By Chris Sheridan
NEW YORK — I am disgusted and speechless.
I trusted wise men to act wisely. I believed in common sense prevailing. I think the NBA owners are nuts to go down this road. They just lost a significant percentage of their fair-weather fans.
Idiocy rules the day. How very, very sad.
Not just sad. Stupid.
Michael Johns says
Dear Owners and players of the NBA please reach an agreement so our communities who support you can get back to work during these difficult economic times.this is about providing jobs in communities.Please have the courage to live by your Motto The NBA cares.
Clueless in NY says
“Wise men”?
Chris, you’re talking about NBA players here. Good luck finding wisdom in that group.
VICTOR says
ALL THE PEOPLE HARPING ON HOW MUCH THE PLAYERS MAKE ARE JEALOUS OF
“EMPLOYEES” MAKING SO MUCH MORE THAN THEY ARE. THEY IDENTIFY WITH
BILLIONAIRES WHO ARE JUST LIKE THE ONES WHO WOULD CUT THEIR PAY OR SHIP THEIR JOBS OVERSEAS IN A MINUTE IF IT WOULD MAKE THEM A BUCK’. PROBALY 99%
HAVE NEVER OWNED A BUSINESS AND HAVE NO IDEA HOW BUSINESSES ARE RUN.
BY THE WAY, I AM A BUSINESS OWNER AND I TREAT MY EMPLOYEES LIKE I WANTED
TO BE TREATED WHEN I WAS AN EMPLOYEE. HAS ANY NBA OWNER SOLD A FRANCHISE FOR LESS THAN HE PURCHASED IT FOR? THERE AREN’T MANY BUSINESSES WHERE
YOU ARE GUARANTEED TO MAKE AN OPERATING PROFIT EVERY YEAR AND TO MAKE
A CAPITAL GAIN WHEN YOU SELL IT. THAT IS WHAT ALL TEAM OWNERS WANT. OF COURSE THEY ALSO WANT THE TAXPAYERS TO BUILD THEM ARENAS OR STADIUMS.
AND IN CASE YOU THINK TICKET PRICES GO UP BECAUSE OF THE “GREEDY” PLAYERS, THINK AGAIN. EVERY BUSINESSMAN TRIES TO MAXIMISE REVENUES AND MINIMIZE
COSTS. IF NBA SALARIES GO DOWN, THE OWNERS ARE NOT GOING TO REDUCE
TICKET PRICES, THEY ARE JUST GOING TO MAKE MORE MONEY!!!!!!!!!
Shem says
Victor, it appears you’ve had your head burried somewhere dark. The owners aren’t making money…so how can they make more of it? If I proposed a business venture with you in which I was going to make $22,000 next year and you were going to lose between $1000 and $3000 (depending on which accounting definitions you use) would you say yes? Of course not. That’s not a business partnership, that’s larsony. The players deserve most of the profits because they are the product. But the owners shouldn’t have to lose money putting on the league. That’s the bottom line.
joe says
GREED… pure and simple on both sides…..These players are street smart enough to extort money from owners with a huge ego…..lawyers are involved who want their cut……so there is enough GREED to go around on all of them….i say screw them all i will watch college BB instead…and more hockey…..lazy bums……go out and get a job…
Howard Hill says
JOE, the greed is on the owners side, not the players! The owners do not have to pay these outlandish bonuses and salaries. Winning is the name of the game. Owners want to get the best talent out there, and they are WILLING to outbid their peers to get it.
Franch says
The owners are the problem because they are the ones stupid enough to pay ridiculous salaries then expect the league to bail them out. Some owners are not as irresponsible with their teams (Spurs for example) and pay players what they are worth.
Further, people may say owners can be held hostage by star players but aren’t the other non-star players held hostage by their teams’ owners? How often are players traded so that the owners can get a player they want (e.g. the whole Carmleo trade!) If a small percentage of owners exercise their right to look for the best available offer it is not right to then to excuse the owners treatment of the rest of the players in the league.
The reason small market teams are losing their star players and not making a profit is due to the lack of a shared revenue amongst the teams in the league. The league needs a form of revenue sharing so that all teams can be profitable. It works in other leagues all over the world, but it is not used in the NBA. It must be noted that the league is composed of 32 teams not just 8 large market teams! The only way the league can expect to be profitable in the long run is for TV rights to be shared amongst the teams in a way similar to other professional leagues.
Darin B says
What small market team lost its star player because they couldn’t afford them?
Travis says
I greatly appreciate the owners for long ago taking the risk to invest their dollars in something they were not sure was going to work. There were certainly days it looked as if the league would fail and they would lose shirts. Now, the league has grown. The owners pay many of their employees salaries in a year that most folks will never make in a lifetime. I do not begrudge the owners any amount of return on their investment. At the end of the day, if the league shut down forever, the players walk away rich while the owners would lose their investment. The players are taking the hand that feeds them hostage and that is not right in any sense.
Andrew says
Hate to side with the owners, but the system needs fixing!
I watched the Knicks pay Eddy Curry millions of dollars for eating sandwiches and not playing basketball. If any employee of any company does not do their job for years, they should be fired… Not protected. Especially if you aren’t allowed to replace them (salary cap).
Yes, people will say, “Why did the owners give him this money.. it is their fault!” True to a degree. But you cannot estimate how far a players motivation will decrease once they sign a massive 5-6 year deal. I hate when sportscasters say a player will have a big year because he is in a “contract year”. Shouldn’t they strive to be their best all the time?
Also, injuries are part of the game. Minor, cronic injuries are even worse than career ending ones! Grant Hill is a great guy. Brandon Roy is a great guy. They both have/had injuries that prevented them from being franchise guys, even though they were getting franchise money. The teams are on the hook for year, and cannot replace these players due to salary cap restrictions. At least with a career ending injury, you can go out and sign another star with added cap room.
Yes, owners make awful decisions on contracts. Still, there is a limited supple of stars/quality players available every year. Joe Johnson is clearly not worth his contract, even though he is a solid player. They had to offer the max to keep him. If they don’t sign him, the team takes a step backwards on the court, and fans are up in arms saying management doesn’t care or spend. Rudy Gay gets a monster max deal, just because if a small market like Memphis doesn’t give it to him, he will bolt for a bigger market. They had to pay or lose him for nothing.
Also, franchises are held hostage by their stars in contract years. They either have to roll the dice and hope they sign (Lebron) or trade them for pennies on the dollar just to be safe (D. Williams). Lebron leaving Cleveland made them into a lottery team over night! But if the GM traded him first, the fans would be outraged, without Lebron saying he was leaving (which he wouldn’t).
This season, the D. Howard drama would be totally out of control all season without changes. Orlando would stink just because of this. On top of that, they made tons of panic trades to try to make him happy. Is this management’s fault? They had to try something or their franchise player would just walk, their fans would be pissed, and they would be a lottery team again. Now their problems are even worse AND he will leave. Now the only option is to trade him for pennies on the dollar to a team of HIS choosing (or he won’t sign an extension).
Bottom line is, changes are needed. What is wrong wit ha 4 year max contract??? If a player keeps himself in shape, tries hard, and helps his team win, he will get another one. If he bags it, sulks, and hurts his team, he won’t. And if a player gets an injury that takes him from an All-Star to solid role player, the team won’t be crushed long term. Also, end the sign and trade BS.
Robert Garber says
Couldn’t agree more. Overpaid players are spoiled. Owners have the investment. Average player salaries are a joke as are length of contracts. Unproven players get millions. No question that some teams are losing money. When the average player does without a paycheck he may understand.
Go owners….
clevelandbrad says
Andrew, you are 100% correct in everything you wrote. This should be required reading for every single sportswriter who doesn’t understand why the NBA is so screwed up.
It is so frustrating when people compare the labor situation in the NBA to the NFL. Due to the nature of the game, players have a much bigger impact on the game then they do in the NFL. Therefore, as Andrew wrote, something needs to give the “small market” teams a chance to keep their teams competitive by keeping their star players.
What may be good for Miami and New York may be good for TV ratings and the game’s “popularity”, but does not help the other owners in smaller, less desirable markets trying to field a competitive team. You may say, “Look at what Oklahoma City is doing! They resigned Durant!” And I say, let’s see what happens when Durant is an unrestricted free agent. No players walk after their rookie contracts. So Durant’s extension is not that surprising.
I’m glad the small-market owners are standing up to the large-market owners and not just settling for the status quo. Since the large-market teams will make a large profit this season and want the season to start (as do the players obviously), it will be interesting to see what labor agreement is ultimately agreed upon.
Andrew says
Thanks Brad. I am a Knicks fan FYI and still believe the system is screwed up. Knicks management obviously made some serious bone head decisions, especially when Thomas was in charge. Teams should 100% pay for bad management, but for how long?
With guaranteed contracts and even a soft cap, a bad contract can cripple an organization for 5-6 years, not allowing them to compete. Who gets hurt? The fans.
In the season before the Knicks got Curry, he averaged 16 points and 5 boards in 28 mins. These are pretty good numbers for a center that is only 23 years old. His scoring average increased every year to that point. I am not supporting the signing, but could understand their reasoning at the time.
Now, if that player is horribly out of shape EVERY pre-season, shows no motivation, and gets injured due to not taking care of his body (it isn’t like he blew out his knee going for a rebound), the team should be on the hook for every penny and not be able to replace him if they are capped out?
If i make a bad hire at work, and the employee is literally not even trying to do his job, should I have to keep him because I made a bad hire? Most workers in this world are motivated by money and keeping their job. We do not live in this ideal world where everyone is self motivated. For every player like Kobe and Durant, there is a Baron Davis and Eddy Curry. It isn’t fair to say it is the owner’s fault because they expected a player to come in, work hard, and do their job. That is what 99% of the entire workforce in this country is expected to do (the other 1% is our government).
Alexfromdownunder says
Always found Chris’ logic that a deal would be done as sound, obviously the owners want peace on their terms only. Players should start their own league! Certainly there will be no contractual impediments as all contracts are null and void
Michael Ramsden says
Gobsmacked.
If I didn’t love the game of basketball so much I’d vow never to watch another game, and never to buy any other piece of merchandise but I know will. They’ve got me (and others) by the balls so to speak and that’s rubbish.
I hope they can sort this out soon, but then again I was optimistic about it before. At the rate I’ll be surprised if we get to see any NBA this calendar year.
Otis says
The NBA revenue after player salaries is 50% (the owners take 300-400 million off the top the rest is BRI)of gross income which comes to 2.1 billion. The NHL owners get 45% for a total of 1.3 Billion dollars. The operate the same arenas, travel and hotel accomadations, team doctors etc. And its the NBA owners who are losing money. Hunter should have given Stern his hard cap and made proportionate to the NHL ( the NBA does a third more revenue) 85 mil hard cap 65 mil floor.Since they want to be the NHL let em
dan says
Hey if the players don’t like it they can form their own league.
Let the expert like LeChoke and KG form their own league. Let them run their own “NBA”
Let them decide how much they want to pay Luke Waltons
I am sure the players and their high powered agents can go to any banks
and take out loans. Let them create an “NBA” league
Andrea says
Disappointed. Disappointed and sad. That’s how I’m feeling right now. Personally, I didn’t necessarily expect a deal tonight, but I was positive there would’ve been strong progress and sides would’ve gotten a deal in the next few days. And now us diehards are left here with no basketball until mid-November AT BEST, with no idea when the next meetings are going to be, with at least another few weeks of annoying labor talk when all I want to talk about is ACTUAL basketball, and surrounded by a boatload of NBA haters and columnists who have not watched an NBA game since Ronald Reagan was president who will trash NBA basketball to no end for the foreseeble future.
We NBA fans deserve better than this.
Extremely sad.
David says
I survived the NHL lockout in 2004-05, and it went into a second summer. It’s not life and death. It’s not worth the outrage, and the sport will rebound just like the NHL did. In fact, the NHL today has a hard cap – which keeps rising. So to me, the players are overly fixated on the NFL model and not enough on the NHL model.
A word of warning to the players. The NHL settlement was not as good as the offers they had early in the dispute.
David Stern isn’t kidding when he says the owners will take their lockout losses out of the players’ hides.
ignarus says
I literally haven’t given half a shit about the NHL since that lockout. The generation of players I liked is gone and it’ll take a miracle for me to flip to a hockey game and not keep flipping for something I’m interested in.
I don’t blame the NHL players either. I just stopped caring for a few years and there was nothing I was familiar with to come back to.
You’re right to say it’s not worth the outrage, but like other relationships that go bad, they end when you have a chance to walk away.
Gregel says
A plague on both their houses! A plague on both their houses!
Karl says
Chris today is truly a sad day. These people are die-hard NBA fans. I hate to say it but the whole concept that your site was created with has turned into a failure. You promised or were heavily leaning, publicly towards an outcome that you had no control over and it didnt happen.
The owners would start to gain real leverage and momentum in the negotiations only when the relatively lowly players started to lose paychecks. Thats about to happen and I guess thats the silver lining in this mess.
I dont understand how the NBA will lose fans. It wont although I wish it would so that the owners wouldnt be so demanding. Once the NBA starts again probably in December, it’ll almost be like the NBA never skipped a beat while the owners will have a new CBA that meets their high demands.
Chris, I truly appreciate your in-depth coverage but you leave a bitter taste in my mouth because you made me second-guess myself and ESPN analysts including Chris Broussard who was very realistic and said the whole time theres a real possibility that games will be missed.
The true NBA fan that I am, I’ll miss November 1st, and remember what was supposed to happen that day.
Erik says
Chris gave his opinion…he didn’t promise anything. It is disappointing but Chris did a wonderful job. I definitely appreciated it!
kantankruz says
^This.
How in anyway is this Chris Sheridan’s fault? I still believe a deal could have easily been done and as Chris said common sense should have prevailed.
MojoJojo says
Karl, how old are you? You think simply because a writer gives an optimistic opinion of how things are going to turn out that you have any right to come in here and act as if it was a contract in writing? Are you as mad when Terry Bradshaw says a team is going to win and they don’t? Get a Life!
Heat 24 says
I agree with Chris….DISGUSTED! The most disgusting part is it seems that the owners are doing the happy feet dance.. One moment they back off the original proposal of system issues when BRI was the main issue… Then they have the audacity to not only cancel the first two weeks but say we are far apart on system issues and basically but back on the table all the things youn SAID you relaxed on and are bascially offering your original proposal. To me 51.5 was the right thing to do as far as economics and system issues are just another machination of the owners to create a full proof system disgused under competative balance. To me this dance doesn’t look likenit will end soon or rationally.Maybe a court mediator can help. DISGUSTED AND BESIDES MYSELF!
clevelandbrad says
Chris, you are an excellent writer but I’ve been reading this website since the beginning and you really misread the tea leaves on this one. Common sense IS prevailing. It’s irrelevant that the NBA is more “popular” than ever before, it’s the simple fact that the small market teams were losing money, and more importantly losing relevance (by losing their star players to the bigger\more glamorous cities) that has been the cause of this lockout. The players may be losing money by not playing, but the owners aren’t if they are already in the red. With that said, you cannot have a “league” when only 5 teams (Chicago, LA, NY, Miami, Dallas) can compete for top players every year. The fact that the season was delayed even though the “franchise” tag was off the table months ago (which IMO is a key concept that the NBA needs to adopt to keep the small market teams more competitive) is not a good sign. I thought the larger markets were going to be able to “bribe” the smaller markets with luxury tax payments, revenue sharing etc. to win them over. Apparently not. At least not yet. Regardless, until the small market teams are satisfied that they can compete in the “new” NBA of superteams and big-city glamor and glitz and not just be the Washington Generals, we might not be seeing the NBA for a long time.
Chris, with that said, keep up the good work. Your keen insight and analysis, even though I disagree with some of it, is much appreciated.
THY says
I don’t care which party is being greedy or which one isn’t. If both parties had two years to prepare for this, then shame on them all. That goes to show how much greed these folks have. Both seem to be looking out for themselves when there are thousands of workers who are left out in the cold because of their greed. There is too many smart people involved to have let it get to this point. I’m done with the NBA, especially with the season that is in store for college basketball, and look how much money they make entertaining America.
How is it that the owners loose $300 million (from reports I’ve read) last year and choose to loose another $200 million by cancelling the first two weeks of the season. Looks to me like thats $500 million in losses and growing. How is that money going to be recouped?
This isn’t owner bashing, the players are just as wrong. Yes you are the product, but you wouldn’t have a venue if it wasn’t for the NBA. Its a game that you are extremely good at and most of you have played for novelty through out the off season.
There is only a hand full of players worth great amounts of money. For example you put Bosh or Joe Johnson in Charlotte, you get 2000 more fans at most to show up. You put Wade, Bryant, Durant, or James in Charlotte, you get sell outs every night. Maybe the NBA and/or the over paid players need to make a special account to subsidize these players paychecks for true market value if an agreement is ever made.
Sincerely,
Former NBA Fan, go TarHeels
Erik says
Over paid players are the owners fault…reason we have a lockout is that owners do not know how to spend. But the players are at fault here because they wouldn’t have a venue if it weren’t for the NBA??? Um…ok?
Brian says
Chris great job on the coverage the whole time…you gave me hope that reason would prevail and they would get a deal done.
That being said, I think the players are going to be the ones to cave first. The owners seem to have all the leverage. The only scenario I can see the owners caving is if a big star goes overseas and gets hurt. The first time an owner sees his star getting hurt he will crack I guarantee that. I hope it doesn’t come to that and I hope no player gets hurt but I think that might be the only way for the owners to cave. Otherwise it has to be the players.
Gene Triplehorn says
sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad,sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sadsad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, , sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, ssad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, ad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad,
Clipper George says
Chris is still appreciate the optimism you have had all along, even if things didn’t work out. As a Clipper season ticket holder, I implore all season ticket holders to get a refund for games missed. Don’t let those greedy owners keep our money until next year.
Joe says
Get’em Stern!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Brz88 says
hey erik have you heard some of these players talk? i don’t think theyve graduated the third grade.
Erik says
I assure you that they probably have graduated from the third grade. What that has to do with the NBA lockout…you tell me, Brz88???
TheSandman says
CHRIS FOR COMMISSIONER! Stern, Hunter, Silver, Fisher, FIRE THEM ALL!
Joel says
the owners dropped the ball on this one since the start. if they had come to the table in June with a 50-50 split, there could be a deal by now, they offended the players to the point where its now about respect more than money. i think now that the owners have wanted this all along. a canceled season could break the players and give them a ridiculously unfair deal. if this goes to court…. i think the nba will be set back years if they miss this season. i was all for the owners but stern acted like they were making concessions when the players where the only ones willing to negotiate. ncaa basketball is about to get some rating spikes.
random nba fan says
Yes NBA fans everywhere will miss those 100 games. But we will continue to hope that the game that we love gets back onto the hardwood sooner rather than later.
Joe says
I hope they lose the season and fix the problem with the league way too many nothings making way too much what reason do these guys have to be making the most in sports it is 3rd most popular sport in the country only ahead of Hockey. I actually think it is a good thing to have kids watching more college ball anyways. Nail these fucking players Nail’em!!!!!!!!
Mike says
New solution:
Since the owners and players have proven too inept to work out a solution, let the fans decide. The proposed BRI split from the owners is 47/53 and the exact opposite from the players. Let the fans vote on some number in that range.
Let the fans vote on the size of the mid-level.
Let the fans vote on luxury tax or hard cap.
Let the fans vote on age minimums.
Let the fans vote on guaranteed contracts.
Let the fans vote on contract lengths.
Let the fans vote on any issue the owners and players can’t agree on.
We pay for the products, we should have some say in the process. Give each side one week to make their case to the public and then let the people who actually pay the salaries decide who gets paid what. Enough of this stupid back and forth. It’s time to finalize this and move on.
Tim Mc says
Thumbs up!
ignarus says
You were right, though, Chris — at least to the extent that you said that this absolutely had no reason to happen. You just didn’t account for how greedy these owners actually are.
Sorry.
ignarus says
This is 100% David Stern’s fault. His greed and utter disregard for the players, the fans, and the game of basketball disgusts me.
Nothing makes you feel like being a casual fan this this garbage.
Bill says
I would like to put blame on everybody. The players disregard the fans and the game just as much! Nobody’s making any money if it weren’t for the fans of the game.
The players have been claiming that they are staying put at 53% because they want to preserve the work past players put in for them, and to preserve the future for the other players, which is such BS. The world and the economy have changed, so what was fought for in the 80s and 90s is irrelevant. Even if the players reduced their share to 50-50, they’d still make much more money than any NBA player did in the past. And are future NBA players in that much trouble that the millions they still will make when they get into the league won’t be enough?
Likewise, the owners are idiots to believe they deserve an equal share of the BRI. Pretty sure no one goes to NBA games because Dan Gilbert owns the Cavs or because Ted Leonosis spent a bunch of money to own the Wizards. The players are the attraction, and thus should make more money
ignarus says
I’d consider spreading the blame around if I thought for a split second that David Stern had bargained in good faith. But he didn’t. He made not a *single* concession and demanded that the players take a cut of the BRI that’s FAR less than what any other athletes from a major professional league get.
The players offered to cover 3x what the league’s actual losses were from the get-go. The lockout should have ended there.
But instead, the owners will try to get every last nickel that they can at the expense of the very sport that everyone else cares about.
The players could have demanded all kinds of crazy bullshit, too. 98% of BRI! No more soft cap! No draft! No age minimum! No rookie scale contracts! No max contracts! No max contract lengths! No restricted free agency! All contract years are player options! Moped riding is allowed!
But the players didn’t ask for any of that nonsense while David Stern never once tried to put out a proposal that wasn’t flatly insulting to the players that built this sport.
I’d be pissed at all parties if I had ANY reason to think that David Stern had negotiated with even the slightest bit of sincerity or integrity.
ignarus says
More to the point, if the owners had been AT ALL reasonable in this process, the players could have accomodated them and we’d ended the lockout months ago.
But when the owners are have no limit to their greed, the players are stuck drawing a line in the sand and we’re all stuck with this ridiculous bullshit.
ignarus says
The owners hadn’t even worked out revenue sharing before demanding that the players offer concessions to balance profits between large and small markets.
Screw that.
Geoff C says
Here’s the problem. The owners can get together and decide to really hold their ground for the sake of their future. They don’t care about near term losses because they are all BILLIONAIRES and this is just one of their many ventures.
The players have nothing else and probably have to fold first. But how pathetic would it be if the players eventually gave in to the terms they initially turned down? They will have given up weeks of the regular season for nothing.
Clearly, that won’t happen, they will move the owners a little further down the line and eventually reach a compromise that is not only fair but somehow makes both sides look as ‘not-stupid’ as possible.
That being said, can’t they just figure out what that number is now and get it over with? This seems so pathetic. I am ashamed to be a fan of this sport filled with pathetic, egotistical MORONS who somehow manage to ALL fail at their jobs, simultaneously. This is so pathetic. Ego’s and posturing get in the way of logic and reason, just like our government, but our government, slow and confused as it may be, manages to get it done when it is absolutely necessary.
Nobody involved with this deserves to keep their jobs.
Bill says
Geoff, it seems to me that everyone not involved in the negotiations knows what that magic number is. If the owners want 50, and the players want 53, then the magic number is 51.5. Is it really that hard for them to meet each other half way?
Starting now, both sides will harden their stances and most likely lose more money than they would have by meeting other at that magic number. I think the players will fold, because like you said, the owners have far more money tucked away, and it will all be for nothing
ignarus says
The owners’ demand is absurd. No major team sport pays its players 47%. So if the owners start there, it just doesn’t count. It just doesn’t *matter* what one side wants when they’re asking for waaaaaay too much.
Saying “let’s just meet in the middle” is simplistic and encourages both sides to ask for outrageous concessions.
How many bailouts should Robert Sarver get??
Mike says
I can’t decide who I’m more angry at; the owners who are demanding a larger split than any other professional sport league in the US and who can’t manage to keep their teams from losing money (despite bringing in millions a year), or the players who make more on average than any other sport and would be working minimum wage jobs were it not for the NBA.
It would have been nice for one side to acknowledge the fans during this process. It seems like both sides forget that we’re the ones paying the obscene ticket prices, reading the news articles, buying cable TV, etc just so we can watch people play basketball.
It’s time for both sides to grow up, quit playing games, and stop screwing over the fans. This is embarrassing and shameful to everyone involved.
Erik says
It’s a lockout, Mike…not a strike. The NBPA were the only people making concessions, not the owners. The Owners have been planning this for awhile now so how are you going to get mad at the players? Get real, man.
And what’s with the ignorance? You’re telling me D. Fisher and Kobe Bryant would be working minimum wage jobs? I guarantee you most of the players in the NBA are probably more intelligent than your ridiculous self.
Karl says
Well over half of NBA players have no real skills besides bball so Erik youre wrong. They would probably be working at a minimum wage job. Many cant even pass high school without major help so college is a far cry. Although players like D-Fish and Kobe seem pretty intelligent. Can you imagine what KG, Rondo, Pierce, D-Howard, Amare, Melo, D-Rose and other superstars would be doing? They’d be toiling away like us if they didnt have their God-given abilities.
ERIK SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH. MIKE IS SPEAKING SENSE.
Randy says
Let me guess Karl- you don’t make much, do you? And decorum isn’t your strong suit, based on your attempts to “scream” at someone digitally via the use of CAPS LOCK. Based on your inability to properly use punctuation, or to transition into a sentence correctly, I’d imagine your highest level of education is 11th grade? Maybe a year’s worth of college, now you’re back in your small town, “tolling away”, like you say.
Ignorant, right? Just as ignorant as your attempt to broadly paint “over half” of NBA players as uneducated individuals with limited skills. I’m sure that you, much like 99% of the general public, does not know, nor will they know an NBA player personally. I’d ask that you keep your comments limited to the labor strike- the idea that the players’ financial solvency is in any way related to the hypothetical scenario that they’d not have these athletic skills is preposterous. Let’s hold the “blogosphere” to a higher standard, all.
Erik says
lol well compared to you, Karl, Mike was speaking sense. Why so angry, man? Many can’t pass high school w/o major help so college is a far cry? Wow! Your senseless comments are a thing of art. Good job!
Mike says
I don’t deny the owners are at fault, I just think the players have plenty of blame to share in this endeavor.
I also don’t doubt that there are many players who would be successful regardless of whether they played basketball or not (some people have a knack for success). Look at all the college basketball players who didn’t make it into the NBA, what jobs do they hold? They may not be making minimum wage, but they certainly aren’t making 10% of what the average NBA player makes.
And lets not resort to petty name calling. I’m sure there are plenty of NBA players who are more intelligent than I am, but I have completed a couple of advanced degrees and am working on my third (actually, that may prove your point, never mind).
ignarus says
The players make more on average because there are fewer players. It’s *literally* nothing more than that. Individual players are more valuable in basketball than in *any* other major professional team sport.
Look at the % of BRI or just think about how many owners there are to divide the other half of the BRI between.
What has Robert Sarver done to deserve a pay raise? He single-handedly ruined everything good about his team and now he’s wasting what’s left of Steve Nash’s career because he’s a beloved buffer between himself and how much the fans have come to despise him.
kantankruz says
Yeah, sad day to be a NBA fan. Go get some sleep Chris.