Tag Archives: NBA Lockout

by | November 26, 2011 · 11:16 AM

A Tentative Agreement reached by the NBA and Players

Goal tending

Nuclear winter is a relatively short season after all. The lockout is not over. Not yet at least, but the two sides in the 149-day long lockout have come to a tentative agreement that should end the NBA lockout. Before a season can begin both the players and the owners will have to ratify the agreement.

After a long and bitter lockout, the league has plans to begin the NBA season on Christmas Day with a triple-header. From there, a 66 game season will take place. Training camps will begin on December 9 which will also mark the beginning of free agency. Of course, this is all predicated on whether the two sides will agree to the proposed deal.

For players, who dissolved their union on November 14, their lawsuit, the players initially filed two separate ones but they consolidated them into one in the Minnesota courts, against the NBA must be dropped and the union must reform before a vote can take place on whether or not to approve the agreement reached. The players need a simple majority vote to ratify the deal. As for the owners, Commissioner David Stern will take the proposed deal before the NBA labor committee later on Saturday where they are expected to approve the deal. Fifteen of the 29 owners, the league owns the New Orleans Hornets, must vote in favor of any new collective bargaining agreement.

Throughout the duration of the lockout, seemingly every issue brought to the table was a contentious one. Basketball-Related Income and system issues became the focal points of the talks and were frequently the reason that the two sides would abandon negotiations all together for periods of time. Now what remains is six pages of “B-List” issues that need to be sorted out. These include the NBA age limit, drug testing, and rookie salaries. All of these items will have to be resolved before the NBA Board of Governors can vote on the deal.

Details have not fully emerged on how the new CBA is structured but it appears that the previous 49 to 51 percent band of BRI will remain in place. Also, as Larry Coon reports, there will be a relaxed stance on the mid-level exception that the owners had pushed for with the elimination of smaller mid-level exceptions for tax-paying teams. Sign-and-trade contract extensions, which hardline ownership had vehemently opposed, will remain in the new CBA and penalties for teams paying luxury taxes are not as significant as some owners had wanted. However, they will be harsher than they were under the last CBA.

With the impending  ratification of a new agreement there is room for celebration. Yet, that celebration is marred with the knowledge that there is no winner. Basketball wins, but as Nike has pointed out during the lockout, basketball never stops. This was an ugly dispute and the two sides have no one to blame but themselves. They had two years to come to terms on a new labor agreement but instead chose to go down a path of no return. This is their doing.

When the season begins there will no doubt be a high degree of animosity between some players and owners, especially those owners that were singled out as hardline, wanting the players to concede more and more on every issue. These are the Michael Jordans, the Dan Gilberts, the Rob Savers, and the Paul Allens. These are the small market teams that preached “competitive balance” but who really wanted to bleed the players dry. There will be a rift. Over time though, it may close.

For now, fans and players wait. Fans wait for confirmation that there will be an NBA season. Players wait for the opportunity to approve the agreement that has been reached. They will ratify it. There is no doubt that they will. However, there will be voices around them that will say that the deal does not benefit them, that they lost. Yes, the players conceded to the owners. Yes, their share of BRI is significantly less, but without a season they would have no income at all (endorsements aside).

This Christmas, NBA fans will not rush to see what is under the tree. Instead, they will rush to see what is on TV. Whether they have been naughty or nice they should be treated to the gift that is NBA basketball. If the schedule stands as it is fans can expect to see the Boston Celtics play the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, the Miami Heat playing the defending champion Dallas Mavericks in Dallas (oh, what a day for Mark Cuban to raise the banner), and the Chicago Bulls travel west to play the Los Angeles Lakers. That is quite a lineup and it will be a good present. However, the bitter pill that we were forced to swallow since July 1 will still loom large as the NBA starts its second shortest season in history.

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by | November 14, 2011 · 3:58 PM

You Maniacs, You Blew it Up: NBPA rejects Owners’ Offer, Disbands

David Stern was offering a 72 game season starting December 15. Of course that offer came with plenty of strings attached to the tune of some $300 billion in concession and restricted player movement. The players, who the owners though would cave to their demands, did not care for any of the deals placed before them. That is a concise version of what has transpired up to this point. Today the players threw down the gauntlet and rejected the ultimatum issued by Stern and will dissolve their union.

The union issued a notice of disclaimer on Monday afternoon which officially begins the process of union dissolution. Issuing a disclaimer is a quicker process in terms of moving legal filings to the courts rather than waiting 45 days for a vote from players on decertification. From there a anti-trust lawsuits will be filed against the league by the players. The dissolution of the union voids the ability of the league to not be sued by the players. These filings will be handled by attorney David Boies, who was hired by the players. Boies was involved in the NFL’s anti-trust suit.

Some players and many agents pushed for the union to decertify in July once the owners began the lockout. Union director Billy Hunter dismissed those early calls but has now, along with the players, decided that the league has not negotiated in good faith and begun the process.

The fate of the next CBA will have to wait until what will likely be a lengthy courts process is concluded. That means that the possibility of an NBA season is very dim. Courts are notoriously slow moving and will not move more quickly just because professional athletes are involved.

So here we are. We, at the Beef, have held a rather pessimistic view of the entire lockout so the events of today are not surprising. It was foolish to think that “cooler heads will prevail” in this matter. There are no cool heads. This has not been about the money or system issues for a long time. It was always about ego and wanting to watch those who opposed you crumble to your demands. This was the position of the owners and the league.

The players conceded across the board and the owners wanted more and more. It has not been stated yet, but the owners will likely reset their offer to the players and revert back to their 53/47 percent split of basketball-related income and a hard cap. This helps no one. This is not a tactic of  “good faith” negotiating. In no way does this bring either side closer to a resolution.

Understand this: there will not be an NBA season (I hope I am wrong). Stern has stated that there needs to be 30 days from an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement before the season can begin. Time is not on the side of a season, especially with the involvement of the courts, and the league will not flinch at the players’ move to decertify. If anything, the hardline owners will be given the reins in all future negotiations. This is simply a disaster. If you have followed the lockout in any amount you have to be rolling your eyes. This is just frustrating. Grown men using the media to wage a public relations war equates to playground bickering.

Stern stated on SportsCenter that the union used the threat of decerticification as a tactic. Yes, they did. Just like Stern used every tactic, especially scare tactics, in the book throughout the course of the lockout, the latest being the ultimatum.

If certain teams were losing money at alarming rates how can they hope to recoup those loses now that there will likely not be a season at all. Smart move. At this point there is nothing nice to write about what took place today. Both sides are at fault. A complete overhaul of the people involved seems to be the only way that progress can be made but that will never happen. Both sides will never admit that they are the problem.

In the meantime, we lose. We all lose.

Damn you! Goddamn you all to hell!

 

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by | November 13, 2011 · 4:07 AM

Team USA continues Despite the Lockout

 

What the future may hold

LeBron James is in, Kobe Bryant is a go, and Kevin Durant will likely suit up. After that the state of USA Basketball for the 2012 Olympics in London is up in the air, especially with the possibility of losing the entire 2011-12 NBA season.

Monday looks like the day that could make or break any possibility of an NBA season. This has been stated many times over during the course of the lockout but with the players union preparing to rejected the latest offer from the league, this is quite possibly the last grasp at a 72 game season before talks completely break down with the owners reverting to their hardline 53/47 percentage split of basketball-related income and the decertification of the NBPA. With that possibility looming, where does Team USA stand?

USA Basketball are not conjoined at the hip, though they are virtually inseparable. The national team, since FIBA altered their rules in 1989, has been comprised entirely of NBA players. This will not change even with a lockout. It would be foolish to send a team of college players to the Olympics and expect to compete with the likes of Spain, Argentina, and Lithuania. Yet, there can be no denying that the lockout could strain the eventual formation of Team USA.

Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski has no NBA affiliation as he coaches the men’s team at Duke University. There should be no complication with him returning to coach the program. However, aside from Jim Boeheim who coaches at Syracuse, the assistant coaches coach in the NBA. Mike D’Antoni is the current head coach of the New York Knicks and Nate McMillan coaches the Portland Trail Blazers. As per the rules of the lockout, neither D’Antoni nor McMillan is allowed to have any contact or communication with the lockout players.

Herein lies the first hurdle for Team USA. They will be without two of their assistant coaches if the lockout persists. With Krzyzewski, D’Antoni and McMillan have successfully orchestrated the present liquidity that embodies Team USA. The Redeem Team that won gold in 2008 at the Beijing Olympics was completely dismantled two years later, partly do to lack of interest and previous engagements by the players who were a part of that team, and transformed into a lengthy and quick, uptempo and undersized bunch who won gold at the World Championships in Turkey in 2010. D’Antoni is fluent in the rules and style of the international game having coached for years in Italy which has helped NBA players transition to FIBA rules and style. Losing both coaches will be a hit for Team USA but not one that will completely derail the coaching staff.

The coaches can be easily replaced. Though this means that the staff may not have the same continuity with the pool of players eligible to fill out the fifteen man roster. However, other college coaches such as John Calipari, who is always looking to increase his recruiting pool, Tom Izzo, and perhaps even Roy Williams could be considered to fill the roles of the assistant coaches. Other names may also be included if D’Antoni and McMillan cannot return to the bench. Larry Brown jumps out as a possible candidate having been head coach of Team USA before. Yet, this is all just speculation at this point and is predicated on the length of the lockout.

Team USA could also be without their trainers Casey Smith and Keith Jones, who work for the Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets respectively. If the NBA season is lost, not only will Jerry Colangelo have to recruit players to join the 2012 incarnation of the national team but he may also have to rebuild his coaching and support staff.

Colangelo is still a minority owner of the Phoenix Suns. His position as managing director of USA Basketball, however, has allowed him to remain apprised of players’ interest in joining Team USA, though he cannot discuss the lockout in any terms. Colangelo believes that despite the lockout, a team can be assembled with players from both the 2008 and 2010 squads.

According to the official team roster at USABasketball.com, the pool of players available is much greater than just those who have played on the national team before. Other than Bryant, James, who have both committed, and Durant, how the roster will fill out is anyone’s guess. It is likely that Dwight Howard and Carmelo Anthony will return, and Chris Sheridan has speculated that Blake Griffin is a “shoo-in.” Chris Bosh will probably return, as will Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul. After that it becomes dicey (as if speculation was not already). There are still six spots open on the roster if these players to indeed return.

To fill the remaining vacancies will require coach Krzyzewski to determine the style of play that his team will execute in London. As stated above, the 2010 national team was swift and agile relying more on their athleticism than on physical size.

The candidates that are left are Lamar Odom, Tyson Chandler, Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook, Derrick Rose, Deron Williams, possibly Kendrick Perkins, and perhaps Eric Gordon. None of those players are slouches and if Team USA prefers to reincarnate the 2010 team then Andre Iguodala should also be considered.

At this point, nothing is certain. The Olympics are where players build their brand. It is not completely about national pride, do not delude yourself. This is a stage on the global market. In most countries outside of the U.S. everything stops so that they can watch their nation compete. NBA players fortunate enough to be selected to the national team know that and so do their agents and sponsors. The Olympics are a big deal and London has been a world city since the middle ages. That is not lost on the players.

With the season in flux and headed towards what might be complete and utter fail (pardon the meme), the Olympic games in the summer of 2012 are the last remaining legitimate basketball that NBA players could see for some time. As of now, Team USA is keeping their summer schedule conservative, understandably. Official rosters must be submitted in June. On the slate for Team USA is two exhibition gamed against Spain in July 2012 as well as a friendly against Great Britain. France will also likely get a friendly in too before the start of the summer games. However, a quick resolve to the lockout could change everything.

The lockout threatens only the NBA at this point. Team USA is still in good hands.  No matter what happens to the 2011-12 NBA season, there will be a formidable team fielded by the United States. They will be the favorites to win it all. Haters will pick Spain with their frontcourt of Pau Gasol, Marc Gasol, and Serge Ibaka. Honestly though, a team representing a country in as many financial hardships as Italy cannot be taken too seriously. There is a reason all their players moved to the U.S. (financial aside). The United States has reestablished itself as the dominant force in international basketball. Do not for one second, or one lockout, that players do not want to maintain that supremacy. A gold medal might not be the Larry O’Brien Trophy but it still speaks wonders unto itself.

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by | November 6, 2011 · 11:03 AM

David Stern issues Ultimatum to Union

Wednesday, bloody Wednesday

The latest round of mediation between the NBA, its owners, and the NBPA ended, after nearly eight and a half hours stretching into Sunday morning, the same way that every prior mediated session and talks have. There is still no deal. However, without directly referring to a proposed deal on the table as an ultimatum, NBA Commissioner David Stern did in fact issue one. A fact that was not lost on the union and its players.

Steve Novak of the San Antonio Spurs was one of  the first player to react using the term ultimatum on twitter, “U gotta love an ultimatum! How does basketball ever even get to this point?” He was not the only player to express his disbelief in the owners’ proposal, Tony Allen of the Memphis Grizzlies also tweeted after the terms of the proposal were made public last night, “57 53 49 : wow.”

The proposal that is on the table for the players to accept by the close of business on Wednesday, which Stern set as the cut-off point when the deal would be removed and the owners would again revert to their previous stance that the players should receive 47 percent of basketball related income and that a flex cap (read: hard cap) be in place, inches slightly closer to what the players have been asking for but does so in a way in which the owners proposal of a 50/50 split of BRI is the more likely outcome. Under the previous collective bargaining agreement, the players received 57 percent of BRI. As Allen referenced in the above tweet, the union has come down from 57 percent to 53 percent, then 52.5 percent and now is faced with close to earning just 49 percent of BRI.

Under the current proposal, which is a band deal, the players could earn between 49 and 51 percent of BRI. However, union attorney Jeffery Kessler, who was representing the players at the talks with union president Billy Hunter under the weather, along with Derek Fisher scoffed at the proposal. Under it the players would receive 50 percent of BRI with the ability, if league revenue grows at a projected four percent annually or further “significant growth” Stern said, to earn 51 percent of basketball related income. If revenues were to remain stagnant or decrease the players would earn just 49 percent of BRI. The reason Kessler flatly rejected the proposal is because “the proposal that this is a robust deal at 51 is a fraud,” he stated. Under the deal the players could not expect to legitimately earn 51 percent and that it would take “the wildest, most unimaginable, favorable projections and we might squeeze out to 50.2.”

“They came in here with a prearranged plan to try to strong-arm the players,” Kessler added. “They knew today they were sticking to 50, essentially 50.2. They were going to make almost no movement on the system, and then they were going to say, ‘My way, or the 47 percent highway.”

During the mediation the NBPA issued a proposal of a 51/49 percent split of BRI in which one percent would go towards benefits for retired players helping them with heath care, insurance, and pensions. This proposal was never addressed by Stern and the owners.

Where the two sides could also not make headway was the issue of the luxury tax. The proposed deal on the table would fine each team over the tax limit on a one-for-one amount for every dollar over the tax a team spends. That is down from their previous offer of a $1.50 penalty for each dollar over the limit. The union wants to see a 50 cent tax on the first $10 million over the salary cap limit and then raise it to one dollar after that.

What the league is proposing would make it difficult, if not impossible, for championship caliber teams to retain certain players under their proposal. This would adversely effect teams such as the Los Angeles Lakers, Dallas Mavericks, Boston Celtics, Miami Heat, and Orlando Magic, and New York Knicks. In the case of Dallas, the reigning NBA champions, starting center Tyson Chandler spoke bluntly about this proposal earlier in the week as reported by the Dallas Morning News:

“With the collective bargaining agreement and some of the things that they’re trying to enforce, it would basically prohibit me from coming back,” Chandler told KESN-FM FM in Dallas. “It would take it out of my hands — and the organization’s — because it would almost be pretty much impossible for me to re-sign. I just think that can be the worst thing that can happen.”

“For years, the Lakers have been able to win championships and re-sign their players and keep them there so they can go out for another title,” Chandler said. “Now, to put that deal in place after we win ours, I don’t like it one bit.”

Mark Cuban, Jerry Buss, and James Dolan are probably none too thrilled with the potential ramifications of that scenario. But they are not the ones spearheading the move to limit the power of the players. However, teams just above the luxury limit will be given a reprieve under the owners’ proposal with their taxes cut in half.

Further, the two-sided disagreed on the length and money of the mid-level exception, which teams over the salary cap use to sign players. The players want an MLE that is worth $5 million for four years occurring every other year. The league’s proposal is $2.5 million for two years every other year.

Teams who are playing luxury taxes, the league insists, would also be exempt from any sign-and-trade deals like the one that sent LeBron James from Cleveland to Miami.

These hardline proposals from the league are the result of a few owners in small markets, which it was revealed this week are led by Michael Jordan. Hardline owners want to wrest the money-making power from the players and limit the ability of large market teams to willing spend beyond the cap to put together winning teams. The irony of Jordan leading the charge to clamp down on the players is that he is the man who embodied the move towards player control in the league. It was he that wanted more money as a player, it was he that the league bowed down to for a decade. During the 1990′s the NBA saw its highest ratings and ratings have almost come back full circle to those levels now. Yet, he is one of the owners strangling any potential growth the league could have seen this year. Strangling is a job for Latrell Sprewell, but he left the league long ago to feed his kids. Jordan’s position is understandable and his drive to constantly win and/or crush is opposition is well documented but a stricter set of regulations on the players and teams willing to spend is not in character with Jordan the player. He famously told Abe Pollin who owned the Washington Bullets and then the Wizards during the 1998 lockout, “If you can’t make a profit, you should sell your team.” How the tables have turned.

Now, the players have until Wednesday to decide whether to accept the deal, replete with the demands of the hardliners, that the league has proposed. It is not the deal that they want. It is nowhere close to what they will accept. Kessler stated as much after the mediation process ended and Stern singled out Kessler as the one who rejected the league’s offer.

This morning, Novak chimed in again on Twitter, “I was really hoping I would wake up and the owners were gonna say jk!U guys have already given us 200M a year! But no,I guess they want more.” Novak, a trillionaire in his own right, expresses the sentiment of just about every NBA player. They want to play but they do not want to kowtow to the owners demands. Now there are rumblings that a move to decertify the union are more than underway.

Union decertification, a step the NFLPA took early on during their lockout, requires 30 percent of players, about 130, to sign off on the idea. From there it would be another 60 days before a vote would take place for or against decertification. Boston Celtics’ forward Paul Pierce has reportedly taken the lead to decertify the union with many other players, including Deron Williams who tweeted, “I’ve been ready to sign a decertification petition since July? Can’t believe we are just now going this route! SMH,” and agents supporting the move. If the union is disbanded, which would require a favorable vote from at least 50 percent of the players, the players could then file an antitrust lawsuit against the league. A move to decertify could also give the players more leverage in the negotiations with the owners but it is uncertain just how anything will play out at this point.

Wednesday means nothing. It is just an arbitrary day that Stern chose before the league reverts its position back to what it was. It is merely a talking point for the media. The players have already rejected it. The owners have not changed their stance. They have not moved beyond the 50/50 split to meet the players. All this is, as it has been all along is a public relations war of attrition. There can be no winner in this lockout, yet that is what each side is angling for. Not even a Pyrrhic victory is attainable at this point. At the very least the lockout will grow uglier as it drags on. Small pieces of false hope are continually leaked from the meetings between the two sides. It is unclear why people believe them still. There is no hope. This is not even a tug of war. This is two sides hunkered down in their trenches prepared for a protracted engagement. It would be nice to have an NBA season this year, but at this point it does not look likely. Both sides know that and neither is willing to move with the owners more than willing to wait until the players surrender to their demands and because of that everyone has already lost.

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by | October 29, 2011 · 9:38 AM

November Games Canceled, NBA Still Broken

Let me tell you a story

“Until this afternoon, we’ve had a pretty good several days of give and take,” David Stern said after negotiations broke down yet again on Friday. Then he offered to those in attendance at the press conference that the subject of Basketball Related Income was approached after making headway on certain system issues and that is when the talks. Stern said that the owners were willing to go as far as a 50/50 split on BRI. He then spun a half truth laden yarn about union president Billy Hunter packing up his papers and walking out. Hunter did walk out, the NBPA has lowered their desired share of BRI down to 52.5 percent from their previous stance of 53 percent, but he is not the only one to blame for the collapse of the talks.

Those who have paid attention to these frustrating negotiations know that Stern has played this game before. A pure 50/50 split was offered by the owners on several occasions. It is their olive branch. Only this branch has a snake on it. An even split on BRI seems to rear its head each time gains have been made by each side. For the owners it is their showing of good faith, a fair split of revenue. However, for the players it is just more double speak. To date, a 50/50 has led to a lopsided counter offer that favors the owners several times.

The players are still the ones making concessions on a grand scale in these negotiations. They have managed to keep guaranteed contracts, a $5 million mid-level exception, and kept the owners from implementing at hard cap. Owners have already won in terms of reducing players’ salaries $1.3 billion over the next six years with smaller raises, a more harsh luxury tax, and shorter overall player contracts.  However, at this point in all the folly, everyone is losing. After the talks (if the two sides actually do talk to each other while they are in the room together) fell apart, Stern made it official that all games through November 30 were canceled. He added further that squeezing in an 82 game season in the time allotted will not happen. (I have been opposed to trying to get that many games on the schedule in a very constrained timetable especially with the Olympics on the horizon. So there is my one happy point in all of this.)

With the month of November completely scrapped the NBA and the players stand to lose an estimated $400 million. Apparently, that is not enough Samolians to move a few percentage points in either direction. Ken Berger of CBSSports.com has a good breakdown of what each side had to gain or lose now that November is lost:

…the only way it could possibly make sense to squander a chance to recoup two weeks of canceled games (worth about $400 million to the owners and players) and lose two weeks more (for a total of $800 million) by refusing to even attempt to close a two-point gap in basketball-related income (BRI).

Think of it another way: If Hunter had been willing to move from 52.5 percent to 51 percent Friday, that would’ve been a $60 million concession in Year One of the deal to get back the lost games worth $400 million — a net gain of $340 million. Instead, the players decided it was better to lose the games, and thus $400 million, which made it a $740 million decision to walk out of the room without a deal.

If Stern had been willing to move from 50 percent and meet Hunter at 51, it would’ve been a $40 million concession for the owners to get their approximately $400 million share of the lost November games — a net gain of $360 million. But instead of offering to make the economic move Stern had said Thursday night he was prepared to make, he decided it was better to lose the $400 million — a net swing of $760 million. So collectively, Hunter and Stern cost their business $1.5 billion by walking away without a deal Friday.

Whoa! That is quite a substantial amount of duckets that have been cast aside. Oh, to be a rich man and be care free with heaps of cash. One can only dream, or at the very least occupy a park.

The players have no business making further concessions. They should not meet the owners at 50 percent as they have already given up $1.3 billion in salaries for the next six years. Owners have given up nothing except a few hardline stances that were not on the books in the first place. What else is there to even discuss? Sure there are all the details of the system issues but those seem to have been worked out for the most part. Right now, it is time for the owners to give ground. Notorious B.I.G. should have qualified his famous line “more money, more problems.” It should have read, “more money begets self-imposed problems based on the perceived notion that money is power and with money comes invincibility vis-à-vis greed and the neglect of all others.” But that probably would not make for a good rap lyric.

Now, all that we can do it wait, flustered and tired. Both Hunter and Stern will meet again soon, perhaps this weekend, perhaps next week (no date has been set) and the broken record will continue to skip. If more games are canceled then both sides will lose more money but this is not about basketball anymore. It is about how two grown men, representing the interests of their respective parties, can spit folly, spin, and hold firm until one of them blinks. That is all it is. A show of bravado. They think that this is a title fight, everyone else sees it as a mockery of a league that enjoyed a dramatic upswing in popularity. Bravo! Keep grappling! Next time the meetings start I hope either Stern or Hunter quotes Henry V: “once more into the breach!” Oh, what a noble cause these negotiations are!

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by | October 10, 2011 · 8:39 AM

NBA Players hold the Line at 53 Percent

Fishing for a better deal

Sunday evening saw the NBA and the NBPA sit down for further negotiations. Earlier in the week, talks had been broken off, with what looked like little hope of resuming, over the lingering issue of Basketball Related Income. However, as the deadline to cancel the first two weeks of the season, set for Monday by David Stern, quickly approached, the two sides sat down for what is their first round of eleventh hour talks.

The meeting in New York lasted for roughly five hours, finishing just before midnight on the East Coast. As with all previous negotiation sessions between the league and the players’ union, those who were involved were tight-lipped over what, if anything, was accomplished. What is known about the meeting is that the two sides discussed system issues; the salary cap, length of contracts, and the luxury tax for example. BRI was allegedly not a subjected that was broached during the meeting.

Another meeting is scheduled for Monday afternoon at 2 P.M. Eastern Standard Time. Union president, Derek Fisher said after the meeting Sunday night that the players and the owners were “not necessarily any closer than we were going in tonight, but we’ll get back at it tomorrow and we’ll keep putting time in.” Yet, time is something that both sides have little of if they hope to salvage the beginning of the season.

Due to the importance of Monday’s meeting in New York, the players canceled a union meeting scheduled in Los Angeles for Monday.

Before negotiations resumed on Sunday night, owners and the league had seemingly issued an ultimatum, according to the union, to the players that they must accept a 50 percent split on BRI before negotiations could resume. The owners reject the union’s assertion that they established any preconditions. Nonetheless, the owners  made it clear that no further meetings would occur because they would not go beyond an even split in revenue sharing.

All along, the players have been holding steadfast at their mark of 53 percent of BRI. They were receiving 57 percent of basketball related income under the previous Collective Bargaining Agreement. Many of the league’s marquee players were not present at the meeting on Sunday night as they were playing in the rematch of the Drew League and Goodman League in Los Angeles. However, they were very cognizant that the meeting was taking place and held rank when they spoke about the labor dispute.

“We’re going to stand firm no matter what,” Kevin Durant said. “If we miss games we miss games. We might have to sacrifice a few for the betterment of the league, but I don’t think we’re going to give in just because we missed a few games.” He added, “We moved down from 57 to 53 and I think the owners got to work with us.” Other players echoed those remarks.

It has been the players who have given up the most in the labor negotiations so far. The owners, and Stern, will be quick to point out that a hard cap is no longer on the table and that they have moved their demands that the players accept just 42 percent of BRI all the way up to 50 percent. In terms of monetary losses, however, it is the players who have sacrificed. Dropping from 57 percent to 53 percent represents a cumulative loss of approximately $160 million in player salary. If the players were to move down to the 50 percent that the owners want their losses would increase to $280 million. The owners have yet to concede one dime.

With the players and owners holding firm, the two sides have reached an impasse. Monday’s meeting could tell a lot about where the two sides stand or, more realistically, if either side will flinch. Monday will be the sixth time that the NBA and NBPA have met in the past eleven days in an attempt to resolve their issues. During the lockout in 1998, the league and the union only met once before regular season games were canceled. At least this time the two sides appear to be trying.

However, they will have to try harder. That will not be an easy task as the owners have a proposal for an amnesty clause to be included in the new CBA. The clause, nicknamed the Gilbert Arenas Clause, which would allow teams to shed a bad contract in which a team sees no dividends but is paying an exorbitant amount for a player. Essentially it would allow the owners to wipe clean their bad business decisions. In the real world only a government bailout can save a business from itself, bad business decisions are rarely rewarded with a provision to erase mistakes. Owners also want to do away with a player’s “Bird rights.”

The owners are asking for a considerable amount from the players but the amnesty clause and the Bird exception are not the elephant in the room. BRI is the point of contention. If the two sides cannot come to an agreement on it then the likely hood of the season starting on time is nil. The players have drawn a line in the sand at 53 percent and, judging by what has been said leading up to Monday’s meeting, will not move from it. For the players, this is their Alamo, they are taking a stand against a larger and more powerful foe, intent on extracting as much from them as possible. Hopefully for the players, this scenario turns out better for them than it did for the men inside the mission in San Antonio. If they are forced to capitulate, however, they will be the rallying cry at the next CBA negotiations.

No matter the outcome of the meeting Monday, it is unlikely that the NBA season will start on time. The two sides would need time to draft the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Then there would have to be a week of free agency, which would likely be one of the most frantic weeks that the NBA has ever seen. Beyond that, there needs to be time set aside for training came and the possibility of a few preseason games. In total, it would take and estimated three to four weeks, and that is if all matters were to be resolved Monday. The regular season is scheduled to begin on November 1.

Games will be lost, there is no doubt about it. Neither side has shown a willingness to compromise as the clock strikes eleven. Everything could change after the meeting on Monday, but why should it? The closest whiff of a deal between the two sides was “How u.” Get used to more exhibition games because they will be the only games that players will take part in for the foreseeable future. At least most of them are streaming online now.

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by | October 8, 2011 · 5:01 PM

Stephen Colbert understands the NBA Lockout

The owners and the league have been catching a lot of flak recently because of their refusal to actually concede anything in the ongoing Collective Bargaining discussions. Is this right, though. Billionaire owners are people too. They have feelings and just what their opinions expressed. A 50/50 Basketball Related Income split is really just an olive branch. It is the players that are being greedy. Each one of them has a lucrative shoe and sports drink deal on the side, don’t they? They are the ones hurting the fans and preventing thousands of arena workers from having gainful employment. Stephen Colbert knows this and that is why he, like all red-blooded Americans should, has sided with the owners. Forget player rights, the owners are the ones being slighted on their investment. Poor owners, we feel for you…and we do not want to watch hockey. Ever.

 

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by | October 3, 2011 · 10:16 AM

Hooray! NBA Training Camps have started and it is Media Day!

Wait…what the? Where are the players? Where are the coaches? Where is the media? This is supposed to be a great day. What happened? Quick, Blake Griffin, fill us in on what is going on:

@blakegriffin First day of training camp finally here can’t wait for… Oh what’s that NBA owners? You won’t let us play? Sorry everybody…

Oh, the lockout. That’s right. Damn. *Sigh*

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by | September 26, 2011 · 1:40 PM

As the Lockout Continues, the Owners draw the Blame

Don't you believe me?

There is a rather large swing taking place in the matter of public opinion, as Henry Abbott pointed out earlier this month, where the NBA lockout is concerned. No longer are the players the ones who are chided for being greedy and wanting more than is feasibly necessary to earn for playing a game at a high level. It should be understood that the players, however, are also not seen as the victims. They are pieces in the grand scheme of the NBA hierarchy, but they are the pawns. Owners have the power, owners never get traded or benched. They have the money and are not content with what they have.

David Stern has been beating his war drum with the rallying cry that the NBA is no longer a lucrative or solvent endeavor for many of the owners. Namely those in small markets. This cry has deadened the ears of all that pay the slightest amount of attention to the NBA or sports in general. Even NPR has run stories about the lockout in the past week. It is affecting more than the basketball world.

What is at stake is terms surrounding a new collective bargaining agreement. If Stern is to be believed, the new agreement must mean that players should shoulder the burden and take all around cuts so that the owners, and their teams, can yet again become fiscally sound. On the surface that may appear as a reasonable agreement. Players make millions as it is, and if they were to agree to such a deal they would continue to make millions. Just not as many millions of dollars. Money is money, right? What would the owners give up though? What is their concession to help the league profit?

The CBA was structured, up until the lockout, with the players receiving 57 percent of Basketball Related Income from the teams. That is the money earned from the sales of merchandise, clothing, ticket sales, parking fees, television contracts, et cetera. Players, in an attempt to move forward in negotiations with the owners, have offered to lower their BRI to 53 or 54 percent. Honestly, it is quite a concession by the players and their union, but the owners do not seem to pleased. David Aldrigde reports:

A source says last week’s latest proposal from the owners to the players started at 50 percent of Basketball Related Income in year one of the (still) 10-year offer, and dropped into the mid-40s for most of the rest of the proposed deal. Is that better than the initial 61-39 owners’ split offer back in February? Yes. But it is still not anywhere close enough to get a deal with the players. Hard to imagine this isn’t exactly how the owners anticipated this would go, and that there won’t be anything of substance to report until the first game checks to players go unprinted in mid-November.

Owners must really be hurting if they are asking the players to take such large cuts to their salaries over such an extended amount of time. The economy must be especially rough for billionaires. It is so tough, that the owners also want a hard cap so that they cannot over-extend their budgets when it comes to acquiring players and subsequently paying them. Plus a hard cap should make the league more competitive. Right?

Essentially, a hard cap is a way for the owners to check themselves and not over pay on a bad investment. Billionaire business men know that there should be no risk in a high stakes deal so why should they front the burden for their own mistakes? That just does not seem like a fair deal. Owning an NBA franchise is a business, after all. That is what Stern has been saying all along. The owners just want to protect their product and their investors. None of them ever felt that their team was something more than that, something more than a business investment wherein profit was the ultimate goal. Especially not Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and one of the most hardline elements at the labor talks.

“To me, NBA franchises are like pieces of art. There are only 30 of them. They aren’t always on the market, especially a franchise that would have been such a natural fit. … If you just looked at the Cavaliers in terms of revenues, profits and balance sheets — and you paid this amount for it — people would say ‘You’re insane! You’re nuts.’ But if you look at all the tentacles, the impact on our other venues, it makes tremendous sense. We have now opened a Cleveland office [of Quicken Loans] and that’s tremendously successful. Our employees love it that we’re associated with the Cavs and can come to games — that helps us attract and keep better people. There are a lot of nonprofit things that can be done with pro sports. It brings an unbelievable amount of excitement.”

That is a quote by Gilbert. It seems that something must have soured his taste on the beauty and privilege of owning a masterpiece. It sure is a same that players have the freedom to chose what teams they can play for once their contracts expire and they become free agents.

Perhaps, though, Gilbert stumbled upon a novel idea, even if he does not buy into it anymore. Maybe the owners should run their teams like a non-profit. There has been a lot of talk about balanced budgets of late so it could behoove owners to balance their own books. However, it is clear that the task of estimating operational costs, gross income, salaries, and whether the team will be good enough to attract fans and sell merchandise to meet that budget is a hard task but these are professional business men. Plus, teams already do this. Obviously, the details will need to be worked out more but it is an option. One that might never be broached, but an option, nonetheless. Owners are savvy and shrewd, they could work something out.

A new outlook on how teams are ran could help the owners save money. Stern has cited on countless times that the small market teams are the ones that are suffering and has used Bruce Ratner’s sale of the New Jersey Nets, soon to become the Brooklyn Nets, to Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire, as a prime example of how the owners are hurting. Ratner sold the Nets due to the financial strains that the NBA is enduring even after acquiring (the term is used loosely here) land in Brooklyn, what is known as the Atlantic Yards project, to relocate the team in an attempt to make them more profitable. However, Malcolm Gladwell, who brought to light the Gilbert quote above, sees it differently:

Ratner has been vilified — both fairly and unfairly — by opponents of the Atlantic Yards project. But let’s be clear: What he did has nothing whatsoever to do with basketball. Ratner didn’t buy the Nets as a stand-alone commercial enterprise in the hopes that ticket sales and television revenue would exceed players’ salaries and administration costs. Ratner was buying eminent domain insurance. Basketball also had very little to do with Ratner’s sale of the Nets. Ratner got hit by the recession. Fighting the court challenges to his project took longer than he thought. He became dangerously overextended. His shareholders got restless. He realized had to dump the fancy Frank Gehry design for something more along the lines of a Kleenex box. Prokhorov helped Ratner out by buying a controlling interest in the Nets. But he also paid off some of Ratner’s debts, lent him $75 million, picked up some of his debt service, acquired a small stake in the arena, and bought an option on 20 percent of the entire Atlantic Yards project. This wasn’t a fire sale of a distressed basketball franchise. It was a general-purpose real estate bailout.

Did Ratner even care that he lost the Nets? Once he won his eminent domain case, the team had served its purpose. He’s not a basketball fan. He’s a real estate developer. The asset he wanted to hang on to was the arena, and with good reason. According to Ratner, the Barclays Center (the naming right of which, by the way, earned him a cool $400 million) is going to bring in somewhere around $120 million in revenue a year. Operating costs will be $30 million. The mortgage comes to $50 million. That leaves $35 million in profit on Ratner’s $350 million up-front investment, for an annual return of 10 percent.3 “That is pretty good out of the box,” Ratner said in a recent interview. “It will increase as time goes on.” Not to mention that the rental market in Brooklyn is heating up, the first of Ratner’s residential towers is about to break ground, and his company also happens to own two large retail properties directly adjacent to Atlantic Yards, which can only appreciate now that there’s a small city going up next door. When David Stern says that the “previous ownership” of the Nets lost “several million dollars” on the sale of the team, he is apparently not counting the profits on the arena, the eminent domain victory, the long-term value of that extra 14 acres, or the appreciation of Ratner’s adjoining properties. That is not a lie, exactly. It is an artful misrepresentation. It is like looking at a perfectly respectable kasha knish and pretending it is a ham sandwich.

*Please read the entire article, it is one of the most important ones to date concerning the lockout, NBA, and the owners.

As Gladwell points out, the men who buy NBA franchises are not looking to solely profit from the revenue that the teams create. The team is merely a small part in a grander scheme that can net millions of dollars for the owners separately from just the day-today of basketball operations. Some owners purchase teams in order to secure concession rights to exclusively sell products that they also own. Texas Rangers Ballpark in Arlington sells Nolan Ryan beef products (hotdogs, hamburgers, sausage on a stick) exclusively. Ryan is the owner of the Rangers. Mike Ilitch, who owns the Detroit Red Wings and the Tigers, founded Little Ceasars Pizza. It is not hard to imagine what the official pizza of those two teams is. The Cavaliers play in Quicken Loans Arena, it is no coincidence that Dan Gilbert is the chairman and founder of Quicken Loans.

Others, like Ratner are in it for the real estate. A new stadium generates a lot of potential growth for an area immediately surrounding it. With that growth comes na obscene amount of profit potential. Ross Perot Jr. purchased the majority interest in the Dallas Mavericks in order to develop the area surrounding the American Airlines Center into what is now Victory Park. Mark Cuban, who has had a nasty legal dispute with Perot Jr., is now the majority owner of the Mavericks, but Perot Jr. is still a minority stake in the team. It is clear why he gave up ownership of the team. It was the same reason Ratner sold the Nets. The teams had served their purpose. NBA franchises are not works of art. They are business collateral. The new arena that will be built in Sacramento to placate the Maloofs and the NBA in order to keep the Kings will be yet another prime example of this.

By demanding that the players take drastic cuts to their salaries, the owners are attempting to move their ownership of the teams from a prestigious business tool that can garner them more in the long run to a possible longer term business holding. Not only would their developments make them the money, but there would also be an added benefit of their teams making them more money than before. It would no longer mean that a successful team would make money, under the owner’s plans even the teams that drag along the bottom of the league would be financially sound because the players would be the ones taking the cuts.

As more and more information reaches the public on how the owners, not all of them, operate the more their opinions shift. It is not the players who are greedy, they just want their share. David Stern can beat his war drum all he likes, circle the owners’ wagons, and declare that the financial sky is falling. Why stop now? What he must realize is that many owners see the teams as an expendable building block. Why should the players be the ones to suffer most? Fans do not pay money to see the business operations of an NBA team on game night, they pay to see their favorite players perform in the highest professional level of the sport in the world. As the lockout wears on, it is the owners who will start to be the ones who take more of the blame. They have not only locked out the players but also all those people who work in the arenas and parking lots during the games. Beyond that, they have locked out the fans. They have locked out the NBA after one of its most successful seasons and keep demanding more. Patience has a limit, and patience with the owners  is wearing thin.

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by | September 15, 2011 · 11:10 PM

Dan Gilbert stalls Negotiations, does not care for ‘Bloggissists’

Can bloggissists fly? Fact or fiction? Sad or pathetic?

Oh, Dan Gilbert, what will he do next? By this point you have probably read that Gilbert, who is the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Robert Sarver, the owner of the Phoenix Suns reportedly torpedoed a potential breakthrough in the ongoing labor dispute. Dave McMenamin broke the story on ESPN.com:

Owners and players initially found reason for optimism during Tuesday’s meetings. Commissioner David Stern and Peter Holt, the head of the owners’ executive committee, felt that the players’ proposal to take 52 or 53 percent of basketball-related income, compared to 57 under the previous agreement, was basically fair, sources said.

Owners were seriously considering coming off of their demand for a salary freeze and would allow players’ future earnings to be tied into the league’s revenue growth, a critical point for players. The owners also were willing to allow the players to maintain their current salaries, without rollbacks, sources said.

But when the owners left the players to meet among themselves for around three hours, Cleveland’s Dan Gilbert and Phoenix’s Robert Sarver expressed their dissatisfaction with many of the points, sources said. The sources said that the Knicks’ James Dolan and the Lakers’ Jerry Buss were visibly annoyed by the hardline demands of Gilbert and Sarver.

Tuesday’s meeting went from productive to dead in the water in no time at all thanks, allegedly, to Gilbert and Sarver. It is clear that they are fully in favor of a hard cap so that they can have a stop-gap measure in place to protect themselves from overpaying players that do not deserve it. (Funny that both of these franchises had Shaquille O’Neal on their rosters long after his career began to wane.) Not only do they want to protect themselves but they want more money out of a new collective bargaining agreement. It is not like the players do anything important for the sport anyway.

What is interesting is that the owners now look to be the ones in trouble after this report was released. For weeks it was the players and Billy Hunter who were disjointed and at odds with each other as agents vied to undercut Hunter and push for union decertification, which they are still angling for. However, a rift is possibly growing within the ranks of the owners as two larger market owners were “visibly annoyed” that Gilbert and Saver would not relent on their stance so that talks could move forward.

With all this seemingly negative press swirling around it was only a matter of time before the outspoken Gilbert responded. Late Thursday evening he tweeted:

Some of these NBA ‘bloggissists’ flat-out make stuff up and then try to dupe readers into believing their fiction is real. Sad & pathetic.

Challenging the journalistic credibility of a respected writer is bad enough but making up a word and insulting basically the entire internet is a whole other level. Does Gilbert know that ‘bloggissists’ will be quick to point out every “sad & pathetic” thing that he has done throughout his tenure as the owner of the Cavaliers? Needless to say, Twitter went crazy after his tweet hit the timeline. Quickly @Bloggissist was created and even the Dallas Mavericks’ Brian Cardinal got in on the fun. If Gilbert’s goal was to make himself the punchline of every lockout joke for the duration of the dispute then he succeeded mightily.

Now, since this is a post by a bloggissist (Really? That is the word he came up with? Is he part Don King or something?) it is time to dupe the readers into thinking fiction is real. For example: the Cavaliers have won an NBA title. The teams that Gilbert paid for to surround LeBron James were really good. James planned to stay with the Cavaliers all along since he is from Ohio. J.J. Hickson is not tradable. Comic Sans is the world’s best font.

See how easy that was? You believe all of those fictitious remarks to be facts now, do you not? Oh? You do not? Hmm…oh well, sorry. That was just sad and pathetic. Almost as sad and pathetic as this:

Dear Cleveland, All Of Northeast Ohio and Cleveland Cavaliers Supporters Wherever You May Be Tonight;

As you now know, our former hero, who grew up in the very region that he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier.

This was announced with a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his “decision” unlike anything ever “witnessed” in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment.

Clearly, this is bitterly disappointing to all of us.

The good news is that the ownership team and the rest of the hard-working, loyal, and driven staff over here at your hometown Cavaliers have not betrayed you nor NEVER will betray you.

There is so much more to tell you about the events of the recent past and our more than exciting future. Over the next several days and weeks, we will be communicating much of that to you.

You simply don’t deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal.

You have given so much and deserve so much more.

In the meantime, I want to make one statement to you tonight:

“I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE”

You can take it to the bank.

If you thought we were motivated before tonight to bring the hardware to Cleveland, I can tell you that this shameful display of selfishness and betrayal by one of our very own has shifted our “motivation” to previously unknown and previously never experienced levels.

Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there.

Sorry, but that’s simply not how it works.

This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown “chosen one” sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And “who” we would want them to grow-up to become.

But the good news is that this heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called “curse” on Cleveland, Ohio.

The self-declared former “King” will be taking the “curse” with him down south. And until he does “right” by Cleveland and Ohio, James (and the town where he plays) will unfortunately own this dreaded spell and bad karma.

Just watch.

Sleep well, Cleveland.

Tomorrow is a new and much brighter day….

I PROMISE you that our energy, focus, capital, knowledge and experience will be directed at one thing and one thing only:

DELIVERING YOU the championship you have long deserved and is long overdue….

Dan Gilbert

Majority Owner

Cleveland Cavaliers

Remember that, Dan? Not sad and pathetic at all. Please feel free to take all the cheap shots you want, all of us bloggissits just want an NBA season. Apparently, that is just too much to ask for.

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