Yeah, because they weren't being smart. Whole lot of good it's done Portland. What major free agent has Portland gotten because of Paul Allen? At best you could say the Pippen trade was the best one. no, I'd rather that teams aren't forced to over pay for players because they fear they'll lose him to another team. I'd rather we all be on an even level and players moved based on merit, and not who pays them the most. I'd rather that teams can't just take advantage of small market teams because their owners have deep pockets and don't mind taking on huge shitty contracts to get a superstar (that the one team knwos they can't resign so they must trade him).
My point about pippen was Paul Allen's willingness to take his salary on. And if brian grant was the best FA because of Paul Alln, thats not a great advantage
So it all comes down to Wednesday. Either the union accepts the 50-50 offer or they decertify the union, throw this thing to the courts and we have no basketball for the year.
Marc Stein said that even if they get the # of signatures required for a petition to VOTE for decertification (need ~130 sigs), the actual voting process and approval of this decertifcation from the NLRB takes 45 days, during which time the two sides could still come together and strike out a deal.
In the context of PA and financial advantage, we can't just look at outside FAs. He did take very good care of the Blazers' own free agents ( too good, perhaps).
WojYahooNBA Adrian Wojnarowski As I hear from players, I will be surprised if there isn't some kind of membership push to take NBA's offer. How big of one? Still unknown. 1 hour ago WojYahooNBA Adrian Wojnarowski Front office officials of two teams say owners returned from Saturday meeting telling staff to prepare for strong possibility of no season. 2 hours ago Well that's conflicting reports to say the least
Well one is from the Players side and one is from the Owners and if there is one thing this lockout has taught us its that the reports from both camps constantly contradict the other.
The way the Owners are acting, I almost want the players to bust up the league entirely. This isn't about competitive balance, and it certainly isn't about basketball. This is about making the players suck it.
I've been correct about this all along. The players have no leverage at all. It's foolish to think that they do, and Tracy MacGrady's stupid Tweet last week should have set the owners over the edge. If any player should shut up about being paid, it's MacGrady.
Nov. 1st was the date he was thinking. That obviously didn't happen. Hopefully they get something done before decertification takes place
Yeah poor players, the NBA players already had by far the best contract of any sports league, even if they accept the owner's most recent offer they still would have the best deal, hard for me to have much sympathy for them especially when they get to keep guaranteed contracts and there is no hard cap.
