Slightly OT: How is Bryant Gumbel not fired for his comments about David Stern?

Fucking sweet, I would love to see these brats agree to that.

 

When the NFL went to a hard cap, they balanced the cap/lower salaries/nonguaranteed deals with concessions on other issues (eg pensions and FA rules). In other words, it was a give-and-take situation.

What are the NBA owners offering? Maybe they should try *negotiating* instead of bullying and ultimatums. (wow, what a concept!)

 

Maybe they are!

 

They are the game off basketball. End of story.

Without them the owners are nothing. How much would you pay to watch the owners? Would you ever have heard most of their names if not for the players? Even now, without looking them up, how many owners can you name? 30? No. Maybe 6 or 7. They don't matter. If the 4 who are too talentless at business to be able to turn a profit with an NBA team have to fold up their tents the NBA will be far better for it and a damn sight more exciting to watch. There are at least 60 players in the league who aren't NBA caliber so let the weak teams fail and the league will get stronger.

You'd think we'd have learned something about the futility of bailing out failed businesses by now.

 

You should take a look at some of the comments made by NFL owners. Basically guys like Jerry Jones were saying that they will owners long after the players playing now are still players. In other words, shut the fuck up, help us out or we will simply get new players and start building the league up again. To say the owners are nothing without the players is a wrong statement. The players might be the ones we show up to watch, but they aren't the one's paying for the building, lights, concession workers, janitors, parking guys, refs, coaches, balls, trainers, etc.

If there needed to be a new NBA, some players would likely cross over to play in it because the money and perks would be so much better. New college graduates would enter the league each year as well. Looking at the big picture, the players need the owners a whole hell of a lot more than the owners need the current players

 

Shoot Gumbo is bitching about nothing. I think Stern should take the NBA back to the days when teams could just sell players when they didn't work out.
The Blazers got rid of Sidney Wicks that way, no need to hang on to piss poor performers until the end of their contract.
Blazers won a championship the next year, never would have happened with that dude stifling the team.
Yes, the coach said dump the dude and shazam, he's gone!

 

The players would probably have no problem with that proposal as long as it included giving players the right to cancel their contract and go to any other team that wanted them if the player was disappointed in the team's performance.

 

Only a handful of owners deserve to be bailed out of their irresponsible errors. Many players invest their money in businesses.

The league losing money was disproven in articles right after the lockout began. 1) Owners won't show their detailed financial statements. 2) The loss comes from amortization of the initial purchase price, and it's the owners' fault for overpaying. 3) The increase in costs, compared to BRI, from 10 years ago to now is all in elective owner-related costs, not in player salaries. On and on. I forget but there were more.

Everything there is wrong. Try reversing owners with players and it makes more sense.

 

No one is stopping the owners from making smart choices with their money. Some owners don't want to invest in their teams - so they want to require that no owner can invest in his team. Tyranny of the lowest common denominator.

 

Thanks to revenue sharing, NFL owners were pretty much all making money, outside of maybe Jacksonville. The owners had an incentive to get back to work, and the players had a bit of leverage because of that.

Comparing the NFL to a second-rate league like the NBA or MLB makes no sense. In the USA, it's the NFL, followed by NCAA football, and then a third-tier with MLB and the NBA in it.

 

Irrelevant, tangential, and nonsensical. It's a jlprk Trifecta.

The NBAPA themselves know that there are teams losing money. That's why they are offering 4% off of the BRI split from the previous CBA. Some owners wants a bigger percentage. You killed your own argument here. If the owners were making money hand over fist, the players certainly wouldn't be ceding 4% of the BRI off the top, would they? I'd be asking for a larger share of that pie.

I've posted with you for enough years to know you rarely are trying to make a valid point, but it appears you tried in this thread. Now I know why you rarely do...

 

Seems like they are making a smart choice here. Stop the league and stop spending money until a more favorable framework is in place.

Every single team has to pay at least 75% of the salary cap under the current CBA. I think you're confusing the NBA with MLB, where there is no minimum number to be spend on players?

Hyperbole. As we've seen, the players have many other opportunities to play basketball for money. That's not tyranny on the part of the owners.

 

NBA players are the highest paid professional athletes in sports, so they have no credibility. Most of them go bankrupt after retiring anyway.

If the players really want to bitch about the 53-47 BRI thing then take away their other rights. They don't need to fly to games in private jets or use expensive private buses. All these things are luxuries that they take for granted.

The worst players in the league are horribly overpaid. The Union exists to help them and not the players that are actually great.

 

Sorry, I wasn't clear: I am talking about tyranny amongst the owners themselves. You have one group of owners trying to tell another group of owners how to spend their money.

I do find it interesting that Sterling - one of the most tight-fisted owners - is reputedly one of the loudest voices against the lock-out. You would expect him to be firmly among the hard-liners...if this was really about the money.

 

And who is largely responsible for that? STERN! He is the one who has always insisted that if teams want to buy a player out/release him the player must still count against the salary cap.

 

The other owners can always sell their team and start their own league. If the majority want a lock-out, that's how democracy works in a league with a shared interest.

I also think Donald Sterling is against the lock-out because he has Blake Griffin on his roster, and on a rookie contract, and is going to sell out a lot of games and have a lot of eyeballs watching his games in the LA market. Sterling has never been known for his foresight, and as a real estate guy, I'm going to guess he isn't as liquid as he was five years ago. P