nixluva wrote:

tkf wrote:

nixluva wrote:

tkf wrote:

Nalod wrote:

nixluva wrote:

Nalod wrote:Both of you make it out like there is real pain.

YOu can also make it out that for the last 3 cba's the players have made out like bandits. Nobody said that.

Nix, you sound like a beaten man. Dude, this is not your fight!

Nalod it's clear that you just don't get it. It's not about whether the players make a lot or not. It's about how Stern and the Owners come back every CBA asking for help, but talking tough as if they've been wronged in some way. It's the owners and Stern who keep setting the agenda and failing. I'll help you out since you clearly aren't able to see clearly what's happening. each newCBA is supposed to be THE SYSTEM that will guarantee league success for all the franchises. Stern puts in rules and they're supposed to set teams up for success. ie. Stern and the owners came up with this idea of the Bird Exception. The idea was to be able to keep stars with the team that drafted them. Now they want to get rid of the Bird exception and move the stars around. I guess they feel every team can get a piece of the money that comes from having a Lebron or Durant. So now after convincing everyone that locking players into a team was the key to league success, now Stern is moving to have players be able to move.

He conveniently glossed over the fact that eliminating the Larry Bird exception, which he helped create in 1983 to prevent teams from losing their stars, would open the floodgates for more stars to move around.

"Player sharing," was the euphemism Stern assigned to the new world order the owners are seeking. "That's what caps do. They move players around. They distribute players a little more equally."

SO basically Stern got it wrong!!! Like he's been getting it wrong with every CBA he forces the players into signing.
See being able to lockout the players and starve them out has allowed the league to continually squeeze the players more and more, but has that fixed the problems? NO!!! See Nalod that's the big picture that you seem to keep missing every time i've put it in front of you. it's not about whether Stern can beat the Union. We've already seen that happen over and over again. Just look at the CBA changes i've been listing and you can see how much the players have continually been squeezed, but it hasn't fixed the league has it. Everything Stern did last CBA FAILED!!!! That's been proven by the losses and the fact that now he wants change everything. If he had gotten it right the last few times the league wouldn't have any issues.

And you're wrong. I'm not beaten. I'm in the same spot I was since the beginning. I already knew that the players would have to cave, cuz they always do. You just can't see the big picture cuz you're too busy gloating about Stern beating the players. Stern is a joke when it comes to solving the problems with the league. He puts on this show every time the new CBA comes due and people like you fall for his game. He's a fraud. Everything he's been doing has failed. If not for the greatness of Bird, Magic, Jordan, Shaq, Duncan, Lebron etc. He would've been exposed a long time ago. They're the only reason the league has succeeded. Not because Stern did such a great job coming up with a successful system that works for every franchise. How can he be a success if 22 teams were losing money as he claims? The players have been a success! They've been making good money and bringing in more and more fans. They've done their job. Great Attendance and TV ratings last year. Playoffs were great and the ratings high. Players did their part. Teams losing money, not being able to compete, not having parity with the big market teams is Sterns responsibility.

Nix, Im not enlightened. One thing though, you really hate Stern.

Your not getting my position. Its not Pro Stern. Its about business, position and power. Who has it and who does not. s

Its not about "Right vs. wrong", "Worker vs business", or "Master vs. Slave". No, its about power, and who gots it.

Nobody is gloating, at the same level I can't imagine if this is what you were expecting why your so despondent at this point.

The end result is the players walk away with less but are they still not "winning"?

Your opinion is what it is, and its the owners who are paying him 8mm a year and he has been commish for the better part of 30 years now. 30 type "A" rich businessmen think he does a good job. I don't render an opinion on him.

If not for the greatness of Bird, Magic, Jordan, Shaq, Duncan, Lebron etc. He would've been exposed a long time ago. They're the only reason the league has succeeded. Not because Stern did such a great job coming up with a successful system that works for every franchise.

Stern did not create these guys, the NBA did. They elevated the level of exposure and marketing opportunities for these guys to become icons. They bought the talent, the league the stage. Stern was just the steward.

yea nalod, what I don't get about those who take the same position on this as nix does is that they keep saying these things..

"the owners are asking the players for help"

"The players are giving the owners......"

"The players are allowing the owners..."

"The players are bailing the owners ouw"

this type of talk and thinking just shows me that most really don't get it, hate stern and the owners, or just feel that the players are doing the owners a favor just by existing and for their troubles the owners are paying them millions and should be happy that the players are not taking billions from them...

Again, as you said, we keep repeating ourselves, but the simple point remains.. This is a business, the owners own this business, the players play and get one hell of a compensation package.. The players are not "giving" the owners anything.. The owners are not "asking" the players for anything... Because the players have a right to collective bargain, the owners are telling them this is what we want in order to continue business, now both sides will haggle and come to an agreement, but nix and others, please stop with the players are "giving".. they are not giving anything but their services in which they are greatly compensated for...

This is a NEGOTIATION.. not a RE-NOEGOTIATION.... the owners didn't come back in the middle of the old CBA and say, we want to re-negotiate.... that would be the players "giving back" they would be giving back what was owed to them... that deal is done, this is a new CBA, so they are not giving back a thing....

Owners have leverage.. End of story... nalod you hit the nail on the head, yet some people resist these facts and replace them with their personal feelings towards stern... and the owners.. it just doesn't work that way...

TKF, you and Nalod are the ones who don't get it. Forget about who has the hammer in this negotiation. That argument has been settled a long time ago. In every single CBA negotiation, the owners have moved the league in whatever direction they thought was going allow them to make the most money. They keep trying to PERFECT the system and that's where all these rules are coming from. Stern has utterly failed in that primary task when you look at the fact that the owners have lost money each and every year of this CBA!!! How else can you look at it? They set up this system and felt they had fixed the problems with the previous CBA's. Now they're looking to change things yet again HOPING that these new changes do what they failed to do the last few CBA's.

The players are the only thing that has been consistently successful. You look at the Bird/Magic years and the Jordan era. Now the Lebron era. The league has prospered with those players starring. The owners have been complaining about competitive balance and profitability for a long time and across several CBA's. The failures are evident in the need for major changes and the red ink on the leagues books. If Stern had done his job they wouldn't be having such problems and once again looking to extract more from the players and limit the players once take again. Now the NEW idea is not to prevent star players from moving but to create a league more like the NFL where there's parity cuz players move so much and there's a hard cap to prevent big city teams from hoarding all the best talent.

what does that mean nix? the players have been the only thing that has been consistently successful? really? please elaborate...

Easy! The players made the league more popular with their play on the court. The players have made good money and even tho the owners keep trying to limit their movement they still manage to get paid and move where they want. The owners capped them top salaries and created the MLE as a consolation then the owners ended up spending more money than they planned on mediocre players. NOTHING the owners have tried has worked. So let's recap. Fans come to see compelling BB and the players gave us that. Owners tried to limit the players and failed. Owners came up with this system and lost money!!! Now the owners are back looking for help again.

nix.. fans come to see the owners Product, in the owners stadiums.....(well most of them)...therefore how have the owners failed? if the players are doing well then the owners can't help but do well because that is their product nix!!

nixluva wrote:

Nalod wrote:
Owners own the team.

They pay the players.

Owners have no competition to pay players.

Owners want to pay less, make more.

Players don't like that. Nixluva think Owners are bad. Nalod says its business and unless there is viable competition players don't have strong bargaining power. Nixluva think Stern is a bad man. Nalod says Stern is the voice of owner and thinks Stern is an ass, but that is not important. Nixluva think Stern is a bad man and its important. Nalod is ok with Nixluva not agreeing.

Why do you keep mischaracterizing what my point is??? I'll say this once more and if you dont get it then I'm going to assume you're incapable of comprehending. It's not about the owners and Stern being bad guys or good guys. Stern is a fraud! The leagues financial woes and his changes and flip flops on top of his failures with successive CBA's prove it! He hasn't been able to solve the leagues problems. Not competitive balance, financially weak franchises or finding a way to protect the owners from themselves, with their foolish signings or stealing players from the weaker owners! That's been Stern's job for decades and he's failed on those key issues. The league is very popular which he gets a little cred for but mostly that is a function of the leagues stars. That's my view in a nutshell. ALL THE FACTS BACK ME UP!

No they don't.. You haven't produced any Facts... and honestly, what does all of that matter? Owners own the league.. they want to pay less and make more.. End of story... they really don't need a reason to ask for such......other than, they want to make more money...

why not harp on the players that sign big deals and give the team nothing.. what did grant hill give the orlando magic for roughly 80 mil? what did eddy curry give the knicks for 60 mil? the list goes on and on.. please stop acting as if the player are victims....

Stern and Owners always think they've gotten the better end of the deal against players. Why not, since these CBA deals are almost always one sided, with the exception of a few concessions the owners have allowed the players. The Media has portrayed Stern as the hands down winner in every CBA battle. So NO ONE is really arguing that this won't end up the same way as always. In fact the players have already conceded ground.

However, Stern and Owners always end up unhappy with the state of the system each and every time CBA ends. Stern and Owners propose new changes that are supposed to box the players in and create more parity in the league for the owners. Now come to the end of yet another CBA the results show that Stern and the Owners changes haven't done what they expected. The players still managed to get out of cities they didn't want to play in and to even work things out so they could bunch up on teams. So in the end what Stern and the owners attempted to do didn't work.

Over the years it hasn't mattered what the Owners do, put in salary cap, limits on max contracts, limits on rookie contracts, Bird Exemption to help teams hold their stars. Yet what do we see happen the league still has problems. They think they've fixed a big problem and something new pops up. Now the owners will likely win yet another CBA battle and make key changes. I have little confidence that these ideas will work any better than the many attempts they've made over the years. At the very least perhaps the financial issues can be Improved a bit, but in the end until the owners address the 800 lb Gorilla in the room, they'll never really fix the problems. The real issue is aggressive revenue sharing. They've avoided it all these years and so none of their little fixes have worked.

nixluva wrote:CBA negotiations always end up with players conceding ground to Stern and the owners. No one is arguing that the players could actually beat the owners in a CBA negotiation. At least not from the stand point of the players successfully keeping or increasing what they get from the deal.

Stern and Owners always think they've gotten the better end of the deal against players. Why not, since these CBA deals are almost always one sided, with the exception of a few concessions the owners have allowed the players. The Media has portrayed Stern as the hands down winner in every CBA battle. So NO ONE is really arguing that this won't end up the same way as always. In fact the players have already conceded ground.

However, Stern and Owners always end up unhappy with the state of the system each and every time CBA ends. Stern and Owners propose new changes that are supposed to box the players in and create more parity in the league for the owners. Now come to the end of yet another CBA the results show that Stern and the Owners changes haven't done what they expected. The players still managed to get out of cities they didn't want to play in and to even work things out so they could bunch up on teams. So in the end what Stern and the owners attempted to do didn't work.

Over the years it hasn't mattered what the Owners do, put in salary cap, limits on max contracts, limits on rookie contracts, Bird Exemption to help teams hold their stars. Yet what do we see happen the league still has problems. They think they've fixed a big problem and something new pops up. Now the owners will likely win yet another CBA battle and make key changes. I have little confidence that these ideas will work any better than the many attempts they've made over the years. At the very least perhaps the financial issues can be Improved a bit, but in the end until the owners address the 800 lb Gorilla in the room, they'll never really fix the problems. The real issue is aggressive revenue sharing. They've avoided it all these years and so none of their little fixes have worked.