[David Aldridge] Owner's are "tired of making these guys rich"

I'm willing to bet that if every NBA team were to present its cash basis financials there would be a much rosier outlook for most of these "floundering" franchises.

 

That almost sounds like it has racist undertones.

 

Reread what you wrote.

You started by saying "there isn't a CBA" and then say "everything signed under the new CBA."

You completely skipped over the part about the players SIGNING the CBA. There is no CBA without the players signing it.

So when you end by saying "The players have zero legs to stand on." You do realize you are wrong. They damn sure have plenty of control over what they sign....every bit as much as the owners do.

 

I didn't mean it so much as how I think the owners should go about their business. It was more to a point that the owners hold leverage over the players. In my opinion the players need the NBA more than the NBA needs the players who would refuse to play for them. If the owners under a new CBA said without room for negotiation that all contracts signed under the new CBA would be half of what they were under the one that just ended. The players can fuss and complain all they want, but at the end of the day they're still million dollar athletes.

 

ha, franchise euthanasia, I like it

 

......players need the money more than the owners do, yes? I guess you need to reread what I wrote considering you missed the point of IF there is a new CBA being negotiated and this is what the owners want.

 

Here are some things i wish to know, please help.

Revenue Sharing: Isnt that basically taking money away from the profitable teams and giving it the struggling ones? If so, why would the owners making a good profit want to do this if they can make the unprofitable teams profitable by reducing player salaries?

Business model: in a typical business model, all the risks are by the owner, so therefore most of the profit, if there is any, goes to the owner. Like wise, if the business is losing money, the owner has to absorb it, not his employees. No now we come to the NBA business model. Are they really that different? Well, of course they are. But what I mean is; what is a fair split? Shouldnt the owners still get the lions share of the profit? If they shouldnt, why?

Perhaps it is an inaccurate perception of mine, but while I usually side with the employee when it comes to owner vs employee disagreements, in the case of NBA employees, they are frinkin millionaires. Multi-millionaires. I am having a hard time feeling that they are underpayed. And while tricky accounting MAY be making the owners take seem less than it is, the fact remains that we have come to a point where the owners feel they would rather not have a season than continue as things were. This tells me that no matter what amount of creative bookkeeping going on, the owners have had enough.

 

**** the owners. The system is at fault, but what the owners are proposing really hurts the players when in fact the owners should be doing a better job of revenue sharing among themselves.

Say that I'm a player playing for a big-market team and those big market teams make their fair share of dough; more than they need even. And then those big market teams ask me to take a paycut to help the small-market teams because the bigmarket owners are too greedy to cough up a few dollars that the player is not at ALL obligated to pay. Stop hoarding the money you ****ing idiots.

In my opinion though EVERYONE needs to take a paycut.

 

It hard to be on anyone's side when they're all pulling millions and millions a year (the supposed in the red owners aside) No one forced the owners to sign the CBA that lead to the contracts Kelvin Cato or Larry Hughes signed. But I can't quite put in words why I feel like the owners have the upper hand here and hold most if not all leverage. The players need their million dollar contracts more than the owners need a season.

 

Yeah, right. Fans collectively doing something like that? Look at baseball. Baseball could screw their fans over yearly and people would still go buy overpriced stadium food and tickets.

 

I don't disagree with the notion that revenue sharing will have to be addressed but I hardly think that alone is the issue holding everything back. That ideas assumes the league as a whole is making a profit, which it collectively did not.

You say "the system" is at fault; well both players and owners contribute to that system.

And to your specific scenario: your player sounds incredibly selfish and short-sighted. What if he were on a small-market team? What if he's then making his money but his club is losing money. The players' line has been "that's not our problem". Truthfully, it is their problem too because they're getting locked out over it. There has to be give and take on both sides. I don't believe either side is 100% in the right.

 

I'm not convinced any let alone many are actually factually losing cash money; I cannot be convinced (yet, anyway) owners will allow the season to go pffft.

 

Unfortunately contracts like Cato's are the fault of both owners and players. Without direct ownership or a vested stake in teams, players don't really give a damn how a team does financially. They couldn't care less if a team makes a profit, and even in some cases if a team wins games. They have no direct link to a team, therefore they do everything in their power to drive the price of their services up. At the same tokens, teams buy into the players' games. Team A overbids Team B to ensure that Team B doesn't secure a player, even if the price is slightly higher than what the player is worth. Teams fight each other and players capitalize.

While some of you might be saying, well that's the capitalistic model, there is one major difference. In the capitalist model if I'm a person whose services are being sought after by two separate corporations chances are if I sign with one I care about the health of that company. Bonuses, stock options and things of that regard keep me geared into the health of my company. Yes, I will be making money hand over fist, but at the same token I care about how my company is doing.

Unfortunately this is not the way the NBA operates. A player can make money by sitting on his fat ass. Look at McLazy in the last years of his contract. He was the highest paid player in the NBA at the time and hadn't even seen a minute on the court. He bounced from doctor to doctor looking for the one who would grant him the leave of absence he wanted. There are tons of cases like that. A lot of players in the league only care about posting their statlines, getting paid, and then having fun. The ones with a real chance at winning actually can care from time to time, but lets be fair, it's all about the money.

Look at the Heat. They say they came together to win. If you believe that, then you are naive. ESPN herald them as that because the big three supposedly took a pay cut. In the grand scheme of things, they didn't cut their pay that much at all. On top of that, the licensing and sponsorship deals they have in place make them money hand over fist as well. It wasn't just about winning, if it were they would have taken more of a cut, it was as much about winning as money.

There in lies the problem. The players have no reason to take paycuts. Also they have no reason to care about the health of their teams, not to say they don't, but there are often cases when you have a max player riding the bench. McGrady, Starbury, Steve Francis, the list goes on, but there are tons of players who essentially hold their teams hostage with large contracts and they really don't care about the destination of their team. There needs to be a more meshed infrastructure. Unfortunately, that will never ever happen. If there was a better means of profit sharing, or player incentives then I think the NBA could start working again. If you ask me, the more talented a player is should mean the more he's paid, but it isn't like that. It has nothing to do with statistics or performance, it's a buy and sell market. Look at Aaron Brooks. Next year he's not going to make that much because he had a sh!tty year this year. If he maintained his averages this year and hadn't gotten injured chances are AB would be making a lot more, and even might still be a Rocket.

The league is broken.

 

While I agree with most of the other things you said, this is the main thing. And in my mind, the players refusal to want to change anything of substance is the same as them saying its not broken. Which leads me to the conclusion that although equal blame may be shared in the system getting to this point, the blame rests almost totally on the players on fixing it (since they wont even admit its broken).

 

look at my posts and then look at new jersey's books

 

It's not that the players have the task of fixing it, but at the very minimum they can admit that the system is broken. The players would be happy with a deal that is identical to the one in place. Can you blame them? It's an awesome deal for them. The players don't want to change, and while the owners are as selfish, if not moreso, at least they can admit that the system is broken, albeit because they are the ones suffering a loss...

First and foremost the league is a pay to play league. If you're not willing to go above and beyond the cap you have no chance at winning at all. The cap is completely meaningless. The cap does nothing but penalize teams that want to win now, and reward teams like Sacramento who love being mediocre at best. That's wrong.

As for giving out large contracts, that (as I stated earlier) is a 50/50 fault. The players use the system to gain more money pitting owner against owner. The owners do not band together and say no to players that do not warrant max deals, or even some MLE deals. However, you hit it right on the nail. The owners should have put forth some form of profit sharing. The fact that Yao made the Rockets/NBA ungodly amounts of money internationalizing the game should have been reflected in his pay check. If players were getting rewarded for their contribution to the team, chances are they would be more willing to take paycuts, stay on a team for less money, or even not just demand a trade when things go sour. Think about it, if LeBron James got some of that money back from basically recreating that Cavs team he might have not taken his talents to South Beach. That is 100% the fault of the owners.

No matter how I slice it, I see it as the owners and players are equally at fault here. The players need to meet the owners and admit the system is broken, but beyond that the two sides need to do better about meeting in the middle.

 

I didnt mean they had to fix it. I meant that standing pat and not willing to concede that there is a problem is standing in the way of it being fixed.

 

LATE EDIT: I meant to say "unemployment."

But I agree, fans would never sack up enough to really make a point.

Nice to dream, though.

In the meantime: Bend over, everybody!

Millionaires fight with other millionaires about who deserves how many millions, while we sit on the sidelines and wonder when basketball will be back.

 

The players need to become organised and do something themselves. They cant just leave everything to the NBPA and the courts. They should first start a massive propagnada campaign against the owners. Some have good relationships with journalists - use them to get your point of view across to the public. Just keep hammering the media about how the players have no say in to executive decisions that NBA or the clubs make - they just play basketball. Articualte how everything that is wrong with the NBA today is because of the decisions that the owners and NBA execs made, not the players. Everything that is good with the NBA is because the players entertain the fans, the NBA is nothing without entertainment.

Lebron has his own PR agency for crying out loud. Theres a starting point. Find well respected professionals such as journalists, financial gurus, big business execs (they may be fans), lawyers....... anyone who shares the players point of view and use them to back the players up with their claims and point of views. It makes it look more legit and not just one sided. Hell try even get politicians and celebrities to back you up.

They should get together and demand an audit into each and every NBA club and the NBA head office. I bet half the NBA execs and owners end up in jail. These NBA execs/owners are not as powerful as the big bankers or energy tycoons to escape jail time if taken to court with a good case.