Official CBA/Labour Talks Discussion Thread III

[MEDIC]

Wasn't T-Mac an RFA? Bad management to let him go.

Toronto did everything they could to retain T-Mac. He was jumping ship no matter what.

[Ponchos]

Wasn't T-Mac an RFA? Bad management to let him go.

Toronto did everything they could to retain T-Mac. He was jumping ship no matter what.

Except that if he's an RFA, he can't jump ship.

[knickerbocker2k2]

Well, my point is, Cleveland did do well in the draft (regardless if they were lucky or not) & they were a contending team. Now they are back to obscurity.

It would have been nice if they got a Tim Duncan or Dirk Nowitski type commitment from their star player.

Drafting is not all there is to it. You need to draft to start, but you need to build pieces through trades/fa additions. In the case of Cleveland they landed the jackpot in players but never did good job of building around him. They screwed up the boozer thing right off the bat. They never added second piece to help Lebron. Yes it would be nice if players stuck around, but you can't force players to stay around unless you get rid of FA as we know. And Cleveland is back to obscurity but if they draft well again, then they can be contender in few years.

As for Toronto. They did draft well....they drafted EXTREMELY well early on. Where did that get them?

I'm not buying the "small market teams just have to draft well to win" (insuating that they are doing poorly because they suck at drafting).

The issue is much more complicated that that.

Again the system in place right now is very advantageous the team that drafts the player. I can't think of scenario in last CBA in which a team lost the player they drafted. Most players play out their 3/4 year rookie contract and resign. This was the case in Vince/Bosh/Lebron/Melo. All these players resigned and played 5-7 years for their respective teams. If you can't build a winner in 7 years and convince the player to stay, than that is your own damn fault.

[CPT]

That's why it would be nice to give teams avenues to fix their mistakes. Cleveland tried to put players around LeBron, they just chose the wrong ones. Same with us.

Non-guaranteed contracts would be ideal, but that will never be the standard.

The stretch exception should help. Shorter contracts would help. I honestly wouldn't mind seeing an amnesty clause available every year. The player still gets paid, so it's not like teams would just throw it around willy nilly.

[Indeed]

Well, my point is, Cleveland did do well in the draft (regardless if they were lucky or not) & they were a contending team. Now they are back to obscurity.

It would have been nice if they got a Tim Duncan or Dirk Nowitski type commitment from their star player.

Drafting is not all there is to it. You need to draft to start, but you need to build pieces through trades/fa additions. In the case of Cleveland they landed the jackpot in players but never did good job of building around him. They screwed up the boozer thing right off the bat. They never added second piece to help Lebron. Yes it would be nice if players stuck around, but you can't force players to stay around unless you get rid of FA as we know. And Cleveland is back to obscurity but if they draft well again, then they can be contender in few years.

As for Toronto. They did draft well....they drafted EXTREMELY well early on. Where did that get them?

I'm not buying the "small market teams just have to draft well to win" (insuating that they are doing poorly because they suck at drafting).

The issue is much more complicated that that.

Again the system in place right now is very advantageous the team that drafts the player. I can't think of scenario in last CBA in which a team lost the player they drafted. Most players play out their 3/4 year rookie contract and resign. This was the case in Vince/Bosh/Lebron/Melo. All these players resigned and played 5-7 years for their respective teams. If you can't build a winner in 7 years and convince the player to stay, than that is your own damn fault.

True, when you are holding players for 7 years. However, you are limited in the free market to sign better talents. This is why there is little competitive parity, because the rules are limited in trading and signing players. How LAL became a better team? In a so called one sided trade for Gasol.

So I think it is one way to have players signed in a long term to ensure parity, but the other way is to have more talents in free agent (let teams bid on each other to avoid super teams). Also if there is a farm team, that would provide more assets for teams to trade (lack of assets to balance each trade).

Meanwhile, when you look at NHL, their best player or franchise player might be traded, but not hard to rebuild in two years. They are neither heavily replying on draft picks, but they have a farm team to have more assets for trading better players. There is also a benefit in a hard cap system, where players are easier to be traded between teams, while a heavily tax system would work the same.

[knickerbocker2k2]

I personally think the biggest problem is that the way league is setup there is little flexibility in changing the composition of your team. Rebuilding takes 3-5 years. This kills markets because only the die-hard fans stick around and it takes awhile before the casual fan is interested again. Trades usually are for bad contracts for bad contracts. FA only go to attractive places (not just geo, but situation). So the only option left to teams is wait out their contracts, draft & wait for their talent to mature, etc.

The solution would be to reduce contract lengths. Allow more flexible trades instead of the current system for trading 125% of contract values. Also I think introducing new wrinkles in the season could work. For instance have mini tournament for the 8th seed in each conference. Or maybe introduce cup type of tournament that is single elimination like in European soccer that is scheduled along with the regular season. You have to keep the fans of losing/rebuilding teams involved.

[Homer Jay]

Well, my point is, Cleveland did do well in the draft (regardless if they were lucky or not) & they were a contending team. Now they are back to obscurity.

It would have been nice if they got a Tim Duncan or Dirk Nowitski type commitment from their star player.

Drafting is not all there is to it. You need to draft to start, but you need to build pieces through trades/fa additions. In the case of Cleveland they landed the jackpot in players but never did good job of building around him. They screwed up the boozer thing right off the bat. They never added second piece to help Lebron. Yes it would be nice if players stuck around, but you can't force players to stay around unless you get rid of FA as we know. And Cleveland is back to obscurity but if they draft well again, then they can be contender in few years.

As for Toronto. They did draft well....they drafted EXTREMELY well early on. Where did that get them?

I'm not buying the "small market teams just have to draft well to win" (insuating that they are doing poorly because they suck at drafting).

The issue is much more complicated that that.

Again the system in place right now is very advantageous the team that drafts the player. I can't think of scenario in last CBA in which a team lost the player they drafted. Most players play out their 3/4 year rookie contract and resign. This was the case in Vince/Bosh/Lebron/Melo. All these players resigned and played 5-7 years for their respective teams. If you can't build a winner in 7 years and convince the player to stay, than that is your own damn fault.

They didn't screw up on Boozer. He straight up lied and then broke a verbal agreement. T-mac straight up lied to Grunwald's face too.

Cleveland offered Boozer an extension before FA. He said don't worry I'm staying anyway. He then verabally agreed to a contract with Cleveland at the start of the FA period. Then at the 11th hour, Utah swooped in with a ridiculous offer that Boozer jumped on. Similar to what Hedo did to Portland, although Hedo never gave a verbal agreement.

Grunwald had deals on the table for T-mac. T-mac said "don't trade me, I'm staying". Then when the season ended, T-mac bolted.

Later you hear players saying stuff like "Well I didn't want the (Team they went too) trading for me, because then they would have to give up players. This way by going as a FA I go to a stronger team!"

[Homer Jay]

I personally think the biggest problem is that the way league is setup there is little flexibility in changing the composition of your team. Rebuilding takes 3-5 years. This kills markets because only the die-hard fans stick around and it takes awhile before the casual fan is interested again. Trades usually are for bad contracts for bad contracts. FA only go to attractive places (not just geo, but situation). So the only option left to teams is wait out their contracts, draft & wait for their talent to mature, etc.

The solution would be to reduce contract lengths. Allow more flexible trades instead of the current system for trading 125% of contract values. Also I think introducing new wrinkles in the season could work. For instance have mini tournament for the 8th seed in each conference. Or maybe introduce cup type of tournament that is single elimination like in European soccer that is scheduled along with the regular season. You have to keep the fans of losing/rebuilding teams involved.

You are exactly right here, Knick, you would never see like what happened with Nick Barnett going from the Packers to the Bills happen in the NBA. But a hard cap forces players to move to teams that can bear their contracts. You are starting to see the same in the NHL as well, good players moving to small markets because simply they have the cap room to force them.

However the NBA players are still so f'ing resolute that they want to be able to stick in the big markets.

No MLE for Tax teams.... lower trade percentage threshold. These things will have an impact on forcing the top players to seek out small markets and keep them viable.

If there are not changes. Might as well fold up the Wolves tomorrow. They are through. Love is already making noise that he wants out at first chance (and preferably to the Lakers surprise surprise)!

[Indeed]

I personally think the biggest problem is that the way league is setup there is little flexibility in changing the composition of your team. Rebuilding takes 3-5 years. This kills markets because only the die-hard fans stick around and it takes awhile before the casual fan is interested again. Trades usually are for bad contracts for bad contracts. FA only go to attractive places (not just geo, but situation). So the only option left to teams is wait out their contracts, draft & wait for their talent to mature, etc.

The solution would be to reduce contract lengths. Allow more flexible trades instead of the current system for trading 125% of contract values. Also I think introducing new wrinkles in the season could work. For instance have mini tournament for the 8th seed in each conference. Or maybe introduce cup type of tournament that is single elimination like in European soccer that is scheduled along with the regular season. You have to keep the fans of losing/rebuilding teams involved.

You are exactly right here, Knick, you would never see like what happened with Nick Barnett going from the Packers to the Bills happen in the NBA. But a hard cap forces players to move to teams that can bear their contracts. You are starting to see the same in the NHL as well, good players moving to small markets because simply they have the cap room to force them.

However the NBA players are still so f'ing resolute that they want to be able to stick in the big markets.

No MLE for Tax teams.... lower trade percentage threshold. These things will have an impact on forcing the top players to seek out small markets and keep them viable.

If there are not changes. Might as well fold up the Wolves tomorrow. They are through. Love is already making noise that he wants out at first chance (and preferably to the Lakers surprise surprise)!

The benefits from big market teams are different.
Even good role players might have chances to earn more from PR. Some LA clubs might pay you for a visit.
LeBron James makes more outside from his salary. And if you missed Grange's article (which I posted here earlier), maybe you can take a look too.

Anyway, its not necessary to have a hard cap, and without owners sharing their revenue, it won't work. The owners need to make changes, and Stern needs to force them for the good of the league (instead of just make those big market teams happy).

[knickerbocker2k2]

You are exactly right here, Knick, you would never see like what happened with Nick Barnett going from the Packers to the Bills happen in the NBA. But a hard cap forces players to move to teams that can bear their contracts. You are starting to see the same in the NHL as well, good players moving to small markets because simply they have the cap room to force them.

Hard cap would just reduce the share of the pie players get. Lets look at the extreme example of the big 3. When Miami signed them they were under the cap and still under the cap with all 3. Under hard cap they would be able to fill the rest of the team with minimum salary and still get quality because lot of rotational players would be available instead at MLE/LLE.

The problem would be made worse because you would have low team signing players to max that are not deserving. For instance Lakers would lose one of Bynum/Odom, but another team would sign them at max or near max. Do you think it is in their interest for that team to spend same % of their cap on Bynum as Miami spends on Lebron or Lakers spend on Kobe?

No MLE for Tax teams.... lower trade percentage threshold. These things will have an impact on forcing the top players to seek out small markets and keep them viable.

Again this would just force players salaries down. For instance Lakers signed Blake using their MLE. Do you think Blake would have being the difference between winning or losing for another team in this league? Most other teams Blake would have value close to $2M. Usually when top teams spend MLE they overpay and tend to get players who would only be worth that value for that team and their situation. Most teams struggling aren't in contention for MLE type of signings because those are not the players they need (they need quality superstar type of players).

[Cyrus]

WojYahooNBA Adrian Wojnarowski
After finishing call with owners' labor relations committee, David Stern will deliver union a revised offer tonight, league sources tell Y!

[Ponchos]

WojYahooNBA Adrian Wojnarowski
After finishing call with owners' labor relations committee, David Stern will deliver union a revised offer tonight, league sources tell Y!

Hopefully it's enough of an olive branch to get this done tonight.

[Rapsfan07]

Are they really still negotiating?

[Frankie1984]

Just posted

WojYahooNBA Adrian Wojnarowski
Meeting wrapping up. News conferences expected to start in 10 minutes.

Fingers crossed

[Courtside]

Just posted

WojYahooNBA Adrian Wojnarowski
Meeting wrapping up. News conferences expected to start in 10 minutes.

Fingers crossed

I was about to go to bed, but this better be worth it...

[MjM2xTreMe]

Just posted

WojYahooNBA Adrian Wojnarowski
Meeting wrapping up. News conferences expected to start in 10 minutes.

Fingers crossed

I was about to go to bed, but this better be worth it...

Nope.

WojYahooNBA Adrian Wojnarowski
After reviewing, Fisher says NBA's offer isn't enough "to try and entice us to finish this out tonight." Players will step back, confer.

[Courtside]

"Separate press conferences starting soon..."

If there was a deal, you'd think it would be one conference. Anyone remember how it was last time around?

[bboyskinnylegs]

Billy saying they won't know until Monday

[Ponchos]

Well that was a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge FU to the ultimatum. Wonder how Stern will pretend like the ultimatum still exists.

[Courtside]

Stein:
"Union director Billy Hunter announces that he hopes to meet with player reps Monday or Tuesday in NYC to make decision on NBA's latest offer"

So the NBA made another offer and they're going to wait until next week to respond? Sounds like they need time to organize a vote.

jadande:
"revised > ultimatum"

I guess the latest offer is yet another "take it or it will get worse..."