[Scorpion]

I bet older nba players, 31+ years old, don't like the current situation and want to play
They need money
Owners should lower their offer to 45%

[face]

negotiations breaking down. i bet some players are pissed and would just love to sign the thing and play for whatever the percentage is now. strikes suck because you make zero when you're not working.

[MartinBlank]

I am for the owners in this one.

The NBA season is too long, you have players giving shitty efforts-----If the owners need to sacrifice a year to get their house in order, so be it. It's their business.

[bettilimbroke999]

The players just rejected the current offer, the NBA basically has been cancelled. Now they are filing an antitrust lawsuit against the NBA and are going to decertify the union, all this will take months to battle out in court and so the season has been cancelled.

Personally I wish theyd just offer the D-League players 100k a piece to play out the season, theyd jump through the roof with joy and the fact of the matter is most are not but one step below NBA level anyway (kinda like the Nationwide tour vs PGA Tour) and they could charge almost nothing for tickets.

[jimminn]

Players will be one sorry bunch. They are all overpaid now!! No NBA who cares . Plenty of college basketball.

[neverstoppers23]

i gotta admit the original poster is an idiot. I don't really feel getting all technical right now on the finicials of it, because i just got up a few minutes ago in a lot of pain and popped 5 pills, but seriously the 57-43 split that was agreed to years ago, some owners hated it a year after they agreed to it

they 50-50 split, most owners thought was too good!. they are the highest paid athletes in the usa, and the third most popular sport, hell they might not even be that. just read an article that mls attedance this year has actually been better the nba numbers.

there are so many reasons why the 50-50 was a great deal for the players.

[SBR_John]

There is almost no hope for NBA basketball this year, in fact after reading about the latest offer from the owners I really wonder if the owners ever really intended to have a season this year.

The 50/50 split, down from the 57/43 split in the players favor the previous 6 seasons is a dramatic change BUT the system changes are so large as to make one scratch their head in disbelief, essentially the NBA has chosen to sacrifice this season in an effort to reorganize the entire structure of the NBA.

The players essentially are ******, by that I mean if they reject this horrific offer they will be offered an even worse offer which they will obviously refuse and have only one choice which is to decertify the union and take their case to the courts, which will result in a loss of the season and probably as bad a deal as they are currently being offered anyway.

One part of the new proposal essentially eliminates guaranteed contracts (a staple of the NBA and one of the most valuable features for players) and instead allows the league at any time to demote the player to the D-league and adjust his salary down to 75k a year

The NBA is flat out recreating their entire system from scratch, every single problem they've had in the past financially and with the lack of competition causing the championship to always be won by only their very largest markets is being correct ALL AT ONCE.

I wish the books would post a line for whether or not there will be an NBA game played this year bc I would probably go huge on the NO, the owners have gone for the haymaker knockout blow in this negotiation and whether this year or the next the players are going to get a deal that is worlds worse than their previous one

Thats a real nice write up.

I actually think a 50-50 split is reasonable. It has a fair ring.

If they turn down this offer and de certify they risk ever having a union again. Some would likely never play again in the NBA. The owners would open try outs and a whole bunch of NBA players would cross adding insult to injury to the disbanded loyalists. Its union busting. Btw Im not for it just calling a spade a spade.

The ONLY way this union can extract a better deal in the future is when there is demand worldwide for professional basketball players. That day is inching closer but for now the NBA is where the elite millionaires play.

[bradthebloke]

is it true Gilbert Arenas was the main reason for the guaranteed contract rollback? lol.

[bettilimbroke999]

i gotta admit the original poster is an idiot. I don't really feel getting all technical right now on the finicials of it, because i just got up a few minutes ago in a lot of pain and popped 5 pills, but seriously the 57-43 split that was agreed to years ago, some owners hated it a year after they agreed to it

they 50-50 split, most owners thought was too good!. they are the highest paid athletes in the usa, and the third most popular sport, hell they might not even be that. just read an article that mls attedance this year has actually been better the nba numbers.

there are so many reasons why the 50-50 was a great deal for the players.

Well thank you lol. If you bothered to read more than first sentence I said that although the 7% drop in revenue split was very significant the real negative changes for the players occur within the system itself. No more guaranteed contracts (no more sign your name and instantly make millions a year regardless if you ever play again), shortening the length of contracts, adding a salary cap, etc all combine to make this one of the biggest knockout negotiations in sports history if not the biggest ever. Its also not so much that the current offer is unfair but that its SO much worse than the current CBA as to have the appearance of unfairness.

Lets say your boss was paying you 60k a year to be his accountant and then he said he was going to drop your pay to 30k this year, well to a new accountant applying for the job the 30k might seem perfectly fair and in an objective sense 30k might be fair pay for the work but to you that drop to 30k would seem like a boot shoved hard up your ass as your pay is being cut in half.

[SBR_John]

Lets say your boss was paying you 60k a year to be his accountant and then he said he was going to drop your pay to 30k this year, well to a new accountant applying for the job the 30k might seem perfectly fair and in an objective sense 30k might be fair pay for the work but to you that drop to 30k would seem like a boot shoved hard up your ass as your pay is being cut in half.

First of all your example is off. Its a 15% cut, not 50% and it doesnt start until next year and no one under contract takes any cuts until they play out their contract(is the way i understand it).

Second, a more accurate example is a player that would of been signed for $10 million/yr having to instead scrape by on $8.5 million.

We would all be pissed if we went from $60k to $30k. But this is not that kind of deal. If the NBA can grow revenue by say 7.5% a year the players will actually make more in the 3rd year than this year. Great deal? certainly not, but its not worth quitting over and thats likely what will happen to a good many players if there is no deal.

[bettilimbroke999]

Yes my example was extreme but it was done more as a metaphor to demonstrate the difference between objective fairness and perceived fairness rather than as a direct comparison to the math of the new CBA offer.

Also you are ignoring the rest of my thread, the drop in revenue split is very significant but the system changes are all very dramatic as well, yes most changes are implemented 2+ years down the road but the agreement to implement them is being made now. Also, as I stated earlier, the players are going to accept this deal whether they like it or not, unless they want to take that job at McDs they have as their backup plan bc the court will never give them a better deal than is being currently offered.

15% drop in salaries, elimination of guaranteed contracts, salary cap, shortening contract lengths, etc, etc, etc. Every new proposal I've read about in the current offer is a dramatic change for the worse (for the players) and there are MANY changes, you can harp on the 15% salary drop all you like (if that were the only change being requested the players wouldnt have missed a game) but the fact is this is a complete WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN deal for the owners versus the old CBA.

NOW THAT BEING SAID, the players SHOULD HAVE taken the deal anyway. Why? Bc even though the deal is dramatically worse than the old one it is still the best deal they are ever going to get, the last CBA greatly favored the players, that time has passed and the players need to realize that and get back on the court.

[Roadtrip635]

Players should have taken the offer, those handful of elite players at the top will be fine but the majority of players are going to regret it. The players may not think it was fair compared to their previous deal, but there are too many struggling franchises, especially in smaller markets. The NBA has been pricing itself out of the market for many of the average fans and popularity has slipped accordingly.

[neverstoppers23]

Lets say your boss was paying you 60k a year to be his accountant and then he said he was going to drop your pay to 30k this year, well to a new accountant applying for the job the 30k might seem perfectly fair and in an objective sense 30k might be fair pay for the work but to you that drop to 30k would seem like a boot shoved hard up your ass as your pay is being cut in half.

That is such a bull shit comparison. Even with the 50/50 split nba players would still be the highest paid in the three major sports! The owners were durs agreeing to the 57 split years ago. The economy is shit right now, NBA attendance even before the economic down turn, has been doing down. People are just not interested in the nba anymore like they were years ago. Players have to understand that.

I don't understand who the **** is advising the union, i hope they are just not thinking about this themselves and not going with some independent agency. Because they are not going to get a better deal then 50-50.

Really the deal in the past, has not bearing on what should happen now. It should not even be thought about.

I will post more stats about how the NBA fiancials are shit right now, and most teams make no money. They are saving money and making money now with no nba games going. That is the sad fact of the NBA. The players just don't get that, they are not top shit, they are not the NFL, hell they are not even the MLB.
They better get a deal on fast, or people will move on. They won't just switch sports, but they may just forget about it, and when the NBA does come back on, they won't watch it. And the NBA's poor numbers will be even worse, and the nba will be talking about kicking teams out. Then the players will have more to bitch about.

[seaborneq]

Lebron meet Dan Gilbert. Dan Gilbert meet lebron James. Lebron, you had too much power when you left the cavs in a lurch last offseason. Dan Gilbert and other owners are making sure not only can you not leave but we can also take the air out of the basketball and your above the rim skills from you too. Checkmate. Go ahead and be a billionaire athlete without our money and league. Owners own and players play. Bad lesson to learn in this economy.

[cockblocker]

Negotiations are negotiations and this is THEIR business. I think its pretty dumb for the media and for fans to take sides. What if you were negotiating for a raise at your job and you had a reporter there in the room and an angry mob outside asking how dare you be asking for a raise when there are starving kids all over the world. Business is business, and it's not the fans business, so why take sides?

[Walter Abrams]

The way I read it the min contract would go from 5.1 to 8 million a year. That is the MINIMUM for a NBA player. If you notice not ALL NBA players are allowed to vote. Just 30 of them. They are all greedy and I hope the league shuts down. They will all be broke in 6 months with the lavish lifestyles they lead. You might see Lebron taking orders at your local drive thru window in 2012. Funny how karma is when he dropped the tweet "you people still wake up with your problems" Ya well too bad Lebron and other rich idiots like him couldnt make a dollar out of 15 cents. I bet these NBA players alone have blown through millions like water. Should be interesting to see someone who was once rich try to survive off little to no money. What will they do?

[andywend]

During the last 6 years, the players got an incredible deal with the 57% of basketball revenues along with so many advantages within the system itself.

The average NBA salary was $5.15 million, for Pete's sake.

Considering they got such an amazing deal dating back 6 years, its only fair they agree to what they believe is a shitty deal (average NBA salary being a meager $4.5 million annually, LOL).

This is what happens when you give any union everything they want again and again and again.

I had one union job in my life (in the early 1990's) and was paid $19/hour as a temporary worker for simple data entry. Union workers who had 20 years seniority were paid $34/hour along with 8 weeks paid vacation and up to 4 weeks paid sick leave per year (once again for data entry).

Not surprisingly, the company was bought out and moved to a right to work state.

[dozer]

A bunch of retards running and shotting a ball......i think they get enough

[SBR_John]

I got a sneaky feeling the players thought the recent tactic was a long shot but worth a try. For me to be right there would need to be some quick movement say by the end of next week. If I'm right some group probably a small group of senior players will step in, contact the owners and ask for a informal vote among the players trade group. Its face saving but still gives them a shot at a sweetener or two to the current offer.

[PAULYPOKER]

Are you Bipolar?

me?

Looks like we have a self diagnose here............

[nyplayer33]

Exacrtly, i'm in NY and they price of tickets went up almost 50 percent...let's see.what wil NBA layers do without a job...answer work at walmart?? I find it interesting how they can play hardball and have no other option for work...in the fkin 70's they made litttle compared to now and u could easily go to a game if u were some joe shmo

[nyplayer33]

dont forget they sleep in hotels topo notch and get meal money like 80 or more per day on the road..wow just wow

[nyplayer33]

I love how the ghetto people who make 8 bucks an hour sides with the players..lol

[UNCGQ]

Hunter and Fisher have over-played their hands (and I imagine, many on their side have been given bad information by people who don't have their best interests in mind).

Don't get me wrong, $20M is a lot of money, but not when you're negotiating with billionaires. Especially for many of whom, owning an NBA franchise is a 'play-toy'. Eventually the fun wears off when they have to deal with things like labor negotiations and now "it's business".

The players association leadership has played hard the entire time, not wanting to look like they caved, but guess what, you're not the NFL. If an entire season is missed, many folks will care, but again, it's not the NFL. Many of the owners are financially better off missing an entire season than try and jump-start one at the last minute. Many owners were upset with giving up as much as they did in the most recent version of the deal.

The deal will never get better for the players. Never. They will never make up these missed game checks. Never.

For me, the only real question is, when does the union fold and over-throw Fisher and Hunter (either publicly or privately) and get something done or do they actually go through with this decertification madness. Leadership never let their full membership vote on the plan, and I imagine if they did, it would be something significantly less than the unanimous vote it received from the player reps.

I think somebody on the player's side thought that the owner's were afraid to cancel the season and the decertification move would get them the leverage they wanted. Owner's never blinked. They insta-called and pushed all in.

Personally, I could care less if there was ever pro ball again, I'm just not a fan. I just can't believe how much the Player's Association leadership (and others on that side) over-played their hand in all of this. They were never going to get public support (even by playing the race card and all the other public statements that were made) to the level which it would affect the owners position.