Stern canceled the first two weeks of the regular season after more than 13 hours of bargaining over two days with the National Basketball Players Association left the two sides "very, very far apart on virtually all issues."

"I'm sorry to report, particularly for the thousands of people that depend on our industry for their livlihood, that the first two weeks of the season have been canceled," Stern said.

Asked if there was no chance of having an 82-game season, Stern said, "Yes, I think that's right. And every day that goes by, we need to look at further reductions in what's left in the season."

The biggest issue that separated the parties in negotiations that began in earnest with the owners' initial proposal in January 2010 -- the split of revenues -- was not the tipping point that led to the cancellation. It was system issues -- luxury tax, contract length, length of the CBA, annual raises, and the like -- meaning that both sides will miss games over details neither imagined they would.

"I'm convinced this was all just part of the plan," said Billy Hunter, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association.

Indeed, a person involved in the negotiations told CBSSports.com that the cancellation seemed "pre-ordained."

"This could have been solved so easily, with any amount of effort," the person said.

Indeed, the two sides engaged in a flurry of lengthy talks over the past two weeks, culminating with six hours Sunday night and seven hours on Monday -- all dealing with system issues with no sunstantive discussion of the split of basketball-related income. Speaking on the sidewalk outside the Upper East Side hotel where negotiations took place, Stern delivered a laundry list of items that league negotiators found most objectionable about the players' proposals: contract length, length of the CBA, use of exceptions by tax-paying teams, the tax levels and what deputy commissioner Adam Silver described as the "frequency of the tax."

The latter point, according to a union source, apparently was in reference to the owners desire to punish teams that repeatedly spend over new luxury-tax thresholds in order to prevent "runaway teams" in big markets from maintaining an unfair competitive advantage over small-market teams.

Such negotiating points seemed minor heading into the final push to save regular season games, given that last Tuesday, the two sides had shaved about $1.6 billion off the economic gap that separated them. Few observers and some participants in the talks expected games to be lost over technical deal points -- the likes of which could've been agreed upon and written up by low-level attorneys working at home on the weekend while players reported for training camps.

But Stern characterized the distance between the sides as "a gulf," and added, "We just can't get over the system hurdles."

"It makes no sense for us to operate under the current model, where taxpayers ... have a huge advantage over other teams," Silver said.

Unsurprisingly, each side had a different view of the others' vision of the system they were negotiating to achieve. According to a union source, the players agreed to concessions on contract length -- reducing them from five- and six-year deals in the previous CBA to five- and four-year deals -- and offered to lower the mid-level exception from its previous level of about $5.8 million to $5 million. The source said league negotiators were insisting on a reduction in the mid-level to $3 million a year.

Not mundane enough for you? Other aspects of the impasse included annual raises. The players offered to reduce them from 10.5 percent and 8 percent for "Larry Bird" free agents under the previous deal to 10.5 percent and 9 percent for Bird free agents and 8 percent and 7 percent for other players. Hunter said owners wanted to forbid tax-paying teams from using the Bird exception, meaning they would need to have cap space to retain one of their Bird free agents.

The totality of the owners' system offers -- including a more punitive luxury-tax model that would increase to as much as 4-1 and beyond for repeat offenders -- would have the same effects as a hard salary cap, Hunter said.

"My attitude is, if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck and it looks like a duck, it's a duck," Hunter said. "... We came up with proposals to stiffen the tax, but we do not want a hard cap. You can't say, 'OK, we agree we're going to move away from a hard cap,' but then do everything else that brings about the same result."

http://ken-berger.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/11838893/32657268

Unsurprisingly, each side had a different view of the others' vision of the system they were negotiating to achieve. According to a union source, the players agreed to concessions on contract length -- reducing them from five- and six-year deals in the previous CBA to five- and four-year deals -- and offered to lower the mid-level exception from its previous level of about $5.8 million to $5 million. The source said league negotiators were insisting on a reduction in the mid-level to $3 million a year.

Not mundane enough for you? Other aspects of the impasse included annual raises. The players offered to reduce them from 10.5 percent and 8 percent for "Larry Bird" free agents under the previous deal to 10.5 percent and 9 percent for Bird free agents and 8 percent and 7 percent for other players. Hunter said owners wanted to forbid tax-paying teams from using the Bird exception, meaning they would need to have cap space to retain one of their Bird free agents.

Sangfroid wrote:

nixluva wrote:The players offer seems reasonable. Perhaps the league could've come back with an offer shaving a little off the players offer so they could get the deal done.

Love your optimism, But, you're playing with a crowd that don't play fair. The players must put the ticking bomb on the table - decertification - with a short, drop dead fuse. The majority of players were under contractual obligation to show up and perform for an agreed upon dollar. They should sue to have those commitments honored. The league and the owners are still entittled to television revenue for a product that they aren't producing, indeed, are holding up. It's time to hold some loafers to the fire.

I see it the other way around. Some of these owners have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in money losing franchises. If the players won't agree to terms that give them a reasonable chance at profitability, then the smartest thing they could do is liquidate those money losing teams and cut their losses.

I read today that the Nets are going to save a ton of money by canceling games. That's an idiotic position for the league to be in.

What the owners should do is make a very specific list of which teams are losing money and go to the players and say this "OK, we'll give you want you want, but the league is going to shrink by 10 or 15 money losing teams (whatever the real number is). So that means there will be 150 or 225 fewer NBA players in the league that can go get work in the "D" league or in China making peanuts".

At that point maybe these dimwitted players will start to understand that the owners are not in the charity business. They are in business to make enough money to justify the hundreds of millions they have invested. If a business can't make a good return on its investment, it should get closed and unfortunately the employees should get put out of job!

Only a union could be stupid enough to think that owners should be willing to lose money to make employees rich.

Businesses related to basketball have their own money invested. Synergies between businesses don';t belong to anyone other than owners.

Let's not be naive to think these owners haven't figured out ways to make money off a team that doesn't apply to the BRI.

How about just "lets not be naive"?

Just because Paul Allen succeeded in other areas does not mean the Trailblazers, or any other team should not be profitable.

the NBA creates a stage for the players to be marketable. Should the NBA insist the players identities as basketball players are tied to the league and thus should be compensated for providing the stage?

Nalod wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

ItalianStallion wrote:It's not a matter of whether someone needs a profit or not. The very purpose of a business is to generate higher profits than you could generate in a savings account, owning bonds, etc... Writing off losses is a ridiculous way to justify a bad business. All that means is that when you net out profits against other profitable businesses you made less so you pay less taxes. You would still be better off with profits.

Businesses related to basketball have their own money invested. Synergies between businesses don';t belong to anyone other than owners.

Here's an example: Let's say you own the Knicks and are only breaking even when weighing the expense of owning the team, paying salaries, and maintaining the stadium on the one hand and NBA related income on the other. However, this NBA related income is basically paying off the expense of having a huge profit-producing stadium in which you can hold countless events, especially in the off-season, and generate millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars.

And what magic pixie dust was used to buy the team, buy the arena, buy the TV network?

What justification can you use to tell private enterprise what to do inside the letter of the law?

Your a college professer right? Can you write a book? Can you promote your status as a prefesser to better lend cred to your work? Can you be interviewed on TV with the school behind you?

What about research? Say you get a grant from the school? Who owns your work? The school right? They put up the money. YOu may get a cut but you can't just take the money, develope a commercial product on campus and walk off with it, you either have a pre arranged agreement or the school owns it. Perhaps such work enhances your value and you can get a job in the private sector or a bigger more prestigious school comes a calling?

NBA provides a stage for good things to happen for players without having to put up any capital to get in the game.

What an owner does with his money is his business. Same for a player. We have players pissing away millions.

Would you also say "hell, players only wasting money anyway so why pay them?"

No, so you can't get on Paul Allen for being a gazillionair!

All of your questions about professors depend on what's in the contract, actually. Depending on both the institution's general policy and anything specific that was negotiated in the contract by the professor, anywhere from 0 to 100% of the profits from a book or grant could be going to the institution. I know of people at both extremes (0 and 100%).