NBA Lockout and Collective Bargaining Agreement Discussion

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

If that's the only stopping point(which it is and which we ALL knew would be before the lockout)from having a season take place, then so be it.

That's how I feel about it at this point.

[Dice]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

I don't think the cap needs to be 'hard'. It just needs to be 'harder' than it is now.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

That'll work for me as long as SOMETHING is changed.

[Kashanova]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

I don't see any problem with the current cap system, maybe they should have a minimum spent barrier

[OSUFan_88]

Gilbert isn't in it to save money. Dude has paid several million on salary tax and has shown he doesn't care about making money in the NBA

But I do believe it is still personal to him. He wants to ruin the Heat and he doesn't want to get burned by player collusion again. Like I said, small markets are going to come together and break the union. Herb Cole, Robert Sarver and Dan Gilbert are going to lead the charge.

[TheMatrix31]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

I guess you can still put me in the "let the whole league crash and burn" camp, lol.

Would love to stop the player collusion especially when it's so transparent, but it's nearly impossible to do that.

Not sure the hard cap is a great answer at all, but it's a better answer than uncapped or what we have now, I think.

Either way, the great teams will continue to be great because they have foundations for excellent management. This is the case in uncapped baseball, with big-market failures like the Mets, and in capped football, with idiocy from the Redskins, Cowboys, etc.

[Kully]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

That'll work for me as long as SOMETHING is changed.

Whoops, clicked the like button by accident.

Anyway, I agree with Dice. The cap should be harder than it is right now, but I don't agree with the owners current insistence that a hard cap is necessary. A harder soft cap and better revenue sharing for teams would achieve the parity and cost effectiveness of owning a team, especially if those factors are combined with the owners being less stupid with contracts.

BTW, I agree that Stern is on the way out. I think he's prepping Adam Silver to take over after he's gone.

[VanCitySportsGuy]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

Larry Coon is reporting there is decent momentum for decertification. Hey lets use the strategy that failed for the NFLPA....

[Iman2907]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

Larry Coon is reporting there is decent momentum for decertification. Hey lets use the strategy that failed for the NFLPA....

What does that mean??

[RedSceptile]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

What does that mean??

Look up Decertification there are a ton of good reads online you can brush up on.

[Altimus]

Fisher wrote a pretty solid letter to the players today. It's on GM.

Sent from my HTC EVO

[VanCitySportsGuy]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

What does that mean??

- What options would players have if they are locked out?

The players would have two basic options:

First, through the players' association, negotiations for a new CBA could simply continue in earnest, including with assistance from a federal mediator. Both sides have already made significant concessions, and if each believes that additional concessions can produce a deal, they could negotiate through the summer in hopes of striking a deal that would save the 2011-12 NBA season. The players' association followed this path when the NBA locked them out between July and September 1995. While a group of star players tried to incite a decertification movement, the players' association remained certified and ultimately worked out a deal with the NBA. The 1995-96 NBA season was played in its entirety.

While negotiating for a new CBA, the players' association could also continue to pursue the unfair labor practices charge it filed in May with the National Labor Relations Board. In its charge, the players contend that the NBA, by seeking considerable concessions from the players, refuses to bargain in good faith. As I explained in a previous column, the NLRB is unlikely to act on the charge for months.

Decertification (or, at least initially, disclaimer of interest) followed by antitrust litigation is the players' second option. The union could announce that it is disclaiming interest in representing NBA players in their employment with the NBA and its teams. Without a players' association representing them, NBA players would become individual contracting parties (as opposed to members of a collective bargaining unit). Of greatest legal significance, various restrictions on competition -- such as maximum player salaries or the NBA draft -- would suddenly become subject to federal antitrust law. Decertified players would be poised to follow the Tom Brady et. al v. NFL lawsuit and file a class action antitrust lawsuit against the NBA in federal court.

Should they pursue antitrust litigation, expect NBA players to seek redress in a more favorable federal circuit than the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which has sided in the NFL's favor on similar antitrust issues. With NBA teams all over the country, players could file a claim in several other federal circuits, including the Ninth Circuit, which has jurisdiction over Arizona, California and Oregon, among other Western states, and which is generally considered pro-employee and pro-labor in its decision-making. Then again, decisions by the Ninth Circuit are reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court at a higher rate than any other federal circuit; still, the Ninth Circuit would likely be a better forum than the Eighth Circuit.

- Are there risks to decertification for the players?

Yes. Decertification is a major step and one that NBA players have never taken. While decertification would enable NBA players to pursue antitrust litigation, perhaps in a more favorable forum than experienced by NFL players, it would be accompanied by at least three risks.

First, antitrust litigation could make an agreement between the owners and players less likely to emerge in the coming weeks or months. The litigation would be contentious and import litigators, judges and courts into what has been a relatively private process between owners and players. Consider the NFL's situation -- real progress has been made in recent weeks because the leaders of the NFL and NFL players have sat down and talked in private; the weeks of contentious hearings before various federal judges in Minnesota and St. Louis seemed to only raise the tension level and impede agreement.

Second, the litigation may not succeed. As I explained in a previous column, NBA players arguably have weaker legal arguments than NFL players in trying to lift a lockout, and NFL players have thus far failed in their attempts. Lockouts, moreover, are generally legal, particularly if the employer can show that their motivations to conduct a lockout are to increase their bargaining power rather than to illegally interfere with union activity.

Third, decertification carries the danger of some players, who would be free of union rules, abandoning antitrust litigation against the league and instead acting as individual parties or factions of players, with their own advisors and strategies. They could then attempt to work out a deal with the NBA and try to recertify the players' association with a majority of players supporting them, but with different leadership in place.

Keep in mind, while players appear very unified in the current dispute, they have not always acted as one entity. In 1995, for instance, a group of star players, including Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing, tried to convince other players to decertify the union. They were unsuccessful and the majority of players decided to enter into a new CBA with the league, but there exists the possibility of factions emerging without a players' association."

[Spanky]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

The owners want THEIR game back from the overpaid, pampered prima donnas and head cases. And guess what, they're going to get it back, if it means canceling the entire season, like the NHL did.

NHL players were led over a cliff by their incompetent union leadership. Players thought owners were bluffing -- AND THEY WAS WRONG!

NBA players will cave in by mid-season. When all their leetches -- the hangers-on, yes-men, and other low-lifes that drain their money and tell them how great they are -- starting panicking because the cash supply is getting low, they'll be pleading and begging their meal tickets to settle and take what the owners give them.

[TheMatrix31]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

I'm more concerned about the way contracts are structured versus the cap situation anyway. If I had my way, I'd make the contracts a shorter length, for less max money, non-guaranteed outside of any explicitly guaranteed money, etc.

Of course, this will never happen, because it's a huge paycut and a hit to the players. They would never go for it, but I believe that its the way to go. There is simply no reason for a guy like Boris Diaw to get a 5 year contract for 45 million. Sure it's on the owners who give them, but there are WAY too many players who cash in and loaf around. And unless you can trade the guy or throw in two first round picks or whatever just to get rid of him, you're screwed. Owner's fault to a great extent, but they still should not be this way.

Amare didn't sign in Phoenix because Sarver didn't want to guarantee the final two or three years of the deal. No reason a guy with his injury history and rumors of needing microfracture again should get a 5 year, 100 million dollar contract. And what happens if he gets hurt again? The Knicks are screwed blue. Players who have these big deals should live up to their end too. Put in incentives, performance and appearance benchmarks, that will make the money guaranteed. Something low. 60 games out of 82, or something. If a player is confident in their ability to be out there and play well, this should be no problem. It just seems like there's no balance in this regard.

Always see players playing better when money is on the line. Whether its a contract year or whatever. Make those situations come around more often. Tim Thomas tore it up for Phoenix, signed a 30 million dollar contract with the Clippers, and lolol.

I don't know, just rambling here.

[The 24th Letter]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

I absolutely do NOT want a system where owners have a safety net for making stupid decisions.

Ugh, not suprised AT ALL at the owners holding up the talks...so much for starting on time.