The players could not do that because the B-list issues were not listed in the proposal. Ric Bucher stated that the proposal only gave them the right to vote on the "A" issues. All B-issues, that were not even in the proposal yet, would be up to the leagues discretion. Thats what the players were signing off on.
I agree with you here. Its only 4 months too late because it gives much less time to possibly have a partial season unless the league swiftly acts after their meeting tommorrow with an offer to the players that is much more favorable.
Are you certain thats the case? Cause according to Stein and Bucher on the BS report with Simmons and elsewhere, its seems the B-issues while not in the proposal would then require further negotiation between the league and the union.
That's not totally true. The NFL had several b-list items it had to negotiate after the players voted in the current NFL contract. That statement is just more misleading rhetoric.
If I were a player the deal wouldn't look so good with me dropping to a historic low in BRI and having further system restrictions. The system restrictions alone would piss me off. These dudes are losing from all angles in the proposed deal. Also, any negotiation has something to do with your current situation. Imagine the players saying "I know the last deal called for max salaries, but that has no bearing here and we no longer want max salaries". The owners would laugh at them.
What specific system restrictions do you think the Union finds most egregious and why? I really don't understand the why either side is so entrenched on some of these issues...
spot on. Anyone who thinks the players screwed up by not disclaimer earlier are about 6 months behind legal precedent. This was all carefully calculated and the players clearly had consulting from David Boies this whole time. Disclaimer before you fully negotiated is what the NFL did and why they lost. The NBA players went to school on that. This is all different. Stern and the NBA owners really screwed up by giving ultimatums with no more discussion.
If the players unions goal is to better their chances of wining the legal dispute at the cost of missing games or even an entire season, then perhaps filing for dislaimer or decertifying later helps their cause. However if their goal was to obtain the best deal they could from the owners by applying pressure against the Owners and create their own leverage via the decertification/disclaimer process, then I would say they definitely filed much much too late. Ultimately I dont believe either side wants the courts to be the last arbiter of this dispute, since it'll not only cost both sides an exorbitant amount of time and money, it'll does so with no guarantee of any positive bennefits for either party.
funny...everyone sounds like a lawyer nowadays. I think I've seen you talk like a lawyer too...no? Treat me as a fan lawyer smart enough to know that the NBA players and lawyers went to school on the failures of the NFL, and they have the counsel to prove it.
Not everyone. I don't think you have any idea if the NBA "screwed up by giving ultimatums with no more discussion". Just looking at this from the outside, I think it's obvious the NBA is well-prepared and has had it's ducks lined up for a long time. Doesn't appear the same at all with Billy Hunter's crew. Time will tell.
I don't know the specifics. From what I've been reading, the system changes will discourage teams from going into lux tax category and make it easier for teams to keep their players. In other words restrict free agency. I'll try to find some links later.
No doubt the players will lose some of their options for leaving in free agency, but is it really worth it to them to have the NBA cancel the season just because the players can't choose to play for whatever team they want to? The restrictions will only prevent a handful of players from going to a handful of teams. So Sam Dalembert can't choose to sign with the Mavs for $5 mil because they spent way more than everybody else is spending already, who cares? So Dwight Howard can't get as much money from the Lakers as he can the Magic because the Magic own his Bird rights and they're outlawing sign-and-trades to teams such as the Lakers who are already spending more than everybody else, is that worth everybody losing paychecks over? I just don't think those minor issues are a big enough deal for the players to turn down the last deal. Some of those B-List issues were kinda crappy for the players but I highly doubt they're sticking points for the owners and could be negotiated. I feel like the players aren't fighting to get rid of the system restrictions nearly as much as they're fighting to not be percieved as the "losers" of the deal.
Is it really worth it to the owners to cancel the season just so the players can choose to play for whatever team they want to? I rephrased the question because this is a lockout. I don't think we have seen any news reports saying "players cancel all games up until December 15th". But to answer your question, free agency always seems to be a major theme behind sports related labor negotiations, so I would say yes it may be worth it to players to choose where they want to play eventually. The teams already get you for 5 years. That isn't enough? And when you consider the fact that it's more restrictions AND giving back a lot of money, then it doesn't look so great from their point of view. More penalties for exceeding the cap can impact all players. You are basically limiting the ability for others to bid for your services and drive the price up. That's why the union was constantly against a defacto hard cap. Dalembert cares, and if you were in his shoes and it were your money you would care too. You just gave a perfect example of how the system changes could limit what you can command on the free market. Yes, every potential free agent should be concerned about that. Then why are those minor issues a big enough issue for the league to hold firm on? Can't they simply cave on those issues and be happy with having their losses covered? Those issues probably could have been negotiated, but the owners said "no more negotiations".
After listening to the podcast again to reiterate, I understood Bucher as saying that yes the B-issues were not in the proposal as both of us previously stated, and that was the problem. I take it as the 30 B-issues, even though the NBA and NBPA would still negotiate the terms, the NBA and its owners would have full leverage over the players given that the players have already voted Yes to accepting the principle terms of the deal. Basically it would be understood that if they accept the terms of the proposal, they have basically no leverage with the B-Issues if they ever wanted to get that deal finalized. However, there is no real guarantee that Ric Bucher, Stein, or Simmons got the right info on the deal themselves.
HP, fair enough. "Most players" was an exaggeration. I am have been extremely busy at work these days. You can tell by my sporadic posting and not replying to everything address to my posts. I skim things. But I do get the sentiment that the player reps are not representative of the larger player population. And the voting was done in a high peer pressure setting. If the union is perceived to be manipulative of ill-informed players, they have only themselves to blame. Right from the beginning, dissenting voices such as Battier's challenge to Hunter were quickly shouted down. And everybody knew that those player reps were not carefully elected for intelligent decision making. Why didn't they let the wider players vote? If the owners' offer was really that evil, why didn't they communicated openly to the players?
I may be in the Lone minority on this, but these guys are playing a kids game making millions of dollars and they are EMPLOYEES... No way in HELL can I go to my owner and say HEY I WANT 50/50 or I want work... When I develop an application as sweet as it may be.. I don't own it, I get paid a salary. I can't say the owners are right or wrong... I can say they own the team, which makes them the OWNER and BOSS and essentially you have to play by their rules.. If you don't like the rules, go find another job... Just like every other individual out there.. I think Michael Wilbon wrote a nice article on this... http://espn.go.com/espn/commentary/story/_/page/wilbon-111114/the-nba-labor-impasse-reached-particularly-objectionable-economy I'm tired of the hearing the league's position, tired of hearing the players' position, increasingly resentful that both sides seem completely oblivious as to what's happening in the real world. What they've both done, in coming this far in negotiations and failing to reach a deal, is the equivalent of running 26 miles of a marathon and then sitting down on the pavement and refusing to complete the final two-tenths of a mile. For what amounts to pennies on the dollar, the owners and players are putting a basketball season in jeopardy … jobs, careers, reputations, legacies. David Stern went into his imperial commissioner tone on Monday afternoon, righteously explaining management's position. As a person who has been on the other end of that tone at times, I can tell you Stern is a brilliant, persuasive man. But in fretting, legitimately, about a potential "nuclear winter" without basketball, Stern left out the little part about the owners locking out the players. This isn't a strike. The players didn't ask out; they're not "withholding excellence" or canceling a season. The owners, who signed off on the last labor deal, closed the gyms and turned out the lights. Meanwhile, the players keep talking about how they're not being offered a "fair deal," as if anybody in the world finds the global economy "fair" right now. They keep telling us how going from approximately $5.4 million (on average) to $5 million is draconian … when my idea of "not fair" is when a 58-year-old single mom with three children has her teacher's aide salary slashed. Tell her about what's not fair. I know these players know this because the overwhelming majority of them are African-Americans who, while wealthy now, are still not far removed from grandparents and parents who were/are laborers and civil servants and domestics, people praying every day that their pension funds don't dry up or run out. Please, stop with how the players are looking for a "fair deal." What's fair is what the market will bear. If you don't have control, which is to say if you don't own the means of production, you can't alone define what is fair.
Every other individual out there doesn't have a multi-billion dollar industry attached to their very specialized skill set. Additionally, every other individual out there doesn't agree to a set of rules designed to limit rights that most employees would consider basic, ie a cap on what you can earn in the free market. In other words, their situation isn't anything like every other individual. Now if you do want to find a proper comparable then look at other segments of the entertainment industry, where some of the industry leaders can make demands on what they want and the working conditions. Actually, no other situation is comparable if the average Joe won't shell out $$ to see that individual do their job.
