WallyWorld wrote:
The fact that the worth of a business has risen or fallen shouldn't be factored into this? That is not true in the least. The overarching worth and cash profits are both factored into the deal. The fact that team valuations have begun to plateau is a major reason this is happening.

57% worked because team valuations more than made up for year over year losses.

Owners - They aren't going to bring factors outside the year to year ledger because it only hurts their case as even more stuff gets pulled in.

Players - aren't about to bring up anything that shows it makes sense for the league to drop their % because of changing economic circumstances. The plateauing team prices is more about the maturity of the league than economic downturn.

At some point the valuation gains have been paid out. The league as a whole will then need to raise earning/salaries by actually generating more revenue. This lockout is saying that owners say that time is right now.

I guess what I am saying is salaries have grown proportionately with revenues, and players shouldn't get a stake in the team because they didn't buy it and have zero ownership rights. That isn't how the world works. That is just placing blame to place blame as another thing the 'owners did wrong.' It wouldn't make sense. Salaries are almost always tied to revenues. I think we are looking at it from a different perspective. Maybe I misunderstood CW's comment.

Take a big, growing company like Apple or Facebook. They don't just pay their employees $150,000 a year because the company is worth a lot more than a fledging midwest cheese company. You are looking at it deeper than I was... which is fine.

If we are misunderstanding here, then what is it you think should happen here with the issue at hand?

WallyWorld wrote:
Factoring the the raising worth of the franchise into the the CBA is not equal to saying the players are to given actual shares of the team.

Developers at places like Microsoft and FB when they go from being nothing to huge do typically make 10's of millions of dollars. Every single person on the original MS Word team was paid millions. Google is famous for handing out bonuses in the millions in a similar fashion.

Okay but you can't isolate the growth of the league to any one player or even group of players over a 10 year period. It would be an impossible, subjective task to do so and have it be fair/legal. If I were to even try to answer it now, the growth of the last year alone was almost exclusively due to Lebron and The Decision, but there are too many other factors at hand.

I hear where you are coming from but I don't see how that could even be a remote possibility....and even so, it is again tied to revenues. How would this other option work?

WallyWorld wrote: Yeah, that's not what I'm saying at all. There isn't really a good way to figure out which players would get which shares of which team(s).

I was merely pointing out how the teams have grown in value and the Owners have gotten insanely rich off them. And I was just saying that the Players don't see any of that money when teams are sold.

The new Hardliners are idiots because they overpaid for these teams within in the past few years. As the Players don't get money when teams are sold, it's also not their fault the Owners overpaid and overleveraged for teams. Because of that, the Players are being punished with this lockout.

And as Pants said, the Owners that have made hundreds of millions off of owning their franchises obviously are not going to point this out.

But why would the players get any of the money when teams are sold when they invested nothing in it? Huh? That makes no sense whatsoever. There is nothing that works that way, especially mature businesses. Players get paid fairly as revenue grows, in proportion with the growth of the business.

I agree with everything else you said CW re: hardliners.

WallyWorld wrote: Maybe my post wasn't clear. I am NOT saying the Players should get money when teams are sold. I'm just pointing out the fact that they DON'T get this money, and it's one way that Owners can make hundreds of millions of dollars off of pro sports teams.

College Wolf wrote:
Ah gotcha. Indeed.

The sad part is that neither side is even touching what is really wrong with the NBA, which is the guaranteed contracts for underperforming players. They don't even care about making it better, instead they just fight over money.

Wouldn't it be a lot better if they left the BRI at say 55% for the players but went with partially guaranteed contracts such as the NFL does with signing bonuses. Make guaranteed contracts the only major concession the players give and see how it works out. The players should be all for it because it would mean the guys who are good and work hard get paid more and there is more roster spots open because there won't be 1 or 2 held by a dead weight contract on every single team. The owners would be all for it because they save a ton of money and no longer have to pay Drew Gooden and Gilbert Arenas, etc.

Why is no one discussing this?

roundhouse wrote: Very great point, I like what you are saying here.

Apparently from what I understand, guaranteed contracts is the one main thing that the NBA Players Association won't bend on whatsoever. Too bad, because its definitely the worst thing wrong with the NBA.

College Wolf wrote:
Yeah it was never even brought up as a discussion point. They instead implemented the stretch exceptions and amnesty so bad deals can be removed with less penalty on the cap. A good compromise that makes it better for fans on those teams, etc.

The MLE has also been a disaster. I get why players dont want it reduced, but for every underperforming player who gets that deal means 1 less player who deserves the money in the BRI pool.

WallyWorld wrote: I totally agree with you there, and I don't understand it either. Is it because the "middle class" is most of the NBA so they have the most voting power to not concede on losing/reducing the MLE?

I would be fine with no MLE, it's been horrible in 75%+ of all situations. Otherwise, like $10 million total over 3 years seems about fine for the MLE to me.

Less spending on the MLE = more spending on deserving players. That should be obvious to everyone. Or maybe it is obvious to the "middle class" of NBA players, which is why they are against drastically altering it.

That's too bad.

Here's some good reading for today. Check em out:

The Economic Battlefield of the NBA Lockout

Dan Lozano: Albert Pujols’s Superagent, "King Of Sleaze Mountain"

Sides Reach Tentative Settlement

Holy Fuck will there finally be a season??!

Hallelujah!

Too bad the young Wolves and new coach missed a couple months talking and working together, but at least things can get started now.

Bring on the season!