I'm right there with you. I think these owners are absolutely emboldened by what the NHL owners were able to accomplish. I think they went into this thing knowing they were prepared to miss a full season, just like the NHL did, to get everything they want and then some.
I think I've hit the point of hoping that they decertify, lose the season, let the owners create a new set of rules, and do a massive 10 round draft next year filling thier roster with college players, euros and a few scabs (undrafted)...a reboot. Let the other holdouts go find a job as their endorsement contracts start expiring. ie...kaboom...blow it up...
It's not all on the players, but they've made themselves no friends since the last CBA. I think a lot of fans feel that players are abusing their power, and that's why you don't see a lot of public pressure on owners to compromise. I've been saying for months that the players were going to lose big. The writing has been on the wall for years, but the players, for all their talk of being prepared, weren't prepared at all. When the dust settles, you're going to see a lot of humbled athletes, and we will all be reminded of the saying - Pride Goes Before The Fall.
regarding why the players/agents say this is a worse deal than a week ago, I can't think of any other reason than the definition of taxpayer was not clear before. If exception restrictions are defined by when you use them and if using takes you into tax territory, then the exceptions lose value to the players versus last week. Personally, I think this is the way it should be. But, this is also why the players are saying the current deal is worse than they expected now that the definition of taxpayer wrt to exception restrictions is defined.
Sorry if this ESPN "five on five" was posted elsewhere. These five voices are pretty pessimistic, in sum: http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/page/5-on-5-111111/nba-lockout-answering-biggest-questions
http://www.nba.com/news/Memo_to_Players_111311_3.pdf I just read this whole document. I recommend you do the same. If the players take the current deal as is they have no spine. Their is no way That I would personally agree to a system this restrictive with out a bigger piece of the BRI then 50%. I Kid you not guys like Scola who are good NBA level starters will have to have reasons larger then money for wanting to play in the NBA that is for sure. Another observation I had after reading this is GMs with a NFL background will have a much greater advantage because the salary and free agent system is very similar to that of the NFL GMs will have to make extremely hard choices on players who still have value but clash with Cap restrictions.
I put more of it on Hunter. Fisher wanted to accept 50% earlier while Hunter was the hardliner at 52.5%. Fisher is not in control of things. If the players had agreed to 50% earlier with their set of conditions, we may have had an agreement before today. But the owners continued to harden up and by last week they weren't willing to budge much from their line-in-the-sand positions.
This isn't going to work out for players. Even if they win their legal case and end up getting a higher % of BRI in the end, BRI is going to be much lower because they lost a season and will have a system that doesn't work well for many of the owners. Win or lose, the players are going to come out behind here.
I don't think they can win either, with the owners having years of losses to show the courts, and months of bargaining, the players really have no case. I hope the owners get to institute an NFL style of system, franchise tags, hard caps, non guaranteed contracts. That would be AWESOME for us fans. DD
The NBA gambled that the players would accept their offer and the players didn't budge. Now the players are gambling and taking it to court. If they lose in court they're gonna get a far worse deal than the one offered.
For once I agree with you. I hope the NBA goes non-guaranteed contracts too, so there are less lazy sh!tty players.
I'll keeping beating a dead horse - both sides absolutely fail. If they wanted to save the season and get a fair deal hammered out, they'd have gone to a third party for mediation in June, a non-binding arbitrator in July/Aug, and if that failed...a binding arbitrator in September to get a 1 year deal to save 2011-2012 with a continuation option for 2012-2013 while they went back to hammering out a long term CBA. It's clear neither side respected the other enough to that....or the fans. And god only knows how devastating a completely lost season will be. If 1998 wiped out a good dozen stars that became hopelessly out of shape, imagine what an 18 month layoff will do (most guys are done by the beginning of May). Pathetic. Go Texans Go Tarheels