nuclear winter," as Kobe Bryant referred to it in an interview with Yahoo Sports, just about sums it up.

As the New York Times reported Friday, Bobcats owner Michael Jordan has emerged as the ringleader of this group of owners -- referred to by one source briefed on the labor talks as the "original hard-liners." Though it may be surprising to some, Phoenix owner Robert Sarver and Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert have not been as hawkish in the negotiations as they have been portrayed, two of the sources told CBSSports.com. Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, it turns out, also is not in the hawkish camp, according to two people who disputed a CBSSports.com report Sunday to the contrary. I wouldn't wager my mortgage on who's right about Prokhorov, but I would love to have him at the news conference when this is over.

"The season, it is dead. Now your families, they will one day return."

Joking aside, the demographics of the true hard-liners are hardly surprising; all but the Hawks, 76ers and Wizards are in small or, at best, mid-sized markets. But something else significant rings true about the Hard-Line Nine: all but one -- Milwaukee -- received public financing for construction of their arenas, according to data compiled by the Marquette National Sports Law Institute.

Five teams -- Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis, Minnesota and Portland -- received public funding that accounted for more than 80 percent of their arena costs. The Timberwolves, one of the biggest economic drains on the league, received a perfect score in this dubious contest by receiving public funds covering 100 percent of their arena construction costs, according to the Marquette data. The Hawks, whose ownership transfer from the disastrous Atlanta Spirit LLC contingent that fell through last week, were a close second with their 91-percent publicly financed Philips Arena.

The least of the offenders are the Wizards (23 percent publicly financed arena), 76ers (11 percent) and Bucks (0 percent). Of course, when this is over and the owners get a far more favorable labor deal, brace yourselves for the continued push in Wisconsin to trick citizens into paying for an arena to replace the Bradley Center. To my knowledge, sports owners have never tried a cheese surtax to pay for their arenas, but there's a first for everything.

The public fleecing by sports teams is bad enough when economist after economist has found that the arenas and surrounding developments almost never provide enough economic impact to make up for the cost even when the teams are playing. But if the log-jammed negotiations stall by Wednesday, possibly resulting in a protracted legal fight that would imperil the entire 2011-12 season, citizens in the above cities will continue to be on the hook for debt payments to support arenas left dormant by the lockout. ...

The way I see it, the main ones fighting all screwed themselves and want to be bailed out

1. Minny - made that KG trade to just help out a buddy, for Jefferson and scrubs
2. Bucks - gave out horrid deal after horrid deal last summer
3. Indy - sold away the JO team for crap just to shed a thug image
4. Memphis - they are really feeling Gay's deal like they did Pau, and have to re-sign Marc and make a decision on OJ
5. Bobcats - MJ was his horrible GM self and gave away pieces in Chandler, Felton, Jackson, and Wallace to cut costs and get some handout cash for being under the tax threshold.
6. Phili - we know about the Brand deal
7. Portland - Roy deal and Oden is hanging over their head, they need to hire people who can make the right lottery pick and a training staff who doesn't end careers for once
8. Washington - The Gilbert deal hurt them, and they turned that into an equally stinky deal in Lewis
9. ATL - No one told them to give Joe Johnson max money the likes of which Kobe, McGrady, and Iverson had to earn at one point and time by their games and drawing ability

 

[No More Sorrow]

NEW YORK -- Commissioner David Stern's deadline has passed while the NBA and its players continue negotiating in an attempt to end the lockout.

The two sides met for more than six hours Wednesday to try to hash out a deal to end the 132-day lockout. The meeting got under way at 1 p.m. ET in New York, sources told ESPN The Magazine's Chris Broussard.

Stern had issued an ultimatum to players: Accept the league's latest proposal by 5 p.m. ET Wednesday or it will be replaced with a much harsher one that would drive the sides even farther apart.

The current offer calls for players to receive between 49 percent and 51 percent of basketball-related income, though union officials said it would be impossible to get above 50.2 percent.

The NBA Players Association rejected the league's latest labor proposal Tuesday but had asked for one more bargaining session before a 5 p.m. ET deadline Wednesday that, according to Stern, will cause the offer to vanish if there's no agreement.
The meeting featuring small groups from both sides was arranged Wednesday morning.

Attorney Jeffrey Kessler took part along with other union negotiators, hours after saying he regretted telling the Washington Post that owners are treating players like "plantation workers" during the ongoing lockout. He added he planned to call Stern and apologize.

Wednesday is the 132nd day of the second lockout in NBA history to bleed into the regular season.
Flanked by the player representatives from 29 teams and roughly 15 more players who showed up for Tuesday's union meeting in New York, union executive director Billy Hunter and president Derek Fisher announced that the player reps backed their recommendation to reject the NBA's offer made last weekend.

Sources said that the union did not conduct a formal vote of the players assembled in the room Tuesday, opting instead for an informal "everyone agrees" consensus that authorizes Hunter and Fisher to accept a 50/50 split of basketball-related income in future negotiations as long as the league makes some concessions on some of the remaining system issues. But sources briefed on the owners' thinking insisted to ESPN.com that there will be no further budging from the owners, no matter how close a deal might appear on paper.

The league's offer last weekend calls for players to receive between 49 percent and 51 percent of annual BRI. Union officials argue that it would be nearly impossible for the league to generate sufficient revenue in any given season to earn the players more than 50.2 percent, but Hunter and Fisher now have the go-ahead for the first time all summer to go that low on BRI if the owners will agree to relax some of the various limits they want to impose on teams that stray into luxury-tax territory.
The tax penalties and other rules for tax-paying teams, one source told ESPN The Magazine's Ric Bucher, are where the two sides remain at complete odds.

Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert has been one of the faces of the so-called "hardline" owners during the protracted talks.

He's long been one of the certified "hawks" -- the aggressive and hungry faction that was known to be seeking radical change.

However, multiple sources have confirmed to ESPN.com that Gilbert has adjusted his position in recent days and moved into a more moderate mode, voting with fellow owners who are willing to accept a 50/50 share of BRI.

ESPN.com

 

[Ben]

Looks like the small market teams are holding this up at this point. Being a fan of a small market team like the buck, I should side with them but I won't. They made bad deal after bad deal and the fan base is unwilling to finance a new stadium for them that will help them be profitable. Still thinks the NBA should cut down the number of teams in the league and this is why.

 

[The Cork]

They need to hurry up so my Cavs can wrap up the title.

 

[PHX]

At least when the NFL lockout happened you could at least see they had a real sense of urgency and cared that the fans wanted football so they went ahead and never said it was worth losing the whole season because of their disputes then got something done. Here there is just a lot of strong arming and bullshit like smaller teams looking like morons because of business they did.