GetBuLLish wrote:What Reggie said at the way end was spot on.
Exactly.
Both the players and the owners are at fault.
I am a Nets fan. I remember the LBJ sweepstakes like it was yesterday. I remember when I found out that we signed Travis Outlaw to be our STARTING small forward for the Nets instead of getting a much better SF. At the time I wasn't in the country, which was probably a good thing. I closed my laptop and just kept saying "Why" and then went to do other things. I was so pissed that management and Avery "POINT GAWD" Johnson would give $35 million to such a high caliber scrub and not think twice about it. Stop paying these fools!
The owners are losing money. The fans are losing money. There is no way in the world that players should expect a pay raise. People aren't just losing a few dollars here and there. They're losing their jobs WITHOUT guaranteed contracts!! Maybe we will get out of the recession soon, maybe we won't. But for the vast majority of players out there, they are overpaid. They need to take a pay cut and have a sense of reality slapped back into them.
We all love the game but we all live in the real world. Just like how the American people hated the idea that banks were too big to fail, we also hate the idea that players think they are too great to fail and have their salaries reduced.
Everyone needs to grow up and be men.
Owners, hire competent decision makers and managers.
Players, remember that you play a game that most of us play for free but you get paid to do it. It's a blessing, not a requirement to get paid playing basketball.