LA Lakers Buss Family: We'd like the NBA to drop a couple teams

nice try but stern is the lakers. and so is joey crawford. 'do as I say not as I do'

 

I'm wondering why this isn't causing the same uproar that Lebron's similar comments caused.

I would be in favor of dropping four teams from the league. The league could do without Minnesota, Memphis, New Orleans, and Charlotte.

 

Hornets and Grizzlies should be shut down. They won't touch Charlotte because of MJ.

 

my two cents....

a) aren't the players allowed to sue, since they are under contract. its not the same as closing down a business... because in a regular job they state they can unemploy you at any time. there's no work contract. so since they arent keeping their word, i guess they can sue?

b) my guess is if this does happen one day. the hornets will be the first to go since they are owned by the nba already, only thing thats keeping the fanbase coming back is cp3, which might change.

 

Don't worry about the players suing - worry about owners/investors suing that they are being excluded when they put so much money into the investment when they bought into the franchise.

I would assume all players on the roster would just get bought out. In a scenario like that, I imagine either the NBA or the rest of the teams would help buy out the remaining contracts of all players on the team. I would assume similar to the old ABA, defunct franchises will get some sort of league kickback to financially compensate them over a period of time.

 

I would love to see some profit sharing in the NBA. Maybe there was a time when that type of arrangement would have hurt potential investors when the league was trying to expand but at this point it's just ridiculously unfair to small market teams both competitively and financially to stand against a team like the Knicks who literally can do everything wrong for a decade and still turn a profit(of course part of that is Dolan's ties to the cable company he owns).

No one is going to watch the Lakers or the Knicks if the league turns into a Globtrotters vs Generals type matchup - unless of course they amend the rules to allow you to hide the ball under the back of the ref's shirt.

 

Underwritting. These are labor union contracts. The teams are not sole companies. They are Franchises. This isn't typical corporate law.

If the NBA disbands two franchises, they will get sued. If those two franchises go out of business by themselves, then I agree with you.

Think about it. If you are right, then the NBA doesn't even need to negotiate this summer, they could CTRL - ALT - DEL the entire league, and reboot...with all the contracts gone.

That's not happening. Any team that gets disbanded by the league will have to pay those players in full or get sued.

 

I really don't understand why this is a big deal. The players on those teams will get paid. Simple as that. Some will be kicked to the curb, others will move on to other teams.

More than getting sued by players under contract, union wrath (and players wrath in general) is the primary concern. It could poison the water between the NBA and players forever.

 

We already have more teams making the playoffs than not.

12 team playoffs?

 

Because contraction is not good for players, but possibly good for owners. Lebron as a player should stand on the labor's side. Buss has no such obligation. Of course, Lebron being a superstar would not be affected at all by contraction, and he probably would never consider the plight of the marginal players.

 

If contraction is bad for players (the ones who won't have a job anymore), then how is it not just as bad for owners (the ones who won't have franchises anymore)?

 

I'd like to drop a couple of teams too.. starting with the team in LA not named the Clippers.

 

There's such a thing as a contraction draft, just like an expansion draft. It has been done before. I don't know the particulars, but I'd imagine it would be like putting both teams on waivers, and there's a draft for the players from the contracted teams.

 

1. Memphis, Charlotte
2. Cleveland, Minnesota
3. Clippers, New Orleans

 

It is definitely bad for players, but it can be good or bad for owners. If the market is good and the teams are making good money, then contraction is not good. But if there are franchises that are struggling, such as the Hornets, then eliminating some of these teams is a good thing for owners.

So owners talking about contraction is basically business talk. They can have different opinions on whether it is good for business. Players shouldn't talk about contraction because it always means bad things for their peers.