Owners offered 46% BRI, Players Offered 54%

[DBoys]

If the owners have the choice between 53% and ending the lockout or keeping the lockout going and potentially owing the players triple damages for all missed paychecks then I do think they would be crazy to take that kind of risk over 3%.

However, the owners have other (and much more palatable) choices.

Since triple damages are not incurred if the business is not in operation, their best choice would likely be to simply shut down the league and get a resolution through the courts. If I'm an owner, I think I'd rather get a ruling on whether all contracts are voided, and which parts of the league are allowed single-entity rules, before I started up for business again.

That lawsuit has already been filed.

And if there's a decertification, with no partner to negotiate with, the courts could allow them to simply begin operating under impasse terms - ie, since the other side doesn't want to negotiate, if you want to reopen your business to those who want to work, you put in place your "best offer" and go to work. Under that one, the players get 47%, and who knows but what the formal offer at 47 had a hard cap as well.

But it seems that both sides would be far better off to work together than let this drag on. They''re pissing away money they'll never get back, once they start cancelling games, and getting the league back in operation very quickly requires both sides.

[floppymoose]

Next CBA is an entirely different negotiation. Nothing says that the players can't negotiate back up in the next CBA.

Really? Then how come you contradict yourself in the very next sentence?

Sitting out a full year for a 3% raise is pretty crazy to me.

Btw, it's not a raise. It's a cut. What you are really saying is they should settle for a 7% cut.

For the players the 2 billion is all profit. For the owners they lose 2 billion in revenue but their costs come out of that as well. I'm sure that the owners would lose money but its nothing close to what the players woulld lose.

The player money is divided 400+ ways. The owner profit is divided 30 ways. It's trickier to assess the owner losses because it's tied up in the value of their team, and it's hard to know how a prolonged lockout will affect the value. But they have more skin in the game. A lot more. They are just better prepared (in the short term at least) to go without.

[jazzfan1971]

Owners stand to lose a lot less money than the players. The owners costs go down significantly not paying the players. Plus for teams that own their own stadiums like the Jazz they can find other revenue streams.

They'll lose money, sure, but, the difference between losing 30m a year and 45m a year isn't as bad for an owner as compared to a player that goes from 15m a year to 0.

I think the owners are being very flexible in these negotiations really. Maybe the players see that as weakness. I think they are mistaken to do so. Owners have all the leverage here and if pushed too hard will take the players to the woodshed for a beating they'll never forget.

[floppymoose]

The owners have all the leverage for the first year. After that it's gone. They are going to lose money, and they are going to see the value of their shiny new team purchase drop, and then the new owners are going to start to eat Stern and the old owners alive. The players just have to stay united that long, and they'll get 53%.

I have no idea what evidence you see that the owners are being flexible. The owners position all along has been "we are going to pay you less than other leagues pay their players", which is not a flexible stance at all. The players are the ones who have shown flexibility, by offering to reduce their portion of the pie to be less than 2 of the 3 other major leagues.

[jazzfan1971]

Players will never hold out a whole year. I wouldn't if my career was about 4years on average anyway.

They'll probably end up with 51%, but, they could do that today if they wanted. Dragging their feet only makes the 51% of BRI a smaller number.

Right now the league is mostly concerned about public perception, they don't want to be cast as the villians, and I think they are doing a pretty good job of controlling the message. And frankly if the union can't get the players to stop tweeting they are going to win the war of public perception going away.

One tweet about how Lebron isn't paid enough to feed his children and it's all over for the players.

[floppymoose]

Public perception doesn't matter. Or to be more exact: it's neutral in it's effect: it hurts the owners just as much. If the fans hate the players, and don't return to the stadiums when games start, that's the owners problem too. The players ARE the product. The owners can't damage the players in this fight without damaging themselves.

As for whether they will stay out an entire year, that's the big question. I think they should. The alternative of giving the owners another few hundred million every few years is a non-starter to me.

[jazzfan1971]

They wont. It's not your money you are sacrificing with that attitude. If you were set to make 15 million or heck, 1.5 million this year I think your stance would be a lot softer.

The players were willing to be unified when the going was easy, but, it won't last once the pain starts. You'll just have to trust me on this one. NBA players are notoriously bad at money management. For folks making millions of dollars they do a terrific job of living paycheck to paycheck by and large. A lot of these guys aren't even well off a few years after leaving the league. It's rather tragic. And it plays right into the owners hands.

[Haisan]

It was certainly true last lockout that the players were not prepared to live without paychecks for very long. But I get the sense that they are much better prepared this time -- don't forgot, the late-90s were the peak of knucklehead ball in the NBA ... The players now seem much smarter and savvier (ironic, considering how much less school most attend now).

I was certain from the beginning that this lockout was all about BRI sharing. I think it is pretty easy to get the players to give in on just about any other issue (except guaranteed contracts maybe) (the issue that the NBA owners should have targeted first, before BRI, imho). But BRI revenue is something easy for players to understand, and no one likes to have their salaries "lowered."

How much money is worth not playing at all? I don't know. Certainly 11% was worth it (57% now vs. 46% proposed). But 50% vs 53%? Each percentage point gets tougher for the players to justify (it should be the same for the owners, but they are more accountant-driven, so can afford to be jerks if they want).

[floppymoose]

They wont. It's not your money you are sacrificing with that attitude. If you were set to make 15 million or heck, 1.5 million this year I think your stance would be a lot softer.

I'm stubborn.

The players were willing to be unified when the going was easy, but, it won't last once the pain starts. You'll just have to trust me on this one.

I'm not really arguing that point. I've said all along that I don't know what the players will do. I just know what I would do, and what I think they *should* do.

[turk3d]

I think that they might ultimately settle for 50-50 but if it were up to me, I'd do 53-47 which I think would be fair. The owners gain 4% and the players give up 4%. I really think it's "all" the other issues that need to get hammered out which will be the most difficult to resolve. Once they figure those out, then it's simply a matter of settling on the percentages for both sides which imo is much more easy to hone in on.