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Sorting through the mess that may have ended the NBA season
It appears to be a whine-off between warring clans of out-of-touch rich guys. With the NBA owners and players both opting for bombast over balance in their overtures, it’s difficult to see exactly what happened Monday afternoon.
This much is certain: The NBA offered players a deal and threatened that if they didn’t bite, the deal would get worse. The National Basketball Player’s Association didn’t vote on the proposal, disclaimed interest in its union (ending collective bargain negotiations) and is threatening to file a class-action antitrust suit against the NBA. The chance of a 2011-2012 season is now slimmer than your likelihood of hitting a full-court sky hook blindfolded.
This much is uncertain: everything.
The players and owners lose a great deal of control in the courts. The range of possibilities is now vast. It could be as simple as a judge ordering both sides back to the bargaining table, or it could result in billions in damages that owners say could bankrupt the league and play out in the courts for years.
Remember, this isn’t a strike, and the players will make the case in court that the league lockout prevented them from playing, i.e. earning a paycheck. They will be represented, in part, by David Boies, an attorney with some lofty antitrust credentials.
Move past NBA Commissioner David Stern’s talk of “nuclear winter” and the players’ and NBPA ex-executive director Billy Hunter’s chatter about strong-arming and ultimatums, and it appears both sides played hardball a little too well.
ESPN’s Michael Wilbon said he was sick of the fiasco and alleged “both sides seem completely oblivious as to what’s happening in the real world.”
The real world, of course, is experiencing debt crises and other staggering blows to the economy. Unemployment and foreclosures are soaring. Protests abound, from the Middle East to Europe to Wall Street. It’s a tough time to curry empathy over six-digit game checks.
Negotiating for two years only to walk away from the table now is tantamount to “running 26 miles of a marathon and then sitting down on the pavement and refusing to complete the final two-tenths of a mile. For what amounts to pennies on the dollar, the owners and players are putting a basketball season in jeopardy … jobs, careers, reputations, legacies,” Wilbon host wrote Tuesday.
Sports Illustrated’s Ian Thomsen also felt scapegoats could be found among both players and owners.
“They will continue to blame and complain about each other. But any person of reason, watching from afar, is going to recognize blame on both sides of the table,” Thomsen wrote. “You may feel more anger for the owners or for the players, but if you are a fan of basketball then the bottom line is that you are angry with everybody who had anything to do with the fact that there is $4 billion in revenue on the table and they can't even talk any longer about how to share it.”
The one positive for basketball fans is that the players disclaimed interest in the union as opposed to decertifying it. As Rick Bonell of the Charlotte Observer reported, the decertification process could have taken time, where the disclaimer process is pretty speedy and allows the NBA to approach Hunter with another deal. It also allows the players to sue the NBA immediately.
According to Stern, the union threatened to disband in February and Monday's move took owners by surprise because the players could have disbanded in the summer. Point guard Deron Williams, who is now playing in Turkey, tweeted, "This is why I said we should have done this in July bc at least the process would have been underway… even over!"
It’s difficult to say which issues ultimately dissolved the talks because the sides are keeping their playbooks close to their chests, but one widely reported bone of contention was the revenue split.
Last year, players took 57 percent of the overall revenue. The NBA would like to see the divide closer to 50-50, but players reportedly wouldn’t go lower than 51 percent, according to CBS’ Ken Berger, who reported the sides were as many as 20 percentage points apart at one point in negotiations.
The league says, under its proposal, the players could swing 51 percent of revenue depending on league growth, a claim the players denied. In their counteroffer, the players said 1 percent of their 51 percent would go to retired players’ pensions and medical benefits, something the union funded in the past.
Other thorny issues were the soft salary cap and the luxury tax. A hard cap does not allow teams to exceed the salary cap for any reason, where a soft cap allows teams to exceed the cap to retain a player under the so-called Larry Bird rule. The luxury tax kicks in when teams exceed the soft cap by a certain amount.
Last season, the salary cap was $58 million and the luxury tax level was $70.3 million. Teams were taxed a dollar for every dollar they exceeded the threshold. The luxury tax money is generally split up among teams who did not pay the tax. Reports indicate the league wanted to raise the tax, while the players wanted it lowered.
There were many other complicated matters being argued, including reductions in minimum salaries and some rookies’ salaries, year-round drug testing, an escrow account to reimburse owners for money spent over the 50-50 split, exceptions to the luxury tax for certain players and sign-and-trade deals for taxpaying teams.
But the bottom line is the two sides couldn’t figure out how to split their enormous pie. While it might not break anyone’s heart to see millionaire ball players out of work or billionaire team owners dusting their stadiums for a season, reports are starting to emerge that the ramifications will be more widespread.
In addition to the arena workers, concessionaires, janitors, ushers, parking lot attendants and merchandise hawkers – average folks who pull minimum wage or near it as the players and owners make bank – CNN reported last month that the lockout’s effect will ripple beyond arenas.
As Slam magazine reports foreign teams are recruiting the NBA's newly unemployed, restaurants and shops near American basketball stadiums are bracing for the worst, with employers and employees wondering how much revenue they can draw without crowds flocking to games 41 nights a year.
Fran Berger, CEO of Farm of Beverly Hills near Los Angeles’ Staples Center, said she would have to cut some workers’ hours, and several stadium employees told CNN they feared they might not get the 1,100 annual hours needed to qualify for health insurance.
There’s also the fans, who notoriously dislike lockouts. During the lockout-shortened 1998-1999 season, television ratings and attendance dropped significantly and didn’t rebound for years.
The New York Times reported in a 1998 story that formerly hardcore fans were sickened by the squabbles between owners and players and had come to the conclusion that “basketball is disintegrating into a game of greed.”
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Saw a union spokesman being asked what disturbed him the most about the possibility that no games would be played this year. He answered that he felt for the players, because without being paid they will have a rough year ($5million per yr average.) for them and their families. He never mentioned the concession stand people, or the small businesses that will be effected. Really classy.
Of course it's tough for the player's. It's not cheap to buy $250K dollar cars and $5M apartments and mansions and have an entourage that costs $1M a year plus all their other expenses that probably equal 1.5X the amount they most likely earned last year. They got bills too.
Besides, the minimum wage folk are used to scraping by so they can adapt much better. Poor, poor players and owners. [/end sarcasm]
Both the owners and the players have "priced me out" of affording tickets....many of the NBA fan feel the same was....their loss......
*crickets*
The battle of 1% v. 1%.
No wonder nobody cares.
Ladies and Gentlemen, what we have is an epic battle between the "millionares" and the " billionares". Meanwhile, the rest of the world will continue to make ends meet.
And the collateral damage will continue to mount (i.e. vendors, janitors, etc.) due to these selfish, self-centered, overpaid, overrated, egomaniacs.
No one cares. Let the players lose their millions and the owners lose their billions. No one cares. They're all nothing but a bunch of never-grown-up, millionaire kids tossing a ball into a hoop on an undersized court with a basket far too low for people far too tall. The only thing more pathetic is their fans. Get a life. Learn to play a guitar or piano. Learn to paint. Do something other than waste your time supporting all of these over-priced and over-valued miscreants.
What a bunch of jerks, fighting over 1%. Meanwhile the minimum wage workers affected by this will not have any money to keep their heat on this winter. LeBron will be sitting toasty by the fire in his cashmere sweater. I know we are all of sick of the six-seven figure salary greed. Just want to give a Big F U to basketball then. Goodbye. Go to Europe. No one feels sorry for the owners or players. Call me crazy, but I'd be happy getting paid $50k a year doing what I love. They are lucky the get to have a career doing what they love.
im a sports fan and i can't stand the nba anymore. its thuggish. got dat swagga. got dem' smoove brothas. but its not entertaining and basically i hate most of the people in the league. the league is ignorant, childish, and too black for my taste. no role models and too individualistic
yep just like hockey is too white....... stop making everything about race...it's about the money you dip sh**!
Seriously, who cares. The picture with this story says it all. A bunch of spoiled athletes with little talent other than running and jumping - upset because they cannot increase their $$$. The owners - no better. JUST CANCEL THINGS AND BE DONE WITH IT. WUSSES.
Excellent. I hope these overpaid prima donnas stay on strike forever. Basketball is like watching the paint peel, and its "season" seems longer than the average Justice's stay on the Supreme Court. Good riddance.
This is not a strike, the greedy owners locked the players out.
I'm loving not having to flip through basketball on TV. Such a foolish sport anyway. Hockey is the better option.
the longer this goes on the less people care... bunch of whiny rich boys... some of the playas might have to settle for 22 in rimzzz on their whips this year.
The big money, pro sports culture is nauseating...
Millions without jobs, bad economic times... and all these greedy players can think about is more money, more money...
I'm sick of it...
Actually it's the owners that want more money, the players have already agreed to take less. This is a lockout not a strike. Try to pay attention.
well at least the college players will stay in school a little longer
I'm sure their English Profs are just thrilled at the prospect of grading those papers.
They'll actually graduate from college.
hopefully this keeps up! i hate when the nba interrupts my shows!