Stern: Deal By Tuesday Or No Games Through Christmas

Well Hunter said 3 years ago Stern said straight up that we are locking you out if you do not agree to our terms and he says Stern has negotiated from that extreme point of view.

Look at the end of the day, its the small market teams that is keeping this deal from getting done--and dumb owners are owning those teams for the most part (Grizz, Suns...)

 

There isn't much else Hunter could have done. The players weren't about to give anything up one day earlier than they had to. Perhaps Hunter could have laid some early groundwork in the players' minds that would have made reaching an agreement easier this summer.

 

I think that is a simplistic viewpoint, the NBA has realized that in order for the small market teams to compete they need a cap, or something that severely punishes teams that go way over it.

The players don't want that, and that is what is holding the entire thing up......and the owners are willing to bankrupt the players to get their league on better financially even footing.

I have been for the players - but if a deal comes out that allows small market teams to compete, ala the NFL, then I am for the owners.

DD

 

Exactly, the economy has gone down, and the owners need the league to be viable for every team - Hunter should have been reasonable, now his players are going to be getting a much worse deal, unless he gets them on board soon...

DD

 

to be fair, it is an idiotic question.

"I realized it's not working for you, but hey, you agreed to it before, why shouldn't you agree to it again?"

ummm, what? Dan Patrick is usually smarter than that.

 

Agree with you completely.

 

Isnt OKC considered a top team in the west next year? Havent utah been a contender for years except for last year?

NY, NJ and several big market teams havent bern good for years.

If the small market teams want more, increase revenue sharing.

Look at baseball. Teams can overspend, that does not mean they will win. Same thing in the NBA.

That is a poor excuse. Teams just have to be smart: a big market team lkke chicago went the draft route to finally contend again, same with a small market team like OKC.

A lot of NBA teams are stupid and now they are blaming the players?

Look the NBA players have conceded some, and I am sure they will concede some more. But to think the owners are the ones who are negotiating in good faith is ludicrous.

They want to push what they want down the player's throats.

 

Dan is a suck up to players, he is going to side with them on most discussions.

The problem is that the owners can not agree to a similar deal, it will sink the NBA, so they are trying to fix the problem.

If the deal was working, they had the option of extending it for this year and working out a new one, but it was NOT working so they took the measure of .....we need to get a proper deal now.

The players are done, IMO, they have no leverage, don't have any other options, and will get a worse deal the longer this goes on.

I actually agree with Stern in that 50/50 is where it is headed...they should just do it.

DD

 

It is a little bit about competing, but not on the court, it is more about keeping teams from going bankrupt, trying to compete...a system that allows small market teams with lower revenues to still be viable, that is what is going on here, it is not so much about the on the floor product, it is about keeping a league viable overall.

Like the NFL...where teams like GreenBay and Indianapolis can compete....and make money.

DD

 

But what would stop this upcoming deal be another bad one for the owners, considering some of the fools who run the show?

Stern said in 1999 that it was a great deal for the owners then.

All I'm saying, and similar to what Dan said in his interview with Stern, a lot of the owners' problems are their owm faults. And they want the ayers to make the concessions so they can profit, making the same dumb decisions.

No doubt the owners have all the power now. They are the owners after all. They can shut down the league if they have to.

 

DD, given that (a) the players are stuck on 53% of BRI, (b) the owners want the players to take 47% of BRI but are at least willing to discuss a 50-50 split, (c) the owners' deal terms (whether it's a hard cap or a more oppressive luxury tax system) do allow all teams to compete and (d) BRI will the the SOLE determining factor as to how much the players--as a whole--receive in actual net salary, THEN wouldn't the owners' proposed 50-50 split (again, regardless of how pro-owner the new salary cap system issues are) now put you (mostly) on the side of the owners?

Personally, while I think a truly FAIR deal would involve some more concessions to the players, I think the current situations of the parties dictates that the owners (largely) should win out, and sooner rather than later. This can only get worse for both sides, but it can only get MUCH worse for the players.

Also, here is a good Open Letter from Darren Rovell to Billy Hunter that encapsulates what I (and some others here) have been saying for the past week:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44902658

 

I've stopped thinking of this as an argument over the BRI. I think the kernel of it is this: the players want to continue to have the security of playing for the team they want to play for with a guaranteed contract. The league wants a level playing field where small markets can be as good as big markets. The league sees a hard cap as a way to do that, because the New Yorks will have to let guys go. The players see the hard cap as a threat because it would mean more guys will have to jump to new teams when their contracts run out, and perhaps leave teams and cities they liked to get a fair contract.

I think the players need to give up on having so much freedom to stay on the team they want to stay on and instead just concentrate on keeping contracts guaranteed. I think you can do that by allowing teams to exceed the cap for a little while and by liberalizing trade rules. And, I think the owners need to give up on an absolute level playing field and just ensure that any team will have the means to sustain a fat payroll for the sake of a title-contending team, while not masking the disincentive to having a fat payroll for a lotto team (which high revenue-sharing may do). Perhaps something like big pay-outs to franchises for making the playoffs and again for each advancement (a sort of revenue-sharing for winners)?

 

Why? Because those teams draft well. Rodgers and Matthews. Indy with Peyton. Detroit with CJ, Stafford, and Suh. Look at the Pats as bellichick philosphy is through the draft. Look at the Steelers. And on and on and on. Big market teams like Dallas or Redskins havent done jack for years.

Okc and Bulls have turned around their franchises through the draft. Same with Wiz with Wall. Sure the NBA depends more on star players because it is a 5-man sport; but smart decisions can change a franchise.

In the NBA you have Joe Johnson getting more than Lebron james. Absurd. Now im 5 years when they suck, who is to blame,

 

Keep in mind that each CBA is only binding for a finite period of time. That CBA (largely) expired in 2005, with a separate negotiation occurring at that time. It was in 2005--not in 1999--when the owners may have made their mistakes. But also keep in mind that, in 2005, the real estate market--and the stock market in general--were doing very well. It wasn't until late 2007 that the **** really started to hit the fan.

Again, each CBA negotiation is separate. While I understand that the prior CBA is a good starting point for negotiations on the next one, the parties cannot rely on such terms when conditions have changed so drastically since that last CBA negotiation.

 

You are missing the point, the NFL shares all revenue, so the teams MAKE money, and are viable, it is not about the teams being able to compete on the floor, or field, it is about them being able to compete in REVENUE !!!!

And in the NFL, you have franchise tags which stop players from leaving, but keep them compensated.

The NFL model works, the NBA model does not....

DD

 

How can you justify the billionaire owners doing what they're doing. They're all richer than the players.

 

Here is an article by Stein: http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/7099648/nba-lockout-frequently-asked-questions

An encouraging excerpt:

As reassurance for those of you who, like us, will be reduced to unspeakable misery (and probably worse) if there isn't an NBA game until after the 2012 Olympics in London, be advised that strong rumblings continue to be conveyed to ESPN.com about the league preparing a secret schedule that starts Dec. 1 and still manages to pump out 82 games. The New York Post has likewise reported that NBA schedule-maker Matt Winick has quietly drafted a variety of contingency plans spanning anywhere from 50 to 74 games.

 

Good to hear. I'd also imagine that either/both of the NBA's attorneys and the union's attorneys have already drafted a boilerplate "New CBA" with variable language accounting for multiple scenarios. At least, that's what I would be doing now if I was either side's lawyer. It would be stupid otherwise to delay the start of the NBA season (including pre-camp free agent signings and trades) for another week after the sides finally agree, simply because neither side wanted to pay their lawyers to draft up (most of) the new CBA in advance.

 

The NFL model works because of network deals. The NBA does not have the same setup with most of their games being on local TV. How do you equally share a wide array of tv contracts with different terms and values, etc.?

NFL also works well because of non-guaranteed contracts.

I think the owners will obviously win a little more back but it still won't be a long-term solution as far as base structure goes. Losing what they have so far is stupid for both sides but I feel what that last article confirms - they will try to get as many games as possible in. I just hope it does not involve the back to back to backs or 4 games in 5 nights because the product will suffer.