[prediction]The CBA will remain largely unchanged after this season

It sounds like you're overestimating the impact of a union decertification. If the players union decertified, the value of the franchises won't go to $0. The NFLPA decertified in 1987 and the NFL Franchises didn't lose their value. Teams still have TV and marketing deals for huge money. You can't just put together a competing league and expect it to be profitable without TV or arena deals. You pointed out the ABA but that league lost money every season that it existed and eventually folded.

Currently the players can't sue the NBA because they are part of a union that has a collective bargaining agreement with the league. Because of that they are covered by labor laws rather than antitrust laws.

Decertifying the union would do two things:

1) Prevent the owners from locking out the players without pay. If there were no union, then a lockout would be considered a restraint of trade.

2) If there were no CBA or union then players would be free to sue the NBA and contend that things like trade restrictions, max salaries and the NBA draft violate US Antitrust laws.

Sounds like that would give the players quite a bit of leverage so why wouldn't the do it? Answer: Because it would be a huge risk on their part.

If the union decertifies then it loses all protections and concessions that the union has negotiated for them. No more guarenteed contracts, minimum contracts or player pensions. Think about the ramification of that. As of next season, there is $4 billion in committed future salary. Do you think the players are going to give up that kind of guarenteed money?

If the players decertify and sue the NBA for antitrust violations then the league will likely contend that there really is a union still representing the players and that the decertification was just a ploy to allow them to be simultaneously be covered by both labor and antitrust laws (which isn't allowed). That's a pretty strong argument and I'd have to believe that the league would have a good chance of gaining a ruling to that extent.

Let's say that the players do sue the league and win on antitrust charges, is that a good thing for them? So now a team can pay Lebron $30M a year...that's great for Lebron. What about the lower end guys? There's no minimum salary so they could be paid much lower non-guarenteed salaries and have no pensions. The problem is that for every superstar that would benefit there are dozens of low end guys and aging veterans that would be worse off.

Finally the danger of pursuing antitrust lawsuits is that if you win then the government would be involved. I doubt that the players want to risk allowing courts to define how the league is run. I don't believe that the players would take the chance of allowing the courts to determine league rules, there's just too much risk for them to take that chance.


Because of all of that I don't believe that the players will decertify the union. Assuming they don't decertify the union, then the owners will lock them out without pay. The NBA owners are billionairs who don't rely on their team ownership as their primary source of income. On the other hand the players primary source of income would be cut off. There's a statistic that 60% of NBA players are in serious financial trouble within 5 years of retirement so I don't think that most players would last too long once the checks stop coming in.

Will the owners get everything that they are asking for? Nope, but realistically they don't really expect to. Most likely the owners are asking for much more than they really expect so that they have room to grant some concession to the players union and allow them to save face. They say they want to cut salaries by 33% but they end up negotiating a 15% cut and the union can tell it's members that it just got 18% back for them.

Even though I believe that the players will ultimately cave in,the thing that sucks for us fans is that it won't happen until after they've missed a few checks and we have missed games.

 

Magic don't want to spend? Then why are they 2nd in the league in salary, only 2.4 million behind the Lakers?...

 

I will say this. I believe Yao's expiring contract with the insurance money along with our other expiring contracts is growing in trade value by the day. Every day we inch closer to Feb 24, our $33 million in expiring contracts plus $8 million in insurance savings, plus our rookie deals look better and better to some team like Indy or Phoenix or Philly that is evaluating starting over.

 

BRAVO!!!!

aelliott, you don't post here enough. You truly are one of this BBS's treasures.

 

I'm fine with a lockout and missing games if Morey can use it to turn us into a perennial championship contender.

 

That's why I'm rooting for a hard cap. If it were a level playing field with no exceptions then Morey would have a field day. Shrewd moves would be rewarded and bad decisions would be penalized. I'd like our chances in that world.

 

Can I play mind-reader? You are asking him because his view about decertification is way out in left field. But perhaps he's an insider and knows something we don't, which is the only way a sane person could make his conclusions.

Am I right or wrong?

 

Because they want this guy to stick around.

Spoiler

 

No. He's an intelligent poster. I've been reading him for a little while. Don't have any opinion on his view about decertification. I just know he came out of nowhere and is contributing basketball posts at a high knowledge level. And he's been a member since 2002, with a little over 1000 posts, not very many posts until recently. He's got some sort of bball experience from somewhere. Trying to figure out yogurt.

 

....maybe intelligent, but I would be surprised if someone worked for the league or a team and had those views on the upcoming negotiations. Seems like his premises are misguided(although debatable)....of course there have been some pretty insane decisions made by teams in the league so I don't know - I suppose nothing is outside of the realm of possibility but for the record, when I saw your post I thought you were being sarcastic because as A3PO noted - those are some pretty out there assumptions.

 

You mean like owners asking taxpayers to pay for their arenas? Greed is not just on the players side, dude. Also, I enjoy watching the players. Can't say the same thing for owners.

 

"all they would need is to sign up top 10 players in the league"? That's easier said than done.

NBA superstars are going to make their money no matter what the terms of the new CBA ends up being. Why are those guys going to take a step back and play in a lesser league? The Lebrons and Kobe's of the world are also worried about their place in history and what they'll be measured by is their NBA career. Nobody remembers much about Jim Kelly or Steve Young playing in the USFL or Warren Moon playing in the Canadian League. Those guys careers are measured by what they did in the NFL.

Also look at it from a different perspective, how would forming a league like that help the rank and file of the NBA. If a new league were able to sign the top 10 players then what happens to all of the rest of the players? They lose even more leverage and likely get even a smaller piece of the pie. Now you're back to a few superstars making even more money and the rest of the guys losing out. That doesn't sound like a good union strategy to me.

The players have $4 billion in salary guarenteed, they won't walk away from that. The majority of the players won't vote to decertify if it means they lose their guarenteed money. The rank and file of the union isn't going to vote to decertify if it means that only the Kobes and Lebrons benefit.

 

My understanding is that the European and Asian leagues have contracts far less forgiving than in the NBA(there are non guaranteed contracts over there). Even if there were enough money available(there isn't) to make it worth the entire player's union while to decertify and sign overseas, those players would be playing on contracts that have terms similar to what owners are no doubt asking for in the new CBA. I can understand it as a negotiating tool, but I doubt the owners are dumb enough to fall for that bluff and the player's agents are also not dumb enough to take such a huge risk.

 

I think a 10% reduction is a realistic number and decertification isn't an option. Most of the big names have already signed extensions due to the upcoming CBA and that gives the advantage back to the owners. I don't care how much money the league has tied up in asset value, no one is going to offer Joe Johnson a $120 million contract again. Or Darko. Or Brand. Ironically, it's not the big market teams who overpay for average players.

The owners want a hard cap and parity? What is the point, you already have the star teams with their players in place to dominate the league for the next 4-5 years - in time for the next CBA. I'm going to state the obvious, but the stars drive this league and give it it's global appeal; franchise stars like Dwight Howard, Kobe, LeBron etc. quadruple their value from merchandising, appeal to new fans (who follow players before a team) and television viewers tuning in to watch them play to make their salaries seem like a bargain.

It's the Kyle Lowry's and Luke Ridnour's and Samuel Dalembert's of the league who need to be kept in check. As well as the owners who allow Joe Johnson and Allan Houston to make $20 million a year. The income gap between a Deron Williams and a Kyle Lowry is never going to decrease in the name of parity and smaller "overall" salaries, the agents of star players aren't going to turn a blind eye to the fact that their clients run the league. It can only become bigger.

I think it's in the best interest of the NBA to create a salary structure similar to the NFL (I'm not well versed on the details) where franchise tags and big contracts can be given to star players and the rest given peanuts; this realistically allocates salaries based on the amount of revenue the employee's bring in. A hard cap is too cut and dry, the Lakers and Knicks need to have loopholes available to them over Minnesota and the league knows this. It's no different in other major GLOBAL sporting league's like the English Premier League and the Spanish La Liga.

This is where global interest in the NBA and the outside investors that Trugoy mentions become dangerous to owners of smaller teams pushing for parity. You still have names like Blake Griffin, Dwight Howard and Derrick Rose due max contracts in the coming years and plenty of outside sources willing to swoop in and give it to them; and subsequently build a team and business plan around them. So this swings the power slightly back towards the players, and overall, I think we'll see a minor reduction in player salaries and salary cap; but this will come out of the paycheck of the average NBA player. Problem is, sometimes the owners don't know who's who.

 

In your original post you seemed to be arguing that the big market teams drive the league and control things:

" The teams mostly pushing for reduced salaries are small market teams that want to contend but don't want to spend money, i.e. Spurs, Magic, etc... These teams don't really have that much power because they don't affect the bottom line, when the major TV negotiations happen, it's always the big power teams that contribute most to the bottom line."

Now you're saying that the owners will give in because in a worst case senario the Gizzlies and T-Wolves might not make it:

"And if decertification happens, the large franchises are going to be fine, the Lakers, Celtics, Rockets of the world will survive no matter what happens. For teams like the grizzlies, timberwolves though, without the monopoly protection of the CBA, all bets are off, they could cease to exist in the ensuing carnage. When push comes to shove, I believe the owners of the small market teams will fold rather than risk operating without being in a monopoly"

If the Griz and T-Wolves went away that would be a good thing for most other owners. As you said, those teams provide very little to the bottom line. If they went away then the league revenues remain pretty much the same and now the pie is divided up into two less pieces. Additionally teams would have a chance to acquire players like Gaso, Mayo, Love, Conley and the rights to Rubio for nothing. David Stern himself has talked about the potential for contraction.

Realistically though, it will never come to that. The only way any of this is ever relevant is if the players decertify and that just isn't going to happen. In order to decertify the majority of the players would have to vote to do so and they won't.

No matter what the terms of the new CBA ends up being the fact is that it will still be a really good job to be an NBA player or owner. You have a bunch of millionaires battling a bunch of billionaires for a larger share of the profits. Whoever loses will still have a sweet deal. The majority of the players aren't going to risk losing that when there's no real gain for them.

Players aren't going to give up guarenteed contracts unless they have an equal or better offer elsewhere and that doesn't exist. You can dream up all kind of alternate league scenarios but they aren't realistic. Players will start missing checks and there's no way that an alternate league could be established by then. Even if it could, there's no way that any alternative league could employ the majority of the players for anything approaching what they are making now.

As far as I know there's no alternative league on the horizon. So do you believe that players will vote to give up their guarenteed money and just hope that something comes about? Trying to compete with the NBA is a huge undertaking. You've sited the ABA but it came about at a time when the NBA was a 10 team league and wasn't all that succcesful. That situation eventually led to 4 teams being merged into the NBA but not a single one of the original ABA owners were able to survive long enough to still be involved by the time of the merger. All of those original owners lost tons of money and didn't benefit at all from the eventual merger.

The USFL tried to compete with the NFL but couldn't do it. Donald Trump tried his best to force a merger but was unsuccessul. Trump even won his antitrust suit against the NFL. What did he get for all of his efforts? The USFL won their lawsuit and walked away with a check for the grand sum of $3.76 (no typo, less than five dollars) for their troubles. They were also forced to fold the league following the lawsuit.

Pick any team in the league and take a guess as to how their roster would vote if it came down to a real decision on decertification. The Rockets? I'm guessing that there wouldn't be a single player on our roster that would give up their guarenteed money.We don't have any marquee stars that would benefit from no max salary. Miami? You could argue Lebron, Wade and maybe Bosh (I'd argue that they wouldn't) but the other 12 guys on the roster would want to keep their guarenteed money. Do it for any team and you'll see that the vast majority of the players would be against decertification.

If it were that simple and the owners were as worried as you say then they wouldn't be taking the hard line stance that they are. If the threat of decertification truely gave the players that kind of leverage then a) the players would have already decertified and b) the owners would be trying to quickly get a deal signed keeping things status quo.

The big unknown in this negotiation is the true financial state of the league. Stern says that a lot of teams are losing money. That may or may not be true. If it were true then a hard cap would be pretty important for the owners. If they aren't losing money then the hard cap is probably just a threat that they can give in on while still maximizing their share of the revenue.

 

I too am a fan of the hard cap with a few exceptions.

1. Bird rights - I like the idea of keeping players on your team, from the previous year. For example, if you draft well, you could end up having a few max type players that you could not keep with a hard cap.
2. Mid-season trades - A hard cap all year makes trades difficult. Would like to keep some on the current flexibility in matching salaries.
3. Bad contracts - A long term bad contract is too much of a penalty. Would like to lessen that burden.

One idea is to have the cap set at some date in off season. If you are over it, there is no exception contracts only veteran minimums and rookie draft pay scale.

Returning players must be signed before any free agents or they would lose the returning player benefit.

Trades would follow much the same way as now.

If a player with remaining years on the contract is waived the team could choose to take the salary cap hit for all future years the following year. In a sense, a bad contract bankruptcy by going over the cap big one year, but not having the constant limitation for future years.

Just some thoughts