NBA deputy commissioner: ‘Enormous gulf’ separates players, owners in negotiations

Looks like the owners have read Clutchfans.net. :grin:

 

If true, teams like Houston, San Antonio and Utah will thrive in that type of environment.

 

The owners have upper hand this team. Players movement over the last few seasons has hurt them in noegotiations like no other time. They are now in the position where owners can make their own rules and be perfectly with reason to change what they want to make it more like the NFL in parity.

 

Very good read. Adam Silver saying all of this publicly is a "Stern" message to the union that life as they know it will change radically before the NBA resumes playing after this season. The owners are united.

I've said up to now the tough public talk is all bluster. After reading this I'm convinced part of the season will be missed before the players finally give in and make a deal. There won't be a hard cap exactly like the NFL, but it will be much harder than now. The golden age of NBA player salaries will end the year.

The players will cave. If this truly is a situation where way more than half the teams lose money or break even, the owners will stomp them. With every paycheck they miss, the players will get weaker. With every game canceled, the owners will get madder.

 

If the players really believe that it is the owners RESPONSIBILITY to run deficits...then there will likely be a long holdout, and the players will cave long before the owners will.

 

Yeah, but the players will never agree to this 18 game season idea. That's just crazy!

 

The players union should look hard at what happened when the NHL tried to implement a hard cap as a means to make the league profitable. Hopefully the players union will see this as an eventuality and try to use this to get some things they want, instead of battling over this issue and wasting time.

 

Maybe we can get them to agree to an 82 game season instead. :grin:

The owners hold the cards this time around. Lets see how long the players can go with a paycheck.

 

fixed

 

Both the unions and the players association need to make sure that they don't keep basketball off the court for very long. The NBA is just now starting to regain the viewers it lost from the awful product that was on the floor in the late 90's through early 00's. As the league has gotten more entertaining, the viewers have slowly come back, but I'd bet that support is weak. A long lock-out would be as destructive to the NBA as it was to the NHL. Then everyone loses.

 

I hope they settle this, a year without bball would be horrendous. I don't follow baseball any longer and never was a hockey fan, basically I would be stuck with watching NFL football on Sunday for 16 games but they have their own labor problems.

If true about the losses NBA owners incur then I think this will be a long lockout. If you preserve your cash flow by simply keeping your doors closed whats the incentive of playing games. The owners only have a once in a decade opportunity to address the fiscal problems caused by players contracts and this is it.

 

I don't think it would make the NBA as irrelevant as the NHL became...where it was relegated to a TV network no one knew existed prior....but I agree with your point, generally.

Having said that, I'll be shocked if the NBA doesn't lose some games next season.

Remember too..people said the same thing about baseball in 1994. Turned out that the changes that came from that helped the game. Lessons learned...and baseball's revenues and attendance grew tremendously after a couple of years of a downturn immediately after. I think that's more likely for the NBA than going the way of the NHL.

 

I've mentioned my dislike for the NFL hard cap before and won't rehash my preference for a hard(er) cap here.

Things I will note:

1) Silver's quote itself has contradictions to it:

It's one or the other: a hard cap, or a harder soft cap. This quote has me suspecting that the owners are saying hard cap with the unstated goal of compromising on a harder soft cap.

2) Fans tend to grossly underestimate how big a deal guaranteed contracts are for the players. We don't necessarily love them ever time we see an Elton Brand, Erick Dampier, Rashard Lewis, Gilbert Arenas, or other astronomically overpaid guy come along. But asking these guys, especially the rank and file players of the union making $20M or less over the life of their careers that has to last them and their families for decades, to give up one of the biggest chips in their pocket with nothing back in exchange is going to be as easy as sneaking a bear cub away from its mother. It's millionaires vs blue collar comparison, but take a peek at the protests in Wisconsin as a sneak preview.

3) The owners aren't down the line united for a hard cap. The vast majority are: Kroenke, Starver, Sterling, Leonsis, Heisley, Maple Leaf, Kohl, etc....but Cuban, Buss, Dolan and a couple others aren't as sure they want to throw away their major financial advantage. Especially since under a hard cap revenue sharing system they'd be supporting all of the "welfare teams" with no return (as opposed to the luxury tax system).

Unlike the NFL, half the NBA teams really are losing boatloads of money. If the CBA's financial system is the boat keeping the league above water, the soft cap loopholes have acted a giant holes in the bottom of the hull.

The owners WILL get massive concessions, even if they lose half a season over it. Unlike the NFL, the owners can show the books of half the teams drowning in red ink (Minny, Indy, Cha, NOH, hard cap hawks mentioned above, etc). They can threaten to contract two teams (Hornets/Bobcats, I'd suspect) if not four - essentially wiping out 30-60 jobs for the union.

My guess is the players will concede to a harder cap, not a hard cap. Probably the cap line being lowered a small amount, and the tax line being dropped by a big amount.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

This is it, right here. This is why everyone's so pessimisstic, ultimately...because by all accounts, there are quite a few franchises that are bleeding pretty heavily, and can show it on the books. That provides for FAR more willpower for a work stoppage than what we see in the NFL.

There will be significant change in the way the NBA does business...because the way they do business right now is untenable for certain franchises as is.

 

emjohn, great post. One difference I have with you is Silver did not really contradict himself. As a starting position, the owners have proposed a hard cap but will settle for a harder cap as a final result. Everyone and their brother should know an NFL-style hard cap ain't gonna happen, even with the owners in such a strong position.

 

It's best for the NBA if 3 teams fold. LeBron hinted at it and all the players who matter in the league will agree with it. Keep the wages up and the standards high, but the top players and guaranteed contracts shouldn't suffer as a result of scrub franchises.

Memphis
New Orleans
Charlotte
Minnesota
Philadelphia

3 of these teams can easily go. Hold a draft with the teamless players and there's your shot at increasing parity. Both you and I both know the stars drive this league, and they should have the most pull in the Union when **** hits the fan.

Sacramento will relocate. Toronto probably should.

 

I live in Minny, and my response has always been "**** you, and go ahead and ask whether you want your team to be contacted" to anyone who proposes destroying the Puppies. Any basketball is better than no basketball, not to mention the Unions will never accept it. And if Taylor bought the Rockets tomorrow and treated it like he treats Minnesota, would you support contracting the Rockets?

Not to mention, Philly being put up with those other four teams is hilarious ( as Philly has at minimum the history that those teams don't. You might as well suggest contracting Houston or Detroit), and Toronto has lots of fans, representing Canada.

 

I definitely like the sound of what the owners are suggesting.

... At the same time, I don't want the players to get screwed, either. A lot of us focus on how greedy, spoiled, and overpaid players are, but the fact of the matter is that all the major players in this industry are like that, and it's debatable whether something that benefits the owners is really that beneficial... Many of these owners are money-hoarding asshats. Donald Sterling, anybody?

 

But wait, weren't there several people on the board saying the NBA doesn't care about more parity?