SupremeCommander wrote:

Killa4luv wrote:I own a restaurant business and the bottom line is you have to do what you have to do to stay in business. The difference between me and these BBall owners is that so much of what they have done is self inflicted. You can't be stupid. No business owner anywhere ought to be guaranteed a profit, period. What business school did they go to that taught them that? What country are they living in?

U make Rashard Lewis the #2 highest paid player in the league, you deserve what you get. And THAT is the major problem with the league. They are competing for talent, and they are scared someone is going to blossom and be stolen so they overpay them and lock them in. WHo's fault is that? U gamble by paying for potential and sometimes u win, and sometimes u lose.

U lose too much? Ur stuck with overpaid players that aren't good and u don't make money. Maybe hire better talent evaluators or try to improve through the draft which is a safer, albeit longer, way of acquiring talent. Hire coaches who are better at developing talent.

Employees always want more money. Thats the name of the game. ANybody here think they shouldn't be making more money? Probably not. But if ur in charge and u have to let some people go in order to survive then guess what? Thats what u gotta do. If u have to raise ur prices in order to survive then guess what? U do what u gotta do.

What u dont do is get mad because u try to keep people on and they are ungrateful. Customers & Employees dont see the books, they think ur falling all over urselves with money. They think that unless u let them know very frankly as I have: I may need to cut jobs and/or hours, because we are not making money. I'll keep u posted, but until then we need to be careful not to be wasteful and treat all of our customers with respect as I try to drum up more business and do things more efficiently. U let them know the financial reality (but dont show them the books) so no one is asking for a raise. If they ask for a raise after uve shared what u r going through, then they have essentially volunteered to be laid off.

But these r not mom and pops, and no one who owns a team is losing money because they are doing the right thing. They are losing money because they are doing everything wrong thing. Some things need to be tweeked but they are trying to guarantee themselves a profit no matter what they do, and thats indefensible.

I agree with this, a lot, but I do think the players are allowe dto do things that are not in the best interest of the game. I honestly think if the current economic system was more or less unchanged, but Derrick Rose could get rewarded for his awesome season and the owners could tear up Rashard Lewis' contract, everything would be okay. Meaning, the players get 57 percent but the allocation goes to those who perform.

How you achieve that, I don't know. But we've seen this problem with the Knicks. QRich, Jerome James, Curry... and guys like Penny, Jeffries, Larry Hughes, etc. If the team could have sent those dudes packing and distributed the BRI differently, how is this bad? Get creative. Maybe each current year is guaranteed, and the subsequent are not, then each team is expected to spend a minimum and there is no cap.

Shorter contracts, perhaps max number of years.

The problem came when the owners decided they wanted to limit the max that the stars could get. In the past if you had the same 57% BRI split, but allowed teams to pay what the market would set for a star, then you would have the best players making more money but teams with mediocre players wouldn't be stuck paying so much for them. you'd reach the 57% split but the way the money was distributed would be different. The Lebron, Wade, Kobe, Melo, STAT class would be paid more and the teams that have them would be making enough money to afford paying them, but teams with a bunch of 2nd and 3rd level players would pay less and it would keep those teams from overpaying for mediocre talent. The MLE was another mistake that drives prices up. it all goes back to the owners being competitive with each other and not realizing that if you draft your own star you will make more money, but you also have to be smart in how you spend.

Now I realize that at a certain point the fact that some owners have a financial advantage would drive the best players towards the teams with the most money, but that's where the owners made their other big mistake. If they had instituted a revenue sharing plan earlier they could solve that problem. Right now they're talking about a more serious luxury tax and if they had done that earlier, but allowed the top players to make what they could instead of a Max limit, things would've worked out. Teams would pay the most only to the players that are worth it and not to guys on teams that aren't really helping those teams make money or get wins. It wasn't the top players ie KG contracts that hurt the league. It was the rise of the mediocre contracts that caused the issues. If you concentrate player salaries more towards the top rather than spread it out, it only effects a limited number of teams.