As I may have mentioned before, I do some freelance work for NBATV and there has been some interesting banter going on. The owners taking a hard stance on the players is aimed at the correcting the financial system of the NBA, yet the owners lost a lot of money the past five years and are dead set on recouping that money. Their plan has multiple layers.

The owners plan on recouping major money by slashing revenue sharing from the players from 57% to 48% a change of about 400 million or about 13 million per team per year.

Next the NBA is seeking a 20-30 percent overall cut in salaries. A total of about 540 million or 18 million per team. The NBA is also seeking a hard cap of about 45 million, then average NBA payroll is about approximately 64 million (7 million of the soft cap) saving owners an immediate 19 million per team on average.

If they get their way the owners will add about 50 million in value to their teams. When considering the future salary (4 year max contracts w/ two years guaranteed) and roster restrictions (12 players max) the owners are seeking to stabilize the financial landscape for the long term.

Apparently this is not enough! The current owners are also looking to add an additional 2.1 billion to the value of their franchises (70 million a piece) by adding 6 new franchises to the NBA.

The 9 likely locations are as follows:
Sacramento- The Maloofs jumped the gun early in their rush to Anaheim's prime location as to take it away from the new franchises. This is the fastest relocation we've seen in sports with this taking place in a matter of 7 months (beginning in Sept. and finishing next month).

This week, Sacramento is still went ahead w/ a plan to build a new arena as they know they have a prime location with a history of supporting a NBA team and (as OKC has proved) the NBA is successful when they are the only team in town.

Louisville- As unlikely as it sounds Louisville is a prime destination for a new team. They have a lot of items going for them as well. They were leading in the race to land Memphis until the city council could not approve a new stadium in time to satisfy the NBA. They still have interest from the corporate sponsors that they lined up then. Since this 2003 Louisville built a downtown NBA ready stadium. Like the Jazz, Spurs, Thunder, Magic, Grizzlies, Trailblazers and formerly the Kings, they will be the only team in town. Louisville also has a pro basketball history as successful ABA franchise location.

The University of Louisville sensed the NBA coming and has strengthened its lease with the KFC Yum arena. A new team will have to fork over a lot money to amend the lease. Until that can be accomplished the Kentucky state board has agreed to put in 100 million into temporary renovations to Freedom Hall and has agreed to not book any any events from Nov. 2011 thru Apr. 2012 to leave it open for an NBA team. This move tells me that Louisville more interested in attracting a relocating team, maybe New Orleans.

http://arenadigest.com/201012093155/...y-for-nba-team

http://www.iamagm.com/news/2010/12/1...nba.relocation

Kansas City- Kansas City has a beautiful new NBA ready arena. The state is basketball crazy and they have NBA lineage. Kansas City has some major roadblocks though. They do not have singular ownership group interested in buying an NBA team. Secondly, they are not the only team in town and may be too small of a market to compete with the Chiefs and Royals.

They do have the AEG group and the sporting club (owners KC's MLS team). They key to the KC is the Sprint Center which is the newest, empty NBA ready sports facility. The allure of the arena is so strong as it is currently a better venue than 10 current NBA arenas and without an anchor franchise is the 5th busiest venue in the country. If the AEG group (which has plans to build a new NFL stadium in LA) adds an NBA team to their arena, the additional 51 playoff and regular season events could make the venue the busiest in the country.

http://www.knssradio.com/2010/12/07/...s-City/8728291

Seattle- The NBA left the Seattle Supersonics name their for a reason. Seattle is a great place for the NBA. They had a strong tradition of supporting the sonics. The NBA loves the town but could not get a new stadium. Seattle thought David Stern was bluffing when he said the Sonics would leave town if they could not get a new stadium. They were wrong. Fans are clamoring for the NBA to return but the same roadblock exists. Seattle has to build a new stadium.

Seattle has something very few locations have, a dozen interested ownership groups with the resources to buy the team and maintain it until they can remodel KeyArena or convince officials to build a new stadium. The thing, Seattle would have built the Sonics a new stadium had Stern not insulted the city officials. They had just built new stadiums for the Mariners and Seahawks but Stern wanted them to move faster.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm..._kelley12.html

Vancouver- One of the major misconceptions is that Vancouver did not support the Grizzlies. This is far from the truth. The lack of success of the NBA in Vancouver was front-office mismanagement and player apathy towards the town. The Grizzlies were run horribly and they made horrendous personal decisions that made the team unwatchable. They consistently took bad players over obviously better talent:
95- Big Country over Damon Stoudemire and Michael Finley
96- Abdur-Rahim over Ray Allen, Kobe & Vancouver native Steve Nash
97- Antonio Daniels over T-Mac (declined to trade the #4 to Chi for Pippen)
98- Bibby over Jamison, Vince, Dirk & P. Pierce. Passed on R. Lewis at 31
99- Allowed Francis to force a trade before the season for essentially nothing
00- Bad draft but Stromile Swift was the worst of the early lotto picks
01- Good draft picked Gasol and Battier but left town the next year

When the Grizzlies did make correct personnel choices, players requested to be traded, would not work out with or flat out refused to play in the city (Steve Francis, Lamar Odom, Mike Bibby).

Vancouver has emerged as a cosmopolitan city in the past ten years and with the exception of the Canucks, the NBA would be the only city in town.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/bal...urn=nba-322981

Virginia (Tidewater or Richmond)- The NBA would absolutely love to get into Virginia. Not only would the NBA be the only game in town, they'd be the only major professional franchise in the state. The NBA loves the VA fans. They travel to DC and Charlotte to attend games. VA also has two million plus metro areas along with a decent pool of potential corporate sponsors.

The problem is that VA is uncharted territory for a contemporary sports franchise. There are not any NBA ready stadiums and minor league baseball has has problems with officials (the Richmond Braves moved to GA). Also, where do you play? Richmond is a central location but tidewater has more residents. VA is less likely of the options to land a team unless a tremendous amount of local and corporate support emerges.

New Jersey- LA will have three teams next year and the belief is that the NY area can support three as well. NJ will be a turnkey location as the state has two NBA ready stadiums (E. Rutherford and Newark) and a long tradition of professional basketball.

Corporate support exists and NJ has always supported a winning team. (Killas retort to this: J Kidd went to the Finals back to back and the arena was never full. I was being offered tickets left and right. Maybe things would be different in Newark, at least its accesible by mass transportation.)

NJ will be a strong option IF the owners get a really good CBA deal.

St. Louis- St. Louis has an NBA ready arena (Scott Trade Center) and pro basketball tradition. Despite the small market, St. Louis fans are sports crazy and really support their current teams. Also, Southern Illinois is emerging and has several new corporate organizations in the area that would more identify with St. Louis than Chicago teams.

Pittsburgh- Pittsburgh is a long-shot and the idea would depend on the NBA getting a strong CBA deal. Pittsburgh has fanatical fans and although the Pirates don't draw well, they are actually profitable. The thing is the Pirates suck. When the team is successful, Pittsburgh will support, the Penguins and Steelers are examples. The city also has a NBA ready staduim.

Long shots:
Las Vegas- The NBA would have been in Vegas if the economy had not taken a downturn. They would have been the only game in town and NBA games are perfect for corporate business and Vegas is still a huge convention town. As the economy turns, Vegas will be an option again in the future.

New Orleans- The Hornets will certainly relocate as soon as a new owner buys the team. The NBA will not sell the team until a new CBA is in place. The key to NO is its future potential. The NBA is not successful in NO as Katrina has devastated the fan base. This is a blessing in disguise for whoever wants to buy a team and relocate it to NO as the city will be completely gentrified with a much more affluent fan base.

NO is still a huge tourism and convention destination and the US Govt., LA & NO are giving incredible deals companies looking to establish headquarters in NO. It may take a decade or two but the environment perfect for an NBA in the Big Easy.

Chicago- Chicago fans are die hard Bulls fans and the team had tremendous fan support during the horrid years after Jordan (they never finished outside of the top 3 and was 1st in attendance often).

The Orlando Magic and Vancouver Grizzlies were very close to landing in Chicago but Jerry Reinsdorf blocked those moves. Due to this Memphis owner Michael Heisley has forbade his team from making any deals Chicago (see Pau Gasol and OJ Mayo).

The NBA knows that there is a tremendous opportunity for a NBA franchise in the North of the city or northern suburbs. The North Siders support a perpetually awful Chicago Cubs and, as evidenced last week in Milwaukee, their influence stretches as far North as southern Wisconsin where many of the wealthier Chicagoans move to retire. The majority of the areas wealth is on the north side of town and in the northern suburbs. Bulls and Blackhawk fans hate traveling through traffic to the Westside to the United Center.

The Nets moving to Brooklyn and the Kings moving to Anaheim has removed restrictions on proximity that the NBA once had and many wealthy Chicago tycoons would love to invade Reinsdorf's territory as they simply dont like him. Also, retiring mayor Richard Daley is no longer in charge and therefore is not in place to protect his good friend Jerry Reinsdorf. Chicago also has a second NBA ready stadium in All-State Arena (with 20,000 basketball seats and 48 suites) that can be a temporary home until a new team can build a new stadium in the northern suburbs (likely in Skokie).

It would be an intital struggle but Chicago is ripe for a second NBA team.

http://chicago.sbnation.com/chicago-...rleans-hornets

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...ale/index.html

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2010/12/...ng-to-chicago/

With that said. All of this is predicated on the owners getting a very advantageous CBA, which is possible considering the leverage they now have over the players. If the owners get their way, it will be much less expensive for teams to operate, most importantly, small markets (all of the above) will have a much better chance of keeping high profile players.

Are you all ready for a 36 team NBA?

jimimou wrote:

Killa4luv wrote:

jimimou wrote:if the above holds true with respect to lowering the cap that much and reducing salaries, a lockout is IMMINENT

I dont think the hard cap is happening and I don't think its advantageous to the game. If they put a hard cap of 50, there are like 4 teams who wont be paying a huge luxury tax.

whats up killa. long time no see man. hope all is well with the fam. i hear what you're saying but the 'deal' sounds way too owner-centric and i doubt the player's union will agree to any of it. that's why i believe there will be a lockout if these are the terms the owners go to the union with.

Whats up man. Everybody's good thanks for asking.

Well he's sharing the owner's perspective, I don't see much of it happening. Not Expansion, not a hard cap.
They will revise the cap and reduce player salaries. I think that makes sense. Rashard Lewis shouldn't be getting paid like that. But thats not his fault, what idiot thought it mae sense to make him the 2nd highest player in the NBA? I don't understand it. And these negotiations will not undo that.

I hope NBA doesn't expand. Not yet anyway. We have alot of bad teams as it is, and the talent in college is pretty weak. Maybe they could turn the D-league into a real training ground or something.

But you have a team like CHarlotte, or Memphis, or Cleveland, and its hard to see how they will ever be CHampionship caliber. I just hope the changes make the league better, and keep players hungry to improve.

The expansion idea and hard cap somewhat like they did in hockey. They expanded which gave owners a lot of cash which some used to buy free agents. They killed the salary structure and diluted the product. When the older players all retired at age 50 there were no more "stars" and the TV revenue died. The did figure a way to lower salaries.

I think teams in Euro Division makes sense at many levels. 11 team division can play each other 4 times and then two 10 game road trips and each team travel once to europe to fill in the rest of the games. NBA TV can fill in more contents at off times.

I do think though teams should stop the summer tournaments and just have the olympics, or world championships on odd years every 4 years. Its diluted already.

As far as dilution there are more and more players now and many in euro leagues can certainly play.