I believe Stern has already said that there's nothing he can really do about player collusion, unless they're blatantly obvious about it. So he'll have an "investigation" which will come up empty. That said, if Stern wants to punish Lebron/Wade/Bosh for their ways, he can always tell the refs that the there's this so-called "traveling" violation they can call in games...
The collective bargaining process is, by the way, a form of monopoly power, but it's one permitted by law. The same goes with the a league's control over who can own a franchise and the location of said franchise. I believe MLB has an anti-trust exception. NBA probably does, too. Anyhow, I am thinking the legal issue isn't anti-trust law, but terms of the collective bargaining agreement.
First 3 games versus Boston: 54% FG, 32 PPG, 2.7 TO Last 3 games versus Boston: 34% FG, 21 PPG, 6.3 TO Only one other 3-game stretch all year had him shooting even close to that poorly, January 25-29 (36.7%) His turnovers during the last 3 Boston games were his highest for the year of any three straight games by a ways. (This according to just carefully reviewing his game logs.) I can see why people think something was up, unless we all just buy that Doc Rivers is a genius. (And the C's are, to their credit, the best defensive team this year.)
you'd think that...but yet, owners can't collude under the law. goose/gander. having said that...the more interesting angle to me is that Heat tampering issues. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/417864-nba-should-launch-tampering-investigation-of-miami-heat Miami Heat: Was it Fate or Collusion? By Jeff Given (Correspondent) on July 09, 2010 Just like two days ago, when Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh "chose" the Heat among all their suitors. Really? Do you believe that? I don't—and here's why. The only way all three players could "choose" the Heat is if the Heat had enough cap room to accommodate all three players. Lo and behold, the Heat did. The Heat managed to trade Michael Beasley for basically nothing. Beasley was the second pick in the draft two years ago, and they gave him away. For all of their other players, they made sure all of their contracts expired at the end of the 2010 season except, of course, for Mario Chalmers. Had none of these players chosen the Heat, Miami would have had the worst team in NBA history on tap for the 2010-2011 season. Quite a risky move for Pat Riley and the rest of his executive team. Unless, of course, there was no risk involved. Mike Greenberg of ESPN was asked this morning if he thought LeBron really made up his mind Thursday morning. Greenberg said, "No. I think he knew where he was going to go two years ago." I think the players agreed to do this back in 2007 and 2008. I think that's why LeBron gave up in the playoffs last year, why Miami completely gutted their roster, and why the Heat have been madly trying to dump Beasley for weeks. That's also why they gave Mike Miller a Thursday deadline for signing their offer. If Miller were going to accept their deal, then they would give Beasley away for nothing. Otherwise, they would hang onto him. But they had to know which one would be on their roster before they sign Wade, Bosh, and James to their contracts. This all stinks to high heaven. If the players colluded, what can you do? But the issue is that the Heat were in on it and worked for a couple of years to get their roster to a place where they would have virtually nothing left. Had the Heat not been actively in on the plan, there would be no way all three players could sign on the same team. Yes, sign-and-trades could have happened, but you cannot execute this strategy and rely on a sign-and-trade. Remember, Cleveland made it very clear they would not do a sign-and-trade for LeBron. The Heat had to have room for three max contracts and prepared diligently to make that happen. That is the only explanation, but that is not sufficient. The Heat would have required more than Wade's word that the other two were coming to blow up their roster and risk destroying the franchise. Imagine the Heat without the Big Three: a franchise that would lose 60 games a year for the next five years, at minimum. That is a huge risk to take—unless there was no risk. Something stinks here, and it is not just LeBron's PR team.
Yeah, but that's too vague to be upheld in front of a judge or arbiter or whoever deals with these cases. In terms of common sense, anyone with a brain can see that they must've colluded. But that's like knowing OJ's the killer.
why is that vague? the question isn't, "did they collude." there are blanket admissions to that all over the place. the question is, does collusion law extend to employees? the OJ metaphor would work had there been an admission by OJ...had he gone to the press and said, "yeah, i murdered these people." that's essentially what Wade and Bosh have already done.
lol I agree. But from my understanding, there was no significant loss of money from any of the big 3...in fact, this was the optimal situation for each of them from a net revenue standpoint (though not from a contract standpoint). As for the collusion and investigation: I think at worst they revoke one of Miami's draft picks for 2011 (which will be a late round pick anyways) and fine them. It might get minor news coverage, but even if it happens, it wont happen until we are all well into the next season and no one will care anymore.
So, three scientists who meet at a convention and discover they are all working on a similar project but one that would be tough for them to accomplish individually decide to work together. They complete the work they are under contract for and then start looking at where they could best do their project. They dismiss starting their own firm because the project would require large amounts of money and infrastructure. They then decide to look at universities because they need the freedom to do the project as they wish. They then narrow the list of universities to research institutions that could handle their project. They then winnow it down further based on where they would like to live and the management of the university, eventually picking, say, CalTech, which did not give them quite the research space other universities offered, but provided academic freedom and strong support form the University President in a nice place to live. Are you saying that these three scientists colluded to exclude private industry and all but a handful of universities and thus broke the law and are subject to jail time and massive fines? I have a hard time with that. Plus, if you're making that argument about Bosh, Wade, and James then they could easily make the argument that the salary cap should be illegal because that creates a false ceiling for salaries that limit the income of top players. James is worth much more than the maximum a team is allowed to pay him.
Mavs chasing Haslem to piss off Heats LOL http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AgT_WfDERa5YLgI7M1ACySO8vLYF?slug=ys-haslemmavs071210
LMAO. This is coming from the same guy that kept saying how all these Sources were false and were just posturing maneuvers. But now you say these guys decided LONG ago? You didn't seem so sure when the Nets owner said all three were going to MIA.
Owners do collude and are permitted to do so to a greater extent than your typical "3 doctors in a town" are premitted to do. The type and extent of collusion is regulated by law and by the Collective Bargaining Agreement. If a person wants to buy ownership interest in one franchise, the other owners have to approve. If a team wants to move somewhere, there other owners also need to approve the move. If a team has its own opinion about the CBA and goes out and say it, that team gets fined. The collective bargaining process is very much "collective" on both the players side and the owners side. The NBA is not a "free market" in a number of ways.
1. http://blog.mises.org/12822/nba-star-explains-the-economics-of-collusion/ Scoff if you will, but if four firms in any industry meet to discuss what customers they plan to negotiate with, the Justice Department and the FBI will come barging in with guns blazing. Heck, as former Congressman Tom Campbell once told a House committee, if “three eye doctors in Elgin, Illinois” have lunch to discuss a proposed HMO contract, they’ll get a letter from the Federal Trade Commission advising them that said lunch violated the Sherman Act. Campbell was not exaggerating. The FTC has prosecuted over 18,000 physicians during the past decade for essentially doing what Dwayne Wade wants to do with his fellow All-Star players — sit down and discuss potential contract offers. Former Commissioner Thomas Leary explained that it was illegal for physicians to even discuss their contract situations with one another because, “Their prime focus is on using negotiations and contracts for the purpose of enhancing their bargaining power.” And that would be a bad thing in Antitrust World; sellers are never allowed to improve their bargaining power without the federal government’s consent. 2. The players union can't complain about salary caps, because they've agreed to them. It's in the collective bargaining agreement.
The difference I would argue is that the author is confusing competition on the basketball court with competition in the economic arena. The Yankees aren't monopolists if they win 99% of their games, they're monopolists if they garner 99% of ticket sales, tv broadcasts/ad revenues. Their salaries are capped/governed by teh CBA, and each one got multiple standing max offers, so it's basically impossible for James/Wade et al to collude to drive them higher for the whole league.
But they can NOT collude when it comes to agreements with players. The NFL gets called to the carpet by the players union quite frequently on this stuff. It's just difficult to prove because the owners aren't typically stupid enough to stand up in front of the media and say, "we've been talking about this for months."
