New Union Chief Calls Owners Expendable - [Fox Sports]

I heard her talking about the NBA salaries and boy is she scary. She is a hardliner.

 

The owners made their bed when they started crying that they are still losing money. Silver says even after the TV deal that owners are losing money. He mentioned The Nets owner lol.

 

Well, she's also behaving like a good negotiator. Like someone said it took Billy Hunter weeks to negotiate the deal the owners put on the table at the start. This lady is demanding a bunch of stuff that she knows won't happen (e.g. elimination of salary cap) so she can start from a more aggressive position.

 

I agree with her about the salary cap, players shouldn't have their salaries capped but they shouldn't have their contracts guaranteed for the full length of their contracts either, that should be negotiable also.

 

I'm a pro union type of guy but this lady is delusional. Go in there like gang busters and lets see what you accomplish.

Patrick Ewing said it best….”sure we make a lot of money but we spend a lot of money too”….. These exact players got nervous in 2011 when they started missing game checks. Let’s see if they can go a year without a paycheck because I don’t see the owners abolishing the salary cap. We don’t need a system similar to baseball. Look how crappy that sport is…..

 

They took the hardline route in negotiations last time...

 

this could be trouble.

uncapped money for superstars means less money for everyone else. players could start grumbling about agendas and cronyism here.

 

My exact thoughts, are all the players going to be united on this issue?

 

I actually think she sounded pretty convincing in her podcast a week or so ago with Zach Lowe, but we all know the NBPA director is really just a mouthpiece for the player agents at the end of the day.

However, the sad truth though guys is that in basketball more than any other sport, lockouts and the threat of missed paychecks will always happen if it can happen.

There is too much money split between too few parties, and its never NOT going to be a superstar league where there is huge division between the haves and have-nots.

The major problem with the NBA/CBA negotiations is that there needs to be consequence financially before the league misses games. The way the calendar & pay schedule works now, the players wont miss very many pay checks at all if the lockout is lifted sometime around early December which is when the last lockout ended.

There is very little chance the NBA does not have another nasty lockout. I just hope there is very good TV out that year, or I find some other great hobby to get me by during that time.

 

It seems like her stance would actually divide her own union before it ever even got to the owners. I can't imagine the lower 75% of players getting on board with an uncapped salary. Imagine the dissent if the Veteran's Minimum shrunk to 50% of what it is now to accommodate for an immensely top-heavy roster distribution.

 

Really? Cause I don't remember Hunter saying anything along these lines.

 

Yeah, her comments make no sense, since they are in the vacuum of a league with salary caps. How can anyone look at any salary data or economic data, that is remotely applicable to today's economic environment, and use it as "proof" of what would happen in a non-salary cap league? Since we, you know, don't live in that league and haven't, it'd be a guess.

Moreover, calling owners expendable is idiotic, since it's not true. All parties are expendable in the system. There will always be other players and there will always be other owners.

 

You know what that means as well.... more players going to play in China and Europe. China and Europe can't compete with the mid-level and max salary levels but even now they surely can compete with the veteran's minimum.

In that case, Aaron Brooks plays in China and is replaced by Mike James. Ray Allen retires and never hits the game winner to get the Heat their 2nd ring. Danny Green and Gerald Green probably never make it back to the NBA after they go to Europe and never come back.

There already is alot of financial competition for minimum guys overseas. You can't tell me Gustav Ayon chose to head overseas because of the chance at PT. I'm sure alot of NBA teams, including the Rockets, would have loved to get him with a veteran minimum contract to backup their starting 5.

 

Economists & forecasters issue reports on this kind of thing all the time. It's estimated that LeBron for example increases franchise revenue by something like 100 million per annum, or more - it's ridiculous to assume that his salary would be north of $21 million in an uncapped environment?

No, it's not.

The point is that you can replace Dan Gilbert with some other rich guy. In fact, you could replace all of the leagues' ownership with the 30 other rich guys, and nobody would know the difference on the court.

You can't replace Lebron, let alone the whole league, with a D-league player and have nobody know the difference

 

The speculation was that some Euro owner was willing to drop 50 mil a year on Lebron a few years ago. That's probably what an uncapped league would look like.

 

All this rhetoric is window dressing. An experienced top level attorney knows as well as anybody that (as Jalen Rose likes to say) the result of a settlement isn't so much what one deserves, but what one has the leverage to negotiate.

So, whether or not the owners are replaceable theoretically or add actual value to the league isn't the issue. The issue is what this actually means as to the negotiation. If the owners don't give the players what they want, do the players have the actual ability to get a replacement league running and make just as much money as they do in the NBA? This is the only way that "replaceable" has real meaning.

 

LeBron's VORP is significant in terms of on-court production and revenue generated and fan interest. THere's really only been a few players like him in history, and replacing him is very, very, very hard. Sure, the league can survive without 1 player. But players make teams good, and a very small batch of them are what makes the league good.

What's VORO (value over replacement owner) of Dan Gilbert?

Pretty much zero, like most owners, he generates zero fan interest and is completely replaceable. Nobody in Cleveland would really be more or less likely to go to or watch games if you replaced him with some other ultra rich guy.