1st 2 weeks of NBA season canceled

This whole taking sides thing is ridiculous, as if this is some kind of moral issue.

It's a contract negotiation. It's not about fairness, it's about the negotiated price of labor, period.

 

True enough. Still, I agree more (although not completely) with the owners' rationale than the players' in this contract negotiation.

And, need I remind you, this is a BBS on an NBA team's fan website. So . . . I'd say it's perfectly appropriate to opine on such things here.

 

I think in most cases, (including my own somewhat irrational hate for the players) we are a group of pissed of fans trying to assign blame in order to help quench our frustration.

Having said that, I don't see what the players can possibly achieve by holding out longer. They should have just settled and started the season IMO. Now they are just gonna get owned.

 

Yeah, the owners have given on both the non-guaranteed contracts and the hard cap. Hopefully they stay that way.

You mention that the owners returning that percentage can be distributed as the NBAPA wishes. It would be funny to seem the use it as a "Tax the Rich bracketed tax" in which all the money goes to the players not in the top 1%.

I think if there was any type of hard cap, whether in words or as the owners argue a highly penalizing lux tax would be, is that it limits the number of "high priced bidders" players and play against each other. Thats what the players are afraid about. Though it is funny that, them arguing that the owners "should simply be more shrewd in their financial decisions" would have the exact same effect. It just would not be mandated by the rules.

Also I think the idea that any of these plans "makes the league more balanced" is probably a bad idea. The NBA has always had its best years when a few name teams dominated the league. Whether that was the 80's 76er/Celtics/Lakers, 90's Bulls, the 2000's Lakers/Celtics, now the 2010's Heat, those teams increased ratings and interest either as the villains or the vanquishers. This has been magnified with the glorification of superstar players because 1 player really does a much larger effect on NBA teams chances than in any other sport.

The years of parity without those major teams in the mix tended to have lower general interest from the casual fans which are the ones that are needed to push basketball up in the sports hierarchy. Essentially trying to create true balance in the NBA, may even up backfiring as it would make even more difficult to create those teams and limit casual fan interest.

 

The NBA must have had parity before I started watching, because I'm not familiar with parity in the NBA like in the NFL.

(To be fair, some of the NFL parity is more a matter of scheduling than actual equality across the board.)

 

How will teams not spend less money if less teams are going over the cap? So you expect the players to agree to a BRI decrease AND a defacto hard cap? They would be idiots to do that.

 

This is the key and why I don't knock the players for fighting. This deal impacts more than one season of basketball and future generations of players.

 

Every team could spend 5 dollars or 50 million in combined salary, and the players as a whole would get the same amount of money. Just like this year, the players union received a big paycheck after the season was over to make up the difference in the BRI and what was actually paid in salaries.

At least, that is how I understand it.

 

Why not? The CBA can specify the size of max contract. That in itself would limit how much superstars get. If teams can't give stars too much money, they'll have to give it to the middle class players. The CBA can also specify the MLE, the rookie scale, the vet minimum etc. All these control salary distribution.

 

I could be wrong. But the BRI cut determines the dollar amount players get. the hard cap is there to even out (not decrease) team spending.

With a hard cap, teams like the Lakers and the Magic will spend less, but teams like the Grizzlies and the Nets will spend more. It just means that fewer good players will play for the rich teams and more for the poor teams.

Of course revenue sharing would have to go hand in hand with hard cap. It's really an onwers' issue, not a players' issue.

 

Only if there is HIGH minimum limit. If not then teams that are notorious for not spending money, like Memphis in past years), may say "no thanks", effectively forcing the player to take less money.

But then if force small market owners to spend more money to meet the minimum limit, won't they still be in the red?

 

briancmahoney Brian Mahoney

 

N.B.A. = No Basketball Association

 

That's why revenue sharing and hard cap are inseparable.

Again, if there is a BRI percentage agreement, then the total amount of money spent on player salaries is guaranteed, whether there is a hard cap or not. What did I miss?