Breaking: NBA Players Reject Offer, to Disband Union

Been busy so I haven’t been commenting much. Long story short, I think the players should have been given an opportunity to vote. I’ve been on the owners side since the beginning and still am, though I don’t fully agree with all the new rules they want under the new CBA. I think Allenp & nbk have made the best points on the whole lockout situation. Interesting article by a writer a follow on today’s announcement: click my name. I’m out

A good story in the NYT online today “NBA Season in peril as players reject offer” that raises 2 good points:
1) decertifying is the first step before taking the League to court in an anti trust suit. To win this, you have to show that you tried to negotiate in good faith. Thus, they had to take negotiations as far as this (to the point where the owners were back-pedalling and dropping ultimatums)
2) The players authorized the “decertification” LAST SEASON, in essence giving Billy and Fish the green light to decert when the timing was appropriate.
Interesting, the NBAPA is now a “trade association”, with Billy still acting as its head.
Negotiations are STILL possible – in my opinion, although the owners might be cool with missing a season, they will want to have public opinion on their side, so they know they have a viable product when games begin again. In all honesty, I think the owners are losing the PR war, and will continue to as the lockout continues: America is pretty pro-labour these days, and (I hope – not an american) less racist.

A scenario if you will
Player: sniff, sniff sob, sob
Wife : What’s wrong honey?
Player: I have to go and play BBall for only $10000 this week!
Wife : Ah that’s pretty harsh, how will you ever pay for our 5 star holidays, private school education for the kids and college, plus a new piece of jewellery every week for me?
Player:I know , plus , now i can’t afford playstation games and fuel my 6 luxury cars and pay for my mistress’s mansion in another city.
Wife: Is there anything you can do?
Player: We can decertify our union, it will mean we lose a years income, but i’m only thinking of future players so I’ll take a strong stance, we deserve a minimum of $200000 a week, we put a lot hard work in, not like the arena workers on $18000 a year but we deserve it.
Wife:You do that honey, how can i ever tell my friends we only can afford 4 star holidays and we can only live in a 6 bedroom house!
Player: I’ll stand for what i think i deserve, it’s about me and if it wasn’t for the fans paying excessive admission prices to watch a game that everyone owns i would be be unemployed and working at McDonalds.To hell with the owners and the fans.It’s about me and our needs.

Junk. Should have taken the deal.

No Owners=No NBA
Players are replaceable, void all contracts and i bet if you offer 430 new players $100k a year in 5 years time to play BBall, they would take it.
Spoilt for too long.

They conceded to BRI, which is commendable, but they want to jeopardize a season because of shorter contracts and chances of increased parity with teams being able to retain their free agents? How is that worth it? According to Beck, “the new deal will give teams greater roster flexibility, and the chance to recover from mistakes more quickly.” what is wrong with that? It “restricts” player movements in free agencies and results in lesser contracts, but it will help all the teams stay competitive, thus making sure that guys like Chris Paul don’t leave small market teams for NYC because of bad contracts that management had to sign to keep their previously winning team in tact ( out of necessity). It makes sense for the NBA as a business – more teams can be competitive again faster because they don’t have to be haunted by bad contracts. Theoretically, here is the ramifications of the current proposal: “Contracts would be shorter. Players would become free agents sooner. Making trades would be simpler. The gap between rich and poor teams might be smaller. There might be fewer superteams and more parity, too.” Nothing wrong with that. Will all of that come true? Who knows? But is it worth losing a season over?

To give perspective, Andrew Bogut was unable to play in Australia because his annual salary was worth more than the entire Australian NBL’s rosters!!! Why can all those players (NBLer’s) who play the game they “love” play for so much less but the NBAer’s cannot. Take the deal where they are still paid millions!!! Some would say they are not as good but no way would he be worth that inflated salary, he’d only manage decent stats, see Deron Williams.Damn I’m angry. BBall is my religion. I have no faith anymore.

What does this have anything to do with race? I get annoyed when people bring race into a topic that has nothing to do with it. This argument boils down to people who believe in business principles presented by the owners vs. people who side with the players over a connection of “fighting against the man”. There are some commenters on here who often point out that the NBA’s accounting is shady, and David Friedman has the exact retort I was looking for for that argument. It is: “I also understand that some people are skeptical of the NBA’s accounting (or of accounting methods in general) but it is mystifying that some people apparently believe that the NBA owners should operate under a business model which results in them losing money or that the owners should be obligated to pay out well over 50% of their revenues when they are not making a profit. There is so much talk about supposedly incompetent owners demanding guaranteed profitability but I have yet to hear anyone talk about the other side of the equation; guaranteed contracts ensure profitability for every NBA player, regardless of whether or not that player is even marginally productive and regardless of that player’s off court transgressions: Gilbert Arenas shoots blanks on the court and brings guns into the locker room but until the lockout he was guaranteed to receive more than $60 million over the next three seasons. In just about any other profession, Arenas would be out of work due to the combination of low performance and erratic personal behavior but as an NBA player he probably would have had to commit (and be convicted of) murder to lose his guaranteed money.” ———–Seriously, read that article. At this point, I don’t understand why the players would do this without taking a vote. Someone said yesterday that antitrust lawsuits have nothing to do with “bargaining in good faith”…nope, under antitrust law in the US, essentially all the players can argue is that the NBA displayed a “refusal to deal”, which essentially, boils down to whether or not they bargained in good faith. Considering that the owners proposal is based on the weakness of the NBA’s previous business model, and given the fact that owners have conceded on a variety of issues, why would the courts rule in the players favour?

Wolf in sheep’s clothing.

He’s not forced to remain with the Hornets. The proposal indicates that they can leave, but they get MUCH less money if they do. How is that unfair?

@JTaylor21, CP3 should not be forced to stay anywhere,no human should, but why doesn’t he look into the stands and see all the faces of the fans who have paid for his $40 million contract he has received, so his family is taken care of for life and instead of chasing glory repay them with loyalty.A lost trait amongst players these days, I’ll give it to Nash but CP has enjoyed the fruits of New Orleans fan’s labor for what? 1 decent season. So money made now, I’m gone….SAD, i bet he didn’t have that attitude when he was 15. “I’ll play anywhere for millions”

…but my respect want get you very far. I’m a bum.

I’m playing nothing but ’808s and Heartbreaks’ all this week cause this is a sad sad day.
However, if you expected a different outcome than you were just being blissfully naive. Read my site, the writing’s been on the wall for awhile.
Not only have we lost a season, but the NBA as we know it is actually in jeopardy.

While the players play on Xmas day, you don’t think they they bring their families with them? Put them in 5 star resorts, C’mon! Give them $1000 presents etc. the only teams that play on Xmas are big time salary earners.

…Just an idea for the owner’s parity problem.

First of all, the notice of disclaimer is NOT a decertification; which probably means that, while the union is able to file an antitrust suit it means that La Commish can’t follow up on his threat to void contracts.
Even if he does try that, and is successful…then the sides settle…450 FREE AGENTS. If the small market owners or the incompetent owners in major markets think the L, under the current situation, favors the large market teams, wait and see what happens if Stern REALLY GOES THIS ROUTE. See where the superstars go–see if the Knicks don’t add CP3 LIKE THAT. Watch where KD ends up. If there’s a choice between Cleveland and Chicago for a player, where does he go (DUH!!!!)? Sacramento…or Los Angleles (And I DON’T mean the Clippers)??!?
La Commish and the hard-line owners overplayed their hand.
One more thing–hasn’t it been apparent, since that hit-job in the press that he did on Iverson, that Stephen A. has become the NBA front office’s “house slave”??!? They want their side of the story out, they want the players called “stupid”, then Stern has gone to SAS. Stephen A. has been compromised, and he’s been that way for awhile.

Whatever happened to players helping their organizations get better by working their asses off over the summer to not only make themselves but their teammates better. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird are two shining examples and so is Michael Jordan. At different times they were the best players in the league. Do they rest on their laurels and take it easy in the summer? Did they call up their buddies to try and make a super team like the chumps of today do? No, they were out there nearly every day shooting and working on the things necessary to get them ready and make their team a contender. Nowadays if a player isn’t drafted by the teams already in contention they play out their contract and bolt at the first opportunity to get paid higher. Also, when this lockout started weren’t the owners asking for 53% BRI, salary rollbacks, and a hard cap just to name a few things? Since they weren’t asking for those anymore wouldn’t that be considered making concessions? I find it funny when people are saying the players are making all of the concessions because they’re coming down from 57%. They were getting too much to begin with! The owners got shafted on that deal and now it will somewhat even itself out (with the owners getting a little more in the end)

@shutupallen, I am 35 and have kids, if the money is where the work is I’d have to move, such is life.The kids would need to understand that! After 3-4 years in the nba i would of made 1.5-2 million at minimum, in hospitality i have to work 25-30 years for that.Without the interest on a 500k income earned.

Say the NBPA decertifies and the owners go the replacement players route (obviously extremely unlikely). Since NBA players would no longer be associated with the former union could they make up some of these replacement players? It would obviously be frowned upon, but I think someone like Kevin Martin would do it (assuming it can be done) and cause more to follow.

There will be a season! Something miraculous will happen and it will soon work out, I know it!

yo SLAM, you better start digging your archives for MORE shawn bradley posters.

2011-2012 NBA MVP- SHAWN BRADLEY

NBA 2k13: charity game edition. build your own team of super starts and celebirties. play at highschool and dII college gyms. only catch: KD plays in every game and scores at lease 43 points

I didn’t write that article. Now I understand the confusion. Marcel Mutoni wrote that article. And Marcel is white and he does write about the Knicks.
Okay, now I understand.

And think y’all need to examine the deal offered by the owners.
The deal allows the owners to gain incredible leverage over all superstars, and all other players.
They can easily dictate which teams superstars can play for, regardless of how well that team does in surrounding the superstar with talent. They can then greatly reduce the market for every other player meaning they can in turn decrease their pay.
And that’s on top of the players already conceding $280 million in BRI revenue, which actually means the owners will get $500 million more in total revenue if revenue stays around $4 billion.
The owners pretended it was about getting paid, then when the players caved on them getting paid, it became about who controls the League.
The players don’t want to return to the days of the reserve clause, even if they still pretend that free agency exists. That’s what this is about. If you have more suitors, you make more money.