Who do you support?

[bassmastert]

I support the PA but i want a hard cap, too bad its off the table. The hardcap in Hockey is working out pretty well for the players, i believe they make the most BRI % of all the 4 sports. Baseball without a salary cap is the worst deal for the players. If i were the players i would accept a hardcap in exchange for atleast 53% of BRI.

and hockey is headed for another lockout next season, with a hard cap comes a hard floor and many of the teams are forced to spend that amount and they cant afford it.

Didn't the NBA have a hard floor in the previous CBA???

[TheDoctor]

I side with the fans and the non-player non-management employees and other associated workers/entrepreneurs impacted by the labour stoppage.

I think that the players missed their chance for just a pay-cut, and are now going to have to accept a painful deal, after a painful waiting period.

[ZKS_STAL]

Always the Union. Always the Players.

[JJ From Deep]

i just want basketball..

[Haisan]

Didn't the NBA have a hard floor in the previous CBA???

Yes, there is a floor, too -- for each team and for BRI. The Clippers, for example, often do a good job of getting as close to the floor as possible.

As others have said, I'm on the fans' side. I just want to see games. And being a fan of a team that was less terrible would be nice, too.

[Tofubeque]

I was with the owners, but they've come off the hard cap. Now they're just nickle and diming for their stupid %50 BRI, while the systematic problems are the same.

[teamLeiweke]

i wish i can walk into my office and demand my boss give me 53%, i don't think i even get .53%, nah... definitely not.

What would you say if your boss walked into your office and said 'how about you take a 20% pay cut and I going to reduce your benefits, oh and if you don't like it don't bother showing up tomorrow'

If my boss said he has to do that cause the company is losing money, there is a global recession, and Americas economy is a mess, ppl are losing houses, we are losing money cause not as many people are buying merch and tickets, we are losing money, Im sorry I dont have a choice, but if you dont make these sacrifices like the rest of America and the world right now, then I dont think I can run this company any longer, and everyone will be out of a job, I have paid you well the past 10 years, and I need this help from you now - I would say, ok...and this is a real life role, then you throw in that what the owners want is best of the league, for competitiveness, it gets rid of hedo and vc signing 6 yr max deals, not trying, not working out, faking uinjuries, then having all star years the year of their contract, then suddenly sucking again the next season, look at the NFL, the most prosperous league, what the owners are asking for isnt even close to that.

I agree that if the owners are making MILLIONs, the players DESERVE their millions because fans pay to see the talent and buy the jersery with the players name on it, but when the economy is in a recession and everyone is tightening their belts right now, the players should not be any different.

After all this, i dont know how you cant support the owners.

[Spicy P]

Owners 100%. They have good reasons for demanding a bigger slice of the pie. They're generating losses and in order for an organization to survive, it needs to at least break-even. They are looking out for more than just themselves, but for the well-being of the franchise where thousands of employees and millions of fans depend on. If they continue to lose money, there's just no reason for them to keep the team. What do these players need a little bit extra money for? So they can buy more expensive cars and go broke after they retire?

[J-Roc]

i wish i can walk into my office and demand my boss give me 53%, i don't think i even get .53%, nah... definitely not.

What would you say if your boss walked into your office and said 'how about you take a 20% pay cut and I going to reduce your benefits, oh and if you don't like it don't bother showing up tomorrow'

That actually happened to me. Business slowed down, so we were told to go from 8hr days to 7hr days. 12.5% loss in wages. But the trade-off was no individual was laid off. A year later, things hadn't improved yet (we were just floating by), so I had to make a decision to move on.

At the end of the day, as long as both sides in the NBA are doing what's in their right, there is no right and wrong. But I can say that from my point of view, as a Raptor fan, the current system sucks for us. It still allows players to pick and choose too much where they want to go, and our team will always get a short straw. So a change which allows parity like in the NFL or NHL is a welcome change to me.

[Laowai]

Personally like to see the owners float that teams have 12 players plus 3 in D league as reserves @ $100,000. In essence most teams do not need 15 players rarely more than 10 ever play and in a emergency the 3 players can be brought in a $500,000 K. I would think that would scare the hell out of the bottom 20% of players. In simple terms it would bring mid range players to 5,5 million. Anyone on the players side don't understand that a total revamp is required to make teams competitive.

[Fairview4Life]

i wish i can walk into my office and demand my boss give me 53%, i don't think i even get .53%, nah... definitely not.

What would you say if your boss walked into your office and said 'how about you take a 20% pay cut and I going to reduce your benefits, oh and if you don't like it don't bother showing up tomorrow'

If my boss said he has to do that cause the company is losing money, there is a global recession, and Americas economy is a mess, ppl are losing houses, we are losing money cause not as many people are buying merch and tickets, we are losing money, Im sorry I dont have a choice, but if you dont make these sacrifices like the rest of America and the world right now, then I dont think I can run this company any longer, and everyone will be out of a job, I have paid you well the past 10 years, and I need this help from you now - I would say,...

And I would say: "oh, is that why the league is bringing in record revenues? Is that how a recession works?"

Just a heads up for the rest of your post though, the owners do not want competitiveness or "what's best for the league". That is just a laughable assertion.

[DG88]

That's great about record revenues but that doesn't equal profit. You still have to minus the expenses incurred plus other taxes on that revenue. The owners have lost over 300 million dollars in each of the last 3 years. What happened 3 years ago ya the huge global recession.

[GRidge]

Those are unfair comparisons imo as it doesn't address the simple fact that the NBA wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the owners. They incur all the risks, liabilities, costs and burden of running a successful business. In any normal business, labour represents 30-40% of your costs and as owner you keep all the revenues.

I agree with you. The players no longer see the nba as a "business".

[Fairview4Life]

That's great about record revenues but that doesn't equal profit. You still have to minus the expenses incurred plus other taxes on that revenue. The owners have lost over 300 million dollars in each of the last 3 years. What happened 3 years ago ya the huge global recession.

The owners said they lost 300 million over the last three years. That's a pile of nonsense.

That said, no, record revenues doesn't equal record profits. But the % of those revenues going to the players has remained constant. We're left with non player salary expenses. Are you really going to argue that the recession caused non player salary expenses to go through the roof?

[barrist]

Surprised but not surprised by overwhelming support for owners. Weird how they're seen as the good guys when they're the ones that **** up their business with bad spending and bad investments; who gets thrown under the bus? Paying fans with increased ticket prices and players who are the lifeblood of the whole industry.

Everyone hates unions unless they belong to one.. jealousy abound.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

Really it's hard to pick sides. Part of me just thinks Players are holding up the inevitable, so you get annoyed that they aren't accepting the deal, now that's not a very fair view point for them. Plus, you don't hear much of what the Players would like. Only that they want to preserve the present system as much as possible, and not concede any more than 53%. Seems like Players have just drawn their box and are letting the league come up with a deal that fits within it. Seems like Owners have moved off of non guaranteed deals, moved far off the initial BRI split (initial in these negotiations) came off roll backs, and came off of a hard cap. People paint the Sarver's and Gilbert's as no good hardliners, yet paint Garnet and Wade and LeBron as heroes standing up for the union for drawing the line in the sand at 53%. And then they say the league isn't negotiating in good faith, when it seems like they've gotten more concessions than they've given.

They feel that they are negotiating from where they were at the last deal, when really, that deal's gone. Essentially, there are two parties talking about a new deal, And they haven't been able to come to terms yet. Both parties have the right to not sign a deal they don't agree with. Realistically there are two parties and fans should spread the blame around. It's clear though, that most feel the writing is on the wall, and perhaps begrudge the players for not accepting it, and getting this over with.

In my opinion Players are being a little short sighted and irresponsible to bank on fear of long term impact to the league from the lockout as being their leverage on the owners. That's their burden too, and they're irresponsible to think otherwise. Players and Ownership are partners in the league, and any impact that players feel owners should feel, players should fear it too, in addition to their paychecks. As 53% of a smaller pie, may not be as good as 50% of a bigger pie so they're at risk if fans don't come back as well. Seems to me that on the players side, they've got a bit of a fixation on 53% and no hard cap or a defacto hard cap, i wonder if how those number are projected to be affected by a long lay off, versus maintaining the momentum gained last year.

[Fairview4Life]

Really it's hard to pick sides. Part of me just thinks Players are holding up the inevitable, so you get annoyed that they aren't accepting the deal, now that's not a very fair view point for them. Plus, you don't hear much of what the Players would like. Only that they want to preserve the present system as much as possible, and not concede any more than 53%. Seems like Players have just drawn their box and are letting the league come up with a deal that fits within it. Seems like Owners have moved off of non guaranteed deals, moved far off the initial BRI split (initial in these negotiations) came off roll backs, and came off of a hard cap. People paint the Sarver's and Gilbert's as no good hardliners, yet paint Garnet and Wade and LeBron as heroes standing up for the union for drawing the line in the sand at 53%. And then they say the league isn't negotiating in good faith, when it seems like they've gotten more concessions than they've given.

If I ask for a unicorn initially, moving off of that demand isn't really me compromising, it's being ridiculous at the start so I can later say I'm trying really hard to make a deal, and "I even gave up my unicorn demand". All optics and PR.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

Surprised but not surprised by overwhelming support for owners. Weird how they're seen as the good guys when they're the ones that **** up their business with bad spending and bad investments; who gets thrown under the bus? Paying fans with increased ticket prices and players who are the lifeblood of the whole industry.

Everyone hates unions unless they belong to one.. jealousy abound.

But I think it's not entirely untrue that they system leads to that bad business you speak of, and so I understand why the owners want to change it. Seems pretty simplistic to think that it's just a few bad decision makers handing out contracts, when in actuality, it's players and agents who are big players in driving up the market, and or getting paid and becoming a drag on their team. We have set max's rookie scales, and min's. The rest if based on the availability of the mid level, and other exceptions to fit under the cap. Most contracts are guaranteed, I wonder which agent or player pointing fingers at owners and gms would have signed a non-guaranteed deal. Obviously the wouldn't as there's nothing but the market requiring the level of guarantees that we're seeing. Imo, it's very hypocritical. owners don't want to pay more, they try and pay less, agents a players negotiate for more based on the market. I'd hate to look at the Clippers and say, why can't you all run your teams like sterling, and not pay anyone.

It's not like players don't turn the pressure on their teams to get FA's and improve, and they try to. It's hypocritical, imo, for the players to then turn around and blame the owners for their lack of return. If it was one or two bad deals, they may have a point, but when seemingly every team and every trade has some awful contract on it, it's a system issue. It's cheap to blame the owners for competing for free agents. If anything fault them for agreeing on the previous deal, because that's what all those deals were created under. And if you do that, then you see why it is they want to change it.

That last deal led to this, becasue the only real values are the "TRUE" max guys ( lebron, Kobe, Dwight, Durant) and guys on rookie scales. Everyone else gets over paid until they join for a vet min to chase a ring. but that's what the union and league agreed to in the last CBA. I think Falk may have had a good point back then.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

Really it's hard to pick sides. Part of me just thinks Players are holding up the inevitable, so you get annoyed that they aren't accepting the deal, now that's not a very fair view point for them. Plus, you don't hear much of what the Players would like. Only that they want to preserve the present system as much as possible, and not concede any more than 53%. Seems like Players have just drawn their box and are letting the league come up with a deal that fits within it. Seems like Owners have moved off of non guaranteed deals, moved far off the initial BRI split (initial in these negotiations) came off roll backs, and came off of a hard cap. People paint the Sarver's and Gilbert's as no good hardliners, yet paint Garnet and Wade and LeBron as heroes standing up for the union for drawing the line in the sand at 53%. And then they say the league isn't negotiating in good faith, when it seems like they've gotten more concessions than they've given.

If I ask for a unicorn initially, moving off of that demand isn't really me compromising, it's being ridiculous at the start so I can later say I'm trying really hard to make a deal, and "I even gave up my unicorn demand". All optics and PR.

To me non guaranteed deal, hard caps were not unicorns, they were what I hoped would come out of this. What was so ridiculous about the owners offers?

[carlosey]

Surprised but not surprised by overwhelming support for owners. Weird how they're seen as the good guys when they're the ones that **** up their business with bad spending and bad investments; who gets thrown under the bus? Paying fans with increased ticket prices and players who are the lifeblood of the whole industry.

Everyone hates unions unless they belong to one.. jealousy abound.

But I think it's not entirely untrue that they system leads to that bad business you speak of, and so I understand why the owners want to change it. Seems pretty simplistic to think that it's just a few bad decision makers handing out contracts, when in actuality, it's players and agents who are big players in driving up the market, and or getting paid and becoming a drag on their team. We have set max's rookie scales, and min's. The rest if based on the availability of the mid level, and other exceptions to fit under the cap. Most contracts are guaranteed, I wonder which agent or player pointing fingers at owners and gms would have signed a non-guaranteed deal. Obviously the wouldn't as there's nothing but the market requiring the level of guarantees that we're seeing. Imo, it's very hypocritical. owners don't want to pay more, they try and pay less, agents a players negotiate for more based on the market. I'd hate to look at the Clippers and say, why can't you all run your teams like sterling, and not pay anyone.

It's not like players don't turn the pressure on their teams to get FA's and improve, and they try to. It's hypocritical, imo, for the players to then turn around and blame the owners for their lack of return. If it was one or two bad deals, they may have a point, but when seemingly every team and every trade has some awful contract on it, it's a system issue. It's cheap to blame the owners for competing for free agents. If anything fault them for agreeing on the previous deal, because that's what all those deals were created under. And if you do that, then you see why it is they want to change it.

I agree with this. Its not just owners spending for the sake of spending (more like overspending to keep any talent) and the players sitting there not trying to affect the market for their gain. The system needs tweaking in a bad way.