Who’s side are you On, and WHY…Players/Owners or Stern???

You’re siding with Mr. Deadline, Threat, Spin Man, Ultimatum and Bully? OKAY… IF he wanted a deal, he would’ve approached negotiation a lot differently than he did. He’s as much as responsible for this lockout as anybody else. As the commissioner of the league, this falls on his shoulders. His second lockout in which the NBA has missed games.

But honestly, who to blame is irrellivant. Each side has blame. I wouldn’t side with any of them right now.

Neither side truly negotiated in good faith, both come out of this looking bad. The biggest losers are the fans in all this. I was really looking foward to seeing lots of Rubio to D-Will alley oops this year…guess it won’t happen. =( 

Can somebody tell me how the players haven’t negotiated in good faith???

They’ve been in concessionary bargaining the entire lockout. They’ve given up 7% of the BRI, which is like $280 million per season. They’ve been open to A LOT of the owners’ changes system wise, but apparently didn’t like the tougher luxury tax penalty and the lack of freedom for tax paying teams. But even on issues they considered "blood issues", they still negotiated.

Just don’t see how the players didn’t negotiate in good faith. And I’m 100% unbaised towards the situation and just trying to call it like I see it.

I’m a grown man,you shouldn’t spin your real intent. It was all about absolute power. If they said so I could respect it,may not like it,but I would respect it.

I’m all for the players. And I’m with them because the owners have lied about their intent the entire time.

First it was about money, the players gave back just about all the owners have asked for. 50/50 split that they were going for at the begining

Then it turned into competitive balance. Something that has never existed in the NBA.

I hate to break the bad news to many of you who claim to know pro basketball. Talent wins, and if your team doesn’t have it,you won’t compete. On a smaller scale if you don’t have one of the top 15 players in the game,you have NO chance of winning a title. That won’t change no matter how you change the "system"

I’m siding with the owners. I’m only doing this because the last deal the owners offered was a pretty decent deal. What was it that the players didn’t like? Not being able to form "super teams." Good. I’m glad the owners don’t want that because as a Kings fan I know the deck is already stacked against my team so why would I want it to be near impossible for my team to win? I don’t feel sorry one bit if that was the big deal the players didn’t like. Stern has to be the way he was because it’s bargaining. If he didn’t put on a tough guy facade the players wouldn’t have taken him serious at all, even though I think they still didn’t take him serious. As for the money problem I lean a tiny bit towards the owners because the economy is still in the toilet and it’s looking like it’s going to be a double dip recession so small market teams can lose a lot of money depending on the fan base. If small market teams lose enough money the owners will pull out and chances are the league would contract some of the small market teams effectively putting even more people, not just the players, out of jobs. I also don’t think the players negotiated in good faith because it seemed to me like half of them didn’t know what the heck was even going on. It truly was a circus and somewhat embarrassing for them because it seemed to me like the agents really were pulling the strings for the players.

I am on the side with the owner.  Not because I feel the players are being greedy, but more because the previous CBA was a great deal for the players and a bad deal for the owners.  It worked well because it was signed during a good economy (although it was a fake good economy popped up by the US gov’t).  Back then, owners can tolerate taking losses on NBA teams while earning their money from their other businesses.  With the current economy, the owners have to make good financial decision on running the teams because they cannot affort to lose so much money in the NBA while their other businesses probably are not doing as well as a few years ago.

The new CBA is basically trying to make the finance to work fairly between the players and the owners.

The players are making a very bad decision to reject the deal because the owners would only make a worse offer in future negiotiation.

The worst part from the players is that they rejected this offer because they feel they cannot be "free" during free agency that they cannot decide where they want to go.  With so much "freedom", a lot of the small market teams would lose their best players if they don’t overpay them significantly.  This creates a big disadvantage to the small market team and makes the competition much worse.

I am all for restricted free agents move.  After all, these guys are paid millions to play a ball game.

Also, the players don’t really have much bargaining ground, there’s no other league in the world that can pay them the type of money they would get even under this "bad" deal.  The maximum amount a player can get in Europe is probably around 6~7 mil a year, there’s just somewhat more than a mid-level exception.  There are not that many top level basketball job in the world that can pay the players millions.  It’s not like "football" (soccer) where they have multiple leagues capable of paying big big money.  In basketball, NBA is the only league that afford these spoiled brats.

This is a buisness and they need to negotiate. Forget about the whole sport, and remember that every time a game is played it is a buisness. NBA players are buisnessmen. Asking to pick sides during a labour dispute is like picking sides over suppliers and retailers. It is redundant. These two parties cant do buisness because of they currently do not agree on rates, terms and conditions. They need to work it out and we cant wtch basketball until they do.

Also to be fair they have both sent and rejected offers so the fact that they have both rejected offers shows it is both of their faults.

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-CA
X-NONE
X-NONE

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0cm;
mso-para-margin-right:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0cm;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}

I watch the NBA for its players.  In my opinion, owners are looking to be protected from themselves, without adopting a robust revenue sharing system.  Basically, they’re trying to have their cake and eat it too.  Take baseball for instance, pretty much every team makes money because they have such a robust revenue sharing system.  That means the Yankees, Red Sox and all other highly profitable teams help to keep lowly spending teams like the Marlins and Pirates in the black.  A consequence of this is some teams can pretty much spend as little as possible without real worry of fielding a competitive team and still earn dollars.  This system works for baseball because the big teams get to operate in a cap-free environment but also because baseball is much more a ‘team’ sport than basketball.  That means teams with a good farm can still compete every few years (See Marlins, Rays, Athletics etc) before being forced to sell off assets in order to keep payroll as low as possible. 

With the NBA, small market teams want to be able to operate on low payrolls, never be capped out or pay tax, and still be profitable.  But to keep players, more and more teams are having to spend in order to show a commitment to winning.  However, the big market teams aren’t too keen on a robust revenue sharing model (completely understandable).  The Lakers, who pay big money to compete don’t really feel it’s fair for them to prop up the Bucks, who throw a 29 year old Drew Gooden 20+ mil and think it’s a good signing.  So basically, they decided to force the players to subsidize them with this lockout.  The fact is, big market teams (Lakers, Knicks, Bulls, Miami) don’t really need or want this lockout.  It’s the small market teams who can’t put fans in the stands in this economy really pushing for it.  Why I think the owners have shown to be exceedingly greedy is in their reluctance to adopt a robust revenue sharing model.  It really works very well for the MLB and the NFL, I can’t see why it wouldn’t work for the NBA. 

I would personally favour if the NBA adopted an NFL style model where ticket revenues were split 60/40 for the home team (currently they were 100/0 for the home team).  This system encourages competitive balance for the league, as it will be in the best interest of all teams for all other teams to be competitive.  Take New Orleans for instance.  They might not be able to sell-out many games, but because people like to see Chris Paul, fans of other teams will pay to see the Hornets play.  Under a 60/40 split, the Hornets would benefit from playing in other cities wanting to see CP play.  Conversely, if a team were trying to maintain an extremely low payroll, they would theoretically suffer because fans of other teams wouldn’t pay to see them, meaning the 60/40 split wouldn’t be as beneficial to them because they would get the same piece of a smaller pie. 

Just some ramblings/reasons why I side with the players.  For years, teams have overpaid on bad players, outbid each other for mediocre talent and now they want all their stupidity to be forgotten and they want a foolproof system.

Typed my response into a Word processor.  Sorry for all the stuff at the beginning. 

I’m on  the side of the owners, the players will end up losing even more than they would if they accepted this last offer. I don’t feel bad for them though, but I do think it is stupidity. I take back that I don’t feel bad for the players, because I do feel bad for the young players who didn’t even get their hopes and desires considered. The owners make up the league and the league/owners decide the conditions of employment, the players have free agency to choose to accept those conditions or they can take their talents somewhere else. It is a sad scenario and all parties will suffer and lose and the players won’t end up with a better offer and that is what makes me so frustrated, it just doesn’t make any sense. Common sense and smarts say the owners make the rules, not the players.  Unions were a good things once upon a time but have way over reached their goodness. Unions have made workers think they can dictate the conditions and circumstances of their employment, it just isn’t how things work.

OWNERS – why?

If I’m running a business and the NBA is a BUSINESS FIRST, I would want to be able to make as much money as I possibly could. If you’re a billionaire, would you want to be losing money? Would you want NBA Players to be over paid, to be locked in 100 mil for 5 years? The CBA allowed for the players to demand that kind of money and IMO, that needs to be stopped. The market allowed for such contracts to happen and that needs to be controlled.

"During the 2009-10 season 17 teams had negative operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization), meaning they bled cash. Five of these teams (Indiana Pacers, Charlotte Bobcats, Denver Nuggets, Orlando Magic, New Jersey Nets) will lose less money by not playing games this season under the current CBA than they would if the season were played. There is no reason for these owners to agree to a salary cap that will give the players more than 50% of the league’s revenue."

SOURCE: http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2011/11/09/many-nba-teams-would-lose-less-money-no-season/

NBA players are getting paid more than they need to! Joe Johnson’s and Rashard Lewis’ contract as an example. Do you think an NBA players needs to be getting paid that kind of money? I mean I could live off 100K, not 20 mil a year. It’s just greed on both sides, but I would have to choose the owners.

 You know what my girl told me when I said why are they protesting on wall street nothings going to change….Without protest we would never get what we want. we will always be living out the will of others. There would still be slavery and the United States would still be ruled by the British.So when we qestion the reason the players are in a lockout we dont consider they are ppl with families. You cant make them accept the will of a bunch of rich men if they dont want to its a job they choose to do. They think they can get a better deal why not protest. If anything was to happen to a player sports injury,jail,death,bad season thats it no more money these guys grew up balling this is their bread and butter.Where as if something was to happen to an owner him and his family is still getting money  if hes injued he sits behind a desk.Basketball players have way more on the line then owners and at the end of the day no one told the owners to pay the basketball players what they paid them in the first place its the owners fault for giving bad contracts out.

If I was to give you a 10 millio dollar contract your not going to turn it down even if you know your not worth it.The owners need to get more bussiness savy and less tycoon trigger happy.

 Uh…aren’t the nba players a bunch of rich men also? Seriously, after their first year NBA players could be set for life if they knew how to manage money properly. It’s not the owners fault most can’t manage money and go broke. I highly doubt that the players are going to get a much better deal than the last one they were offered.

they should just think bout playing basketball cause like it or not the owners/players and stern has basketball to thank for their livelyhood so stop the lock out crap and just start playing the game that they claim they love.

Owners

Why-torontoraptors10 said it all

As basketball fans and fans of the NBA, I am on the players side.

Remember it was the Owners that locked out the players, the players did not go on strike!

It’s so much info that very respectable organizations and writers are publishing on the net. From the many articles I’ve read it’s been a fact that the players came off enough money to cover the losses that Stern said the teams have had over the past seasons. We can’t say its about money,or a owner being rewarded for their risk. If it’s truly about competitive balance I would like to know what will create that in a place it has NEVER exsisted??? Will a hard cap mean free agents will go to Cleveland,Charlotte,Milwaulkee??? Will it make those teams free agents stay with those teams??? Will it stop players who want to win a championship by any means from taken pay cuts to play with contending teams??? I don’t see anything being made up to stop these things.

Just a example, Jamal Crawford is a free agent. More than likely he will get the Mid-Level exemption offer from many teams. For fun, let’s just say he has an offer for 2yrs of the Mid-level from OKC,Portland,Chicago. And a 3yr offer from Atlanta,Phoenix. What do u think he will pick and why???