Spirit of '99: 2011 Lockout Discussion

Probably wasn't mentioned in the old CBA. Or they forgot and nobody cares about it.

Seems likely.

WojYahooNBA Adrian Wojnarowski
Here's what I think this comes down to by Wednesday for the Players Association: Accept deal, or decertify union and blow up season.

WojYahooNBA Adrian Wojnarowski
Veteran player who has long been on side of decertification just texted me: "Time to blow this (bleep) to the moon."

yay.

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/21 ... o_The_Moon

do you agree with Stern? The meeting set on wednesday will be now or never.. I think its time for the players to accept it if they want to have a season this year..

Kessler: "The players will not be intimidated. It's not happening on Derek Fisher's watch, not happening on Billy Hunter's watch."

On Saturday, as labor talks between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association were winding down, at least three NBA players took to Twitter to express their frustration with Jordan.

"I'm not wearing Jordans no more," Washington Wizards guard Nick Young said. "Can't believe what I just seen and heard from MJ. Elvis Done Left The Building."

"Damn MJ," Indiana Pacers guard Paul George wondered aloud. "That's how you feel?"

Later, Golden State Warriors rookie wing Klay Thompson replied to George: "You think the 1996 MJ would pull this? Straight hypocrite bro."

George agreed: "Man straight hypocrite bro.. He should've been the 1st one behind us smh."

Well then.

To my tweet NBA wouldn't blow up season on Nov. 9, source briefed on owners' meeting Saturday texts: "The hardliners have control and will."

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/216342/Veteran_Player_Time_To_Blow_This_To_The_Moon

do you agree with Stern? The meeting set on wednesday will be now or never.. I think its time for the players to accept it if they want to have a season this year..

Yes. Both sides have made their points and layed out their preferences. Enough dragging this on. IDC if season is gone just no more drama and having to hear "we're not backing down" multiple times

More likely than not, there will be no NBA season in 2011-12.

I've heard that if shit really gets ugly, the owners are secretly thinking of sticking to a 37% BRI split for the players and holding firm. They are calling it the Derrick Rose Plan.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/story/1601 ... ave-season

After months upon months of butting heads over a hard team salary cap, and then an NHL-style flex cap, and then an ultra-punitive luxury tax, there are essentially three issues that remain to be negotiated: sign-and-trades for luxury-tax-paying teams; the size, length and frequency of mid-level deals for tax payers; and the tax structure for teams that choose to pay a luxury tax for three out of any five seasons.

The last issue is especially maddening, considering the two sides are 50 cents apart on the first $10 million of spending over the tax threshold and -- get this -- have identical, $1-per-dollar-over proposals for those repeat offenders who spend beyond that $10 million tax threshold.

If I were a player reading all this, I'd be asking myself: What are we fighting over? Why am I going to give up a year of income -- for some players, 15-25 percent of their career earnings -- so that lawyers can raise their voices, spew venom, stomp their feet and play right into the owners' hands?

"We don't even know who Kessler is," one agent said Sunday. "We don't have any access to this guy whatsoever. Who is this guy? Now he's saying whether or not the deal is a fraud?"

...

For agents and players across the country who watched Sunday morning's latest fiasco, it did not go unnoticed that at the moment when the union reduced its request to 51 percent of BRI -- below the 52 percent line in the sand drawn by hardline agents -- union chief Billy Hunter was nowhere to be found. An NBPA official said Hunter, who just turned 69 and has a debilitating back condition, was feeling ill. But where were Fisher's fellow executive committee members?

Where was superstar Chris Paul, who shows up at bargaining sessions when it's convenient and when he isn't busy dreaming of playing for the Knicks?

Why was Fisher, team player on the court, going solo at the most important moment of the labor talks?

"If 52 was the magic number, is he done?" one agent said of Hunter's absence. "Is that symbolic? That's what I thought: 'He's toast.' Everybody's saying the magic number is 52, and if it's under that, he'd be removed. So maybe he's been removed."

...

"Decertification is not an option," said another agent who opposes it. "From a timing standpoint, the season's done [if players decertify]. This is the stupidest threat I've ever heard of in my life. ... David Stern recognizes all of this. He's got them right where he wants them. That's why he gave them the ultimatum. He knows they can't decertify."

Said another agent: "The risk-reward of decertification just isn't worth it. For both sides."

What has to happen independent of that before the close of business Wednesday is far more important, and here it is:

• Federal mediator George Cohen must call both parties Monday and summon them to his Washington, D.C., office for around-the-clock talks aimed at exhausting every avenue for a deal before Stern's artificial deadline arrives. If either party declines, it must be prepared to explain to the public why. Regardless of any petition, any inflammatory speeches by Kessler or any sensationalized agendas of star players and their agents that drown out the priorities of the rank and file, the National Basketball Players Association is the only body currently authorized to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with the NBA. Short of a disclaimer of interest on the part of union leadership, this is the case from now until Wednesday and beyond -- all the way to at least January, the time frame during which the season can still be saved.

• While Fisher, Hunter, union attorneys, players on the executive committee, Stern and deputy commissioner Adam Silver face public accountability for this fiasco, the owners pushing the hardline negotiating strategy hide behind the commissioner-imposed gag order designed to protect them. Spurs owner Peter Holt, the chairman of the labor relations committee and, according to multiple sources, among the hardest of hardline owners, has spoken publicly about the negotiations exactly once. If the owners continue to resist the final push of compromise that would finish the deal, this amnesty from accountability can no longer be tolerated.

Among the most intractable owners, according to sources -- Paul Allen, Dan Gilbert, Robert Sarver, Michael Heisley, Ted Leonsis, Mikhail Prokhorov (yes, him), and now we learn, Michael Jordan -- only Heisley has faced any kind of public backlash. The Grizzlies owner, who admitted last week he doesn't even know what's going on in the negotiations, has been the only one to face a potential challenge in the form of a possible lawsuit by the city of Memphis to recoup losses sustained by a prolonged lockout. Prokhorov, who according to sources is fine with a strategy that would blow up his mediocre team's last season in Newark, is lucky in that he doesn't really have a fan base to hold him accountable. But where are the city attorneys, district attorneys, attorneys general and editorial page writers in some of those other cities to ask who's going to refund taxpayer money that's funding empty basketball arenas during a canceled season?

"The owners who are saying this isn't enough, stop hiding behind David Stern and stand in front of your communities and say why," one agent said. "If I hear one more person say they feel bad for parking lot attendants, I'm going to be sick. Do something. The parking lot attendant doesn't feel better when you say that. Stand up and take responsibility."

If Jordan, the reported ringleader of the hardliners, took responsibility, it would be a first. His Don't-Care-Ness couldn't even muster the courage to speak more than a few words in the eight-hour bargaining session Saturday, according to multiple people in the meeting.

"The reason you own an NBA team is because of what basketball has given to you," one of the agents said. "Just like you're allowed an opinion, I think the city of Charlotte is entitled to an explanation. One of greatest players of all time, who's made a fortune off the sport of basketball -- and now you're going to be responsible for destroying it?"

...

"Players are all across the board, but with one consistency -- they're all angry," one agent said. "They don't necessarily know if they should decertify or not decertify, but everyone's angry with this situation. It boils over. ... Rationality has totally left the building on both sides.

"The only rational solution at this stage is, 'Why aren't you still in a room talking?' " he said. "Why aren't you still with George Cohen and negotiating?"

Interesting: sources from each side told me players&owners only spent "about 15 minutes" together during Saturday's 8 1/2 hour meeting

Federal Mediator George Cohen shuttled back & forth between the two rooms before bringing them together at the end for owners proposal

How's everybody feeling? Do we reckon there will be a season or not?
I'm starting to lose optimism myself.

Also, can somebody explain what "decertification" actually means? (looking in benji's direction...)

http://basketball.about.com/od/nba-cba-glossary/g/decertification.htm

Definition: Decertification of a union means that union loses the power to collectively bargain on behalf of its members. Such a move has some potential benefits - the NFL Players Association decertified in an attempt to avoid a lockout - and a number of risks attached.

The biggest benefit is legal. Interactions between unions and management are governed by labor law. Many of the collectively-bargained elements of the NBA/NBPA relationship - the salary cap and NBA draft for example - are perfectly legal under that set of rules.

The relationship between the league and players in the absence of a union would be governed under anti-trust law. And that gives the players a wide range of options, including an anti-trust lawsuit.

On the other hand, decertifying also means the NBPA would be giving up a lot of benefits they've achieved through collective bargaining, such as minimum salaries, pensions and insurance. And the legal benefits are no sure thing; the league could argue that the NBPA is using decertification as a short-term negotiating tactic.

Probably the best article on it: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/w ... decertify/

If the union decertifies on Wednesday it seems like there's a 100% chance there will be no season. And apparently the players have a massive bloc that wanted to decertify back in July.

So I'd say 90% chance there is no season.

Yeah, it's not looking good. I wonder just how damaging it would be to future revenue if the season is lost, how the ratings, merchandise sales and attendance would be affected. It feels like everyone is shooting themselves in the foot and as far as I'm concerned, neither side can come out looking particularly good. Too much stubbornness and greed on both sides in my view.

On Saturday, as labor talks between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association were winding down, at least three NBA players took to Twitter to express their frustration with Jordan.

"I'm not wearing Jordans no more," Washington Wizards guard Nick Young said. "Can't believe what I just seen and heard from MJ. Elvis Done Left The Building."

"Damn MJ," Indiana Pacers guard Paul George wondered aloud. "That's how you feel?"

Later, Golden State Warriors rookie wing Klay Thompson replied to George: "You think the 1996 MJ would pull this? Straight hypocrite bro."

George agreed: "Man straight hypocrite bro.. He should've been the 1st one behind us smh."

If that's how they feel then fair enough, but I'd say they're a bit off the mark.

As Larry Coon pointed out on Twitter, Jordan's current stance is certainly ironic given the comments he made during the last lockout, but not only was he criticised for that point of view, these days the Air Jordan is on the other foot. There's a reason he's not the first one behind players like Young, George and Thompson; he's an owner now, he's got different interests to look out for. Did they expect him to switch sides and turn on the rest of the owners, like some professional wrestling angle?

It doesn't necessarily make him right, it doesn't mean today's players can't be frustrated with his stance, but this hypocrite talk is a bit childish. One could easily label the players as hypocrites for calling the owners greedy, yet refusing to split BRI 50-50.

I think Kobe's recent comments will save the season. He said on espn the other day that he would take a pay cut, i can't find an article about it online but that's what he said on espn recently. And that's one of the propsed deals that players could do, is take a pay cut.

I don't know if this has been posted in this thread yet though, just thought. But, Kobe can afford to do such a thing, other players, especially rookies can't afford to take a pay cut because they don't earn that much money yet, so do you think that players taking a pay cut is a good idea for all nba players? Maybe other players would follow in Kobe's footsteps.

lol there's no saving the season, the players are fighting to avoid taking a possible but not guaranteed pay cut down the road, sorry, it's over, come back a year from now and we might have professional men's basketball again.

Fucking Heisley. I hate that guy with so much passion. The worst owner and a human being ever. Money hungry pig. Period.

from what i am reading, it seems that a big issue is that the 2 sides are actually 4 different groups all wanting different things: the small market owners that wish to rape the players for their own shortcomings, big market teams & highly profitable teams hoping to get in as many games as they can, the older vets playing hardball not wanting to look desperate (supposedly "for the future players"), and the minimum salaried guys & rookies who need to make money.

The minimum salary and rookie players have zero leverage. They don't matter and will never matter.

The players are split between the hardliners who feel the players have to stick together because they're morons like KG and Pierce and the people who recognize the players can't win and the union is run by utter fools like Steve Blake and Stackhouse. And apparently now Kobe.

The union is split, just like the owners between people who want a season and people who want to stick it to the other. It's the same as pretty much all collective bargaining ever.

It has absolutely nothing to do with any terms of any deal at this point.

Just read that the union has announced they won't be accepting the offer. Let's see if the move to decertify is successful.

Just read that the union has announced they won't be accepting the offer. Let's see if the move to decertify is successful.

And I just read that, according to Hunter, there was "very little discussion about decertification".
Current offer would have been a 49-51 split in favour of the league. Next offer by the owners would probably be a 47-53 split together with a flex salary cap. (source: sports tap [mobile app])

Dunno what to say. I was hoping for the players to just settle for less for the fans.

If the season really gets wiped, this would be a huge set back for the players who are in prime.

The worst thing about all off this is they are just going to do it again next time. The league needs to take priority over everything. There is no reason they should be losing over a quarter of a billion dollars in one season. They should look into a dynamic revenue system that doesn't rely on a static percentile. That way the league and the owners wouldn't have to resort to this bullshit.

Why would the union want that?

Why the hell wouldn't the players accept the 50/50? :? 50/50 seems fair to me...

If we lose a WHOLE season then the NBA's history books lose all integrity. It definitely makes me less interested in the league.