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Dan Le Batard-NBA lockout pits selfish owners against each other

Discussion in 'NBA Dish' started by Clips/Roxfan, Oct 22, 2011.

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  1. Clips/Roxfan

    Clips/Roxfan Member

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    By Dan Le Batard
    dlebatard@miamiherald.com

    Heat owner Micky Arison owns not one but two of America’s 50 largest yachts, according to a rich-person magazine. He lives on one of them. This isn’t excessive in the world he inhabits. Both yachts combined aren’t as large as the one built by the Russian billionaire owner of the Chelsea soccer team. Roman Abramovich, who travels with a 40-strong security detail he calls “a private army,” took more than a year to build his 560-foot Eclipse, which is almost-two-football-fields massive and can’t even be docked in most marinas. It is equipped with not one but two helicopter pads and a submarine. Point is, sports owners live in a different world than the rest of us, money and power and yachts another way to keep score, their teams-as-toys orbit so distorted it Eclipses practicality so completely that they don’t even notice when they are building an ego too big to be docked.

    Arison is more humble than most men of his wealth, but part of the reason he bought the Heat was because billionaire Wayne Huizenga was hogging our market’s sports power. Huizenga, who already owned the Dolphins and Marlins, tried to get around the rule forbidding ownership of more than two pro sports teams in one town by trying to sneak his brother-in-law in to buy the Heat. So Arison, who became the president of Carnival Cruise Lines at 30 with the help of his father, bought the Heat as a bonding gift for his son Nick, who was recently named the Heat’s CEO at 30. The Heat reported losses in the millions most years and barely broke even in the championship year of Shaquille O’Neal, but it didn’t much matter because sports franchises almost always appreciate and Arison accrued wealth with his other toys (like the Queen Mary 2, the world’s largest ocean liner at a cost of almost a billion dollars). The Heat is something Micky and Nick share the way a less affluent father and son might go to a game and share, you know, a hot dog.

    Everything changed last year, though. The Heat’s value went up 17 percent, according to Forbes Magazine, because of LeBron James. In a recession, amid a system so broken that the sport is now locked out, no other team in the NBA had that kind of spike. And union chief Billy Hunter revealed the other day that Arison, for obvious reasons, is more eager than most owners to end the work stoppage. Arison has more to lose, and more to gain, than anyone in this rich man’s game.

    According to Newton’s third law of motion, however, every action is accompanied by an equal and opposite reaction. And, in the case of the NBA lockout, the equal and opposite reaction is named Dan Gilbert. Gilbert bought the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2005 for $375 million. According to Forbes, the small-market Cavaliers became the fifth most valuable franchise in the league with James, worth nearly $500 million. And now you know why Gilbert wrote that hateful, angry letter about James in crazy computerized crayon. The Cavs dropped in value more than any franchise in the league last year, 26 percent, losing as much as $250 million in value, according to some experts. They are now said to be worth less than what Gilbert paid for them. Gilbert, for obvious reasons, is less eager than most to end the lockout, and he appears to be beating Arison and James in this game around the games.

    Players not to blame

    You see what is happening here, right?

    No matter how bully NBA commissioner David Stern tries to manipulate the media spin, no matter how eager fans are to make sports one of the few American workplaces where the customers are pro-management instead of pro-employee, no matter how terrible a martyr a $100 million basketball player makes, this lockout is not a fight between greedy owners and greedy players. It is a fight between selfish owners and selfish owners. The players, all of them, want to play. The owners? Not so much. The players were fine with the way the system was but have already given back hundreds of millions of dollars in concessions — something baseball’s union would never, ever do — for the overall health of the league, negotiating in good faith. But there are a few owners who would lose more money by opening their arena doors than by not, and those owners literally can afford to wait until players start getting restless and customers get furious.

    If you think the hawkish Gilbert wouldn’t try to throw away an entire season out of pure spite for James, you didn’t read his crazy-crayon letter in a rare moment of raw, rabid public honesty from an owner — a temper tantrum unlike any in the history of an American sports ownership that includes George Steinbrenner. And you didn’t notice how small he could behave by having his Fathead company price the James poster at $17.41 — the year of Benedict Arnold’s birth. And you don’t know how petty rich people can be when playing this kind of negotiating game of ego and power, emotion trampling logic just like when a divorcing wealthy couple spends $100,000 in attorney fees arguing over a thousand dollars in china.

    Think about all the ego and money in the room when those owners meet. Think about how accustomed these men with yachts are to getting their way in every walk of life. That kind of wealth isn’t usually accrued by sharing and compromise; these men tend to be rich because cutthroat is what wins in business. Given that there are so many different interests in that room, and given that these owners aren’t really in it for the money, why would Gilbert want to help Arison with urgency, exactly? Even if he is not motivated by spite, what exactly is Gilbert’s impetus to settle quickly? You think he’s in a big hurry to go 19-63 again? Better for him to lose the season, break the union, fix the system and win that way than to fight the Timberwolves for worst record again. Trying to beat the players in a negotiation is more fun than that. Letting Dwyane Wade age another year next to James without playing would be a happy bonus for Gilbert, even if it isn’t his outright goal.

    Yes, Arison and Gilbert are the extremes. But here’s the scary part for Heat fans: More owners are closer to Gilbert’s camp than Arison’s. There are only five or six legitimate contenders in the lopsided NBA every year, if that. Might as well make money and rig the system in our favor for the next decade, the rest of the owners are saying, if I don’t have a real chance to win. It isn’t a coincidence that Mavs owner Mark Cuban and Arison are the most eager to get a deal done. But they are the minority when Yahoo! is reporting that even Paul Allen, one of the world’s richest men, has grown bored and disinterested with how far behind his Blazers are and is now a lot closer to Gilbert in philosophy than Arison. The Heat changed the paradigm in a way that gives too many owners who are behind incentive to fix the system instead of trying to win within it. If everyone had a real chance, no owner would want a lockout, scoreboard losses hurting these wealthy men more than financial ones. That’s why Stern, who works for the owners, has been so loud and threatening as their mouthpiece.

    Stern hinders process

    “The NBA has done an awesome job of spinning this in their favor as far as the media goes,” Utah’s Raja Bell said. “Commissioner Stern, in my opinion, is a bit in the way of us making progress. He has been one of the biggest problems in this whole lockout. It is unfortunate we haven’t be able to get past that. He rules the NBA with an iron fist, his way or the highway. There’s a deal to be made. We’ve made concessions. We’ve tried to get close to a position where the owners would meet us. It seems like every inch we give up, they ask for another one. That’s the most exasperating part. I feel like that’s their target — shoot below the bar, so it looks like they are negotiating when, in fact, there is no intent to negotiate.”

    Fans just want to cheer. They don’t care enough about the details, the numbers, the facts, to see how little the owners have actually given here and how dishonest they have been about trying. James Jones, a player rep more informed than most, was asked if he thought Stern was lying.

    “Most definitely,” he said. “That’s the unfortunate part about it. None of that helps. The answer isn’t spin, isn’t being antagonistic, isn’t pointing fingers. It is coming back to the table and really working to get a deal done. A lot of the things he is doing are not helpful to the process.”

    We, as fans, just want our games, our escape. Nobody goes to the amusement park to read contract language. So we feel like parents at a playground right now, surrounded by spoiled children. Come on now, kids. This is supposed to all be fun. Can’t we just play instead of fight? Emotion clouds. Greed infuriates. The coverage is droning and boring, unless Wade is yelling at Stern, and the truth is obscured because the commissioner is good at public relations. But the fan who can’t afford to take his son to an NBA game in a recession, already angry at the greedy millionaire who won’t just shut up and play, doesn’t understand why a man who gets to play a game for a living won’t just accept whatever the owners are offering.

    The players are an easy target but not an accurate one. They already have agreed, in essence, to a league-wide pay cut that gives back hundreds of millions of dollars — and they have done it because the owners have run their business improperly, basically giving back hundreds of millions in concessions to help the owners police themselves. And it hasn’t been enough. It really is breathtaking in its stupidity and makes you wonder how these people got rich in the first place doing business this way. We build these wealthy men arenas. We invest in their product in more ways than one. And what do we get in return now? These successful businessmen have somehow figured out a way to take the paying customer’s sport and team and fun … but not the paying customer’s money.

    Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/...ockout-pits-selfish-owners.html#ixzz1bZ9ao2Qc
     
    #1 Clips/Roxfan, Oct 22, 2011
  2. Commodore

    Commodore Contributing Member

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    If you knew how they got rich you might be as rich as them, idiot. They certainly didn't do it by paying more than they needed to for labor.

    No one put a gun to your head to vote for an arena.

    Maybe that will teach you not to subsidize professional sports teams. Not their fault you are stupid.

    They think long term, you think short term and complain about "greed" and "fairness". That's why they are rich and you are a whiny b****.
     
    #2 Commodore, Oct 22, 2011
  3. Aleron

    Aleron Contributing Member

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    They're expecting the value to depreciate in the next several years, hence why a lot of the owners want operating profits now,
     
    #3 Aleron, Oct 22, 2011
  4. t_mac1

    t_mac1 Contributing Member

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    That's funny. Then why did they sign the original CBA deal and proclaim victory, not knowing 10 years down the line they would be in this position (long-term eh?)? Maybe they should stick with what got them rich, and not run a basketball franchise.
     
    #4 t_mac1, Oct 22, 2011
  5. Raven

    Raven Member

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    One thing that disgust me is how few, if any, in the media are willing to criticize the players, because they're afraid of being frozen out.

    And something else, what the writer also ignored (and I'm seeing a lot of this) is that many owners are terrified of losing their star player, so they go on a spending spree in the desperate hope that they can win enough games to convince their franchise player to re-sign.

    48/52 split
    reduce contract length by one year
    give each team one franchise tag

    Done, perfect, the players don't lose that much and owners have their power back, which is what this is really about. No hard cap needed, everyone is happy.
     
    #5 Raven, Oct 22, 2011
  6. coachbadlee

    coachbadlee Member

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    Good read. Thanks.
     
    #6 coachbadlee, Oct 22, 2011
  7. MONON

    MONON Member

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    That's too simple for the complicated owners to comprehend.
     
    #7 MONON, Oct 23, 2011
  8. roslolian

    roslolian Member

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    Erm,this guy forgot one thing, these are the OWNERS of the league. Why should there be an equal split of the profits when the OWNERS invest upwards of 300M in their league while the players just go to work carrying a ball? Its like your lemonade workers saying they should get a 50% of your lemonade even if you're the one who bought the lemons, made the stand, paid for the rental space etc. Their wealth or whatever doesn't really matter, its the principle of the thing. When you invest 300M of money into anything you expect to get the lions share of the profit, otherwise why do it anyway?

    More importantly the concept of guaranteed contracts seem so foreign to me, why should players like Arenas or Lewis make 100M despite playing like crap? Really, guaranteed contracts are crippling the NBA, the owners should go nuclear on these players and offer the exact same contract scheme as the NFL. The NBA is a much less physical sport than the NFL, why the NBA players get better contracts is beyond me.
     
    #8 roslolian, Oct 23, 2011
  9. SPF35

    SPF35 Member

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    I agree, that is like saying you open a shop in the mall or something, the workers are the salesman and who move in hte product day to day, they may be talented and deserve commission, but to insinuate that they need half the profit for the entire store when you started it, invested in, laid down the infrastruture to allo their talents to floursih....ridiculous

    nba is a different situation of course, btu the players overlook all the infrastructure that makes the nba great and them so accessible. They went in the beginning of all of this talking about going to europe...well that is basketball for less than 50 percent of what they get paid, less exposure, less structure, less profesionalism, no private planes, no personal team doctors...

    i mean they don't see how all this allows them to do what they do...it is pretty sad

    then they don't want accountability and try to use some PR deal saying 'let us pplay'

    that is like me selling a house from the previous real estate bubble and demanding that my house sell at that rate bc that is what the market demanded then. The last CBA was constructed in a different time and now its not sustainable. htey need to let it go how spoiled they were


    you are telling me they want 4+ guaranteed contracts unliek ANY other sport where if they screw up, if they are unprofessional, if they don't live up or even have attittude trouble, they are guaranteed money despite their performance, where is the accountability ? it is riduclous
     
    #9 SPF35, Oct 23, 2011
  10. Commodore

    Commodore Contributing Member

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    A team should be free to guarantee whatever amount they wish, or none at all.

    As Morey said, a hard cap with no other rules is his preferred system, it favors the smart and prepared and gives the most flexibility while maintaining parity.

    The only other thing you would need is a rookie wage scale.
     
    #10 Commodore, Oct 23, 2011
  11. da_juice

    da_juice Member

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    Look how that works for baseball!

    Every team's star ends up going to New York or Boston, who can give money with reckless abandon. Luckily, baseball is a team sport, so having a dominant player pitching 1 out of 5 games or going up to bat 5 times doesn't have the same impact of having a player dominating both sides of the ball for 35-40 minutes of a basketball game.
     
    #11 da_juice, Oct 23, 2011
  12. Commodore

    Commodore Contributing Member

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    You still need a hard cap, but a team should be free to guarantee whatever amount they want. For one thing, a player might be willing to sign for less overall if they can get more guaranteed.
     
    #12 Commodore, Oct 23, 2011
  13. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Contributing Member

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    What makes you think they are afraid of being frozen out? Maybe they don't think the players deserve criticism. Shouldn't they be afraid to be frozen out by management? After all, the players are compelled to do interviews by the league; meanwhile GMs can play favorites and dole out bigger scoops.


    Lemonade stand workers are commodity labor. If they don't want to work for the wages you've offered, you can find another guy who will that same day. NBA players are the best basketball players in the world. The NBA's business model is to deliver the best basketball in the world. There are a hell of a lot more businesses in the world that can arrange to host a basketball league with stadiums and TV broadcasts and the lot than there are men who can play basketball as well as these 450 players can. The only thing in common between the NBA situation and your lemonade stand example is that both stand workers and NBA players sometimes drink lemonade.
     
    #13 JuanValdez, Oct 24, 2011
  14. rn_xw

    rn_xw Member

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    I don't like to look at things from the positive side. I always look at the negative side.

    If a team is doing really bad and nobody buying season tickets, who's losing? The owner. Players are already under contract, playing as bad as they could, it's the owners that's taking the losses, not the players.
     
    #14 rn_xw, Oct 24, 2011
  15. thadeus

    thadeus Contributing Member

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    There's no point in trying to argue with Commodore on these matters.

    He probably worships these owners as great John Galts.

    He really needs to read another novel one of these days.
     
    #15 thadeus, Oct 24, 2011
  16. DaDakota

    DaDakota If you want to know, just ask!

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    I just want the NBA to be viable and able to survive, and for small market teams to be able to compete too.

    If it takes breaking the union, so be it.

    DD
     
    #16 DaDakota, Oct 24, 2011
  17. A_3PO

    A_3PO Member

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    The NBPA needs to listen to the hockey player who told them to give in and start the season. I'm not a hockey guy, but IIRC, the union ended up not getting anything close to what the owners were originally offering. They got dismembered and decapitated. If the season is canceled, same thing will happen to NBA players. They should take what they can get right now. Holding out does NOT protect future players, it will harm them. When the hockey season canceled, I had no idea it would affect the NBA, which I actually care about. The blueprint was laid.

    You guys can blast the owners all you want, but they are in control and the union must come to grips with that. Now that it's apparent the owners are willing to cancel the season, the union needs to wake up.

    Lastly (and I don't say this just to blame him), but LeBron going to Miami really set back NBA players. I believe that event is a major factor in hardening the small-market owners' attitudes. Melo forcing his way to the Knicks, CP3 chattering about the Knicks to join Melo at Melo's wedding and rumors of Howard to the Lakers contributed also.
     
    #17 A_3PO, Oct 24, 2011
  18. BimaThug

    BimaThug Resident Capologist
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    FYI, Bill Simmons (FINALLY!) got Billy Hunter to come on with him and do a podcast. According to Simmons, the podcast will be up later today.

    Given that Simmons is not shy about his NBA fandom, expect for him to ask Hunter many of the same questions we all have on this BBS.

    This could be one of the single best insights into what is actually going on right now (assuming you account for the requisite amount of spin by Hunter, which will be a lot).
     
    #18 BimaThug, Oct 24, 2011
  19. A_3PO

    A_3PO Member

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    Some remarks from Tyson Chandler: http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports....says-owners-are-negotiating-like-“dictators”/

    “It’s really disappointing because I’ve been to a lot of the meetings, I’ve talked to Billy Hunter, I’ve talked to Derek Fisher and I’ve gotten information from both sides. And I feel like we’ve come down a lot on the concessions, we’ve given up a lot of points on the BRI, we’ve been ready to negotiate with the system, and I think for the owners to say a take it or leave it deal and we’re not going to talk anymore unless you take this deal 50-50, I think it’s unfair. It’s unfair to the players, it’s unfair to the fans because it’s only going to lead to a longer lockout. A negotiation is a negotiation, and that’s the way it should be, but this is more dictators than anything, and I don’t feel this is going as a negotiation.”

    Tyson, it's no longer a partnership between the NBA and union, it's ownership. The sooner you realize it, the better.
     
    #19 A_3PO, Oct 24, 2011
  20. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Contributing Member

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    Sure, the owners take on the brunt of the entrepreneurial risk. I qualify it because players had also taken on personal career risk to become NBA players -- from a young age they forsook other avenues to persue a basketball career that would not pay well at all if they fell short or got injured. The 450 players represent the bets' winners. Most of the losers would have been better off with a degree in accounting or something. So the players incurred risk and perhaps greater risk than the owners compared to their total net worth. But you are right that none of them all in danger of losing as much as an NBA team might on a go-forward basis.

    But all that doesn't matter too much, imo, because they aren't being compensated for risk-taking like the owners are. They are compensated for being an extremely rare commodity. What is that worth? I think it's worth whatever they can manage to negotiate for it.
     
    #20 JuanValdez, Oct 24, 2011
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