NBA Lockout and Collective Bargaining Agreement Discussion

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

Yes, the players need to blink on Friday for the Emperor, blink and bow, because he’s decided this is the time to make a deal with them. A lot of these owners don’t love Stern anymore, but they know he’s a closer, know he’s cutthroat and know he can deliver their billions of dollars over the next decade. Yes, Stern knows where the bodies are buried, and he’s telling the players again: Cut the deal, cut your losses, or you’ll get whacked, too.
“We’ve already given back too much,” one NBA team player representative texted on Wednesday. Only, the players will have to give back more, and more, and more. What’s the alternative now? As long as the agents don’t get between the commissioner and union executive director, the owners and players are coming to try and cut a deal this weekend, coming to try and salvage the basketball season.
The owners have already won this fight, and it’s just a matter of how greedy they want to get. It’s Stern’s job, his moral duty, to sit the hard-line owners and empty the bench so late in a blowout. This lockout was always ending when the owners were done running up the score, and now it’s on David Stern to be the closer.
“There are two victory speeches being written up now,” one Western Conference executive said. “Stern just needs to give Hunter his.”
The message is unmistakable from the commissioner: Blink now, Billy Hunter. Keep coming with the givebacks, and I’ll still get you out of this with your arms raised in the air, with something to sell. Blink now, Stern is saying. Blink again and again. Once more, Stern’s come to bury the bodies.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=ApW3HGc1l9qgTpMNSpKJkEu8vLYF?slug=aw-wojnarowski_nba_labor_david_stern_092911

So basically, the Players are in a no win situation in which they either take a crap deal now or say F it and miss games and then HAVE to take a crappier deal later.

[SuperNoVa27]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

Why do I get the feeling Stern isn't going to "give Hunter his" ?

[OSUFan_88]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

I don't care if Stern has to sacrifice Billy Hunter.

I want some damn basketball.

[J_Posse]

NBA owners are a bunch of greedy, spoiled ****s. These players are the main attraction, yet the owners want to low-ball them and destroy their union. The stupid ****s can't show self-restraint or self-control, so their answer is to hurt the players (in most cases only) earning potential. As much as people hate to believe it, but athletes represent one of the last examples of the American dream. Why is Billy Hunter such a spineless dick and why have the players allowed the owners to win the P.R. battle? In five or ten years will be hearing the same **** about losing money from the owners, but the public perception will once again side with the owners. When all that was needed all along was revenue sharing similar in structure to the NFL. *Sigh*

At least we might get pro basketball back, sadly the current players have ****ed over future generations in the process.

The owners, Stern and his croonies will be laughing all the way to the back by Monday. NBA players deserve better than this. Unfortunately, they have weak leadership that has bent to the owners' will since 1999. ****, I hate how both NFLPA (to a lesser extent) and NBAPA got bent over the rail. Oh well, nobody ever gave a **** how all of us felt in either situations. Damn!!!!

Sent from Bills Backer Clubhouse

[OSUFan_88]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

Stern aims to close out labor win

By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
Sep 29, 4:24 am EDT

NEW YORK – Here was David Stern playing the lockout bogeyman on a city sidewalk, reaching past Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher(notes) to speak directly to the players with a doom-and-gloom prophecy. Come on down to the posh Manhattan hotel on Friday, stay the weekend, and let me show you all over again how the commissioner buries the NBA bodies. When Stern dictates this lockout is over, it ends.

That’s the hard truth, the hard road to labor peace. Stern’s job is convincing the owners to pull off the press, take the 30-point victory and leave the floor with some grace and dignity.

This has been rigged for years and months and weeks, and here’s how a deal happens this weekend: In the carnage of a devastating collective bargaining loss for the union with billions of dollars redirected into owners’ pockets, Stern has to give Hunter something to take back to the players, so that the union’s bloodied, bruised and beaten executive director can still raise his arms and declare that, yes, we won.

More From Adrian Wojnarowski
NBA owners budge on hard cap demand Sep 27, 2011
Kobe has lot to gain on European tour Sep 27, 2011


NBA commissioner David Stern says there will be "enormous consequences" to the season if a labor deal isn't reached soon.
(Getty Images)
Stern’s “going to make a real hard push to get a deal this weekend,” one team president told Yahoo! Sports on Wednesday. “If the union makes a slight move, David will move.

“But the players have to blink first.”

When Stern decides to give Hunter an escape valve, this is over. When Stern can convince his owners to back off, this is over. Stern needs to give Hunter something to take back to the union, and say, “We won.” Maybe it’s the illusion of a soft salary cap, the preservation of the midlevel exception, a 50-50 revenue percentage split. Whatever. This isn’t about a fair deal, it’s about a deal the union can rationalize to the players for ratification.

Hunter has no leverage, and no way out. This isn’t about getting the players a great deal, it’s about getting out of this without the agents overthrowing him. The union keeps insisting its players will go the distance, sit out the season, and that’s not happening. It sounds noble and strong, and there are players with the stomach to do it. Yet, there aren’t enough of them. What’s more, there’s the sobering understanding that the bad deal being offered now becomes worse in December.

[Related: Stern warns season at risk if deal not reached soon]

This isn’t about right or wrong. Just or unjust. When the union didn’t decertify back in July, it was destined for this dark place. It’s too bad, too. Because the players have largely won the PR war. The public knows far more about the owners in the digital age, knows far more about their finances and agendas and, yes, incompetence.

Nevertheless, these cross-country exhibition games have been an awakening of sorts to the players, to everyone, about how much the players need the NBA’s machinery. They need its platform, its coaching, its competitive environment. There’s nothing but a devoted, narrow fan base that can watch these summer exhibitions. It’s bad basketball, and too much of it will devalue the NBA stars playing in the games.

The masses don’t want to watch LeBron James(notes) doing windmill dunks with defenders running out of the way. They want to watch him in the context of real competition, real stakes. This is foolery, and it has no staying power in a short summer – never mind a long lockout.

Several agents tried to plan blockbuster barnstorming tours of Asia, Australia, Europe, but they couldn’t find the corporate sponsors needed to make it a profitable endeavor. So, the big stars and the big owners are coming here for Friday’s meeting, and Stern won’t mind having them all in the room. He wants the players to hear all about how they’re going to lose money they’ll never get back by missing games now. And how they’re still going to get a bad deal later.

Back on All-Star weekend, Hunter had been bold in a locker-room address to the league’s stars, insisting the union wouldn’t bow to Stern. He cornered the commissioner, ambushed him, and the players loved it. Stern lost his cool, and left them all stunned: He knew where the bodies were buried in the NBA, he said, because he had buried a lot of them himself.

[Related: NBA owners budge on hard salary cap demands]

The stars were stunned to hear Stern talk that way, and rallied around Hunter for the way he had gone after the commissioner, a bully of monumental acclaim. In the end, Stern does bury the bodies in the NBA. This death march to a brutal deal was the union’s choice, and now it’s hard to see a way out. Stern warned the players there would be “enormous consequences” for failing to come out of this weekend’s bargaining sessions with the framework of a deal. The suggestion he would cancel the entire season now is ridiculous. That wasn’t his message on Wednesday. It was this, one team president said: “Once they start canceling regular-season games, all bets are off. The deal the players accepted in ’99 was worse than what was offered before games had been lost.”


Players Association executive director Billy Hunter still has to get players to ratify a new labor agreement once it's agreed to in principle.

Yes, the players need to blink on Friday for the Emperor, blink and bow, because he’s decided this is the time to make a deal with them. A lot of these owners don’t love Stern anymore, but they know he’s a closer, know he’s cutthroat and know he can deliver their billions of dollars over the next decade. Yes, Stern knows where the bodies are buried, and he’s telling the players again: Cut the deal, cut your losses, or you’ll get whacked, too.

“We’ve already given back too much,” one NBA team player representative texted on Wednesday. Only, the players will have to give back more, and more, and more. What’s the alternative now? As long as the agents don’t get between the commissioner and union executive director, the owners and players are coming to try and cut a deal this weekend, coming to try and salvage the basketball season.

The owners have already won this fight, and it’s just a matter of how greedy they want to get. It’s Stern’s job, his moral duty, to sit the hard-line owners and empty the bench so late in a blowout. This lockout was always ending when the owners were done running up the score, and now it’s on David Stern to be the closer.

“There are two victory speeches being written up now,” one Western Conference executive said. “Stern just needs to give Hunter his.”

The message is unmistakable from the commissioner: Blink now, Billy Hunter. Keep coming with the givebacks, and I’ll still get you out of this with your arms raised in the air, with something to sell. Blink now, Stern is saying. Blink again and again. Once more, Stern’s come to bury the bodies.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AiWLepujDOUzoFDOG3unZQy8vLYF?slug=aw-wojnarowski_nba_labor_david_stern_092911

[SdotThaDon]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

The good thing that may come from that basketball terrorism is we may have a deal in place next week and a season on the way.

[23]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

I don't care if Stern has to sacrifice Billy Hunter.

I want some damn basketball.

[TripleCrown9]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

The good thing that may come from that basketball terrorism is we may have a deal in place next week and a season on the way.

The bad thing is the players will have a deal nowhere near what they wanted. So some players could not play on purpose.

[Jm0ney2001]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

Idk, if its just me or what, but I feel like these players should be grateful that their career is playing a game and probably shouldn't be complaining about money. Like I say, maybe its just me.

[J_Posse]

Idk, if its just me or what, but I feel like these players should be grateful that their career is playing a game and probably shouldn't be complaining about money. Like I say, maybe its just me.

Well, I can't agree when the players created the $4.3 billion in revenue the NBA generated last year. They deserve their fair share or would you really watch Ted Leonosis, Jerry Buss, Mark Cuban and Dan Gilbert play two-on-two? It is annoying the double-standard people use with athletes, since they like any of us are applying their trade, when they never say the same about corporate CEOs or actors. All of these people are "overpaid," but people only spit venom at athletes because of it.

Note: There is a underlying reason why, but we can't delve into it on O.S.

Sent from Bills Backer Clubhouse

[TheMatrix31]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

The players can cry me a ****ing river.

When Kobe can go to Italy for TEN GAMES and purportedly make 3 million dollars, I'm sorry, they're not screwed. They're not being oppressed. They're not getting the shaft. They're not ANY of those things.

[J_Posse]

The players can cry me a ****ing river.

When Kobe can go to Italy for TEN GAMES and purportedly make 3 million dollars, I'm sorry, they're not screwed. They're not being oppressed. They're not getting the shaft. They're not ANY of those things.

So, let owners rake in all the profits? Bull****, especially for all the lower tier guys that never see that "Kobe money." It's about the players getting what the've already agreed upon. Or do you want the players to get ****ed like before free-agency was implemented?

Sent from Bill Backer Clubhouse

[DukeC]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

The players can cry me a ****ing river.

When Kobe can go to Italy for TEN GAMES and purportedly make 3 million dollars, I'm sorry, they're not screwed. They're not being oppressed. They're not getting the shaft. They're not ANY of those things.

That's not a good example to use when trying to compare to the average player.

It's like comparing Bill Gates to Mark Cuban. Sure, they both have a lot of money. A LOT OF MONEY. But Bill Gates just dwarves Mark Cuban.

One has over 2.5 Billion (Mark Cuban) while the other has 59 Billion dollars (Bill Gates). 59 BILLION DOLLARS.

It would be laughable to compare Mark Cuban to Bill Gates. It is equally as laughable to compare Kobe to the average NBA player. The discrepancy is too big.

[OSUFan_88]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

That's not a good example to use when trying to compare to the average player.

That's true.

How much did Josh Childress make in Greece again?

Either way, if the owners cave on the hard cap, the players will run to the table and sign a deal, methinks.

[The 24th Letter]

Re: NBA Lockout and Collective Barganing Agreement Discussion

As much as people down Stern, they are falling into the exact reasoning he wants the public to have....

"Big bad players make alot of money, so they shouldnt have a say in what happens with it"

Nonsense. They do a job for that money. Dont think its fair? want in? apply.