not when it becomes a matter of protocol. For instance, the club can offer between 80-120% of a draft slot to a rookie. In reality, the clubs are basically required to hand out 120% because "just about everyone else does." (See the Grizzlies with Xavier Henry and Greivis Vasquez) When you go to work for Microsoft, do you get to sign a guaranteed 3-year deal? Or Boeing? Or the Portland Public Schools?
Looks like the mediator will be back in the meetings on Saturday. You know Saturday, the day the season was cancelled.
You absolutely do if you are a high enough priority to the company and demand that as part of your package. It is up to the individual and the company to come to a deal they both agree on. An uncle of mine not only had years guaranteed when he worked at Aetna, but he was hired as a VP, and in his contract, if he did not get promoted to Pres within some specified amount of time, the company would own him a $10,000,000 bonus. He took the bonus and left (this was about 15-20 years ago). Contracts are designed all sorts of ways. ( by the way, the uncle is not a close uncle or blood relative) And he is a boring asshole.
you're kind of proving my point. Your example of your uncle was one in which a guaranteed contract was offered to someone in a high position in the company, with expectations of future increases based on incentives being met or not. I would wager that that condition of employment is offered to less than 1/4 of 1% of all employees that work for Aetna. Why? Because they're not mandated (tacitly or explicitly) to do anything of the sort in their hiring practices. Let's go to the NBA now. K*be, for instance, has a perq in his contract that he gets something like 80% of his season's salary up front on July 1, and then miniscule paychecks the rest of the year. This isn't something that is forbidden or encouraged by the league, but the L*kers use it to sweeten the pot in their offer (in this case, to not bolt to the Clips for similar money). You don't see every Tom Dick and Harry getting this deal b/c most owners would say "hell, no!" to paying someone their salary before they've worked. It was something offered to 1/4 of 1% of the league's players. Contrast that, say, with rookie wage scale, where if you don't give the max 120% of slot you're vilified by media and agents and your player holds out. And I'm even worse at contract law than criminal law, but I'd guess that if your uncle had been fired for inability to perform duties competently, that he wouldn't have received the bonus. But I don't know that.
I get your point, but what happens when Kobe demands a g-contract, and so does durant, and so does lebron. Now, skip down a few more players and you get to players like Aldridge. There are no rules keeping him from going to one team or another, so he will naturally try to leverage the best possible contract. And one of the 30 teams, likely one that did not get lebron..., would say fine, Aldridge you get a g-contract also. And so on down till the owners really don't care if they get the remaining player or not. Basically, I think at least 1/3 or the players, and perhaps more, would be able to leverage one team against another to get g-contracts, if that was what they wanted to use their leverage on. Perhaps, it would be more important for Aldridge to use his leverage to 3mil more per year, but have no guarantees. Point being, it would be mass chaos with a good portion of players getting what they want, while others not getting what they want, dependent on how valuable they are and how much leverage they can apply via playing the 30 teams off one another. But we are not talking about 1/4 of 1%
A player without a guaranteed contract will protect himself from injury by dogging it. Intensity will decrease, first in the players, then in the fans watching.
Beck went on to report the Jordan-led group of owners initially wanted to give the players just 37 percent of all income Makes PA look like a soft liner. In fact, if PA knew the minority wanted below 50%, by him pushing 50% (if he did) shows that he was on the side of the big market teams. The Jordan article puts a whole differnent take on Allen involvement in the labor talks http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ba...=ArvU3pe5xaYxUzodCyhm89m8vLYF?urn=nba-wp10234
Pure BS, if he "dogs it" he has no guaranteed contart and the owner or GM will fire his sorry ass as it should be, don't play hard don't get paid
Exactly, while a player that has a guaranteed contract can dog it or just be a bitch because they think they have been insulted or some bs,,,until the contract year of course.
The more I read about the lockout the more I think that the chance of having a season this year are slim to null. The players are in for a very very rude awakening. They were offered the best offer they are going to get last week, after turning that down the offers are only going to get steadily worse. When the game resumes the CBA is going to be structured a lot like the NHL's. Thats what I think at least.
With some whispers of players possibly going to 50/50, it will be interesting to see what the owners do. There is talk the owners aren't at 50/50 anymore. Also some owners questioning system issues already agreed upon. A lot of people that are pro owners will switch instantly if the players come down to 50/50 and the owners still ask for more.
Interesting I agree, however if the owners now balk at 50/50 (assuming no huge changes in other areas) then they take a big time hit in the PR battle, now whether that really matters is of course debateable as the season could then easily and likely be lost
I agree as well. And if that happens and they miss the season........ many fans will not come back. I was a big baseball fan my whole life until the 94' strike. Other than watching the Giants last year in the world series, I barely follow it at all anymore.
I was on the cusp of becoming a baseball fan when the strike there happened. It took a while for me to care much about it afterwards. I was a fan of the NHL, although not a big one, but a fan none the less. Their lost season pretty much killed my interest. I used to be able to tell you who won the stanley cup the year before, and now I have to stop and think hard about it. I think the NBA players fail to grasp just how much of a black mark this will be on them, fairly or unfairly. Most fans don't really care about who owns the team, or some of the other obsessive things hardcore fans do (esp us fans). If the season is lost (and I hope it is, but won't be upset if it isn't), I will personally find it hard to find a reason to care about NBA basketball anymore. I understand that the owners are very wealthy, and some people think they are being greedy, but I don't see it that way. I know I will never in a million years be as rich as even the poorest NBA owner (nor an NBA player), but I do know that being paid even 5 million dollars to play basketball is insane. And I don't really give a flying fuck how much money owners make off of the players. You don't think my boss makes (more) money off of me (than I make?)?? If they didn't, they'd be going out of business. I know that it's not the same for me to say that if I was being paid as much as they are I'd be happy, whatev, but I think they need to realize just how fucking good they have it. Not only do they get paid a lot of money, they also get a nice check at the end of the year from the BRI breakdown. It's a struggle for a lot of us to afford to go to games, these ass clowns can afford to take a few less thousand dollars a year (while still getting a couple million on top of what they already make). And if they can't, or won't? Fuck them. They're basically taking the golden goose, pissing on it, cutting off its legs, selling the beak, using its feathers to wipe their asses and having sex with the leftovers. And all that to show solidarity or that they're not actually a bunch of guys who (in some cases) only went to college because they were tall and could shoot a ball into a hoop.
KBergCBS: In addition to full owners' committee, Micky Arison, Paul Allen and Michael Jordan are here for bargaining talks. #lockout
