MarburyAnd1Crossover wrote:In a beautiful world, salaries would be tied to wins. If you win many games, you make many dollars, and if you lose many games, then you make less dollars.

Moonangie wrote:

N.B.A. Owners Give Players 4 Days to Accept Final Offer
By HOWARD BECK
A perilous four-month standoff between N.B.A. players and owners has been reduced to a four-day window, with an ultimatum that might destroy the 2011-12 season.

Negotiations on a new labor deal failed again Saturday night, this time with specific consequences: The players have until Wednesday afternoon to accept the league’s final offer, or be dealt a significantly worse alternative.

They are almost certain to reject both proposals, throwing the league into turmoil.

“Right now, we’ve been given the ultimatum,” the president of the players union, Derek Fisher, said in a news conference early Sunday morning. “And our answer is: that’s not acceptable to us.”

The next move made by the players might be the one they have dutifully avoided since the lockout began — dissolving their union. A powerful group of agents and players are clamoring for such an action, which would shift the battle to the courts and perhaps buy them the leverage they need. But it could take months to execute, leaving little hope for salvaging the season.

The league’s fate should be clearer by the close of business Wednesday. That was the deadline given to the union by Commissioner David Stern to accept the owners’ offer: effectively, a 50-50 split of revenues and a package of harsh restrictions on team spending and free agency.

If the union balks, Stern said, the owners will withdraw it and instead offer the players a 47 percent share, combined with a so-called “flex-cap” system that, in practice, imposes a hard cap on payrolls.

“We hope that this juxtaposition will cause the union to assess its position and accept the deal,” Stern said.

Union leaders seem unlikely to reconsider. “But hope springs eternal,” Stern said, “and we would love to see the union accept the proposal that is now on the table.”

This latest negotiating session, the 21st of the lockout, lasted for eight and a half hours, ending around 1:30 a.m. Sunday. Under the guidance of George Cohen, a federal mediator, the parties actually narrowed the gap on some crucial items before the talks collapsed.

The players — who had vowed not to accept less than 52.5 percent of league revenues — proposed a 51 percent share, with 1 percent devoted to aid retired players. That moved them within 1 percent of the league’s longstanding proposal.

On Saturday, the owners proposed a “band” that would pay the players 49 to 51 percent, depending on revenue growth. But the union said it amounted to a 50 percent offer, because the threshold for growth was so high that the share would never get to 51. Jeff Kessler, the union’s outside counsel and chief negotiator, called the 49 to 51 band “a fraud.”

Yet it was ultimately the mechanics of a new system, not the revenue split, that killed the talks.

The league’s standing proposal would eliminate spending options for teams that pay the luxury tax, by banning them from sign-and-trade deals and the use of the midlevel exception. At Cohen’s suggestion, the league proposed a “mini-midlevel” that would start at $2.5 million — half the value of the full midlevel — and would be limited to two-year deals.

The N.B.A.’s proposal also called for an additional penalty — a so-called “repeater tax” — on teams that exceed the tax threshold three times in a five-year span. The union is open to the concept, but not at the steep rates proposed by the league.

The net effect of the N.B.A.’s proposal, the union said, would be to eliminate the highest-spending teams from acquiring top talent — thus devastating the free-agent market.

Union officials have been willing to compromise on the revenue split pending some degree of compromise from owners in other areas.

“The big story here is they want it all,” Kessler said, growing more agitated with every sentence.

He said the repeater-tax provision, as proposed, would amount to a hard salary cap, something the union has opposed for decades.

“Those deals are not acceptable for players today, it’s not acceptable for future generations of players,” Kessler said. “They want a win-win-win-win. We wanted to compromise. They’re not giving the players a lot of choice.”

The union wants tax-paying teams to retain sign-and-trade options and to have use of a full midlevel exception, at $5 million. As a compromise, union officials proposed that the midlevel be available to taxpayers only every other year.

Saturday’s meeting involved full negotiating committees on both sides, plus a few added participants. Joining the owners’ delegation were two of the leading hardliners — Charlotte’s Michael Jordan and Portland’s Paul Allen — plus Miami’s Micky Arison, who is one of the most eager to cut a deal. Chauncey Billups, the Knicks point guard, joined the players’ side.

Billy Hunter, the union’s executive director, left without speaking to reporters. A union spokesman said that Hunter was tired and feeling under the weather.

No additional talks are scheduled, nor expected, now that the N.B.A. has issued its ultimatum.

The players are in an untenable position, with choices that range from bad to worse. Dissolving the union may be the inevitable course — whether it comes by force, from a disenchanted faction of players, or by union leaders themselves.

Neither Fisher nor Kessler would entertain that possibility early Sunday morning, but the union has always held out decertification as a measure of last resort. Going that route would allow the players to sue the league under federal antitrust law, but resolution could take years.

The real value of decertification is to create chaos and uncertainty for the league and to motivate the owners to negotiate.

In the meantime, Fisher said he saw no value in putting the league’s proposal up to a vote of the players.

“Our job is to take a deal to our players that we’re comfortable presenting, and that we feel will get passed,” he said, adding, “At this point, we don’t have a deal to propose.”

These idiot owners are not negotiating in good faith, nor have they been. The deal was there at 51% from the very beginning The owners are trying to take advantage of the players by proposing terms to provoke rejection. They don't seem to care about the fans or the sport. They are spoiled brats who are toying with our league.

I have lost all respect for MJ. What a tool. I get that he's just a terrible owner and terrible judge of talent and egomaniac, thus his results have not been profitable. Too effing bad for him. Sell the team to someone who cares about hoops and the fans. *rant over*

rofl.. negotiating in good faith? please, they are negotiating in a position of POWER.. end of story....

matt wrote:I don't understand what some of the hardline owners are thinking.. they want to crush the players with this deal, completely dominate the negotiations without any sense of fair bargaining, humiliate them publicy.. and then sign the free agents?? Who is going to play for Jordan, Paul Allen, Gilbert, etc after this?

sterling, the owner of the clippers has been known as a terrible prick of an owner for many years.. that has not stopped free agents like brand and baron davis from taking huge contracts.. these players see money and they will sign a deal with the devil... jordan, allen and gilbert will have no problem giving away their money to these guys... please.... no problem..

CrushAlot wrote:

I thought this was going to be a quick copy and paste but ended up watching it again for the entire 11 minutes.

same... never saw the full video though. thanks for posting that

So MJ trades away a great SF for salary dump, and then is hoping to recoup losses with a new CBA so he can what, go pay another great SF?

tkf wrote:

TheGame wrote:After researching this more, Jordan is taking a hard stance because the Bobcats have been one of the worst teams financially for years. That is why he traded Gerald Wallace (who is a great SF) for a box of cookies, just to dump salary. The Bobcats are probably losing about $8-$10 million a year, so Jordan needs the new deal to cover that expense and then also leave extra millions to make the Bobcats a player in the FA market. That all being said, the players have already given back about $10 million per team, and at 50% would probably be giving back about $12-$13 million per team. When you consider that fact and the fact that the new TV deal will probably be substantially larger, you realize that the players have already pretty much guaranteed that every well-run NBA will make some profit. To ask more from the players is ridiculous.

THEY ARE not asking anything from the players.. they are making an offer, the players are demanding more... I keep hearing the players are giving back... did I miss something? did the players get together and write a check to the owners? otherwise how do you give back something you don't own? This is not a renegotiation, therefore the players are not giving back...

Whether you call it giving back or an offer, the bottom-line is that you asking the players to take a paycut from what they were able to make last year.

TheGame wrote:

tkf wrote:

TheGame wrote:After researching this more, Jordan is taking a hard stance because the Bobcats have been one of the worst teams financially for years. That is why he traded Gerald Wallace (who is a great SF) for a box of cookies, just to dump salary. The Bobcats are probably losing about $8-$10 million a year, so Jordan needs the new deal to cover that expense and then also leave extra millions to make the Bobcats a player in the FA market. That all being said, the players have already given back about $10 million per team, and at 50% would probably be giving back about $12-$13 million per team. When you consider that fact and the fact that the new TV deal will probably be substantially larger, you realize that the players have already pretty much guaranteed that every well-run NBA will make some profit. To ask more from the players is ridiculous.

THEY ARE not asking anything from the players.. they are making an offer, the players are demanding more... I keep hearing the players are giving back... did I miss something? did the players get together and write a check to the owners? otherwise how do you give back something you don't own? This is not a renegotiation, therefore the players are not giving back...

Whether you call it giving back or an offer, the bottom-line is that you asking the players to take a paycut from what they were able to make last year.

hey, millions or americans have taken pay cuts.. I mean is it a crime to have them take pay cuts or should we insist the owners continue to lose money?