NBA Going Down Path Of No Return

Monday, September 4
Time to begin questionable tactics

By Frank Hughes
Special to ESPN.com


I wonder if NBA commissioner David Stern sits in his exotic chair on high and gazes down in wonderment at the child that he at least partially helped create -- helped create by ramrodding the current collective bargaining agreement down the throats of 400 unwitting basketball players whose union is about as stable and strong as Frank Gifford has become.
Tim Hardaway is an example of a current player playing the market.

Of course, Stern would never ever tell you the honest-to-God truth about his feelings because he communicates in an eloquent double-speak that essentially always says the same thing: The NBA is alive and well.

And to a degree, yes, that is true. Certainly Stern enjoys the power bestowed upon one who directs a collection of the best basketball talent in the galaxy.

But one has to wonder if Stern is actually proud of the direction in which his league is going -- a league that only a few years ago, if I am not mistaken, Stern preached the players and owners need to work together in honorable accord to achieve the highest level of popularity and fiscal return.

Surely, Stern could not have predicted that by strategically limiting salaries -- the basis of the current CBA -- and thus pouring more money into his constituents' -- i.e. the owners' -- coffers, he would create a level of mistrust and distrust between the employees and management that perhaps never can be bridged, certainly not at the current pace things are progressing.

In essence, Stern -- wittingly or unwittingly -- has created an atmosphere in which every player is out for himself, and every shred of honorable business acumen is tossed out the window like the soiled butts of Phillip Morris' reprehensible creations.

I was most deeply disturbed by the story this summer in which Greg Anthony verbally committed to the Atlanta Hawks, only to renege on that promise and re-sign with the Portland Trail Blazers for more money.

It's not, I guess, so much a surprise that such a thing happened. But it is a surprise that Anthony was the player involved. He is one of the smartest players in the league. He majored in business at UNLV -- which I assume is studying how to rig a slot machine. But my point is, the guy knows what he is doing. This was a calculated move. It wasn't like he made a decision, then his emotions got the better of him and he decided to go back to his beloved Blazers. He knowingly played the Blazers off the Hawks, driving up the price, using Stan Kasten and Pete Babcock. Both those men said in all their time in this profession, never before had a player shamelessly gone back on his word in such a manner.

Now we see the same thing happening with Tim Hardaway. He got a one-year, $12 million offer from the Miami Heat. He wants a three-year deal, and is threatening to go to the Indiana Pacers to do what is best for "Tim Hardaway and Tim Hardaway's family."

This is a transparent ploy, because if Hardaway passed up $10 million guaranteed to play for $2.25 million in Indiana, Tim Hardaway's family might disown him. At least make a threat plausible, Tim.

But the more disturbing, underlying fact is that Hardaway is, like Anthony, using one team to hijack another, threatening to leave if his demands aren't met.

Are these players wrong?

It's hard to say since they are participating in a league where the primary challenge of a general manager is not so much to evaluate and develop young talent anymore but to dispose of "bad contracts" in order for teams to make runs at talented free agents.

A player with a contract of a few million is primed to be traded as a "throw-in" during a deal that needs salary requirements to be met. In the proposed four-team, 13-player deal that fell apart, only four of the players were primary, while the other nine were "throw-ins." And these are peoples' lives we are talking about.

I was speaking with the wife of a player one day who said why not take money over loyalty, when teams have no loyalty to their players.

And who can argue when you hear about "wink-wink" deals like the Sacramento Kings promising Corliss Williamson a big payday down the road for taking less now. I have no problem with such under-the-table, handshake agreements, because with the way the rules are instituted, sometimes it is impossible to pay a player at that point.

But I do have a problem when teams make the promises, then conveniently forget such promises were made when it doesn't fit in with the grand plan. Things are only going to get worse this season, when players discover that their first paychecks are 10 percent shy of what they once were, because of the clause in the collective bargaining agreement that requires players to return a portion of their salaries if they exceed a certain percentage of basketball related income.

No longer is the league a partnership. No longer can players and management work together to build a winning tradition because the only history that is being built is deciding which set of knives to use to put in the other sides' backs.

In a way, this is a byproduct of our society, a sign of the .com times where stock options have replaced the family pet as the thing over which to fawn. But this too is a sign of Stern's all-or-nothing collective bargaining war he orchestrated only two shorts years ago. It is akin to post-war traumas that never can be seen coming, and only now are we feeling its ill effects.


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In order to be a success in life, you need 2 things:
1. Don't tell everything you know.

 

Scoonie Penn wasn't going to play many minutes anyway. He will be better off in the long run by playing in Europe, then coming to the NBA. His game needs some work.

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In order to be a success in life, you need 2 things:
1. Don't tell everything you know.