Leave MM alone! I had 2 "insiders" that actually would have known some stuff told me November 1st as well.
Fucking Nuts, if they the players wanted to de-cert they should have done this in July! What did they think the owners would do, start playing soft ball? :shakeshead:
All I ask is when a poster claims to have "insider information" is to be right at least like once a year. When it never comes to fruition I have no choice but to give that poster shit.
The players needed to jump through some hoops to demonstrate that they were bargaining in good faith. One argument that owners made in the NFL situation (and that the NBA will likely make) is that the players didn't really want to negotiate because they knew they could decertify and take the owners to court. The players now can point to the concessions that they made over the course of the bargaining and say, "Look... we did our best!". And (even though I don't have a ton of sympathy for the players' position) I think that they're right. If they had done that in July, the owners presumably would have had a much easier time of winning the legal proceedings earlier, cutting the threat/option of decertification off at the pass and being able to shove their deal down the players' throats. It might be that the league and players are worse off, in the long run, for their maneuverings, but I think that going through collective bargaining in good faith before decertifying increases the chances that they will succeed in court... or at least in the lower courts. Ed O.
I have been right many times. You choose to overlook those posts and only focus on the ones that don't end up happening for whatever reason. Dave Checketts works as a consultant for the damn Detroit Pistons, and he thought the lockout was over a few days ago. Shit happens.
I think the issue here though is that the owners can also show they were bargaining in good faith.....right? Also, the league filed suit in courts months ago after Kessler said they would decertify.
You know what makes this even crazier for me? People in my industry are in the middle of forming a union here in Portland thru IATSE. There was supposed to be a big meeting this morning and then we found out the person in charge (from Seattle) changed some wording in the contract without our knowledge and it would basically put the business that got us all into the industry here in Portland in jeopardy, probably making them shut down. There have been emails flying around calling out the union for misrepresentation! This shit is getting crazy for me!
Unions suck. They used to be needed, but not anymore. I have friends that work for the teamsters, and they are paid WAY too much for what they bring to the table. When an uneducated person can earn a base salary of 50k with basically free benefits something in the system is broken.
That is AN issue... but the reality (IMO) is that the owners have and DO participate in anticompetitive behavior. Maximum salaries. Restrictions on free agencies. The NBA draft. None of those things are legal in most industries. They were just fine because they were a part of a CBA. The CBA moved the legal analysis from antitrust to labor. All the players have to do to move the analysis back to antitrust law is to exit from collective bargaining framework... and the owners in the NFL case called the players trade association a sham. And I think that they might have been right. The NBA players are attempting, IMO, to dot their i's and cross their t's to properly transition to antitrust law. I don't know that they've done it successfull, but they're definitely closer than if they'd thrown up their hands in July and decertified. The NBA filing that motion with the NLRB is like a parking garage putting up a sign saying that it's not responsible for the actions of its employees--it IS responsible, and the sign doesn't change that. The NLRB filing might slow down the process and might have deterred the players from going down this road, but I'm not sure it's enough to stop the players from getting away from labor law. A basic question in applying antitrust law, though, as it applies to professional sports, is whether society is better served by allowing unfettered player movement and contracts to exist--even if it means killing the sport. I don't know how that basic question would be answered, and I doubt either side in the NBA fight knows, either. Ed O.
