The Lockout has arrived.

[RookieOfTheDay]

I wasn't trying to catch you. I assumed that you would agree that the NBA is better off with spending restrictions than it would be were there none. I guess you'd rather have an MLB-style system of haves and have-nots in which the big market franchises dominate the small markets, which is ironic since you're a Kings fan.

You're entitled to your viewpoint, I just don't see how you can argue that the NBA isn't better off with spending restrictions.

I think it's a bit of a myth that caps are required to "level the playing field". MLB has had 8 different World Series winners in the last 10 years. The NBA had no cap at all in the 70s yet teams like The Bucks, Warriors, and Sonics all won titles in the 70s.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

MLB has had 8 different World Series winners in the last 10 years.

How many were teams that did not spend? There were some notoriously cheap teams that went all out when they saw their shot and then quickly sold their team and are back to being the dregs of the league while the same 6 or so teams poached their star talent.

MLB desperately needs a salary cap, desperately. I'm a Sox fan and even I know this, their salary is still half the Yankees and I'm sure they'd rather spend half of what they do and be able to compete but they can't because they are in the same division with the most ridiculous team in American sports.

As for the 70s you do understand that free agency was still in its infancy don't you? Contracts did not get out of hand until the 90s, I still remember how newsworthy it was when a player became the first to get a $2 million or $3 million a year contract and from there it just exploded into a race to the stratosphere.

 

[RookieOfTheDay]

Because every response from you is how this would affect the Kings only. News flash, EVERYONE would be in danger of losing their "lesser" players. That would be the incentive by teams to cut salaries for most players to reasonable levels and enable you to keep the players you have. And the players, with only a limited pool of money to draw from, would have to be reasonable in their demands in order to keep playing. Otherwise they risk being an overpaid player on a perennially losing team, or, worse, out of the league like Bonzi. The team that manages their $$$ wisely would have an even chance at being competitive. And that is more than we can claim right now.

I understand that it would effect every team. Basically the logic there is that it's OK to limit my favorite team's ceiling to a B- because every other team (in theory) will be limited to that same ceiling as well. I just prefer a system where teams can strive for an A+ team. Sure sometimes that means watching another Lakers dynasty, but other times it means a small market team like the spurs winning multiple titles, a team of veterans winning their first title like the Maverick and Celtics, or a team like the 04 Pistons shocking the world and beating a heavily favored opponent. It's not as if we're seeing 60s Celtics level dominance where one team wins 11 of 13 titles. if we were, i could understand the motivation to level things out a little better.

Let me ask you this, in three or four years, assuming Evans, Cousins, and Jimmer are all playing at a star level and the Kings are kicking butt, would you be content with losing one of those stars just because other teams will lose some of their stats as well?

I wouldn’t. To me that sounds like...it’s OK if my teams sucks as long a your team sucks too and I’m just not down with that.

 

[RookieOfTheDay]

How many were teams that did not spend? There were some notoriously cheap teams that went all out when they saw their shot and then quickly sold their team and are back to being the dregs of the league while the same 6 or so teams poached their star talent.

MLB desperately needs a salary cap, desperately. I'm a Sox fan and even I know this, their salary is still half the Yankees and I'm sure they'd rather spend half of what they do and be able to compete but they can't because they are in the same division with the most ridiculous team in American sports.

As for the 70s you do understand that free agency was still in its infancy don't you? Contracts did not get out of hand until the 90s, I still remember how newsworthy it was when a player became the first to get a $2 million or $3 million a year contract and from there it just exploded into a race to the stratosphere.

I know salaries were much smaller then. Which brings me to another point. If you're going to limit something, limit how much a payer can be paid, not how much an owner can spend overall. I'm just throwing out ideas here but something like a rule that player's can only get max contracts if they meet a certain production criteria and then maintain that criteria for the length of the contract would help out a lot. You could also put a cap on max contracts, like for example, no player can make more than 15 million per year on their contract. That would also help build teams rather than grossly overpaying a star or two and surrounding them with mediocre talent.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Let me ask you this, in three or four years, assuming Evans, Cousins, and Jimmer are all playing at a star level and the Kings are kicking butt, would you be content with losing one of those stars just because other teams will lose some of their stats as well?

We are more likely to lose them without a hard cap than with one, imho. Whatever the new cap winds up being it should be set up in a way that allows small market teams to retain talent they developed but not restrict depth players from making moves to teams that may actually feature them and pay them a starter's salary.

The flaws with the current system was that Bird rights or whatever they are now called were tradeable, so a player could demand the compensation he gets for staying with his team while simultaneously forcing a trade. That entirely defeats the purpose because the team forced to trade their star never gets equal value.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I know salaries were much smaller then. Which brings me to another point. If you're going to limit something, limit how much a payer can be paid, not how much an owner can spend overall. I'm just throwing out ideas here but something like a rule that player's can only get max contracts if they meet a certain production criteria and then maintain that criteria for the length of the contract would help out a lot. You could also put a cap on max contracts, like for example, no player can make more than 15 million per year on their contract. That would also help build teams rather than grossly overpaying a star or two and surrounding them with mediocre talent.

You understand that the players will sooner agree to a hard cap than they would any kind of production/merit based pay, right?

How about a hard cap where the salary of any player with 5+ years of tenure on the team isn't counted. This allows team building and gives teams an edge in keeping their stars and rewards players for staying in place while still giving them the opportunity to move elsewhere.

 

[RookieOfTheDay]

We are more likely to lose them without a hard cap than with one, imho. Whatever the new cap winds up being it should be set up in a way that allows small market teams to retain talent they developed but not restrict depth players from making moves to teams that may actually feature them and pay them a starter's salary.

The flaws with the current system was that Bird rights or whatever they are now called were tradeable, so a player could demand the compensation he gets for staying with his team while simultaneously forcing a trade. That entirely defeats the purpose because the team forced to trade their star never gets equal value.

I don't see that. Because under a firm hard cap, no team would really be able to retain three stars unless they decided to take less money. Let's say for example that in 2014 The Kings have 3 legit stars that all need resigning. At that same time let's say The Nuggets have no stars and desperately want one. Assuming the Nuggets have more cap room to work with, then they're in prime position to steal one of our stars and we can't do anything to prevent it because we can't go over the cap.

 

[RookieOfTheDay]

You understand that the players will sooner agree to a hard cap than they would any kind of production/merit based pay, right?

Well if you’re going to lose a season anyways, might as well play hard ball. Eventually the players would cave. They have no other choice if they want to keep playing professional basketball in the United States.

How about a hard cap where the salary of any player with 5+ years of tenure on the team isn't counted. This allows team building and gives teams an edge in keeping their stars and rewards players for staying in place while still giving them the opportunity to move elsewhere.

Make it 3+ years and it sounds reasonable. It has to be at least as long a period of time as an average rookie contract though to prevent other teams from stealing your best draft picks once their rookie contracts expire.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

You understand that the players will sooner agree to a hard cap than they would any kind of production/merit based pay, right?

The funny thing is that with the escrow system, they already have a hard cap on total player salary. It's just not called that. The only difference between the escrow system and a true hard cap is that individual teams are limited in what they can spend. Obviously the percentage of BRI that the players get is in contention, and that's reasonable. I don't understand the posturing over the hard cap, though.

My personal belief is that a hard-capped (or semi-hard-capped) system should prevail where players are not given contracts in terms of dollars, but in terms of percentage of BRI. From there, you simply negotiate the percentage of BRI that goes to the players, and let the teams sign players up to 100% (semi-hard cap could allow teams to sign above 100% using "out-of-pocket" money). If the players get, for example, 53% of BRI, then each team dumps 53% of its BRI into a league pool every month (or whatever period) and the league distributes it based on contract percentages. Money left over (from teams spending only 97%, for instance) is equally distributed among all players. The only thing that the owners might balk on is that it results in some fairly extreme revenue sharing. I can't really see a players union objection except as regards the BRI%. Players salaries are directly tied to league revenue so in booms players get a windfall, in busts the owners aren't hung out to dry.

Too easy to work?

 

[RookieOfTheDay]

This may seem like a dumb question, but under a hard cap what would prevent teams form just saying screw you and spending over it anyways? There would have to some pretty serious deterrent involved.

 

[Superman]

I think it's a bit of a myth that caps are required to "level the playing field". MLB has had 8 different World Series winners in the last 10 years. The NBA had no cap at all in the 70s yet teams like The Bucks, Warriors, and Sonics all won titles in the 70s.

MLB also has several teams that haven't been in the playoffs in several years.

It doesn't all come down to who wins every time. Money doesn't buy you championships. It does buy you the best players, though, and having the best players puts you in better position to win. It gets you in the playoffs, helps you make a deep run in consecutive seasons, and further improves your standing in your league.

There is a clear separation between big market and small market teams in MLB. The divide grows every year. And we're seeing that type of divide becoming an issue in the NBA.

 

[Superman]

This may seem like a dumb question, but under a hard cap what would prevent teams form just saying screw you and spending over it anyways? There would have to some pretty serious deterrent involved.

The NBA has to approve every contract and trade. If there's a hard cap, any deal that puts you over would be voided. And before the start of the season, every team has to be in compliance.

 

[pshn80]

Settle it one way or the other but quickly so we can get on with an 82 game schedule and a month of training camp. Don't gyp the fans. Gamesmanship should be put aside. If both sides work hard they can get it done in two weeks. Won't happen though.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Make it 3+ years and it sounds reasonable. It has to be at least as long a period of time as an average rookie contract though to prevent other teams from stealing your best draft picks once their rookie contracts expire.

3+ is too short if you are just going to pull the salary out of the cap calculation, it can't be something that half the players on the team reach after their first contract, that would allow teams to sign a 3 year deal with a wink and a nod that it would be repaid on the second contract, that was the problem before the 99 lockout.

 

[hrdboild]

The players assume none of the risk. If they want to form their own league, do their own marketing, own their own buildings, manage or contract out operations, etc than they can take whatever cut they want. Players don't take a salary hit when ticket sales go down or their teams suck or when they personally can't even perform their jobs any more. Right now all that risk is on the owners which is why the owners are entitled to take back.

You seem to have major issues differentiating revenues from profits. In your music star example: The musician is not the employee as players are, the musician is THE BUSINESS. The musician brought in 1 billion in sales but had 980 million in expenses leaving a 20 million dollar profit, which he then pays himself. If music star only makes 500 million the next year he loses 480 million after he pays out. Which is actually what happens to many, many people in that industry (on a much smaller scale). Next time an NBA player takes a loss we'll talk.

Actually the record label brought in $1 billion in sales and the artist, an employee of the record label, was paid $20 million. That's how it typically happens in the music industry and that's how it happens in the NBA. You're saying the artists/players are overpaid and I'm saying if anything they're underpaid for the amount of revenue they generate. You're trying to portray the players as greedy and unreasonable, I'm saying they have a right to demand fair compensation based on actual revenue.

I do understand the difference between revenue and profits, but common sense says that increased revenue should also result in increased profits. What are these enormous expenses the teams have incurred which are forcing them into debt despite an increase in revenue? Does anyone know? Couldn't it simply be that, like many Americans, they over leveraged themselves prior to the recession with the expectation that their business would continue to build in value on a straight line and when that didn't happen their expected profits turned upside down? That's what the Maloofs did with the Palms and they've paid the price for it. Just because 30 owners get together and demand something which is in their best interest doesn't mean everyone else has to bow down before them and accept it willingly. The players have a right to wait this out until the owners are willing to negotiate fairly.

I already agreed with you before about the owners currently assuming the majority of the risk. That's why a hard cap and incentive based contracts should be (and are) on the table for negotiation. The owners suffered the most through the recession because player contracts were already guaranteed. I think the majority of the players are willing to concede some level of non-guaranteed contracts and they're also willing to concede a certain amount of restructuring to the salary cap. But when it comes to drastically cutting the share of revenue given back to the players, I don't agree that the owners have justification for that and neither does the NBPA and that's why there's a lockout that's probably going to last a long time.

 

[T-Time]

NBA and MLB are not even comparable, any arguement for the MLB or against the MLB has no legs when you are talking about the success of a team on a court versus success on a field.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

The Kings aren't losing money because of the Palms. I've actually argued that there is a boatload of trick accounting going on with NBA reporting and that many teams may be in the red only when it comes to the books. But that is how they are reporting it and unless it can be proven otherwise the team is losing money. There's no denying the arena isn't full these days, so they lose ticket sales, concessions, parking and just about everything else that comes with actual paid attendance. They aren't the only team in that boat.

As for the music industry musicians are not employees of their labels. They do sign contracts which grant them pre-payment on album sales royalties (assuming they sign to a major, not so with smaller labels). Big labels will help finance their tours, but again this is an advance. When bands don't meet their sales expectations they wind up broke. This has happened to plenty of acts. The music industry is a cruel joke and nothing like the NBA.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

As for the 70s you do understand that free agency was still in its infancy don't you? Contracts did not get out of hand until the 90s, I still remember how newsworthy it was when a player became the first to get a $2 million or $3 million a year contract and from there it just exploded icknto a race to the stratosphere.

Not only do the Bucks and Warriors (Warriors? The sixth-largest market in the country is part of your argument? Really?) respective championships precede free agency entirely, free agency didn't really become what it's known as now until around '88.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Also, there's been five or six threads started since yesterday, and I don't intend to look through all this madness to see if it's already been mentioned, but not only have all the pictures been taken down on NBA.com and all team sites, but KINGSDOTCOM's player-related videos have all been made private.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I think Brick mentioned that in passing, does anyone recall if they did that in 05 during the 2-3 weeks where there was no CBA in place?

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

I think Brick mentioned that in passing, does anyone recall if they did that in 05 during the 2-3 weeks where there was no CBA in place?

Which one are you referring to, the league site, or the youtube page? Because I really have no recollection of anything that was going on related to the NBA in the summer of 2005, as I was decidedly more interested in what was going on with the Monarchs at that time (that was the championship season), and youtube was still learning to crawl back then.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

League site, I guess, I didn't really use youtube for another year I'm thinking I watched videos mostly on quicktime back then, or random humor sites. Seemed the season never seemed in peril so I didn't pay a lot of attention.

 

[Superman]

Settle it one way or the other but quickly so we can get on with an 82 game schedule and a month of training camp. Don't gyp the fans. Gamesmanship should be put aside. If both sides work hard they can get it done in two weeks. Won't happen though.

I just don't see it happening. I think we're lucky if this happens by January.

In 1998, Stern basically said "if this isn't done in time to have at least 50 games and end the season in June, we have to cancel the entire season." I'm sure there's a similar directive this time. So end of December/beginning of January is probably the end game here.

 

[Sluggah]

Wasn't the last lockout season when our Kings began their rise to greatness? Maybe this is a good omen.

Now we just need to meet the Jazz in the first round and revert it to a 5 game series.

 

[SacTownKid]

I'm pretty sure any institution of a hard cap will go hand in hand with players making much less per year than they are now. I wouldn't be surprised to see that 62 million being an astronomical number on average for NBA teams. I'm also pretty sure the owners want contractual role backs on current deals as well. By giving up the exceptions, or instituting ones as a lower level, I think rumored to be around 2 million a year, you have guys making 6+ million a year now making 2 million a year. That will have a direct effect on how effective a 62 million dollar cap is to work under. Believe me, owners aren't instituting are hard cap so they can't keep their talent, it's so they don't have to pay such a premium so they don't leave.

 

[hrdboild]

Taking a Look at the Numbers Behind the NBA Labor Dispute

Let’s operate under the following assumptions:
The owners get the 40% BRI number the union claims they want.
Player Salaries and revenues are locked in at 2.4% percent increases tied to inflation (with one notable exception)
TV rights go up 21% as they did when last negotiated (the exception)
Under this extremely favorable scenario, the owners will still start losing money by 2020 and looking again at player salaries with evil intent.

 

[Bricklayer]

Wasn't the last lockout season when our Kings began their rise to greatness? Maybe this is a good omen.

I was thinking that myself -- the ironic timing of our big rebuild summer again falling right at the CBA negotiations/lockout break, and again poising us to be one of the talked about teams after the break.

 

[rainmaker]

This is a great read, and really brings into question whether the NBA is losing money.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...foul-on-n-b-a-s-claims-of-financial-distress/

 

[Capt. Factorial]

This is a great read, and really brings into question whether the NBA is losing money.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...foul-on-n-b-a-s-claims-of-financial-distress/

As someone pointed out in the comments on the article, for '09-'10 to Forbes estimate of league-wide profits was $183M, $150M of which was said to be from three teams: Lakers, Knicks, Bulls. That leaves $33M to be spread across the other 27 teams. Clearly a lot of teams are losing money, and a lot more have only razor-thin operating margins, even by Forbes' "more rosy" numbers. Obviously the league claims to be losing money and I'm not near expert enough to determine how questionable the NBA's "questionable accounting" is.

Do the players need to budge? Yes. Does the league need to budge? Yes. Is more substantial revenue sharing necessary? Absolutely. In fact, I think it's unfortunate that the league wants to negotiate any new revenue sharing outside of the context of the CBA. To some extent I feel it would be better done within that context.

 

[bajaden]

As someone pointed out in the comments on the article, for '09-'10 to Forbes estimate of league-wide profits was $183M, $150M of which was said to be from three teams: Lakers, Knicks, Bulls. That leaves $33M to be spread across the other 27 teams. Clearly a lot of teams are losing money, and a lot more have only razor-thin operating margins, even by Forbes' "more rosy" numbers. Obviously the league claims to be losing money and I'm not near expert enough to determine how questionable the NBA's "questionable accounting" is.

Do the players need to budge? Yes. Does the league need to budge? Yes. Is more substantial revenue sharing necessary? Absolutely. In fact, I think it's unfortunate that the league wants to negotiate any new revenue sharing outside of the context of the CBA. To some extent I feel it would be better done within that context.

I believe it was someone from the players union involved in the negotiations that said they hadn't given their best offer yet, and that the owners probably hadn't either. He said no one wants to give their best offer until they know they're getting the best offer they can from the other side. I understand the logic in that, but I don't understand the logic in that. If you know what I mean.