Battier's "grandstanding" pissed off Hunter, Union board members

But it makes no sense. The only way Hunter can get things done quickly is if he accepts the owner's demands. Don't know if smartass Battier will be happy with that type of outcome.

 

But if he does this the union will fire him....

 

They could fire him if he was on a $1 salary too. Hunter is telling these guys he's on their side and will work to get the best deal for them, yet he's getting paid while they suffer through the lockout. The lockout is having no adverse effect on Hunter -- he should have volunteered to lower his salary once Battier asked.

Billy Hunter makes $2.4M a year -- there are several players he's representing that make considerably less than that, yet he's still wanting to get paid while they aren't? What a great leader.

 

Exactly. There's only one thing that's important from the player's POV: to get a good result.

The moment the players show that they don't want to / can't hold out for long, the owners know they've got them by their balls.

So why come up with that 1$ nonsense? It makes no sense from any perspective.

 

Shane gave him a little taste of how dire things will get, and a bit of the pressure he'll face later if things don't get worked out. He should decline, politely, and then thank shane for the perspective, all with a smile on his face, then handle the situation as he sees fit.

 

And most players he represents who make way more than him. 2.4m / year is basically nothing in NBA terms, just look at how much an agent makes if he "only" represents like 10 or 20 NBA players.

Also, because the owners lock out their players doesn't mean the players should "lock out" Hunter too - this is the time they need him the most and probably also the time he has to work the hardest.

And finally, NBA players can play overseas and make some money. No need for Hunter to earn nothing while his clients take their talents to Europe and earn some decent money.

 

Battier asked a question. What is the big deal?

Hunter's biggest job is negotiating the collective bargaining deal, right? So he's made millions from the players in the past 12 years while not doing his most important job.

 

Well of course. Dude, if I lost about a year's worth of salary I'd be extremely pissed off.

 

Very few players will do that.

 

He'd be better off standing by himself in the corner as per usual.

 

a) I always laugh when people say stuff like "$2M is basically nothing to them!" Billy Hunter isn't a player, he's an executive director of the NBPA and his lone job is to look out for the player's best interest. Exactly how hard is he working in non-lockout years?

b) Hunter lowering his salary to $1 isn't "locking him out" -- he has a job to do. He's getting paid $2M+ this year to do his job. Guess what? He was getting paid $2M+ last year to do his job. And the year before. And the year before that.

Guess what? He'll be getting paid $2M+ next year to do his job as well. You act as if Hunter is some attorney the players brought in on their behalf to negotiate for them and now do not want to not pay him. Hunter has been the NBPA executive director for 15 years.

c) The overseas argument is weak and you know it. FIBA contracts require teams to honor contracts in other leagues; the only players who could possibly go overseas are FAs and unsigned rookies. Nobody in their right mind would risk injury playing overseas for a couple months to earn a quarter of what they could in NBA free agency.

d) It's about the principal of standing tall with the people you represent. The owners are threatening to lock the players out and stop their paychecks. The NBPA executive director should also be willing to sacrifice his paycheck, along with the hundreds of (unemployed) players he represents. Cutting your salary to $1 doesn't have some big effect on anyone, but it shows the people you represent that you're willing to suffer right along with them.

That's what a good leader does and Shane had every right to call him out on it.

 

then Battier should grab a book and learn something about the union.

 

Battier under any other circumstance SHOULD be one of the union heads, if not the head over Derek Fisher. The reason I feel this is not the case currently is because Battier himself may have an eye out for a larger position, one perhaps on the other side of the coin...

Will the commissioner's office come calling for him once he retires? I for one am in favor of Battier on that side. He's a uniter not a fighter. A schmoozer drunk rather than a belligerent one.

 

Its a symbolic gesture to show that negotiations are being done without any self-aggrandizement. By taking $1 as his salary, it shows that he will not profit from a labor strife. He is willing to stand on the side of the union and not be paid, just like them.

 

That is actually an unknown at this point. Because they are being locked out, and thus their contracts not being honored, they may be able to join an international team. Of course they would have to sign contracts that allowed them to terminate their European contracts as soon as the lockout is over.

[rquoter]Whether the NBA will try to prevent locked-out players such as Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki, while still under contract to their NBA teams, from playing abroad during a potential work stoppage

"If, in fact, there's a lockout, then the player is free during the course of the lockout to do what he wants to do if his contract is in effect. I don't want to play that game with anybody. ... If we have a collective bargaining arrangement with the union and there's a lockout, then last time around [in 1998] players were free to do what they're going to do, because they've been locked out."[/rquoter]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=6125242

Lower level players may take the money, because the difference won't be that great (possibly more), but you have to also factor in all the problems that have faced these European teams since they started paying these bigger salaries.

 

-Battier's got the balls to present different viewpoints.

-He's not a sensationalist moron.

-He's realizes that there is more than "Players vs. Front Offices."

-Not everything is a one-dimensional this-vs.-that argument, as hard as most people try to simplify it into.

 

Hunter's job is to get the most for the players. He has more or less done that in his tenture. As others have said this is the time when he earns his money. Hunter would be gone in a nanosecond if the owners get a majority of what they are asking for.

 

While I think Battier's question might be harmless in that he's just trying to point out something no one else has asked, he's not exactly making a fair comparison. Hunter's actually led the Union through a lockout before while Smith hasn't had that specific type of experience on his resume before. So, in a way, Hunter has earned his salary for years while Smith still has a lot to prove.

 

Agreed.
How many off these things has Battier negotiated?
Does he know what it takes?

It took balls for him to do it. . . but it is . . inappropriate.

Rocket River

 

Its a perfectly reasonable question. Hunter is in a way that lawyer who works on lawsuits filed by someone. While his job is to resolve the case, the longer the case goes on the more the lawyer gets paid.

In the same way, Hunter can afford to act tough and take no prisoners because he's still earning salaries while the ordinary players aren't getting anything because of the lockout. Let's face it the only ones getting severely affected because of this CBA will be those who earn upwards of 5M a year. For those guys on the bottom of the pecking order who need the money the most, they just want to get paid.