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[CBS Sports - Berger] Labor update as NBA heads for 'ugly' lockout

Discussion in 'NBA Dish' started by jsmee2000, Jun 28, 2011.

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t_mac1 Contributing Member

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God, the NBA owners are going to erase next season at this pace. What they are requesting is absolutely ridiculous.

#81 t_mac1, Jun 30, 2011

Icehouse Contributing Member

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t_mac1 said: ↑

God, the NBA owners are going to erase next season at this pace. What they are requesting is absolutely ridiculous.
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You can make ridiculous demands when you know the other side will break eventually. I hope the players can hold it together but I doubt it.

#82 Icehouse, Jun 30, 2011
jimmyv281 Member

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More wnba for all of us ...............

#83 jimmyv281, Jun 30, 2011
t_mac1 Contributing Member

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Icehouse said: ↑

You can make ridiculous demands when you know the other side will break eventually. I hope the players can hold it together but I doubt it.
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Well, the players will not break for at least one season, and they will risk it and dare the owners.

How stupid would Stern be if he let this happen after the best ratings he has gotten since MJ? And this would be his SECOND lockout. Very bad for his "legacy"

#84 t_mac1, Jun 30, 2011
Aleron Contributing Member

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Octavianus said: ↑

Here is some bad news.. Hope they work something out, cause this could drag on for a long time.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursn...onroe-it-only-gets-harder-for-owners-players/

According to NBA executives familiar with the league’s strategies, once the lockout is in place, the owners will push for a hard salary cap of $45 million, the elimination of guaranteed contracts and ask that the players swallow a 33 percent salary cut.

The concessions made in recent weeks, including the “flex cap” of $62 million and a guarantee of $2 billion in annual player payroll, will be off the table.

If this seems certain to guarantee the loss of the entire 2011-12 season, it is because there are owners who think it is necessary for the long-term viability of the league.
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Sounds like the flex cap etc is an offer to basically give the players back what they expect to lose during a lockout, if the lockout happens, they're going to make the players pay for the lockout, and will hold out as long as they have to, the longer the players go, the worse it gets.

For these billionaires, they're better off letting it all fall apart than have to keep propping up failing businesses, the players might figure that out, but how long it takes is anyone's business

#85 Aleron, Jun 30, 2011
MemphisX Contributing Member

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Aleron said: ↑

Considering there are players being paid millions to not play *cough*

It's probably fair that the teams be guaranteed profits even if they're useless....
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Do the Clippers get part of the guaranteed TV deal despite them not trying to compete?

#86 MemphisX, Jun 30, 2011
MemphisX Contributing Member

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Aleron said: ↑

Sounds like the flex cap etc is an offer to basically give the players back what they expect to lose during a lockout, if the lockout happens, they're going to make the players pay for the lockout, and will hold out as long as they have to, the longer the players go, the worse it gets.

For these billionaires, they're better off letting it all fall apart than have to keep propping up failing businesses, the players might figure that out, but how long it takes is anyone's business
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The NBA is a failing business? I bet 90% of the businesses in the world would like to be setting revenue records in a down economy and still convince the public they are failing.

#87 MemphisX, Jun 30, 2011

Aleron Contributing Member

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MemphisX said: ↑

The NBA is a failing business? I bet 90% of the businesses in the world would like to be setting revenue records in a down economy and still convince the public they are failing.
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Since their costs are setting new records and outpacing their revenues at the same time, yeah a lot of them aren't doing so hot.

#88 Aleron, Jun 30, 2011
bbjai Member

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Carl Herrera said: ↑

Also, lets say a player get drafted by the Clippers and find D. Sterlin morally corrupt and despicable. Why should he not be able to choose to leave when his contract is up? Why should, say, Blake Griffin be forced to essentially gift Sterling $10 million more a year?

The Spurs managed to keep the stars they drafted. You can't guarantee a guy won't want to leave, but you sure can increase your chances of retaining your guy and/or attracting players from elsewhere if you manage your team well even if you are in a small market.
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Yes but the argument would be, if DWade/Lebron/Chris Bosh had to choose between Spurs, Cleveland, and Miami who would they choose. The players aren't going to choose the small market team unless they SIGNIFICANTLY overpay them or they are like Tim Dunca/Kevin Durant. The fact of the matter is, Cleveland could have done a S&T with any of the big 3 but Dwade has SPECIFICALLY SAID he didn't want to sign for Cleveland under any circumstances and Bosh said the same thing. How can a city like Cleveland EVER attract FA's even with Lebron there?

#89 bbjai, Jun 30, 2011
Octavianus Member

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bbjai said: ↑

Yes but the argument would be, if DWade/Lebron/Chris Bosh had to choose between Spurs, Cleveland, and Miami who would they choose. The players aren't going to choose the small market team unless they SIGNIFICANTLY overpay them or they are like Tim Dunca/Kevin Durant. The fact of the matter is, Cleveland could have done a S&T with any of the big 3 but Dwade has SPECIFICALLY SAID he didn't want to sign for Cleveland under any circumstances and Bosh said the same thing. How can a city like Cleveland EVER attract FA's even with Lebron there?
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Cleveland didn't have the cap space to get Bosh Wade and Lebron.
Cleveland was also being run pretty bad at the time, and had no coach, so why would any FA want to sign there last year.
Miami on the other hand, had a young coach, the best GM in the league, and a GM and Owner willing to do whatever it takes to win.

#90 Octavianus, Jun 30, 2011
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Yetti said: ↑

Would the NBA limit each team to two super stars?
How would they enforce it?
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by having a hard cap. you wont have enough money to pay for 3 super stars unless they take a huge pay cut which i doubt

#91 #1YAODADDY, Jun 30, 2011
jsmee2000 Contributing Member

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http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-wojnarowski_billy_hunter_union_letter_062911
Hunter warns players of ‘flex’ cap
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports

Players Association executive director Billy Hunter warned NBA players on Wednesday that the league’s proposal of a “hard-flex” salary cap would have grave consequences for the future earnings and security of rank-and-file union members.

The owners’ plan “would decimate the middle class, with teams using the bulk of their hard cap room on star players,” Hunter wrote to players in an email obtained by Yahoo! Sports.

Hunter stayed on his theme of disparaging the league’s offer of a flex cap, promising doomsday scenarios over the course of the 10-year deal the NBA has proposed to players. The letter was sent to the players as a prelude to Thursday’s bargaining session in New York that could be the final one before the league possibly imposes a lockout at 12:01 a.m. ET Friday.

Billy Hunter's message to players: Don't be fooled by owners' offer.
In the key points Hunter tried to impart to players, he wrote: “… The owners have not backed off of a hard cap system, although they’ve added a middle tier and now refer to it as a ‘flex cap.’ Don’t be fooled by these semantics – the ceiling of the system is still an absolute barrier, so it produces the same harsh effects of a hard cap.

“…The owners have finally come off their demand that no contract may be fully guaranteed, but such a ‘concession’ is virtually meaningless within a hard cap system. General managers are far less likely to give players guarantees in a hard cap system because, without the benefit of the Larry Bird and other existing exceptions, they will need to leave room to re-sign key players and sign other players in future years.”

Hunter’s most important job now could be keeping his union together over what could be a long, contentious lockout. Owners are seeking unprecedented givebacks in the collective bargaining agreement talks, citing financial losses and competitive imbalances among big- and small-market teams. The union has pushed the league to consider more serious revenue-sharing plans to remedy the problem.

“We remain open to negotiations and continue to exchange dialogue and ideas with the NBA, but at last week’s summer meeting our player reps voiced their opinion loud and clear that we cannot sit back and allow the owners to so drastically alter the landscape we have created over the past half century,” Hunter wrote. “Right now the owners are asking for much more than we can give without a fight.”
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#92 jsmee2000, Jun 30, 2011
jsmee2000 Contributing Member

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Octavianus said: ↑

Here is some bad news.. Hope they work something out, cause this could drag on for a long time.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursn...onroe-it-only-gets-harder-for-owners-players/

According to NBA executives familiar with the league’s strategies, once the lockout is in place, the owners will push for a hard salary cap of $45 million, the elimination of guaranteed contracts and ask that the players swallow a 33 percent salary cut.

The concessions made in recent weeks, including the “flex cap” of $62 million and a guarantee of $2 billion in annual player payroll, will be off the table.

If this seems certain to guarantee the loss of the entire 2011-12 season, it is because there are owners who think it is necessary for the long-term viability of the league.
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Ouch...as expected we are in for a long one. Let's see, the chances that the Rockets will have the 14th pick in the 2012-2013 NBA Draft for the 3rd time in a row have increased!

#93 jsmee2000, Jun 30, 2011

jsmee2000 Contributing Member

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http://www.cbssports.com/nba/story/15278727/sound-proposal-to-bridge-cba-gap-starting-with-revenues?ttag=gen10_on_all_fb_na_txt_0001

Sound proposal to bridge CBA gap, starting with revenues

By Ken Berger
CBSSports.com Senior Writer
June 29, 2011

First part in a series

NEW YORK -- As the NBA heads into a long, dark summer and beyond with the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement, there appears to be only one way to bridge the gap between players and owners:

Pain. Lots of it.

We could come up with brilliant, innovative ways to fix the broken system that has the NBA willing to waste one of the high points it has experienced in the past two decades, and it would be pointless. The players are clinging too stubbornly to the status quo, while owners are determined not to budge until they solve all their problems with massive salary concessions from the players. Translation: See you in September. Or November. Or maybe even January.

The bad thing for the owners and players is that they've run across someone just as stubborn as they are.

That would be me, the guy forging ahead with the Berger Plan -- a flawed, imperfect, but practical approach to solving the NBA's labor dispute in ways that would be better for both sides than a lengthy lockout.

Call me naïve, but I'm going ahead and revealing my plan -- let's call it free, unwanted advice -- even though both sides are going to ignore me because they'll be too busy surgically removing their noses to spite their faces at 12:01 a.m. ET Friday, when the current CBA expires.

Let me preface this by saying these issues are complicated and too overwhelming to address with anything approaching completeness here. But I think I can give you the basic tools needed to see the middle ground -- there's always a middle ground in a negotiation -- while also highlighting some issues that each side views as religiously untouchable, and why we should not only touch them, but blow them out of the negotiating room.

We're going to do this in installments because A) there's too much ground to cover in a single column, and B) we're going to have plenty of time to tackle all the issues while the owners and players are sitting in their respective corners pouting while their sport dies a slow, excruciating death.

The first installment, without surprise, is the single most important issue in these negotiations: The split of revenues between owners and players.

Under the current deal, the players' salaries and benefits total 57 percent of basketball-related income, and the players are guaranteed to receive this percentage regardless of negotiated salaries through an escrow system. Phooey on the escrow system; it's complicated, convoluted, and doesn't address any of the important issues at hand.

So for the just completed 2010-11 season, sources say league revenues (BRI) are expected to come in at $3.8 billion, and player salaries and benefits at $2.17 billion (or 57 percent). How can we get the owners on their way to addressing their stated annual losses of $300 million without forcing the players into a lose-lose negotiating position?

Actually, it's fairly simple, though it requires patience on the owners' side and sacrifice on the players'. Let's work off how far each side has publicly acknowledged it is willing to go.

The owners have proposed a system that would guarantee the players no less than $2 billion a year in salary and benefits. The players have proposed reducing their share of BRI to 54.3 percent. As you will see, these two positions are not that far apart.

Let's also use National Basketball Players Association president Derek Fisher's rationale for the players' offer of a $100 million-a-year salary concession. Fisher's explanation was that this amount roughly equates to the players taking responsibility for 57 percent of what he called the owners' "true losses." Fisher and the union deduct interest and depreciation to arrive at this figure.

For the purposes of getting a deal, we're going to let the owners count those expenses. The players will be able to get something more valuable elsewhere in the negotiation to make up for it.

However, under my plan, the owners will not be adding any more expenses to those they already deduct from gross revenues before sharing with the players. That's just being greedy, and deals aren't driven by greed -- they're driven by compromise.

So let's take the owners' claims of a $300 million annual loss at face value; they're not budging off it anyway, so why waste everyone's time? Let's inch the players downward from the 54.3 percentage they've already proposed and bring them down to 52 percent.

What does that get us? A 52 percent share of BRI would yield a total of $1.976 billion in salary and benefits -- a $194 million concession by the players that would get the owners nearly two-thirds of the way toward erasing their stated losses in Year 1 of the deal. It would be a significant move by the players, one that has them moving more on a percentage basis from their most recent offer than the owners. This piece of leverage should be filed away for future use by the players when it comes to devising the details of a new system that would serve everyone's needs.

What happens after Year 1? The owners clearly need to reap more savings on player expenses, or why would they agree to this deal? So for marginal revenues beyond the benchmark of $3.8 billion, owners would keep 100 percent in Year 2. So that's a $194 million pay cut in Year 1 for the players, and a salary freeze in Year 2 -- substantial, meaningful concessions that David Stern would be roundly ridiculed for daring to call "modest."

With league revenues projected to grow 3-5 percent annually, let's take the middle ground and assume 4 percent revenue growth for the foreseeable future. With 4 percent growth, BRI in 2012-13 would be $3.952 billion, and under the current system, the players would've gotten $2,252,640,000 (57 percent). Under the new formula -- 52 percent of the first $3.8 billion going to the players and all marginal revenues going to the owners -- the owners would be $277 million better off in Year 2.

Thanks to a serious approach on the part of the players, the owners would have erased nearly all their stated losses by the second year of the new CBA. And the players would've identified themselves as the party interested in making a deal that actually will make the NBA better in the long term, rather than protecting a couple of years of paychecks.

With 4 percent growth again, BRI would rise to $4.11 billion in 2013-14. In Year 3, the players would get 52 percent of the first $3.8 billion and 25 percent of the rest. Under the old formula, the players would've received $2,342,700,000. Under this formula, their take would be $2,053,500,000 -- a $289 million benefit to the owners.

Year 4 is where the rubber meets the road. The owners would've had three years of salary concessions to put them well on the path to profitability, allowing them to focus on growing revenues and bettering the game. Year 4 is when the players would reach a 50-50 split of revenues beyond the $3.8 billion benchmark and surpass their previous level of $2.17 billion in salary and benefits for the first time in the new deal.

With BRI hitting $4,274,400,000 in 2014-15, the players would again get 52 percent of the first $3.8 billion and split additional revenues 50-50 with the owners. This would be the formula for the rest of the deal (players want a five-year CBA, while owners want a 10-year deal). So in Year 4, the players would get $2,213,200,000 -- surpassing their 2010-11 compensation six years earlier than in the owners' most recent proposal, and leaving the owners $223 million better off than they would've been under the old system.

The responsibility for cutting non-player costs and increasing revenues in creative ways would now shift to the owners, where it belongs.

Having addressed nearly all the owners' stated losses with close to $1 billion in concessions over four years compared to what they would've been paid under the 57 percent system, the players would be strongly positioned to dictate the terms of the rest of the negotiation.

In other words, with such a strong statement addressing the owners' losses, the players would possess the negotiating clout to go for the jugular in the fight to keep the owners from imposing a hard cap and banning fully guaranteed contracts. Plus, with more than 5 percent revenue growth expected in the future -- particularly after the league's broadcast rights deals expire in 2016 -- the players could push for a higher percentage of BRI in the back end of the deal, once more lucrative TV contracts are in place.

They also would have put the onus squarely on the owners to get their own house in order with revenue sharing, because everything offered above in the Berger Plan would be off the table without meaningful changes to a system that allows the Lakers to spend $112 million in salary and luxury tax while the lowest-paying team, the Kings, doles out $70 million less -- a difference that is more than the average salary in the league.

If the players are going to give in the economic part of the negotiation, they absolutely should have a say as to how the money is divided up among the teams that will be paying them. The players must be invited into the revenue-sharing debate, and their admission to this discussion would come in the form of serious salary concessions that would leave the arrogant owners no choice but to partner with them on everything from revenue sharing to profits when franchises are sold -- not just cost-cutting.

The players would have achieved all of this with earnings of $8.2 billion in the first four years of the deal -- more than they would've gotten under the owners' offer of a flat $2 billion a year. In fact, the owners' most recent proposal would've cost the players $8.2 billion over 10 years -- and this plan has the owners far better off on the front end.

If they're serious about stemming their losses, the owners will take this deal and open the discussion on other issues that are important to the players.

A split of revenues that addresses the owners' losses and gives the players clout to win negotiating victories elsewhere -- soft cap, guarantees, and getting a small percentage of profits from franchise sales set aside in a pension fund for retired players -- would form the basis for determining the details of a system that would provide far more competitive balance and revenue growth than the league has ever seen. And despite the owners' grandiose vision, it wouldn't require pummeling the players with more than $8 billion in concessions in a 10-year deal.

Just some compromise. And some smart people to weigh in on the next installment of the Berger Plan: a new cap system that would deliver the players' revised share of revenues in a way that would restore competitive balance and force the owners to confront the real problems that got them into this mess in the first place. For the owners to see this evil, all they'll need is a mirror.
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#94 jsmee2000, Jun 30, 2011
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bbjai said: ↑

The fact of the matter is, Cleveland could have done a S&T with any of the big 3 but Dwade has SPECIFICALLY SAID he didn't want to sign for Cleveland under any circumstances and Bosh said the same thing. How can a city like Cleveland EVER attract FA's even with Lebron there?
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.................what the hell are you talking? There was no way that the Cavs could have gotten D-Wade or Bosh to their city because of the salary cap rules and how they screwed up their team. Since Miami had prepared for it, they could.

Above all, the important thing isn't markets, it's having a competent team. It's why the Knicks are losers, and the Spurs are winners. Because one team knows what it's doing. Cleveland had no clue what it was doing in the end.

After all, do any of us have a problem with Lebron leaving, or HOW he left? I have no problems with the fact that he left, and the fact that so many people are annoyed with that he left Cleveland at all is a bit surprising to me. I know I wouldn't be staying in Cleveland any longer than I had to.

#95 Kojirou, Jun 30, 2011
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Carl Herrera said: ↑

I agree there should be revenue sharing and I'd bet it's being discussed. However, even with perfect revenue sharing, the fact remains that all league as a whole is losing money, possibly as much as $300 million. So, without anything else, right now all that revenue sharing would do is to make every team suffer the same loss, rather than some teams losing a ton of money while others make a profit.

Basically, the math is that the league (i.e. all 30 teams combined) has $4.3 billion in revenue. The players salary and benefits total $2.17 bllion. The league's total non-player expenses (arena lease, debt service, coaches, cost of all other employees, etc.) total about $2.43 billion. So, with a revenue of $4.3 billion and expenses total $4.6 billion (2.17+2.43=4.6), the league as a whole is losing $300 million this year.
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My prior understanding was that the teams in the red just added all their losses. Do you have a link?

#96 Dei, Jun 30, 2011
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t_mac1 said: ↑

Well, the players will not break for at least one season, and they will risk it and dare the owners.

How stupid would Stern be if he let this happen after the best ratings he has gotten since MJ? And this would be his SECOND lockout. Very bad for his "legacy"
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I'm not so sure about that. When they start missing game checks, let's see how long they hold together.

#97 A_3PO, Jun 30, 2011
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Kojirou said: ↑

.................what the hell are you talking? There was no way that the Cavs could have gotten D-Wade or Bosh to their city because of the salary cap rules and how they screwed up their team. Since Miami had prepared for it, they could.

Above all, the important thing isn't markets, it's having a competent team. It's why the Knicks are losers, and the Spurs are winners. Because one team knows what it's doing. Cleveland had no clue what it was doing in the end.

After all, do any of us have a problem with Lebron leaving, or HOW he left? I have no problems with the fact that he left, and the fact that so many people are annoyed with that he left Cleveland at all is a bit surprising to me. I know I wouldn't be staying in Cleveland any longer than I had to.
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My point is even if they had cap space they would have never signed there. Look at dwill melo Dwight and cp3 all clamoring to play for big market teams! Might as well shrink the league to big cities only. The only way a FA is ever going to sign with a small market team is to overpay him to the absolute ala joe Johnson.

It's all about markets. A guy like Kevin Durant isn't about markets neither is Tim Duncan but the majority ofnthese guys are only looking at big markets in free agency. That means unless your team is really well managed( and lucky like OKC) and small market your never going to compete or make money for that matter

#98 bbjai, Jun 30, 2011

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MemphisX said: ↑

The NBA is a failing business? I bet 90% of the businesses in the world would like to be setting revenue records in a down economy and still convince the public they are failing.
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17 of the 30 NBA teams LOST money last year.

http://blogs.forbes.com/mikeozanian/2011/01/26/the-nbas-most-valuable-teams-2/

#99 MadMax, Jun 30, 2011
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MadMax said: ↑

17 of the 30 NBA teams LOST money last year.

http://blogs.forbes.com/mikeozanian/2011/01/26/the-nbas-most-valuable-teams-2/
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The reason is that while the league's revenue has grown each of the last 6 years, the league's costs, both player costs and non-player costs, have gone up even faster than the growth in revenue.

The basketball business is not in crisis, the league simply needs to figure out a way to get its costs under control.

#100 Carl Herrera, Jun 30, 2011

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