CrushAlot wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:The owners are not losing any lawsuits lol. And they wont be scared by one either.

Good luck to the players willing to risk not just this season but next season as well by decertifying. I'm sure that will do a lot of good.

I think the owners are not negotiating in good faith. I think the only recourse the players have is decertifying. The process takes 45 days and even the threat of it could mean a lost season. No matter what is being said owners lose money if the season is lost. There was a rumor that Stern assured Tnt and Espn that he could produce an 82 game season. I think he is under pressure to get as close to that as possible. The players do not have a lot of leverage in the current negotiations. Larry Coon talked about decertification and it seems to be a viable strategy for the players to use to get negotiations on a more even playing field. The process takes 45 days so the owners could react and negotiate a more reasonable offer. More from Coon:

Decertification owes its power to the uneasy truce between labor laws and antitrust laws. The antitrust laws prevent employers from banding together to restrain competition. For example, if all the banks in a city agreed that they would not pay their tellers more than $30,000 per year, it would almost certainly be an illegal case of "price fixing." Likewise, if the banks laid off all their tellers and refused to rehire them unless they agreed to take a pay cut to $30,000, it would almost certainly be an illegal "group boycott." These types of agreements -- which restrain competition -- are addressed by the antitrust laws.

However, collective bargaining encourages the very type of behavior that the antitrust laws make illegal. To resolve this inherent conflict, there is something called the "non-statutory labor exemption," which shields collective bargaining agreements from attack under antitrust law. This protection extends even after the agreement expires -- so long as a bargaining relationship continues to exist.

Here's the key to the whole process: This bargaining relationship continues to exist as long as the union is in place. If the players dissolve the union, the bargaining relationship dissolves with it. Without the bargaining relationship, the league is no longer shielded from antitrust laws.

Much of the economic structure of the NBA -- such as the salary cap, maximum salaries, rookie-scale salaries and the luxury tax -- could be challenged under the antitrust laws as a form of price fixing if there was no union. The lockout itself could be challenged as a group boycott.

In many normal businesses, employers fight unionization and would be thrilled if the employees decided to get rid of their union. But in the sports world, employers benefit from the existence of the union -- so the employees can use the dissolution of the union as a threat.

So far the NBA players have kept the dispute within the realm of labor law by continuing to negotiate as a union. If the players dissolve the union -- either by decertifying or through a related process called a disclaimer of interest -- they surrender their collective bargaining rights, lift the shield of protection provided by the non-statutory labor exemption, and shift the venue from labor law to antitrust law.

After decertifying, the players could then bring an antitrust suit against the league, challenge any rules that constitute a restraint of trade, and ask the court to end the lockout. They could also seek treble (triple the amount) damages -- up to $6 billion per year. The odds of winning are not 100 percent certain (they never are), but the risk to the owners would be enormous. Such a case could take years to resolve.

Once the union decertifies, the collective bargaining process would be over -- there literally would be no union with which the owners could negotiate. Billy Hunter, Derek Fisher and the other players on the executive committee would no longer be in charge -- as a practical matter, control would pass to attorneys. The players also could not reassemble the union for one year without the league's consent. However, such consent obviously would be granted if the two sides eventually cut a deal.

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/page/decertification-111104/nba-decertification-threat-strong-message

Stern is not under any pressure. He has been playing this game for over two decades. He isn't getting intimidated by dumb players trying to decertify.

Stern isn't above the law. While he is a smart guy,he may have misplayed this. He is posturing that he can void contracts with decertification but this seems to be a legal gray area. I also am not sure that some of his owners would want to create a vast free agent pool when they currently have stars on their team.

The NBA hasn't violated any labor law.

The owners run the league. They can make the changes they deem fit. If the players don't like it they can run to the courts and pray for a miracle.

This is a labor negotiation. It's not personal, it's business. You're taking it personal and a lot of players are taking it personal. This is the problem here. The owners don't "hate" the players and they aren't doing anything out of spite. This is an offer they are making with their best interests at stake and with what they view the best interests for the players because they are not willing to go any further.

Again, it is in their right to make whatever they deem to be their best offer and it is in their right to make changes to a system they are unhappy with. The owners are not just some faceless trillionaires who are willing to take millions in losses every season just to satisfy the players. The system is already broken. This isn't about 50/50. This is about a system that the NBA poorly constructed in the last two CBA's and is paying for it now by having to make all these radical changes. These changes should've never had to be made because they should have never been agreed upon to begin with.

The NBA has the highest paid athletes of any North American sport as a whole. They get guaranteed money no matter what they do (Eddy Curry) and they got a bigger slice of the pie from a third-rate business (third rated sport in NA after baseball and football) for years. Now the economy has taken a dive. It's time to start fresh. CBA's signed in the past have no impact on what the current economic conditions are.

If the players want to fight it it is in their right to do so. But the NBA has not done anything wrong legally, no matter what you think. Stern could care about his legacy but he works for the owners. And decertification doesn't make the owners gulp and look down. Decertification is a tried-and-failed tactic that will only waste time, lose everyone money and accomplish nothing. It will probably make the offer even worse than what the 'reset' proposal will be. Wouldn't that be a hoot? For them to go through all that only to get the worst offer they could?

CrushAlot wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:The owners are not losing any lawsuits lol. And they wont be scared by one either.

Good luck to the players willing to risk not just this season but next season as well by decertifying. I'm sure that will do a lot of good.

I think the owners are not negotiating in good faith. I think the only recourse the players have is decertifying. The process takes 45 days and even the threat of it could mean a lost season. No matter what is being said owners lose money if the season is lost. There was a rumor that Stern assured Tnt and Espn that he could produce an 82 game season. I think he is under pressure to get as close to that as possible. The players do not have a lot of leverage in the current negotiations. Larry Coon talked about decertification and it seems to be a viable strategy for the players to use to get negotiations on a more even playing field. The process takes 45 days so the owners could react and negotiate a more reasonable offer. More from Coon:

Decertification owes its power to the uneasy truce between labor laws and antitrust laws. The antitrust laws prevent employers from banding together to restrain competition. For example, if all the banks in a city agreed that they would not pay their tellers more than $30,000 per year, it would almost certainly be an illegal case of "price fixing." Likewise, if the banks laid off all their tellers and refused to rehire them unless they agreed to take a pay cut to $30,000, it would almost certainly be an illegal "group boycott." These types of agreements -- which restrain competition -- are addressed by the antitrust laws.

However, collective bargaining encourages the very type of behavior that the antitrust laws make illegal. To resolve this inherent conflict, there is something called the "non-statutory labor exemption," which shields collective bargaining agreements from attack under antitrust law. This protection extends even after the agreement expires -- so long as a bargaining relationship continues to exist.

Here's the key to the whole process: This bargaining relationship continues to exist as long as the union is in place. If the players dissolve the union, the bargaining relationship dissolves with it. Without the bargaining relationship, the league is no longer shielded from antitrust laws.

Much of the economic structure of the NBA -- such as the salary cap, maximum salaries, rookie-scale salaries and the luxury tax -- could be challenged under the antitrust laws as a form of price fixing if there was no union. The lockout itself could be challenged as a group boycott.

In many normal businesses, employers fight unionization and would be thrilled if the employees decided to get rid of their union. But in the sports world, employers benefit from the existence of the union -- so the employees can use the dissolution of the union as a threat.

So far the NBA players have kept the dispute within the realm of labor law by continuing to negotiate as a union. If the players dissolve the union -- either by decertifying or through a related process called a disclaimer of interest -- they surrender their collective bargaining rights, lift the shield of protection provided by the non-statutory labor exemption, and shift the venue from labor law to antitrust law.

After decertifying, the players could then bring an antitrust suit against the league, challenge any rules that constitute a restraint of trade, and ask the court to end the lockout. They could also seek treble (triple the amount) damages -- up to $6 billion per year. The odds of winning are not 100 percent certain (they never are), but the risk to the owners would be enormous. Such a case could take years to resolve.

Once the union decertifies, the collective bargaining process would be over -- there literally would be no union with which the owners could negotiate. Billy Hunter, Derek Fisher and the other players on the executive committee would no longer be in charge -- as a practical matter, control would pass to attorneys. The players also could not reassemble the union for one year without the league's consent. However, such consent obviously would be granted if the two sides eventually cut a deal.

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/page/decertification-111104/nba-decertification-threat-strong-message

Stern is not under any pressure. He has been playing this game for over two decades. He isn't getting intimidated by dumb players trying to decertify.

Stern isn't above the law. While he is a smart guy,he may have misplayed this. He is posturing that he can void contracts with decertification but this seems to be a legal gray area. I also am not sure that some of his owners would want to create a vast free agent pool when they currently have stars on their team.

This works both ways. Players don't live up to contracts, players out of shape, lying, don't condition, fake injury, drugs, and we don't know half of it!

Childs2Dudley wrote:

eViL wrote:anyone who doesn't think the owners are taking things a tad bit personal didn't read Dan Gilbert's open letter to LeBron.

Not sure how that has anything to do with this situation.

owners are fired up because players took it into their own hands to build their own teams. it's a big part of what's motivating the owners hardball tactics in my opinion. these owners are not robots who are just pure business machines. they get heated about **** too. it's not like dan gilbert just said "nice doin business with ya, lebron..." he flipped his ****. the small market owners are collectively flipping their **** over these superstar players having the balls to wanna choose their own destinies. underlying the draconian rules being offered in the owner's new CBA deal is a system in which player movement is likely to be heavily restricted.

Childs2Dudley wrote:If you have heard the union talk, they've been saying that they have been preparing for this for over two years. The owners have been preparing even longer. They were locked into a losing CBA and wanted to change it. This has very little to do with the summer of 2010.

yeah, they prepared for it because they knew the CBA would be up. it's good practice to prepare for a lockout if you know the CBA is coming up for renewal. that doesn't mean that what happened in 2010 hasn't had a major impact on the owners position here.

ItalianStallion wrote:If the players decertify and go to court I think they have about a 0% chance of demonstrating that the owners didn't negotiate in good faith. Unions have a good case when they can prove that owners are making excessive profits but aren't negotiating a fair deal. They don't have a case when the owners are losing their shirts and the deal they are offering only gets them to break even. Any unbiased judge would laugh them out of the court and tell them the owners are still giving them too much money.

You're right that the courts probably wouldn't back the players, but the facts are the owners are crlearly not bargaining in good faith. maybe you could make the case they had to get to 50% of BRI, but then they should have been willing to conceed the system issues in order to be fair- they didn't. The luxury tax changes and essential ending of the MLE for tax paying teams (only those with salaries of 60-65mil will be entitled to use it), essentially make a hard cap. The 10% escrow essentially means the players will have salary rollbacks as their salaries will exceed the reduced 50% BRI. Now their trying to sneak in clauses that will send NBA players to the D league and slash their pay to $75,000 dollars per year, thus ending guaranteed salaries for the first 5 years of a players career. They have given the players NOTHING.

Animosity towards the players is an important part of this lockout. Jordan doesn't like this generation of players- he thinks they haven't earned what they get. The Cavs owner and Denvers owners are still bitter towards Lebron and Melo for leaving. Paul Allen probably hates everybody. And the thing is, the owners are so fixed on stopping super teams forming and hampering the Miami Heat, that they are shooting themselves in the foot. The Melo rule is aimed at stopping star players forcing a trade in the last year of a contract, but in actual fact it will increase the chances of such teams getting nothing in return for losing their star players. The new limit to only $3million in cash being allowed to be given in trades PER SEASON, instead of per deal, just means that poorer teams won't get money when trading with richer teams- I thought their lack of money was the main issue behind this lockout? Talk about short sighted.

This new system, if accepted, is going to stink for everyone.

So the easiest way to try to solve the small Mkt owners problems was to attack the players! I think this is going to backfire on the small Mkt owners! Players won't forget this move and who were the main culprits. This new CBA hasn't made Memphis a more attractive destination for a FA!!! Minnesota isn't run better just cuz they took more money out of the players pockets! Are the Bobcats gonna be champions soon just cuz of this CBA???
this will prove to be a futile move and won't fix the real issues the owners have!