1)Why is fisher negotiating a 4 billion dollar deal, a career role player who didn't even negotiate his own contract (per stackhouse said on Jim Rome)

2)Billy Hunter, what an incompetant soul..this idiot has been negotiating a deal for 2 years, and prior to the recent rash of meetings since september, He held just 4 meetings over the course of 2 years knowing how serious this was getting. His idea of preparing players for a lockout, instead of working feverishly to try an avoid a lockout, is evidence of how bad this guy is.

3)The Owners have negotiated more deals then billy or fisher will ever see in 5 life times..

I'm not getting why these players haven't come to the realazation that there's no winning in this deal at all, none..it's just degrees of losses, and everyday the hold up the invisible picket sign it's just another loss in there column.

The agents (specifally DAVID FALK) essentially settle this deal last time, and there the ones that should be in the negotiating room.

For those who watch ENTOURAGE, it's like sending loyld to negotiate Vince next big movie deal instead of Ari..

HowardBeckNYT Howard Beck
Once a proposed deal gets to the players for ratification, it may be very difficult to convince a majority to kill it and go to court.
» HowardBeckNYT Howard Beck
So if "disillusioned faction" wants to dissolve union, it would first have to defeat the new CBA by majority vote, then start decert drive
» KBergCBS Ken Berger
Column: Meltdown or compromise? NBA talks reach turning point. #lockout http://bit.ly/trqkZq
» HowardBeckNYT Howard Beck
Ratification vote on new CBA would happen in 7-10 days -- thus preempting the entire decert campaign, which takes two months.
» HowardBeckNYT Howard Beck
Conclusion I've reached today: decertification threat may be hollow if deal struck this weekend, even at 50-50. Will explain in next tweet

y2zipper wrote:

eViL wrote:that's why i find it surprising that you don't advocate that the owners put a little work into making better decisions on how to run their businesses rather than trying to rig the system to guarantee profits no matter how dumb they are. i know your point is that they are trying to make better decisions by fixing the system, but isn't that a bit disingenuous? they know the conditions in which they operate, are we to believe that the teams and their management are so dumb that they need a foolproof system to save them from themselves?

look, if you're the Bobcats and you draft Adam Morrison in front of Brandon Roy and Rudy Gay, or if you draft Sean May in front of Danny Granger or Rajon Rondo, you deserve to lose, no? what business is guaranteed profits? in what other industry can you pay an employee like Lebron James $20M a year when he in fact brings in over $80M a year for your business? the players have caps on what they can make and the owners still want a floor under which their revenues can't fall?

I don't exactly buy this because my stance on the NBA is that it's one business owned by 30 people as opposed to each team being it's own business. The reality is, the NBA isn't going to exist if the 6-10 teams actually turning a profit are the only ones there and everyone else goes away. Even big-market owners should know this. The league as a whole is profitable so all 30 of them should be making money. That's a best summary of the hardline small-market owner stance that I can think of and it makes sense.

The problem with this theory that it's all mismanagement is that isn't true. People don't like to believe this, but the profitability of a team is only based on location and whether or not the team has a star player. The Knicks and Clippers have been thoroughly mismanaged throughout the last ten years and they still turn a profit because they're in New York and Los Angeles, but a team like Cleveland or New Orleans will have difficulty once the star players go because the locations aren't as good.

YOu guys are both right. I Think a team can't stay at the bottom very long without suffering at the box. Cleveland lost lebron but kept a good momentum this past season. In full rebuilding mode now, with some young players they can keep it going. If they are mired in misery for too long they lose it. So in a sense both of you are right.

Sterling in LA did ok by controlling the payroll and when he was debt free did he then start to spend money only in the last few years. Clips were there so fans could see NBA teams at a decent price and decent seats cuz Lakers were priced out. Good strategy.

Charlotte lost the Hornets because of idiot owners actions and bad string of trades (LJ and Mourning), Death (Bobby Phils racing), Arrogent athlete perception captured by Ray Carruth murder of his baby momma, and Owner Shinn very public sexual harrassment case. ON top of it all, he whines for a new Arena that was not 10 years old! Charlotte led the league in attendance for a while. Its a legit NBA city. Robert Johnson did not have the funds to properly compete and idiot draft picking did not help.

Good take, Knicks were badly mismanaged! Thats an understatement! Knicks do that in a different market they are cooked. Sexual harassment, epic payroll, and bad record all would doom it in another market!

CrushAlot wrote:

Nalod wrote:

y2zipper wrote:

eViL wrote:that's why i find it surprising that you don't advocate that the owners put a little work into making better decisions on how to run their businesses rather than trying to rig the system to guarantee profits no matter how dumb they are. i know your point is that they are trying to make better decisions by fixing the system, but isn't that a bit disingenuous? they know the conditions in which they operate, are we to believe that the teams and their management are so dumb that they need a foolproof system to save them from themselves?

look, if you're the Bobcats and you draft Adam Morrison in front of Brandon Roy and Rudy Gay, or if you draft Sean May in front of Danny Granger or Rajon Rondo, you deserve to lose, no? what business is guaranteed profits? in what other industry can you pay an employee like Lebron James $20M a year when he in fact brings in over $80M a year for your business? the players have caps on what they can make and the owners still want a floor under which their revenues can't fall?

I don't exactly buy this because my stance on the NBA is that it's one business owned by 30 people as opposed to each team being it's own business. The reality is, the NBA isn't going to exist if the 6-10 teams actually turning a profit are the only ones there and everyone else goes away. Even big-market owners should know this. The league as a whole is profitable so all 30 of them should be making money. That's a best summary of the hardline small-market owner stance that I can think of and it makes sense.

The problem with this theory that it's all mismanagement is that isn't true. People don't like to believe this, but the profitability of a team is only based on location and whether or not the team has a star player. The Knicks and Clippers have been thoroughly mismanaged throughout the last ten years and they still turn a profit because they're in New York and Los Angeles, but a team like Cleveland or New Orleans will have difficulty once the star players go because the locations aren't as good.

YOu guys are both right. I Think a team can't stay at the bottom very long without suffering at the box. Cleveland lost lebron but kept a good momentum this past season. In full rebuilding mode now, with some young players they can keep it going. If they are mired in misery for too long they lose it. So in a sense both of you are right.

Sterling in LA did ok by controlling the payroll and when he was debt free did he then start to spend money only in the last few years. Clips were there so fans could see NBA teams at a decent price and decent seats cuz Lakers were priced out. Good strategy.

Charlotte lost the Hornets because of idiot owners actions and bad string of trades (LJ and Mourning), Death (Bobby Phils racing), Arrogent athlete perception captured by Ray Carruth murder of his baby momma, and Owner Shinn very public sexual harrassment case. ON top of it all, he whines for a new Arena that was not 10 years old! Charlotte led the league in attendance for a while. Its a legit NBA city. Robert Johnson did not have the funds to properly compete and idiot draft picking did not help.

Good take, Knicks were badly mismanaged! Thats an understatement! Knicks do that in a different market they are cooked. Sexual harassment, epic payroll, and bad record all would doom it in another market!

In regards to Cleveland, they were able to maintain the momentum for last season. However, I don't know if that is going to continue long term. We were able to go to Cleveland right after the Melo trade and saw the Knicks. I believe the place was sold out but the cover of the score book had Byron Scott on it. I think they will need a star soon or they will begin to falter as well.

They have a few exiting draft picks coming on board, a few good young players, and they now have a core of young players by which a star can grow from. Irving could be the next great point! There is hope and that will draw.

CrushAlot wrote:The lockout has been so long that I forgot about Irving.

I've forgotten about every player drafted except Iman. This lockout really does stink- but is it actually worse than the 1998-99 one? I don't remember that one at all (though I think I had just started uni at the time)- does this one just seem worse because of the tweets and internet stuff?

Speaking of which the two sides are meeting again today, and things are looking a lot worse than last week- really don't see a deal happening. Kberg seems to think the owners are going to offer an even lower BRI than last week, and will pull some of the system agreements too. The talks are also starting pretty late, so I expect them to break off after only a few hours with the usual acrimony.

Carlos Knox, Founder of the Knox Indy Pro Am, added, 'We were all excited about coming to New Castle and playing in The Fieldhouse. I hope we will have another opportunity in the future. Maybe during next summer’s Pro Am.'"

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/e19tq2

y2zipper wrote:

nixluva wrote:People se to forget that at one time the league was much smaller and no fans complained about the quality of play! It won't kill the league to contract a franchise if they can't find a good city.

Superstars didn't merge together to form super-teams like they do now either.

Contraction isn't a serious option for any team other than the Hornets because they don't have an owner, but they won't be contracted because the NBA is hell-bent on keeping them in New Orleans.

Superteams came about more naturally back in the day! I don't see why it's so bad that players found a way to try to help build title contenders when the owners seemed to have been trying to do the same thing. Arison/Riley and Dolan/Walsh have been trying to build superteams as did the Nets and Bulls! All these teams with the cash and assets to trade did their best to take advantage of the players strong arming their way off teams v

Nalod wrote:

nixluva wrote:People se to forget that at one time the league was much smaller and no fans complained about the quality of play! It won't kill the league to contract a franchise if they can't find a good city.

How many players do you think could be eliminated before the quality could increase?

yeah, if you're talking about contraction, meaning deleting two teams, you are talking about eliminating 30 jobs for players out of a total 450. that's almost 7% of jobs in the league????

you'd rather eliminate 7% of all the jobs than give up 2% on the BRI!??!?!?

this is the logic i don't understand in this lockout.

the players have already given up more money than 2% of BRI for a seven year deal by just blowing up the first month of the season, realistically the first two months are gone. so they've blown up more than twice what they're quibbling over. this is such stupid bullsh!t. i'm so sick of it.