I wish that were the general rule, but it isn't. If you violate your contract, the one that negotiated the outcome will prevail. Only occasionally is the "Boss" the one that holds the collective contract.
You don't think it makes the league look bad (i.e., unstable, and filled with discontented players) if everytime a player wants to be traded, he calls a press conference?? If it didn't make the league look bad, the NBA wouldn't have insisted it be in the CBA.
Just so you know, I don't think the rule is silly. I just meant that oldmangrouch could call the rule silly.
The power to decide was handed by the team to the league via the CBA. Specifically. K*be should have been heavily fined by the league.
Unless your boss, at the behest of the union, signs over the authority to deal with it to the league.
Kobe is a therapist? Cool. Actually I thought he was a combination analyst and therapist. You know, an analrapist. [video=youtube;YknjhnywGGI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YknjhnywGGI[/video] BNM
No it's not. First ammendment protection does not apply to private parties. It protects the citizens from government censorship of their speech/expression. A private employer can't stop you from saying whatever you want, but they also have no obligation to continue to employ you or pay you if you make public statements that damage their bottom line. If the statements can be proven false and malicious, they can also sue you for damages. Think about it. If you work for Nike and are quoted on the local news saying the only reason the company's quarterly profits are up is due to hiring more underage workers and working them longer hours, you wouldn't have a job the next morning. If you work for Intel and are quoted in the local paper saying their latest generation CPUs perform worse and cost more than the previous generation, you will be out of a job instantly. The whole notion that 1st ammendment rights apply to anything other than government censorship is totally bogus. That would be like saying you can't be president of a company for more than 8 years because of the 22nd ammendment. BNM
Kobe = Double Standard? From HoopsWorld........ A Double Standard At Work? The NBA fined Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Jackson $25,000 last week for "public statements detrimental to the NBA." Those statements involved Jackson's request to be traded to another team. The NBA explained the fine further saying: "Players are not permitted to make trade requests publicly. Ron Artest, then of the Indiana Pacers, was fined during the 2005-06 season for requesting a trade through the media." To be honest, this rule is probably a good thing. The last thing the NBA needs is a bunch of divas making trade demands and sitting out games as we see players, especially wide receivers (you know who you are Terrell Owens and Brandon Marshall), do all too frequently in the NFL. It's also interesting, albeit certainly not surprising, that the league decided to use Ron Artest as an example. However, there's one problem with all of this. Anyone remember a guy named Kobe Bryant who demanded a trade in the summer of 2007? Remind me how much he got fined again? The NBA has reportedly said it did not fine Bryant because he publicly backed off the trade demand the same day he made it. So let me get this straight: a player is allowed to publicly demand a trade as long as said player backs off of that request the same day? Seems to me this is a slippery slope. A player can authentically demand a trade in the morning to get his point across and then issue a less then genuine statement saying he didn't mean it later that day after he already got his point across? Let's not forget, a video also surfaced during the summer of 2007 that showed Bryant telling fans in Newport Beach to buy some Chicago Bulls jerseys, implying that he would be moved to the Bulls. Bryant also created a media circus during training camp the next October, and even head coach Phil Jackson seemed resigned to the fact that Bryant would be moved about mid-way through training camp that October. Even during the first regular season game Bryant looked less than happy to be a Laker. As a general policy, I like this rule. However, the rule needs to be enforced across the board regardless of a player's stature or reputation. And once an act is committed, how can the NBA rationalize allowing a player to take it back? If that reasoning was used consistently in the league's decision making process, a player could simply say he didn't mean to yell at a referee or commit a flagrant foul after the game and should be able to avoid a fine. This situation reeks of preferential treatment for certain players with a primitive and nonsensical rationalization after the fact.
Well said HCP. Everytime the league does something questionable, people defend it as the league enforcing "the letter of the law." The problem is, the league sometimes ignores the "letter of the law" based on arbitrary criteria.
