First 2 weeks of season likely cancelled...

[Scraptor]

Rants like the ones by erudite23 and FullCapacity make it worthwhile to keep wading through this cesspool. Saves me from typing out exactly how I feel, which also keeps me from bursting several blood vessels.

[JustDwight]

@SpearsNBAYahoo: "Stern & Billy (Hunter) will talk over the weekend without antics and get down to it."

Semi-comforting

[Jmonty580]

So pretty much there should a "FAKE" league. a leauge where teams that cant and never will make a profit are kept afloat by teams that can? Sounds like a bunch of crap honsetly. The system is broken and taking more from the teams and players isnt going to fix that. Sounds like the US economy. While I understand bailouts and saving jobs and all of that, it doesnt fix the fundamental problems. Something has to give eventually, now the owners want a 50-50 split, next time 46-54, followed by 40-60, and so on and so forth. It'll just get worse and worse and at some point in time it will all blow up in all of our faces. Not to mention Stern in the mean will continue to try to expand the league which the worse thing that could possibly happen right now. Any owner bailout is a temp fix that wont improve things but only make them worse and more unsolvable long term.

[erudite23]

So pretty much there should a "FAKE" league. a leauge where teams that cant and never will make a profit are kept afloat by teams that can? Sounds like a bunch of crap honsetly. The system is broken and taking more from the teams and players isnt going to fix that. Sounds like the US economy. While I understand bailouts and saving jobs and all of that, it doesnt fix the fundamental problems. Something has to give eventually, now the owners want a 50-50 split, next time 46-54, followed by 40-60, and so on and so forth. It'll just get worse and worse and at some point in time it will all blow up in all of our faces. Not to mention Stern in the mean will continue to try to expand the league which the worse thing that could possibly happen right now. Any owner bailout is a temp fix that wont improve things but only make them worse and more unsolvable long term.

How misinformed and thinking-impaired do you have to be to type something like this? Do you realize that this is a league that makes $4b a year? And that much of that $4b a year is dependent upon the league tapping into markets like Milwaukee, Sacramento, San Antonio, New Orleans, Charlotte etc etc? If those other teams didn't exist, NY and LA wouldn't be able to gross 200m + per season, and wouldn't have that fat cash in the first place. They are directly reaping the benefits from an asset that they did not create. It's the reason why revenues need to be shared on some level, so that teams like Charlotte and NO can get their portion of benefits from building the NBA brand on a big-picture level.

And let's not kid ourselves. The fact that the NBA has been ingenious enough to build this 4b a year monster is proof enough that the people in charge are not incompetent, as Draper and others are asserting. If they were such douches, then the league would have fallen into ruin and disrepair a long time ago. Yet THEY are the reason why they aren't making profits, even though the league as a whole is losing money. So damn stupid.

[tugs]

via wiretap:

The NBA and NBPA, according to sources, could land on a split of 51 percent of BRI to players-49 percent to owners this weekend, down from the 57 percent that players received under the last collective-bargaining agreement.

take it or leave it time.

[aurareturn1]

The owners paid for the teams; they pay for the private planes; they pay for the luxury hotels the players stay in on the road; they pay for every game-day operating expense...I'm just baffled at how the players think they deserve greater than a 50/50 split. Even more baffled at how they think they'll secure a better deal in a week, month, 3-months, etc.

I'm baffled that you are baffled. It's an easy explanation: the players bring in more money than the owners spend.

That is NOT true. The Superstars are the one driving in the money. It is also false to accuse the owners didn't spend. If they didn't spend, why are majority of teams losing money? You don't make sense at all.

Revenue is increasing, but operating cost also increasing. What does this mean? it's a zero-sum game from the owner-perspective. They don't gain anything from the players bringing in new money when their products (the players) cost so much to produce. If you insist that the owners should cut off-basketball related costs, such as advertising, private hotel, luxury plane, and cutting off staffs? Guess what? the players also suffer since the casual fan won't be exposed to this "talents", and they won't get to enjoy 1st class treatment.

I understand economics man. For teams turning in a profit, what I said is absolutely true. I am just replying to someone that doesn't understand why NBA players get all these perks such as private jets. It's because the players are making enough money for the team.