Offseason Thread part VI: Return of the Lockout

[JRam027 26]

If the players would have decertified on July 1st like the agents wanted then we probably wouldn't have missed any games. I remember thinking it would be best if they didn't decert too. sad.

[TheREALBrooksThompson 157]

Why haven't any of you people been hired to handle labor disputes yet?

[Ryan the Magic Fan 253]

After this last refusal, I really have lost all hope the NBA season will happen at all.

[Secretly Space Jesus 670]

If the players would have decertified on July 1st like the agents wanted then we probably wouldn't have missed any games.

 

 

That's a completely ridiculous and indefensible argument to make.

[Ibn Battuta 127]

Why haven't any of you people been hired to handle labor disputes yet?

 

hmmm that's a good question. The league and the players have only been negotiating for what, the past two years? and this is the best they could come up with?

[Miller4Prez66 545]

So MLB's owners and players got a CBA done today before the current one even expired. They changed a lot of things too, it seems like they already learned from their last work stoppage. Meanwhile in the land of NBA you have sides taking shots at each other and acting unprofessional with a season likely thrown away.

 

:svgsad:

[Cactus 83]

What date is the suit going to be filed?

[barnettej 263]

All Stars on the move to overseas, several including Dirk, Wade, Lebron, etc are tryin to find their next fan base... I mean pay check....

 

Kind of funny how unity works out.... Wonder of they are going to split their paychecks with the guys who can't do this.... ?

 

The NBA "Where common sense, doesn't happen"

 

(iPhone)

[Miller4Prez66 545]

Usually not a Bill Simmons fan, but I really liked this article. Its' pretty long, but a lot of interesting opinions on why the lockout continues to go on.

 

Here's a piece of it.

 

• The owners ***** about the players being greedy, and yet all they've done is enable that greed.

 

• The players claim they're being disrespected, and yet no group of professional athletes has ever been more spoiled.9

 

• The owners claim they care about the quality of the game, and yet, every player says the ideal number of regular season games — if your goal is to have healthy, rested players entertaining your fans to their best abilities every night — is somewhere between 70 and 74 games. (The owners, of course, ignore this.)

 

• The players claim it's not their fault that owners keep handing out lavishly dumb deals to forgettable players, and yet they ignore that their fans — the people who pay their salaries and keep their league afloat — hate nothing more than seeing overpaid assholes jogging through games, faking injuries, showing up for camp 20 pounds overweight, clogging their team's salary cap and making it harder to improve their team's roster. The fact that they don't realize this reflects on them is kind of alarming. Can you really be that self-absorbed?10

 

• The owners claim they need a better financial model, and yet, they're the ones recycling the same incompetent executives — seriously, someone is hiring Ed Stefanski again???? — and handing out cringe-worthy contracts year after year after year after year. I wrote the "Atrocious GM Summit" column in 2006 — four years later, with a lockout looming, we watched more moronically dumb contracts handed out than EVER before. These guys can't stay out of their own way, and even worse, the players want to keep it that way.

 

Aren't they "partners" here? Don't they care about the league as a whole? Don't they want fans to like their product? The players want it both ways — please, keep the chartered airplane seats, hotel suites, crab legs and stupid contracts coming, just don't ask me to care about the quality of my league. In a perfect world, both sides would work together and create the best and most fan-friendly NBA model possible. But the world ain't perfect.

 

You know what the real irony is? The owners' last proposal actually made a ton of sense. Read Howard Beck's breakdown of what it would have looked like, potentially, and try to find ONE thing that isn't logical. Contracts should be shorter so fans aren't getting constantly turned off by that relentlessly overpaid mediocrity. The gap between big market teams and small market teams should be smaller. A team like Cleveland should have a more favorable chance to keep its best player. A star like Carmelo shouldn't be able to force a trade and get rewarded with a mammoth extension. The mid-level exception should be tempered — it spawned too many dumb contracts and made it harder for teams to improve. What's wrong with coming up with a smarter model in which the right money goes to the right people? That's a bad thing?

 

 

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7250994/business-vs-personal

[barnettej 263]

Usually not a Bill Simmons fan, but I really liked this article. Its' pretty long, but a lot of interesting opinions on why the lockout continues to go on.

 

Here's a piece of it.

 

 

 

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7250994/business-vs-personal

 

Nice

[Ryan the Magic Fan 253]

I've felt from the beginning that the owners got the league into this mess, and now the players are keeping them in it. Far as I'm concerned, screw em all.

[JRam027 26]

That's a completely ridiculous and indefensible argument to make.

 

No it's not.