Next CBA

[SJSF]

People do watch college basketball, so i am sure people will watch pro ball with replcement players. Especially if your team sucks and your replacement team might be better. It will be interesting on to how this meeting on thursday goes. I do think there will be a lockout and the players will eventually come to their senses that the cash cow is no longer. Owners every so often get to be in the drivers seat and they know its now or never right now with the economy being down and the teams losing money.

I am for the owners and i hope with the new rules and the less guaranteed contracts. Team can get out from under a bad contract and get their team back on track.

[killbuckner]

I get that some people still went to NFL games with replacement players. NFL games are an event that people plan for and go out of their way for. I can't imagine who would actually pay money to see replacement players in the NBA. I literally wouldn't go for free.

[SJSF]

I for one only go to Sixers games when i can get tickets for about 50% off. I mean who would go and pay 60-100 bucks to watch them. But if the tickets were 15-50 bucks i am all for it. I would even pay that to go and watch college and developmental ball. To me the product is not worth the price tag. The league is so watered down with players that wouldn't even be starting on the teams 20-30 years ago when the NBA was great. But yet the players are making 15m+ and can't even hit a free throw.

[HartfordWhalers]

The league is so watered down with players that wouldn't even be starting on the teams 20-30 years ago when the NBA was great. But yet the players are making 15m+ and can't even hit a free throw.

Of course, this isn't reflected in actual data about free throw shooting which has improved mildly on average and significantly by the best shooters since 20-30 years ago, but I get the sense that facts don't matter.

Few links anyway:
http://www.cleveland.com/livingston/ind ... e_thr.html
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2 ... ercentage/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/sport ... age&st=cse

[HartfordWhalers]

People do watch college basketball, so i am sure people will watch pro ball with replcement players. Especially if your team sucks and your replacement team might be better. It will be interesting on to how this meeting on thursday goes. I do think there will be a lockout and the players will eventually come to their senses that the cash cow is no longer. Owners every so often get to be in the drivers seat and they know its now or never right now with the economy being down and the teams losing money.

I am for the owners and i hope with the new rules and the less guaranteed contracts. Team can get out from under a bad contract and get their team back on track.

Just to repeat this point again and hopefully make it clearer, people watch pro basketball and college basketball because there isn't a sense of watching an inferior product for either. Something like the Dleague falls in between the two with skills and yet it is perceived of as crappy, and thus people (in mass) don't watch it.
The NIT tournament should be some of the better college ball played each year. And yet how does it do in the ratings compared to a mid December random Big East conference game? How many people watch d2 basketball? If its framed as an inferior product,which I have a hard time seeing owners overcome, people aren't going to embrace it in mass.

And at your replacement team might be better.

[verbal8]

I think most max contracts and rookie scale work pretty well.

I think the max deal can be fixed by making it 3 years for another team and 5 years with 3 year ETO and 5th year team option(or 50% guarantee over 4th and 5th year) for the same team. This would let max players get paid, but give teams an easier out on bad max deals.

I think the MLE needs to be smaller because the percentage of bad MLE deals is pretty high. The MLE could be tweaked cut it down by about 20%. Limiting MLE deals to 2 or 3 years would probably cut the cost down to 50%.

I think increasing the luxury tax could also push salaries down a little.

The toughest issue is the above average deals(>8 million, but less than max), because these are really the fault of the owners and GMs. There are about 16 players making 160 million this season who should be making a lot less. This is half of the "350 million loss" that the owners are complaining about.

[SJSF]

Any word on the meeting that took place.

[HartfordWhalers]

I haven't heard anything, but I would be surprised if owners didn't take a look at the maximum raises allowed. With revenue not going up 10% a year, this becomes an issue, where salaries can go up much faster than the salary cap does.

Its not such a big deal at the max contracts that must fit within the salary max each year, but the MLE size deals where a player starts at 10% the cap and finishes at 12% add up, and help contribute to the rarity with which a team is under the cap unless most their players come due.

[The Rebel]

I agree with Sham, in that I don't think the owners get a hard cap or partially guaranteed deals with incentives. Too many teams are not even on the same page with the hard cap, and players in the NFL hate the way their deals work. They are treated horribly in the NFL, and the NBA players union is never going for that.

What I would like to see and can see happening is
- a change in the BRI, allowing the league to effectively lower the cap 8-10%, along with the tax, and a double tax implemented at 10% higher then the original tax.
-max contracts, the MLE, and rookie deals all get a 10% cut.
-max raises are no longer an automatic 5-8% but instead based on changes in revenue, if revenue goes up the players get a raise of course if it drops the players cut a paycut.
- more revenue sharing to ensure that teams get a closer to level playing field.
- restricted free agency is changed, allowing players to move more freely while the original team receives compensation in the form of draft picks, as opposed to being able to match.

-I also do not think the NBA is going to be able to convince the Players union to roll back contracts all ready in place. I think they will be grandfathered. But I do not think the NBA allows any of the clauses of allowing players to sign at 105% of current contracts.

[HartfordWhalers]

I agree with Sham, in that I don't think the owners get a hard cap or partially guaranteed deals with incentives. Too many teams are not even on the same page with the hard cap, and players in the NFL hate the way their deals work. They are treated horribly in the NFL, and the NBA players union is never going for that.

What I would like to see and can see happening is
- a change in the BRI, allowing the league to effectively lower the cap 8-10%, along with the tax, and a double tax implemented at 10% higher then the original tax.
-max contracts, the MLE, and rookie deals all get a 10% cut.
-max raises are no longer an automatic 5-8% but instead based on changes in revenue, if revenue goes up the players get a raise of course if it drops the players cut a paycut.
- more revenue sharing to ensure that teams get a closer to level playing field.
- restricted free agency is changed, allowing players to move more freely while the original team receives compensation in the form of draft picks, as opposed to being able to match.

-I also do not think the NBA is going to be able to convince the Players union to roll back contracts all ready in place. I think they will be grandfathered. But I do not think the NBA allows any of the clauses of allowing players to sign at 105% of current contracts.

When its all said and done, isn't a change in the BRI what it is really about? Who cares if you overpay one player if you get to underpay another. Moving from 57% BRI to 50-52 should be owners main goal(besides squabbling amongst themselves over revenue sharing). The rest is just details, appealing to players, and maybe helping the competitive balance/giving doomed teams a sense of hope.

That said, I will be very curious on how they change the rules.

Agree that a hard cap isn't coming anytime soon.
Max contracts and rookie deals are often great bargains for teams, so I don't see why these would be lowered (more than the BRI gets lowered) except that they are politically expendable to the mass of players that fall between them. Imagine a team able to sign 4 max free agents (miami+CP3?), I just cannot see the new CBA making it possible for that to happen.

Restricted free agency has worked pretty well for the owners, so I would think they would want to go in the opposite direction of above and reduce unrestricted free agency, increase the home team benefit. I really don't think they can mess with the draft.
Maybe create two classes of Restricted 1 and restricted 2 free agents, before 10 year vets become ufa's.

I think the safest assumption is 1 year shorter max length on deals.

[The Rebel]

Max deals will be cut, because the Union has 400 plus members and only about 20 of them get a max deal, easier to sell that to the members then a cut to the minimum which is another thing the owners want.

The rookie contracts will also be cut, because it is another thing not affecting current players in the league/ union.

Even if you cut max deals by 10%, it would not leave enough room under the current cap for 4 max contracts to be signed with free agents, if the cap is also cut 10% if actually makes it harder to get 3 max contracts under the cap.

i agree that restricted free agency has somewhat worked for the owners, but that is also reportedly one of the major changes that the union wants. I think they will have to win something to show they were somewhat effective, I think this will likely be the one issue they win something on, although I could see the cost being 2 first rounders or something in that neighborhood.

I also forgot that i think the new cba also makes it easier to do trades, right now it is hard for teams to make the numbers work on trades they would like to make, I think they make it a little easier as it is best for both the owners and the players.

[twosauce]

the nba - where greed happens

[verbal8]

Max deals will be cut, because the Union has 400 plus members and only about 20 of them get a max deal, easier to sell that to the members then a cut to the minimum which is another thing the owners want.

There may be only 20 max players, but there are 380 who are being told by their agents that there next deal will be a max deal lol

The owners have a pretty weak case on reducing the max deals, because they are a bargain when the player earns it.

The rookie contracts will also be cut, because it is another thing not affecting current players in the league/ union.

Rookie contracts are by far the best deals for the owners, I don't think they want to change them at all. I also think the players union will focus more on the current players rather than future rookies, so changes like shorter rookie deals are not likely.

Even if you cut max deals by 10%, it would not leave enough room under the current cap for 4 max contracts to be signed with free agents, if the cap is also cut 10% if actually makes it harder to get 3 max contracts under the cap.

i agree that restricted free agency has somewhat worked for the owners, but that is also reportedly one of the major changes that the union wants. I think they will have to win something to show they were somewhat effective, I think this will likely be the one issue they win something on, although I could see the cost being 2 first rounders or something in that neighborhood.

I also forgot that i think the new cba also makes it easier to do trades, right now it is hard for teams to make the numbers work on trades they would like to make, I think they make it a little easier as it is best for both the owners and the players.

[SJSF]

The league is so watered down with players that wouldn't even be starting on the teams 20-30 years ago when the NBA was great. But yet the players are making 15m+ and can't even hit a free throw.

Of course, this isn't reflected in actual data about free throw shooting which has improved mildly on average and significantly by the best shooters since 20-30 years ago, but I get the sense that facts don't matter.

Few links anyway:
http://www.cleveland.com/livingston/ind ... e_thr.html
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2 ... ercentage/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/sport ... age&st=cse

you do know the Ft comment was sarcasm. I guess you didn't get it. The players today are far underskilled compared to back in the 80's. The teams have one good player per team now. BAck in the day there was multiple good players per team.

[ranger001]

Well it looks like some of the owners are pushing for a minimum 10 million dollar profit and a lockout is 99% certain according to Bully Hunter.

The owners are taking a hard line on this, the numbers are not lies, they are losing money and are willing to lose a year of the NBA. Record some games guys, you might be without the NBA for a year.

[HartfordWhalers]

The league is so watered down with players that wouldn't even be starting on the teams 20-30 years ago when the NBA was great. But yet the players are making 15m+ and can't even hit a free throw.

Of course, this isn't reflected in actual data about free throw shooting which has improved mildly on average and significantly by the best shooters since 20-30 years ago, but I get the sense that facts don't matter.

Few links anyway:
http://www.cleveland.com/livingston/ind ... e_thr.html
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2 ... ercentage/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/sport ... age&st=cse

posting.php?mode=quote&f=4&p=25706603#
you do know the Ft comment was sarcasm. I guess you didn't get it. The players today are far underskilled compared to back in the 80's. The teams have one good player per team now. BAck in the day there was multiple good players per team.

Seemed to match your previous complaints pretty accurately. Don't worry I can take all your comments as not serious.

[HartfordWhalers]

Max deals will be cut, because the Union has 400 plus members and only about 20 of them get a max deal, easier to sell that to the members then a cut to the minimum which is another thing the owners want.

There may be only 20 max players, but there are 380 who are being told by their agents that there next deal will be a max deal lol

The owners have a pretty weak case on reducing the max deals, because they are a bargain when the player earns it.

This. In order for the max deals to be decreased in my opinion, they would have to decline more than the BRI percentage does. If BRI/cap goes down 10% and max goes down 10%, I'm calling that flat (proportionate). Maybe max goes 15% down and salaries 10% down, but anything where max salaries eat a lower percentage of the cap could get really perverse.

Right now it is 25% of the cap. Maybe you can inch it down to 22.5%, but if it gets down to 20%,then it should definitely be possible to get 4 max free agents, etc etc.

[Dunkenstein]

I found this article in Forbes to be illuminating:

Salary Caps Have Widened The Money Gap In Pro Sports

http://blogs.forbes.com/mikeozanian/201 ... ro-sports/

The author concludes that "three teams (Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Bulls, Detroit Pistons) accounted for 64% of the league’s profits and 12 teams lost money. . . The conventional wisdom is that salary caps benefit poorer teams. But in reality they benefit richer teams more. The owners know this, of course. Which is why the real bare knuckles fighting in the current collective bargaining negotiations in these three sports is among owners."

Doesn't that argue that in the upcoming NBA CBA negotiations, the real answer to solving the problems of money-losing teams is not so much reducing the players' percentage of league income, but devising a better system of revenue sharing among the owners?

[ranger001]

Overall, the league has to be profitable for revenue sharing to work. Stern said that the owners are projected to lose $400 million this season combined. So revenue sharing would soften the blow for some teams but is not going to change the bottom line of the league losing money.

There is going to be increased revenue sharing but the fundamental problem has to be address first, i.e. player salaries. The owners are going to force themselves to not compete with each other in a way that makes them lose money.

[captaincrunk]

I get that some people still went to NFL games with replacement players. NFL games are an event that people plan for and go out of their way for. I can't imagine who would actually pay money to see replacement players in the NBA. I literally wouldn't go for free.

Not to mention that one NFL player doesn't have as big of an impact.