Derek Fisher's letter to players - Talks about lockout status and situation

He actually stepped up a notch in my book with that letter. He now sits somewhere above a maggot-infested corpse. :grin:

 

I like "Looking like a season. how u" better.

 

Of course the players want to play, but it was interesting that the owners were the ones divided.

DD

 

"I this, I that, I'm this, I'm that. Me me me. Stand behind me, and disregard the agents who are talking smack about kicking out Billy Hunter."

That's all I got out of it. Fisher better do one thing right and get this resolved.

...yes I still think he's a punk for setting that dirty screen against Scola in the playoffs, but it looks like he's optimistic that things can get done if the players stick together.

 

thanks for reminding us of that.. haha. as a rocket fan first, and a laker hater second, i realized after this that above all, i'm a fan of the game so any progress toward getting it back (even if its from fisher) is welcome.

that play was really dirty though. shoulda been suspended more games

 

It wasn't interesting at all really. It's a league of have and have nots. Big media markets with their own BIG Media television deals and they don't have to share anything.

Small market teams are set up to fail and no they can't even keep their star players longer than their rookie contracts.

 

It sounds like the two owners Dan Gilbert and Sarver are the problem now. Everyone else was in agreement.

 

But these two owners are representative of other owners.

Stern won't allow a 16-14 vote. He wants unanimity (or close to it). We should know more as details leak out about the owners meeting in Dallas today. If the holdouts are few, Stern can twist their arms. If not, maybe kiss the season goodbye.

 

I was wondering when this would come into play. That is, when the income disparity among the owners would play a role.

This brings up something I am not clear on. What happens when say 5 or 6 owners want one deal (the big market teams), and the other 24 or 25 want something else? Do they have ALL sign off on a deal, or is it a % majority that dictates their agenda?

 

How does this effect the workers of the concessions, arena, etc.? Are some of the smaller market workers s.o.l if the arena isn't occupied by basketball. I imagine LA and NY still have many events at their stadiums, but maybe some others don't. I never thought of them until Fisher mentioned them. Isn't it kind of selfish to fuss over, from what I understand, millions off the big contracts, when the workers scrapping a living are waiting in anticipation for the opportunity to work?

 

Mr. Fisher and Mr. Stern, I beg of you, please end this lockout and let the season start on time.

-Fans of NBA.

Short and simple letter.

 

Can't really have a labor deal that half the employers aren't willing to sign off on

 

As optimistic as this all sounds.. I watchd a whole report on Jim Rome yesterday that made it sound like negotiations were not close.. I know Fisher has more insight but of course he wants to keep the players strong and opitmistic... The sooner things are resolved, the better... Alot of players could lose a year out of their bball prime for this.. Our rookies will gain age w/ out experience. Thats the worst case scenario..

 

From the sounds of it, there's an agreement with about a 10% cut, 57% to 52%, i'm guessing the owners are now arguing amongst each other whether thats in the form of a hard (small teams) or soft (big teams) cap

There will never be "true parity" sure, but anyone trying to convince you that a hard cap won't benefit small markets may as well be using their dodgy figures to sell you the Golden Gate bridge.

 

Dear Derek,

Why are you still butting heads with everybody?

Signed,

Luis Scola

 

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/6975352/nba-lockout-players-owners-declare-unity-separate-meetings

The link above finally is saying the things things I want to hear.

- players are willing to lower their share of the Bri to the low 50% percent mark.

- Owners are willing to not roll back existing salaries.

- A Both sides now seem to agree the player salaries need to be tied to the growth of the game.

I think their will be games this year.

 

Agreed and Stern indicated the "hard cap" issue was negotiable. I've never believed for one minute the NBA would have a hard cap like the NFL, but they can make it harder by penalizing teams to a greater degree. I wonder if the salary cap and luxury tax will be made the same or remain two separate numbers.

The players probably won't give in on the MLE, but it will have to be lowered to make it less lucrative for players and so teams cannot use it each year to shoehorn themselves to higher salaries.

I think the MLE needs to stay in some form, but shorten the years to 3 and lower the amount to about $5M/year. This will prevent slobs like Eddy Curry & Jerome James and boneheads like Stromile Swift from breaking the bank too much.

For disastrous contracts like Rashard Lewis and Gilbert Arenas, they should put in buyout provisions that allow teams to jettison slack players who lose their motivation.

 

There have been more different mlb champions than super champs in the last 20 or so years. I think hard cap is over rated.