OT: NBA Players Union plans to decertify

[BlueWhiteKid]

Live press conference on now on ESPN. The players union announces it has rejected the latest offer, and plans to decertify.

Edit: They plan to disclaim not decertify...my bad.

 

[jfuchs91]

Apparently, the owners really thought that this deal was going to be approved and were surprised it was rejected. The Union now expects that the owners will propose a last minute deal tonight. Should be interesting.

 

[Letsgohuskies11]

what does it mean if they decertify?

 

[superjohn]

The nba is tone deaf, horrible leadership by Derek Fisher.

 

[UConn990411]

Wait, is someone really trying to blame the players here?

This is 100% on the d***head owners.

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

Rejecting the deal is the right move if only because Stephen A. Smith says the players should accept it.

 

[superjohn]

Both sides are at fault and the nba is going to suffer greatly for it. The nba finally got back a lot of their fans this past season with the best ratings they've had in a decade, now they are going to lose a ton of fans again. I love the nba but a lot of people don't, if they lose this season they are making a monumentally dumb mistake.

 

[EricLA]

Both sides are at fault and the nba is going to suffer greatly for it. The nba finally got back a lot of their fans this past season with the best ratings they've had in a decade, now they are going to lose a ton of fans again. I love the nba but a lot of people don't, if they lose this season they are making a monumentally dumb mistake.

i agree with the monumentally dumb on both parts. but both the owners and players make millions and millions of $. i have a really hard time feeling sorry for the Lebron's or Kobe's of the league, and have zero sympathy for the owners. honestly, i have no idea who is right or wrong.

having said that, people are lemmings. as soon as the games come back, the fans will show up again. maybe not this year but next year for sure. i honestly don't see where there will be any serious long term impact.

my initial thought was that the owners were better suited to weather the storm of canceling the season, but with the number of players who can go overseas and make tons of $ (albeit a it less), it may be the owners who ultimately take it in the shorts...

 

[UConn990411]

Both sides are at fault and the nba is going to suffer greatly for it. The nba finally got back a lot of their fans this past season with the best ratings they've had in a decade, now they are going to lose a ton of fans again. I love the nba but a lot of people don't, if they lose this season they are making a monumentally dumb mistake.

The players went from 57% to 50%. They deserve next to no blame for this.

 

[Dogdeacon]

Wait, is someone really trying to blame the players here?

This is 100% on the d***head owners.

Absolutely, I blame the players. What difference does it make whether they make 50 or 51 or 52 etc.. % of basketball revenue if there is NONE. They don't get that the other party holds all the cards and are continually trying to dictate the negotiation as if they had the leverage. I don't think this is a subjective debate about who is just or unjust, I simply think the players are not acting wisely and negotiating as if its a game of chicken and as if 'winning' the negotiation is more important than anything else.

Take the 7% difference between the 57% of BRI they had and current 51 or 50 on the table. The difference was lost as soon as they lost 6 games this season and if they lose the entire year its lost for approximately 14 years.

Both sides are being greedy = no winners there, but the players are deciding not to play and pushing a decertification almost guarantees no 2011-12 season (so they've negotiated away their own 50%+ share) and puts 10-20% of current NBA players PERMANENTLY out of the league. Just dumb. The recommendation from their leadership reminds me of the quote from A Few Good Men;
"Should we or should we not follow the advice of the galactically stupid."

 

[Bryan Lord]

average salary is what 5 mil? puhplease

 

[TheChamps990411]

average salary is what 5 mil? puhplease

yes. and the proposal the players just rejected wouldve increased it to nearly 8 mil without a hard cap.

 

[Deadrody]

i agree with the monumentally dumb on both parts. but both the owners and players make millions and millions of $. i have a really hard time feeling sorry for the Lebron's or Kobe's of the league, and have zero sympathy for the owners. honestly, i have no idea who is right or wrong.

having said that, people are lemmings. as soon as the games come back, the fans will show up again. maybe not this year but next year for sure. i honestly don't see where there will be any serious long term impact.

my initial thought was that the owners were better suited to weather the storm of canceling the season, but with the number of players who can go overseas and make tons of $ (albeit a it less), it may be the owners who ultimately take it in the shorts...

The fact is there is absolutely no justification for why the split should NOT be 50-50. Other than, "Well, we the players used to get 57%". Good luck with that. Whatever move they think they are going to make in court, they are sadly mistaken. The NFL players association just found that out. The players are not going to come out ahead in this, and the longer they stay out, the worse the deal the NBA is going to offer them.

I'd be curious if anyone can think of a reason why the precedent just set this past summer against the NFL players association attempts to de-certify as a negotiating tactic will not apply here. De-certification is a BS, bad faith negotiating tactic in my opinion. You want a better deal ? Then you stay out. Its that simple. If you can't hack it, tough. Make a deal. The only way they should be allowed to disband the union is for it to be permanent.

 

[Fishy]

I truly don't care what happens to either side - I do feel bad for a kid like Kemba Walker who is now in a sort of limbo and for the people who make their living working the events, etc. All in all, I think the NBA players and owners are about to find out what the NHL found out the hard way...if you go away, you won't be missed.

Two things that I am a little amused by...

The player's union breaking themselves up in November instead of July. That's like waiting til you've duct-taped a grenade to your head before pulling the pin.

And this morning's 9 am player's union meeting started promptly at 10:20 when the players finally rolled in.

 

[Kitaman]

Thank God for college basketball. But there is an undercurrent here as well. Colleges making fortunes off of 'free' labor. Soon this will surface.

 

[buckley503]

I'm looking forward to seeing Kobe and Lebron down at the Occupy protests complaining about the greedy owners and corporations.

 

[Dogdeacon]

Thank God for college basketball. But there is an undercurrent here as well. Colleges making fortunes off of 'free' labor. Soon this will surface.

I agree, not sure if trying some minor system changes will help, for example the $2000 payment makes sense to me but it also opens Pandora's box. And I think in totality all of the scandals from the minor to the worst come back to the basic hypocrisy of the system. I don't understand how there can still be all this bs dialogue about conferences affiliations amidst the Penn State scandal?

 

[Scoe]

im not on either side both are a joke, the players dont know how to make good business decisions and often have people making those decisions for them. I have absolutly no sympathy for players that make 5 million at min a year, go on luxury planes and hotels that they dont even have to pay for, owners same thing. The only ones i feel bad for are the veterans playing on their last legs like the big 3 in boston, billups, nash, dirk, grant hill etc, the rookies I feel bad for as well especially Kemba.

 

[RS9999X]

Former Big East star, Metta World Peace, called Michael Jordan a traitor.

Jordan is an interesting character in all this now that he's an owner in a small market--one of the markets that can't afford the new contract on the players terms.

A brutal critique of Jordan and his management mistakes (Adam Morrison, Kwame Brown)

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/...tern-in-NBA-lockout-a-selfish-betrayal-110411

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

Former Big East star, Metta World Peace, called Michael Jordan a traitor.

Jordan is an interesting character in all this now that he's an owner in a small market--one of the markets that can't afford the new contract on the players terms.

A brutal critique of Jordan and his management mistakes (Adam Morrison, Kwame Brown)

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/...tern-in-NBA-lockout-a-selfish-betrayal-110411

Marbury also called out Jordan, noting that Jordan was paid $30-$35 millon per year in his last few years with the Bulls and was the main beneficiary of the very rules he now seeks to change regarding current players.

 

[RS9999X]

Thank God for college basketball. But there is an undercurrent here as well. Colleges making fortunes off of 'free' labor. Soon this will surface.

It won't go anywhere.

College players make more than D-League players when the scholarship value is included. Title XI matching mandates means many colleges book a loss on basketball.

Top players get to pimp their skills in hopes of landing a multi-million contract.

No one stops College Players from forming an alternate league to market themselves instead of going to college. or they can go to Europe. That's when people realize its really the college that is being marketed, not the players. NCAA Div I will still be popular even if the High School players go to the NBA again and all potential pros go to Europe.

 

[ctchamps]

I think these events are interesting.

The events in the NFL, NBA or even the college realignment are all based on human nature. There is no independent, uninvested, outside scale that we can identify and use as a measure to determine the value of things. So we're left with arguing value and our sympathies lay with our personal perspectives.

It's normal human behavior to believe our value is worth more than what we get now. Except for those few of us who have a poor self image and don't think we're worth much.

We're not totally objective observers in these events. We'll examine them based on how we either run our lives or believe we should run our lives. Greed, and/or power is always subjective.

Some guy making fifty thousand a year will have no sympathy for someone making five million. Some guy going to the dump once a week to get food for himself or family won't have any sympathy for the guy making fifty thousand.

So it's only logical some guy making five million has no sympathy for a guy making fifty million or the guy making fifty million not believing he deserves his money.

 

[Fishy]

Whitlock is a nitwit.

Michael Jordan is an NBA team owner. He should side...with NBA team owners.

Whether he make personnel mistakes or not has absolutely no bearing on the man's position in the bargaining talks.

It's called business.

 

[Prezidint]

I don't know why people get so emotional and personal about this. This is just business. And it's just basketball. They're playing a game of chicken that may end in a wreck, but, unlike real chicken, they can just play again over the winter and summer.
I can't say which side I think is better positioned nor which is correct as a matter of fairness, because I don't have all the numbers.
How much money is coming in? How much goes to the players? To the owners? And so on. Without knowing the exact numbers, how could I have an opinion? Part of the problem, I read, was that the players and owners can't even agree on what the actual profits are. Revenues? Revenues smevenues. What difference does it make what your revenues are if you are not showing a profit?
1 Million in revenues, 1 Million and 10 bucks in costs, and you lost 10 bucks for the year.

In the end, does anybody really feel badly for men with sufficient net worth to own basketball franchises? Or men getting paid millions of dollars to play what amounts to a children's game for adults? These folks are all grown men, and they know what the deal is.

Let 'em get in the mud and wrestle I say. Millionaires affairs.

Regarding fans leaving and all that. Meh. As was noted above, they'll come back. This agreement is going to last a lot longer than any fan apathy.

 

[Prezidint]

Just read the Jordan hit-piece. Really poorly thought out. It's a shame the writer has to go so overboard to make his point - he called Jordan a slave, indirectly. Really? Shame.