Steve Kauffman KauffmanSports Steve Kauffman Hoping fairness prevails in NBA rev sharing video conference supposedly going on right now. Few $ from wealthy teams & all can fall in place 1 hour ago
Should we be paying attention? Doesn't sound like anything that will stop them from cancelling more games.
Chris_Broussard Chris Broussard Reps for NBA owners & players had lengthy talk Monday, sources said. Not clear whether in person or via phone. No future meetings scheduled
I honestly think the last time the owners broke down, but this time, I think the players will ultimately lose. A 50/50 split with no monies taken off the top is pretty damned close to their last BRI split. The rank and file need to get engaged, but unfortunatly until they start losing paychecks they will probably just jet around the country and continue to whine about not being able to do what they want to do. They need to find out the truth, and push Billy Hunter in the direction of a deal...IMO. DD
Players are going to lose one way or the other. Might as well quit while they're ahead (or at least, not totally behind) and get a deal.
Looks like you answered your own billion dollar question. Teams are struggling and will be dumped eventually unless something changes. And that change will probably have to come from a new CBA.
If you have not listened to the Billy Hunter interview with Bill Simmons you should. Billy is ready to deal. The Owners are the ones slapping on preconditions to even sit down at the negotiation table. Hunter also got the players to voluntarily drop to 54% Bri before the lockout even started. The Owners Through out a BS proposal that they knew full well the players would not agree to before the lockout started because they wanted to drag the process out. Billy Hunter is not the problem. I am not saying the Owners don't valid grievances but I can say with certainty they have not be negotiating in good faith till the federal mediator stepped in.
The "cancelling games" bit is a sham. The NBA season, as released, is already cancelled and gone. Should they reach an agreement in a few weeks, they'll throw the original schedule out the window and put out a new one - possibly (possibly) with all 82 games. Stern just likes going out and announcing the cancellations as a BS chicken little sky is falling tactic.
The problem is the the owners are trying to institute a competitive balance agreement and the players have no interest in that. The owners are trying to institute a system that will help the health of the league overall, if they have to break the union to do it, then they need to do what they need to do.... DD
Keep in mind, after a "handshake deal" in the meeting room (or video conference???) we are still a good 5 weeks away from the start of the season (2-3 weeks of drawing up the paperwork, 3 weeks of preseason / training camp). If we make a deal today, we dont start the season till December 1
I don't think so. The NBA won't want to lose out on Thanksgiving games so I'm sure they would cut the preseason to 2 weeks and have maybe 2 preseason game per team
I think they're gonna do something similar to the NFL. Have 1 week of "offseason" where teams can sign free agents, make trades, and etc. Then maybe have a 3 or 4 game pre season for each team and start the season around December 1st. It all depends if an agreement is reached before Halloween, which is doubtful.
No way they miss Christmas games. No rationale for that, as that marks the "unofficial" start date for most sports viewers in terms of the NBA. That is when the NBA puts its best matchups for the national audience. Start date will be December.
There's nothing stopping them from working with the back end: First Round of the Playoffs currently runs for an absurd 2+ weeks, and nothing's stopping them from pushing the Finals end date to the end of June, the Draft to the first week of July, and start the next offseason the third Monday of July. Point being, "cancelling" X numbers of games now in no way means they're all unrecoverable. I 100% guarantee they will put back in at least some of them in the reworked schedule.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Spending on free agents and the ability to cut players has nothing to do with the issue of BRI. BRI has a very little effect on Competitive balance. The system effects competitive balance. Billy hunter has said multiple times that the player will make concessions on the system if the BRI is right. Problem is the owners want a Massive BRI cut from the players AND major system changes. Expecting to get exactly what you want out of both issues is unreasonable for either side.
Chris_Broussard Chris Broussard Source close to negotiations tells me sides "definitely making progress."
