RealGM

Please someone needs to tell these guys the truth, that the ownwers are laughing at them when they make these silly statements, about signing to play overseas. Sure some of the lower level players may really consider it, for many reasons, non the least financial.

But please quit making a fool of yourselves, to try to have fans and owners try to think that, Kobe, Dwayne Wade, Dwight Howard, Deron Williams etc. are intrigued by playing overseas.

Guys are not going to risk 30-50-75-100 million dollar deals to play overseas. While the owners seem to think that the players and the union repss are not the brightest people, this only adds fuel to there fire on this thinking, however there agents are not this stupid.

I think that 10-15 of the most influential top players need to call a meeting with the owners and try to get this thing handled, sooner rather than later.

Everytime the NBA gets some traction and momentum the owners or players seem to want to get greedy, this time around it would seem that the owners, want to try use a sledge hammer to negotiate this deal. They made an awful deal for themselves the last time and now seem like they want to make up for the last 10+ years of a bad deal.

Then there are these idiot talking heads that want to try to convince people that there a bunch of teams that are going to lose less money by not playing vs playing under the old agreement. What planet are these guys from. Lets see you borrow 200 million and the bank and or investors are well guys I get it your involved in this labor dispute you dont have to pay us untill you get back to work. Right, I would probably doubt that.

Can you imagine saying to bank of america that hey my union is striking right now so can I make my car payments and mortgage payments when I get back to work. Sure no problem, not

The owners need to get back to work as bad as the players if not more so. Yes this topic probably belongs somewhere else but no one hardly ever reads that.

I think we as fans should figure out a way to put pressure on both parties, not sure how, but hey im sure there is some creative brainiac floating around this board

I actually think the majority of them just want to play basketball.

I got a loan for a car 10 years ago. I had a steady loan payment to make each month which was easily within my means. But as well as that, my car turned out to be fairly unreliable, and I had to make a tonne of repairs I wasn't expecting, that were far more significant than my loan repayment, and this car has been costing me and costing me. I eventually decided that, screw it, I'd take the bus. I still have to make the repayments, which I can afford, and I'm not getting any real benefit out of my car, there is some slight inconvenience in taking the bus, but overall, I'm getting where I need to be, and it's costing me a lot less than when I drove the car, just by not making repairs every few weeks. When I find some sucker to trade my car in to for a better car, I'll drive again, but until then, I'm pretty happy to just take the bus.

MartyConlonJr wrote:I got a loan for a car 10 years ago. I had a steady loan payment to make each month which was easily within my means. But as well as that, my car turned out to be fairly unreliable, and I had to make a tonne of repairs I wasn't expecting, that were far more significant than my loan repayment, and this car has been costing me and costing me. I eventually decided that, screw it, I'd take the bus. I still have to make the repayments, which I can afford, and I'm not getting any real benefit out of my car, there is some slight inconvenience in taking the bus, but overall, I'm getting where I need to be, and it's costing me a lot less than when I drove the car, just by not making repairs every few weeks. When I find some sucker to trade my car in to for a better car, I'll drive again, but until then, I'm pretty happy to just take the bus.

Exactly what I was going to say.

MartyConlonJr wrote:I got a loan for a car 10 years ago. I had a steady loan payment to make each month which was easily within my means. But as well as that, my car turned out to be fairly unreliable, and I had to make a tonne of repairs I wasn't expecting, that were far more significant than my loan repayment, and this car has been costing me and costing me. I eventually decided that, screw it, I'd take the bus. I still have to make the repayments, which I can afford, and I'm not getting any real benefit out of my car, there is some slight inconvenience in taking the bus, but overall, I'm getting where I need to be, and it's costing me a lot less than when I drove the car, just by not making repairs every few weeks. When I find some sucker to trade my car in to for a better car, I'll drive again, but until then, I'm pretty happy to just take the bus.

that's like a knicks/eddy curry metaphor...

You know Marty, I can help you. It just so happens I own an automobile dealership. Lets talk, riding the bus sxxks, not to mention very dangerous, and not to pick but your analagy while clever, is not in the same zip code from a dollars standpoint, look into there cost structure of an NBA franchise sometime.

I'm just wondering how the Raptor fans feel. All these elite players are intrigued about going over seas but no one wants to play in Toronto

I think the owners could really stick it to the players and force them out the whole year then truly make them commit to a low $45 million cap if they wanted to. In reality, this is not a partnership. There are owners and employees. The players are employees and not part owners. They really are not entitled to nothing.

Heat3 wrote:I'm just wondering how the Raptor fans feel. All these elite players are intrigued about going over seas but no one wants to play in Toronto

Thats right these guys are screwed, well thats a little harsh. There is an article I just read over on hoopsworld about David Falk being a mediator, it was pretty cool, he spelled out alot of the problems. Here is the link

http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=20400

BadMofoPimp wrote:I think the owners could really stick it to the players and force them out the whole year then truly make them commit to a low $45 million cap if they wanted to. In reality, this is not a partnership. There are owners and employees. The players are employees and not part owners. They really are not entitled to nothing.

Absolutely they could stick it to them, hey this thing aint gone away anytime soon. The players are not willing to understand the problems the league has. And they are very real.

Yeah the problem is bad business men giving horrible deals to Rashard Lewis, Travis Outlaw, and Joe Johnson. A nice little compromise is affordable team buyouts for bad contracts after year 2. It keeps the pressure for players to perform.

mikey1365 wrote:

BadMofoPimp wrote:I think the owners could really stick it to the players and force them out the whole year then truly make them commit to a low $45 million cap if they wanted to. In reality, this is not a partnership. There are owners and employees. The players are employees and not part owners. They really are not entitled to nothing.

Absolutely they could stick it to them, hey this thing aint gone away anytime soon. The players are not willing to understand the problems the league has. And they are very real.

I spoke with an associate who has close ties to Magic organization and its players. He had spoke to most of the players on the team about the lockout. He said that none of them have a clue what is contained in the CBA besides what the Union tells them. He believes players are brainwashed by the Union.