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Lockout!!!

ianfaith said:
The players have the collective intelligence of a sack of hammers. They have zero leverage and zero chance of outlasting the owners in a war of wills. At this point they deserve whatever paltry settlement they will ultimately get.
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...you got that right, you sure got that right!
 
AlaskanAssassin said:
Sounds like the owners officially offered a 50-50 split, and the players declined adamantly. Too bad, I don't think the players are going to get much more than that.

https://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=7129362&categoryid=2459788
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I watched the press conference tonight and it sounded like the owners were demanding they take accept 50-50 before they talked about the other issues. Players wanted to talk about other issues, then talk about BRI. Owners refused to listen unless 50/50 was agreed upon.
 
Cyrone Torbin said:
I watched the press conference tonight and it sounded like the owners were demanding they take accept 50-50 before they talked about the other issues. Players wanted to talk about other issues, then talk about BRI. Owners refused to listen unless 50/50 was agreed upon.
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Classic power play and shrewd negotiation tactic. They probably felt all the hours talking over 3 days, the time crunch, the continued loss of money, and most significantly the owners' willingness to sacrifice the season had led to the obvious conclusion the players' 53 line in the sand was a pie in the sky. My guess is the owners said 50/50 with the belief the players, finally accepting defeat, would come back at 51 so an actual deal could be made.

The problem in this scenario is the players have very bad leadership. The owners are putting it out there that they'll deal at 51, they have the winning hand, and the players need to get what they can. But the players (read: Hunter) won't accept that which is why this is still unresolved. It sucks to lose in life, but you have to understand when failure is inevitable, and then make the most of that.
 
Also, Billy Hunter said they weren't asking for 53. They had come up with some kind of sliding scale that would assure a minimum and maximum of 50% and 53% BRI for players, most likely averaging out to 52% over the length of the CBA.
 
billyshelby said:
Classic power play and shrewd negotiation tactic. They probably felt all the hours talking over 3 days, the time crunch, the continued loss of money, and most significantly the owners' willingness to sacrifice the season had led to the obvious conclusion the players' 53 line in the sand was a pie in the sky. My guess is the owners said 50/50 with the belief the players, finally accepting defeat, would come back at 51 so an actual deal could be made.

The problem in this scenario is the players have very bad leadership. The owners are putting it out there that they'll deal at 51, they have the winning hand, and the players need to get what they can. But the players (read: Hunter) won't accept that which is why this is still unresolved. It sucks to lose in life, but you have to understand when failure is inevitable, and then make the most of that.
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From the Press Conference on NBATV Billy Hunter made it sound like it was agree to 50/50 or else. He even said that later the owners refuted actually saying that, but even the mediator had written it down in his chat notebook.
 
Cyrone Torbin said:
From the Press Conference on NBATV Billy Hunter made it sound like it was agree to 50/50 or else. He even said that later the owners refuted actually saying that, but even the mediator had written it down in his chat notebook.
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This is negotiation 101. You NEVER tell the opposing party what you will accept, and you NEVER offer it. From the position of strength, you let opposing parties come up to what you want.

Hunter and Fisher are acting like it was a 'take it or leave it.' They'll sell that in the press. What they both know (and honestly, they're so stupid they might not) is that the owners were putting a 51 offer on the table. It was incumbent upon them to realize that and have their "Come To Jesus" conference. They have definitively proved they're not capable of understanding this intellectually, so they're going to have to find this out the hard way. Meanwhile, their constituents suffer, and we as fans suffer accordingly.
 
billyshelby said:
This is negotiation 101. You NEVER tell the opposing party what you will accept, and you NEVER offer it. From the position of strength, you let opposing parties come up to what you want.

Hunter and Fisher are acting like it was a 'take it or leave it.' They'll sell that in the press. What they both know (and honestly, they're so stupid they might not) is that the owners were putting a 51 offer on the table. It was incumbent upon them to realize that and have their "Come To Jesus" conference. They have definitively proved they're not capable of understanding this intellectually, so they're going to have to find this out the hard way. Meanwhile, their constituents suffer, and we as fans suffer accordingly.
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Did you watch the press conference?
 
Cyrone Torbin said:
Did you watch the press conference?
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Yes. I see people incapable and incompetent in negotiation not understanding the subtext of all negotiations. I also see a strident misunderstanding of the realities at play: The owners will win this. It won't be 'fair' when they do. They have all the cards. As the loser in that situation, you look for the best loss, not what is 'fair.'
 
billyshelby said:
Yes. I see people incapable and incompetent in negotiation not understanding the subtext of all negotiations. I also see a strident misunderstanding of the realities at play: The owners will win this. It won't be 'fair' when they do. They have all the cards. As the loser in that situation, you look for the best loss, not what is 'fair.'
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Bingo. This isn't about fairness anymore, it's about recognizing reality. The Hunter/Fisher team has been exposed as thoroughly clueless.
 
Is this really a surprise to anyone? Dfish is an idiot. Always has been and always will be.

It's a good thing that none of the Collins brothers are players union leaders.
 
“We’re not prepared to let them impose a system on us that eliminates guarantees, reduces contract lengths, diminishes all our increases,” he said. “We’re saying no way. We fought too long and made too many sacrifices to get where we are.”

translation...the players of the past worked hard to see nothing of the bloated contracts we have today.
 
i dont understand why you guys keep saying hte owners have all the leverage?

honestly the only people with leverage in this issue are the stars - thats who people watch. The owners are replaceable there are lots of billionaires. The role players are replacable, there are hundreds of guys just as talented as derek fisher. Its the Kobes, lebrons, nash's, dirks, dwights, garnetts, pierces, wades, roses, griffins, stoudemires that are irreplaceable.

the stars are about to go on a world tour and kobe and lebron are each getting 1 mill from it. tahts just in 3 weeks of work.

You guys know sports didnt always exist with this structured league with balanced schedules culminating in a playoff. Sports used to be more like college football, with a bunch of games and then a bunch of trumped up exhibitions. Sports used to be more like the fair, it came to town every once in a while and everyone showed up to see the spectacle.

If the players decide that they are tired of being insulted and condescended too then the nba is done. I went to school at duke, and they routinely sell out that stadium to see alumni play. I'm talking about guys like roshown mcleod and chris carrawell. And thats a school with a small local fanbase. At carolina, alumni games with guys like ed cota are hot tickets.

It would be so easy to rebuild a pro basketball league using the college stadiums and stadiums in places like kansas city and seattle. It wouldnt be hard at all to find investors for the new league, investors who would be happy to take 43% of revenue (even if they calculated BRI differently). But it would never come to that, because if the players started to formulate a credible plan guys like buss and cuban would have no choice but to fold - lest their franchise values disintegrate.

Why do you think the players are refusing to budge? Do you think a guy like garnett gives a **** about 53 v. 50 percent? He loses more in a single month, than he will over the difference in that number. Do you think his agent doesn't know that? The reason these guys are holding out is that they know that if push comes to shove they have alternatives - its the owners who have no leverage.
 
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God, this lockout is so depressing. I feel as if the owners are such A-holes they will just end the NBA forever, and the players have to much pride to allow the owners to unfairly profit off the success they have brought the league.
 
the average fan can only name 7 or 8 people associated with the nba - none of them is an owner. The owners are just along for the ride.

Talent trumps all, and if the owners dont start to respect that, they may find out exactly how fast they can lose 100 million+.
 
Also, how smart does Dwill look right now? He knew this whole thing was going to hit the fan and he got the best European contract he could. Same for the Nuggets that bolted. I bet a lot of players wish they did the same thing earlier now.
 
TheItinerantSon said:
i dont understand why you guys keep saying hte owners have all the leverage?

honestly the only people with leverage in this issue are the stars - thats who people watch. The owners are replaceable there are lots of billionaires. The role players are replacable, there are hundreds of guys just as talented as derek fisher. Its the Kobes, lebrons, nash's, dirks, dwights, garnetts, pierces, wades, roses, griffins, stoudemires that are irreplaceable.

the stars are about to go on a world tour and kobe and lebron are each getting 1 mill from it. tahts just in 3 weeks of work.

You guys know sports didnt always exist with this structured league with balanced schedules culminating in a playoff. Sports used to be more like college football, with a bunch of games and then a bunch of trumped up exhibitions. Sports used to be more like the fair, it came to town every once in a while and everyone showed up to see the spectacle.

If the players decide that they are tired of being insulted and condescended too then the nba is done. I went to school at duke, and they routinely sell out that stadium to see alumni play. I'm talking about guys like roshown mcleod and chris carrawell. And thats a school with a small local fanbase. At carolina, alumni games with guys like ed cota are hot tickets.

It would be so easy to rebuild a pro basketball league using the college stadiums and stadiums in places like kansas city and seattle. It wouldnt be hard at all to find investors for the new league, investors who would be happy to take 43% of revenue (even if they calculated BRI differently). But it would never come to that, because if the players started to formulate a credible plan guys like buss and cuban would have no choice but to fold - lest their franchise values disintegrate.

Why do you think the players are refusing to budge? Do you think a guy like garnett gives a **** about 53 v. 50 percent? He loses more in a single month, than he will over the difference in that number. Do you think his agent doesn't know that? The reason these guys are holding out is that they know that if push comes to shove they have alternatives - its the owners who have no leverage.
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<crosses Duke off list of schools for my kid>
 
Players have all the leverage, huh? Yeah, ok. We'll see who blinks first. Who gives up the most ground in the end. (Hint: It ain't gonna be the owners.)
 
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