The revenues won't stay constant; in fact, it would continue to grow in record numbers. And you're right, so the players conceded to the 50-50 split so that the owners "can" recover more than whatever they lost, and even get a lot of profits. The issue that shut down the deal was no longer the 50-50 split, but the player movement restriction---not a money issue.
Common sense should also dictate that when you reply to posts, you should understand the context in which the post was written. I wasn't talking about the majority. I was simply giving my rationale as to why I think more than 5% of the players supported the deal.
If you are talking about using common sense to guage these negotiations, then common sense dictates that if the majority thought the deal was a good one then they would have taken it. I don't see how the unions prior mistakes has anything to do with one assuming that they would have accepted the current deal if the majority of players wanted it. We can also argue that Stern just bumbled everything, since he got players to come down to 50% and blew it over system restrictions. I thought the main priority was the owners losing $$???
There was at least some arm-twisting going on, or at least player-reps not representing the viewpoints of their teams. We know that Chris Duhon, prior to the meeting, said the Orlando Magic voted to approve the deal. Yet, after the meeting, he was on board with not approving the deal. Unless he was calling his teammates while in the meeting room and they changed their minds, I'm not sure Duhon wasn't forced to support this. The way it probably worked is that they voted in the room and a majority voted for the legal process. Once that was clear, everyone had to get on board because presenting a unified front is essential in a process like this. I seriously doubt the vote was actually unanimous at first.
You're assuming players were given the opportunity to make that decision. We've heard from at least a few players who said they were not given that opportunity.
First, I'll let KD, one of the most humble players and one of the few stars who wanted to stay with his team, answer you. Kevin Durant took issue with Thursday's press conference where Adam Silver said the new system would have less player movement. "Why cant players have freedom of movement?" asked Durant. "Teams trade players like cards, but you get mad when a player decides to go to another team. Double standard." Durant pointed out that players often take less money in order to have the freedom to pick their destination. "I'm all for player movement," said Durant before adding that he loves playing for the Thunder. Durant's comments drew the attention of the NBA's Labor account on Twitter when it was broached that the Thunder would have difficulty re-signing their core.. "Not true on new deal limiting chances to keep team's core," said the writer of the account. "Teams would have cap exceptions to re-sign their own free agents." Deron Williams responded to RealGM's Tweet of this story on Friday. "He has the right to be," wrote Williams, who then added a hash-tag of "NotJustAboutBRI." And here is a write up: What came out of the negotiations of the past couple days, before they ended abruptly on Friday, were two specific things a team could not do if they were over the defined luxury tax amount: participate in sign-and-trade deals or use the Mid-Level Exception. The Owners want this because they believe restricting the movement of teams with total salaries over the tax level promotes competitive balance. The Players don’t like it because it restricts player movement, narrowing the market of possible teams who can sign a given player, which theoretically drives down demand and less money in the hands of the players. Both of these are valid viewpoints and cases can be made strongly in either direction. And Woj's article on other B-list issues that forced the players to reject the deal http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-wojnarowski_nba_labor_111411 Again, the players conceded to any monetary issues. They rejected the deal b/c of other things they disagreed upon unrelated to money.
What does that matter, if the majority didn't feel that way? I think the reps voting 100% to shoot this deal down is a good sign that the majority don't agree, so what's the point of even arguing about the % that supported the deal? That's the point t_mac1 is trying to make. Maybe you should follow your own advice.
I admit, I am assuming that player reps had a guage on what the majority of their teammates wanted and voted that way. We really don't have anything to suggest otherwise. None of us were in the meeting. We don't know what information the reps saw.
A couple of problems here: 1. The whole point of the harsh luxury tax that everyone had agreed to was to prevent people from getting into the luxury tax range in the first place. If that works as intended, then this wouldn't affect many teams at all. 2. Most S&Ts are done to teams with lots of cap room because otherwise, the receiving team would have to unload lots of players to make the salaries equal anyway. Over the entire last CBA, 4 total players fit into this category - and that's prior to efforts to decrease the number of luxury tax teams. 3. On the MLE, yes the MLE was made smaller for taxpaying teams; but a new MLE was also added for under-the-cap teams. 4. The whole "less money in the hands of the players" doesn't make sense because they are getting 50% no matter what. If more players are allowed to break salary cap exceptions creating more total payroll, that just means everyone's salaries will go down thanks to escrow. This is a nonissue. Limiting player movement to luxury tax teams is that whole purpose of the having the luxury tax in the first place. I don't see how that has become the new source of controversy.
So why do you think the players declined the deal Major? All signs point to them being ok with a 50/50 split.
This isn't the complete list of things that caused the players to reject the deal, I believe. More info should be out soon hopefully. But from what I read/hear, the 50-50 split was no longer the issue for the players. Player movement restriction was the biggest thing for the players. We may have different opinions about it, but the players were adamantly against it.
I think there are lots of possibilities: 1. They really didn't like it. 2. They were misinformed about the details, in part because the Union did let the players have access to the details until the day of the vote: circumstantial evidence here is that the union did not allow player reps to take copies of the deal to players last week 3. The union leadership pressured them to decline it: circumstantial evidence here would be the Chris Duhon / Orlando Magic change 4. The union leadership never gave them the opportunity to vote on it: circumstantial evidence here is that several players have complained about that 5. Spite/anger at the league for how negotiations went; there's tons of research in behavioral science that shows that people make decisions that hurt themselves out of spite/anger/revenge Without being in the room, I honestly have no idea. But I'm pretty certain that, at the end of the day, the players are going to be in worse shape than they would have been had they taken the deal.
I agree - I'm just trying to better understand what the underlying issue is. My original question wasn't meant to be critical - just that I'm not seeing what they are seeing that is so harmful to player movement here. I agree that it's been made more difficult to go to taxpaying teams, but I thought everyone was in agreement on that issue, given that it was the whole purpose of the tax.
Once again, common sense should also dictate that when you reply to posts, you should understand the context in which the post was written. Since it's clear you don't, maybe you should go back and do some reading.
This is why they should have taken the deal...it's really that simple. I can't imagine a scenario where they come out better.
Well, this is just what I heard of Max/Marcellus right after news broke that the players rejected the deal, don't know how reliable it is. Basically, players that are drafted by a particular team will "most likely" have to stay with that particular team beyond their rookie contract. They referred to it as a form of "slavery" where the teams would have basically absolute control over where players go. What about a possible scenario that the judges rule in the favor of the players b/c the owners didn't negotiate in good faith, and owners are forced to concede certain items? This is no longer about money. Someone enlighten me. Basically, I think the season is done.
As long as the number is less than 225, I don't think it matters. I mention it is unanimous to show that all those low- and mid-level guys serving as reps conceded to this plan of action. There's a lot more of that sort of player represented in the vote than guys who have already made their coin. I'm just trying to counter the insinuation that the representatives hijacked the process to serve the interests of a minority population of the union. The reps are not the Kobe Bryants and Tim Duncans of the league playing out the string on an illustrious career. These are mostly guys who are going to feel the hurt of a lost season, but they killed it anyway. So if they took a league-wide vote and rejected the contract and went the disclaim route anyway, with the only difference being they can't say it was unanimous consent having only won 250-200, that's not going to help the strength of their argument any. They knew they had the mandate of the players through their representatives and then proceeded with a strategy that will give them the strongest possible position in the course they've chosen. Taking a league-wide vote (when you already know the answer) and let the league and the courts also look at the counts would have been plain foolish.
If that's true, that's absolutely a problem. But it doesn't appear, assuming the NBA's summary is accurate, that there's anything in there that would prevent Lebron from going to Miami or that would force Blake Griffin to stay with the Clippers. They could move as free agents; they could still do a S&T as long as it's to any of the presumably majority of non-taxpaying teams. It doesn't seem like anything in the deal changes any of that. Oddly, the one thing that might be most prohibitive is probably one of the things that the players wanted: the minimum team salary going up to 90% of the cap. That, in effect, prevents teams from having too much open cap space unless they plan in advance to have a bunch of contracts expiring in a given year. Without teams having as much open cap space, it does make it harder for max salary players to move around. It also discourages teams from trying Miami-like situations, because if those players didn't choose Miami, that franchise was going to have to sign a bunch of crap players to expensive 1yr contracts to get up to 90% of the salary cap.
I don't think that's likely enough for me to consider a real possibility. Stranger things have happened though..true.
