I do feel sorry for those whose jobs are attached to the NBA, and also for the resturants and other venders whose sales depend on an NBA season. Last night I listened to Stephen A Smith, who, like Sam Amick, has been following these meetings closely. He made some good points, with number one being the difference between right and wrong, and reality. The distiction being, that if one side has all the leveage, right or wrong doesn't play a big part in the discussion. According to Smith, and others, Stern is serious about cancelling the entire season if something isn't resolved this weekend. Apparently there are ten owners that don't even want to negotiate. The want to cancell the entire season in a show of power. It should be noted that the NHL cancelled its entire season, and as a result the owners got every single thing they wanted including a hard cap. The NHL is also worth 1.2 billion dollars more today as a result. And, by the way, five of those ten NBA owners, also own NHL teams. Get the picture?
Its Smith's opinion, that the union and the league have come close to an agreement, but those agreements still have to get the approval of all parties involved. So he believes that Sterns warning of cancelling the entire season is basicly a shot across the bow of the players union, to not come into the meetings and try and screw everything up. Because if you do, your playing with fire. Stern is playing the good guy thats keeping the hardline owners at bay, but he can only do for so long.
As Smith said, this more than just about money. Its about control and who has the power. Right now a large group of owners think the inmates are running the asylum, and they want that control back. The owner of the Cav's, Gilbert, makes a good point when he says loosing Lebron cost his franchise millions of dollars. The owners look at the top players like Lebron, Kobe, Howard, etc. as money, as well as just talent. Think of the difference in ticket sales if Dwight Howard were suddenly a Sacramento King. Yes, the team would be an instant contender, but more than that, he would put millions of dollars into the Maloof's bank account. So if you have one of these top players, you want to keep them. You certainly don't want them running off to Miami and joining a couple of other top stars. Oddly, if the players get together and decide where they want to go, its just fine. But if the owners get together and try and make such decisions, its colusion, and libel in a court of law.
This is a major bone of contention with the owners, and I doubt they'll agree to anything that doesn't address it in some way. Smith also made a good point where major businesses are involved. The players have stated that the owners are complaining about losing money when the franchise is not their major business. The owners are saying that they're having to pull money out of their other businesses to support they're NBA team. Once again, oddly enough, the players are fine with the owner pulling money out of another business to insure enough money to sign and then pay the player, but they don't care when the owner has to pull money to keep his team afloat, saying its just a result of bad business decisions on the owners part. Maybe that bad business decision was signing the very player that benefited, and now doesn't care.
This is why the owners want to have shorter contracts with fewer years guaranteed. Like four years with the last two non-guaranteed. Curiously, the owners noticed that some players seem to play harder and acheive more in the last year of their contracts. Thus they would love to have the final two years as the last year of their contract. They want to avoid signing a Stephen Marbury to a six year deal and then have him tank it after one year.
I think that if cooler heads prevail, an agreement will be reached. But I also think that the owners aren't going to fool around with half a season this time. If the players balk at coming to a decision now, and opt for later, there won't be a later until after the next draft on june 30th 2012.
