NBA Owners & Head office crying poor

by Bushka on Oct 21, 2010 11:14 PM CDT

It's all over the usual sites at the present, yahoo, probasketballtalk, true hoop etc.

Apparently the owners want to cut players salaries by 30%.

According to everyones favorite New York Lawyer, the same guys who pay Darko Milicic 20 million for being tall, and are unable to make an honest dollar from it.

I am not sure that there will be a groundswell of public support for the league if it pushs this thing to a lockout.

I wonder how Stern can get out front for what is to be candid, a rabble of owners(is that the collective ? It should be). He is basically talking about defending these guys from themselves.

Take a buffoon like Michael Heisley, a guy who created his own labour dispute out of nothing, by refusing to pay his rookies 120% of scale (Someone told him it was just convention not an actual rule type thingamy) and got into a low rent game of chickent with Xavier Henry.

The kicker obviously was that he was trying to save a few hundred thousand, after paying Rudy Gay all of the bananas in the world to not rebound the ball well for his position and only take a bad shot when he was physically touching the ball.

I wonder at Donald "Whats a contract" Sterling, I wonder at James Dolan, I wonder like hell at the Kroenkes in Denver, and the conglomerate of humans running the Hawks in Atlanta who decided to create Salary Apocalypse by committee. I pretty much wonder at the majority of NBA owners. They have access to the same kind of information we have only better, yet they still tend to grossly overpay for the services of players who tend to almost immediately sink a franchise.

These are the same owners who have basically made huge expiring chunks of flesh like Tracy McGrady, Stephan Marbury, Kenny Thomas, Allen Iverson et al valuable because they can release a franchise from the salary cap stupidity they generally backed themselves into in the first place, with their wonderful & magical expiring fruit.

I know this isn't 100% spurs centric even though of course it will affect our beloved franchise.

I just find this kind of thing enraging. Obviously the owners are going to inflate losses, the players are going to complain and come back with record profits...it's all grist to the mill, but it sure looks like the lockouts coming.

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Comments

Listen, I hope everyone gets a fair shake, but I’m not too concerned about millionaires right now. I got monkeys of my own to wax sad about this.

by Cedarpark on Oct 22, 2010 6:06 PM CDT reply actions

simply put, im on the players side on this one. Most of the time the owners spend foolishly and the teams bid against themselves. They cry poor but keep signing fat contracts each damn season that make no sense.
I would make one change though: players can and should be fired without much compensation if they became lazy or show inapropiate behavior. I cant understand why a guy like Eddy Curry can sign such a huge contract, not fucking care about his body at all and get away with it so easily.
They get millions for playing a fuckin game, they should be obligated to be in top notch shape without exceptions and to give at least 50% effort all the times. It is so much to ask?

"Rock and Roll angels bring that HardRock Hallelujah"

by Chilai on Oct 22, 2010 6:34 PM CDT reply actions

The owners are like someone with too much credit card debt. They have a line of credit so they just spend and spend. They are right that they can’t afford the current system (that they created them selves) so something has to be done.

They need Stern to take away their credit cards and impose some financial discipline because they can’t do it themselves. Even though they did this to themselves it still has to happen. That means less money for the players but it has to happen to balance the money.

by spurs fan on Oct 25, 2010 12:55 PM CDT reply actions

Great write up! Made me laugh more than once. Listen, this is a catch 22 for owners. They are both competing with and working with/for each other. Don’t get me wrong, most of them couldn’t find their butts with a map, but it cannot be easy to both try to be competitive as a team and viable financially as a league when the whole economy is down, has been down and looks to be staying down.

The whole reason unions were started is because players weren’t getting their fair share. I think that CBA’s are now used more by owners to keep themselves (or the stupid ones) in check. Is it their own fault? Yes, but if you step back and look at it, you can see that it wouldn’t be the easiest thing to try to compete with smart people while trying to make money with them too. Makes one appreciate teams like the Spurs who have made money, in a small market no less, while still putting a good product on the floor.

by Big50 on Oct 25, 2010 4:17 PM CDT reply actions

I wonder if the owners will speak with one voice, or if they’ll split into factions when push comes to shove. I could easily imagine a scenario resulting in a CBA that would cause teams like the Heat, Celtics, or Lakers to have to restructure contracts and/or move players to meet the new rules. All the teams that lost out in the LeBron sweepstakes certainly have an incentive to push for something like that.

Hey, if posting a sharp, insightful, yet non-sarcastic comment were that easy, even olf would do it.

Mike Monroe: ...the uninformed presume Parker is expendable.

by freshtunarightofftheboat on Oct 26, 2010 4:51 PM CDT reply actions