I read this article a while ago. Perhaps it’s outdated.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
I read this article a while ago. Perhaps it’s outdated.
Now that I think about it 35% does sound familiar, and apparently the league won’t budge on that figure. If that is in fact the case, we won’t get a season 'cause there is NO WAY the players agree to that. For the record, I do feel like the players make way too much money, and that goes for all pro athletes, but asking them to take a 35% pay cut after agreeing to pay them a certain amount is misguided and dangerous. This has serious potential to turn out badly.
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
I read this article a while ago. Perhaps it’s outdated.
Now that I think about it 35% does sound familiar, and apparently the league won’t budge on that figure. If that is in fact the case, we won’t get a season 'cause there is NO WAY the players agree to that. For the record, I do feel like the players make way too much money, and that goes for all pro athletes, but asking them to take a 35% pay cut after agreeing to pay them a certain amount is misguided and dangerous. This has serious potential to turn out badly.[/quote]
They have to do what they have to do to stay profitable. At the end of the day, it’s a business. And it’s a business that is losing money. Players are expendable. They have a shelf life. A lost season is a lost year in a career in addition to the loss of income. The days of those big multi-year GUARANTEED contracts are over and done with (at least for this CBA). At the end of the day, the players will capitulate. Maybe not to the tune of 35%, but believe me at the end of the day, the owners and league will get what they believe they need. The players simply have no real leverage.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
I read this article a while ago. Perhaps it’s outdated.
Now that I think about it 35% does sound familiar, and apparently the league won’t budge on that figure. If that is in fact the case, we won’t get a season 'cause there is NO WAY the players agree to that. For the record, I do feel like the players make way too much money, and that goes for all pro athletes, but asking them to take a 35% pay cut after agreeing to pay them a certain amount is misguided and dangerous. This has serious potential to turn out badly.[/quote]
They have to do what they have to do to stay profitable. At the end of the day, it’s a business. And it’s a business that is losing money. Players are expendable. They have a shelf life. A lost season is a lost year in a career in addition to the loss of income. The days of those big multi-year GUARANTEED contracts are over and done with (at least for this CBA). At the end of the day, the players will capitulate. Maybe not to the tune of 35%, but believe me at the end of the day, the owners and league will get what they believe they need. The players simply have no real leverage.
[/quote]
I agree in that the players will EVENTUALLY fold, I just have a hard time seeing them do it this year at that figure. The line in the sand is that neither side is willing to budge, and neither side wants to or is willing to be the first to “back down”. That is a recipe for one long ass standoff.
Kind of too bad that we are in the off season here in Australia.
2nd tier players would be MVP contenders, and would definitely liven up our game here.
Just too bad it’s boring as shit.
IMO players are being cry babies over stupid shit.
They get paid pretty sweet for playing a game.
Here in Australia an all-star player is lucky to break $300k a year … which is much of the reason our real talent goes off shore to Europe/USA.
Only thing I guess I’ve always found BS is teams being able to exceed the cap space. The NBA should put a real cap on salaries and stick to it. Players should be capped at an absolute ceiling … maybe 10 - 12 million. So no more of this $100 million 5 year deals.
Also those players that are more D-League worthy should not be receiving half a million for doing nothing all season.
[quote]Teledin wrote:
IMO players are being cry babies over stupid shit.
They get paid pretty sweet for playing a game.
Here in Australia an all-star player is lucky to break $300k a year … which is much of the reason our real talent goes off shore to Europe/USA.
Only thing I guess I’ve always found BS is teams being able to exceed the cap space. The NBA should put a real cap on salaries and stick to it. Players should be capped at an absolute ceiling … maybe 10 - 12 million. So no more of this $100 million 5 year deals.
Also those players that are more D-League worthy should not be receiving half a million for doing nothing all season.[/quote]
I wouldn’t call them cry babies. They sign contracts with the expectation of receiving X amount of money.
They should honour all contracts as they are written.
[quote]Teledin wrote:
IMO players are being cry babies over stupid shit.
They get paid pretty sweet for playing a game.
Here in Australia an all-star player is lucky to break $300k a year … which is much of the reason our real talent goes off shore to Europe/USA.
Only thing I guess I’ve always found BS is teams being able to exceed the cap space. The NBA should put a real cap on salaries and stick to it. Players should be capped at an absolute ceiling … maybe 10 - 12 million. So no more of this $100 million 5 year deals.
Also those players that are more D-League worthy should not be receiving half a million for doing nothing all season.[/quote]
Nah, the players negotiate their salaries and are payed what the team believes they are worth. While I agree that some mid level players get paid too much [Rashard Lewis, Andrew Bynum, etc.], I actually think some of the very best players [who bear the brunt of criticism over high salaries] are underpaid if anything. Look what happens to the value of a team when their star leaves for another team, like what happened in Cleveland and to a lesser extent Toronto.
I do agree that there should be a hard cap, or at least a harder cap in place, which would be a much better way of limiting the growth of salaries. Let the teams decide how they want to spend their say $60-70 million, but don’t worry about limiting individual salaries. As it is the reason guys like Bynum, and Rashard Lewis can be so overpaid is that teams don’t worry too much about the cap, and if they are contenders it’s easy to rationalize the overspending as the team getting the last piece they needed. But since they have limits on individual salaries, guys like LeBron, Dwight, and Durant are paid less than they deserve.
I’m not saying they should immediately put in a hard cap, but they should find a way to phase one in. Maybe they could set the cap at 60-70 mill, but have a 10 million dollar exception for teams already over that expires in 4 years or something. The reason a hard cap won’t happen is because the teams that are currently overspending won’t let that happen. And you can’t blame them, it’s how they got to be contenders: NBA Salaries | HoopsHype .
This is like pretty much any case of prolonged CBA talks in major sports. A financial problem that is really the fault of the owners [specifically the big market ones here] and administration, that is really a dispute between the owners, is being taken out on the players. Instead of solving it properly, which would involve disappointing several owners, they will at least attempt to shaft the players instead.
Looks like Kobe might play overseas
[quote]LarryDavid wrote:
[quote]Teledin wrote:
IMO players are being cry babies over stupid shit.
They get paid pretty sweet for playing a game.
Here in Australia an all-star player is lucky to break $300k a year … which is much of the reason our real talent goes off shore to Europe/USA.
Only thing I guess I’ve always found BS is teams being able to exceed the cap space. The NBA should put a real cap on salaries and stick to it. Players should be capped at an absolute ceiling … maybe 10 - 12 million. So no more of this $100 million 5 year deals.
Also those players that are more D-League worthy should not be receiving half a million for doing nothing all season.[/quote]
Nah, the players negotiate their salaries and are payed what the team believes they are worth. While I agree that some mid level players get paid too much [Rashard Lewis, Andrew Bynum, etc.], I actually think some of the very best players [who bear the brunt of criticism over high salaries] are underpaid if anything. Look what happens to the value of a team when their star leaves for another team, like what happened in Cleveland and to a lesser extent Toronto.
I do agree that there should be a hard cap, or at least a harder cap in place, which would be a much better way of limiting the growth of salaries. Let the teams decide how they want to spend their say $60-70 million, but don’t worry about limiting individual salaries. As it is the reason guys like Bynum, and Rashard Lewis can be so overpaid is that teams don’t worry too much about the cap, and if they are contenders it’s easy to rationalize the overspending as the team getting the last piece they needed. But since they have limits on individual salaries, guys like LeBron, Dwight, and Durant are paid less than they deserve.
I’m not saying they should immediately put in a hard cap, but they should find a way to phase one in. Maybe they could set the cap at 60-70 mill, but have a 10 million dollar exception for teams already over that expires in 4 years or something. The reason a hard cap won’t happen is because the teams that are currently overspending won’t let that happen. And you can’t blame them, it’s how they got to be contenders: NBA Salaries | HoopsHype .
This is like pretty much any case of prolonged CBA talks in major sports. A financial problem that is really the fault of the owners [specifically the big market ones here] and administration, that is really a dispute between the owners, is being taken out on the players. Instead of solving it properly, which would involve disappointing several owners, they will at least attempt to shaft the players instead. [/quote]
My god it took me ten minutes to read all of that with that avi of yours LOOOL!
I guess allowing teams to choose what they pay their players, will keep team make-up dynamic and not following the same blue print. Let’s you make a team that is deep (Dallas) v a team that is strength in few + role players (Miami).
[quote]LarryDavid wrote:
But since they have limits on individual salaries, guys like LeBron, Dwight, and Durant are paid less than they deserve.
[/quote]
This is simply wrong.
Why do they deserve more?
First, an estimate of a team’s worth is a moving target depending on a number of factors, not just a star player (although a superstar may have an effect, it’s a temporary effect nonetheless). Stadium debt, quality of stadium, local TV and cable contracts, market, etc., all factor into franchise worth.
Next, some of the top guys are making more than the owners profit. In what universe is that “deserved”? The owner or ownership group takes ALL the financial risk. All of it. The player none. Owning a NBA team is more a vanity purchase than an actual sound investment these days. Although a LeBron may transcend a single team in terms of popularity, he is rewarded for that popularity with endorsement money. There is nothing unfair about the arrangement. In 10 years, Lebron and the current crop are gone. Teams and the league remain. Players, all players, are fungible. And if they all relied on people like me for ticket sales, TV and merchandise, they’d be back in the playground calling their own fouls - playing for free.
You want “fair”? Tie player salaries and caps to the profitability of a team and the league overall. That’s “fair”. That will never happen though, but it’s “fair”.
Anyway, it’s all relative. The mid-level guys make the money they do now b/c the LeBrons make the money they do. The players union is not just negotiating for the interest of the stars.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
[quote]LarryDavid wrote:
But since they have limits on individual salaries, guys like LeBron, Dwight, and Durant are paid less than they deserve.
[/quote]
This is simply wrong. Why do they deserve more?
[/quote]
They NEGOTIATED those deals in a completely fair envrionment directly with the people who were supposed to pay them the money. Both parties agreed at the time that the deal was worth it and both parties agreed to it. That’s all there is to it.
Heck, I could leave it at this but I’ll address the rest of your post because there are some interesting points there.
A star player being signed long term to your team can and usually does affect almost all of the factors you listed for example. A team actually having a star attraction and having a team capable of making the playoffs not only would get them better terms on local TV deald, but also the chance at nationally televised games. Guess how many Cleveland games are going to be nationally televised next season? They had that when LeBron was there. A superstar player may not have an effect on the size of the local market a team has but he does have an effect on how many of the locals actually care to follow the team, and also the team’s national market. I don’t really have a reason to follow the Raptors despite living in Toronto, and I see way more people here with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant jerseys than any Raptors player.
Why do the players have to reconcile their salaries with the firm’s [team’s] profit? If any old company was only breaking even would that be a good reason to pay their employees nothing? Would you be in favour of firms being able to cut back on salaries they agreed to pay based on whether they profited enough that year? I hate to do that annoying thing where you ask trapping questions because it’s not a good way of arguing, but it’s to illustrate a point.
The owner does take all of the financial risk, but in return he OWNS the product. The employees take a guaranteed salary, but in return they own none of the product. It’s a fiar trade off, and again, both parites voluntarily entered that relationship. The only exception is when the employee agrees to a salary that involves incentives, or even takes part ownership of the team but as it is the NBA doesn’t have that. I’m sure guys like LeBron would love the chance to own part of the teams they played for.
That’s not entirely true, especially for players of LeBron’s stature. Like I said, some players really are the only attraction for their teams. Chicago was always a large city and thus a large market, but it wasn’t a great basketball city before Michael Jordan. After he retired the second time it definitely was, and they actually sold out every game for years after he left even when the team wasn’t winning. A players influence on a team DOES last after he’s played there and while it’s impossible to quanitfy, it’s definitely there.
You are not doing them a personal favour by watching them play and buying their merchandise. You do that stuff because you enjoy watching the top basketball players in the world play ball. Yes the team is what turns them playing into a money generating operation, not the players, but the company you work for does the same thing with whatever you and your cowokers do [if you’re not self employed], so I don’t see the point.
[quote]You want “fair”? Tie player salaries and caps to the profitability of a team and the league overall. That’s “fair”. That will never happen though, but it’s “fair”.
Anyway, it’s all relative. The mid-level guys make the money they do now b/c the LeBrons make the money they do. The players union is not just negotiating for the interest of the stars. [/quote]
No… going back to my first point, which is really the only point that matters, fair is whatever both parties agree to. I really wish you had read the rest of my post where I DID in fact go over why the salaries were so high. The TEAM caps that limit a teams overall payroll aren’t strict like the ones that limit a player’s salary as an individual. And that’s also why merely above average players like Rashard Lewis can be so overpaid while his former teammate Dwight Howard gets paid less than him.
A team like the Magic are okay with signing a guy like Rashard Lewis to a huge contract [technically sign and trade] since they CAN go over the cap, and Lewis may be the last piece needed in a contending team [or so they assumed].
The inflated salaries of players are caused by the OWNERS, who agree to pay them that much. Yes, when the truly elite players are such a scarce commodity and there aren’t enough to go around that will cause their salaries to go up, but that would be solved by actually introducing a hard cap. As it is big market teams can afford to pay more for their teams than small market ones, and thats why guys like Lewis, and Bynum can be so overpaid.
The reason the issue of teams overspending keeps being taken to the players who only do what you or anyone else does -negotiate a salary that is as high as they can get- is because it’s not like the NBA can actually call out the owners. This issue is a few owners who can overspend doing just that, and then shifting the blame to the players. And THEY don’t want to limit their spending options with a hard cap, so instead we get restrictions on players.
Why not have a hard or at least stricter cap, and let teams have the freedom to decide how they wish to lower salaries? How is that not a better solution? If a team wants to pay LeBron 25 million and the rest of the team 35 million why not let them? What’s wrong with a hard cap that would prevent a player like Andrew Bynum being overpaid by a championship team that can afford to do that since they will win another ring if they do, and without punishment?
[quote]Teledin wrote:
My god it took me ten minutes to read all of that with that avi of yours LOOOL!
I guess allowing teams to choose what they pay their players, will keep team make-up dynamic and not following the same blue print. Let’s you make a team that is deep (Dallas) v a team that is strength in few + role players (Miami).[/quote]
My point exactly.
Limiting team payrolls more strictly will lower the salaries of players on its own, but at the same time give them the freedom to decide who earns what amount. I’m more off put by Rashard Lewis earning 20 mill than I would be if LeBron or Dwight were earning 25 mill.
Are the franchises under the same umbrella as the NBA, so to speak, or are they separate entities responsible for their own finances/management structure/etc.?
If the latter, I can definitely see how a centralised structure would be more beneficial for the NBA as a whole.
It would also IMO remove a lot of the CBA bullshit, and make less profitable teams more ‘profitable’.
I’ve never really been a fan of decentralisation anyway.
All the above has probably been covered anyway in this or another thread…
[quote]Teledin wrote:
Are the franchises under the same umbrella as the NBA, so to speak, or are they separate entities responsible for their own finances/management structure/etc.?
[/quote]
I don’t know the specifics very well, but I’m pretty sure past the rules guidelines set up by the NBA [an example would be things like minimum payroll and salary cap] they can manage their finances any way they want. They also have to be approved with certain large changes in ownership, etc. But otherwise I think they can do what they want.
[quote]LarryDavid wrote:
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
[quote]LarryDavid wrote:
But since they have limits on individual salaries, guys like LeBron, Dwight, and Durant are paid less than they deserve.
[/quote]
This is simply wrong. Why do they deserve more?
[/quote]
They NEGOTIATED those deals in a completely fair envrionment directly with the people who were supposed to pay them the money. Both parties agreed at the time that the deal was worth it and both parties agreed to it. That’s all there is to it.
Heck, I could leave it at this but I’ll address the rest of your post because there are some interesting points there.
A star player being signed long term to your team can and usually does affect almost all of the factors you listed for example. A team actually having a star attraction and having a team capable of making the playoffs not only would get them better terms on local TV deald, but also the chance at nationally televised games. Guess how many Cleveland games are going to be nationally televised next season? They had that when LeBron was there. A superstar player may not have an effect on the size of the local market a team has but he does have an effect on how many of the locals actually care to follow the team, and also the team’s national market. I don’t really have a reason to follow the Raptors despite living in Toronto, and I see way more people here with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant jerseys than any Raptors player.
Why do the players have to reconcile their salaries with the firm’s [team’s] profit? If any old company was only breaking even would that be a good reason to pay their employees nothing? Would you be in favour of firms being able to cut back on salaries they agreed to pay based on whether they profited enough that year? I hate to do that annoying thing where you ask trapping questions because it’s not a good way of arguing, but it’s to illustrate a point.
The owner does take all of the financial risk, but in return he OWNS the product. The employees take a guaranteed salary, but in return they own none of the product. It’s a fiar trade off, and again, both parites voluntarily entered that relationship. The only exception is when the employee agrees to a salary that involves incentives, or even takes part ownership of the team but as it is the NBA doesn’t have that. I’m sure guys like LeBron would love the chance to own part of the teams they played for.
That’s not entirely true, especially for players of LeBron’s stature. Like I said, some players really are the only attraction for their teams. Chicago was always a large city and thus a large market, but it wasn’t a great basketball city before Michael Jordan. After he retired the second time it definitely was, and they actually sold out every game for years after he left even when the team wasn’t winning. A players influence on a team DOES last after he’s played there and while it’s impossible to quanitfy, it’s definitely there.
You are not doing them a personal favour by watching them play and buying their merchandise. You do that stuff because you enjoy watching the top basketball players in the world play ball. Yes the team is what turns them playing into a money generating operation, not the players, but the company you work for does the same thing with whatever you and your cowokers do [if you’re not self employed], so I don’t see the point.
[quote]You want “fair”? Tie player salaries and caps to the profitability of a team and the league overall. That’s “fair”. That will never happen though, but it’s “fair”.
Anyway, it’s all relative. The mid-level guys make the money they do now b/c the LeBrons make the money they do. The players union is not just negotiating for the interest of the stars. [/quote]
No… going back to my first point, which is really the only point that matters, fair is whatever both parties agree to. I really wish you had read the rest of my post where I DID in fact go over why the salaries were so high. The TEAM caps that limit a teams overall payroll aren’t strict like the ones that limit a player’s salary as an individual. And that’s also why merely above average players like Rashard Lewis can be so overpaid while his former teammate Dwight Howard gets paid less than him.
A team like the Magic are okay with signing a guy like Rashard Lewis to a huge contract [technically sign and trade] since they CAN go over the cap, and Lewis may be the last piece needed in a contending team [or so they assumed].
The inflated salaries of players are caused by the OWNERS, who agree to pay them that much. Yes, when the truly elite players are such a scarce commodity and there aren’t enough to go around that will cause their salaries to go up, but that would be solved by actually introducing a hard cap. As it is big market teams can afford to pay more for their teams than small market ones, and thats why guys like Lewis, and Bynum can be so overpaid.
The reason the issue of teams overspending keeps being taken to the players who only do what you or anyone else does -negotiate a salary that is as high as they can get- is because it’s not like the NBA can actually call out the owners. This issue is a few owners who can overspend doing just that, and then shifting the blame to the players. And THEY don’t want to limit their spending options with a hard cap, so instead we get restrictions on players.
Why not have a hard or at least stricter cap, and let teams have the freedom to decide how they wish to lower salaries? How is that not a better solution? If a team wants to pay LeBron 25 million and the rest of the team 35 million why not let them? What’s wrong with a hard cap that would prevent a player like Andrew Bynum being overpaid by a championship team that can afford to do that since they will win another ring if they do, and without punishment? [/quote]
Your post is too long to go thru. No thanks. I disagree with at least the first two paragraphs. I didn’t go further. As for bargains made, that was the old CBA. It’s expired. There is nothing unfair about negotiating a new one. And in the real world, unprofitable companies lay off employees, so yes, salaries ARE tied to profitability. Talk to the many people here who haven’t gotten a decent raise in years or who have been laid off. The rest of your post is too meandering to be bothered with. The league is losing money. This CBA will be very different, whether the players like it or not.
[quote]LarryDavid wrote:
[quote]Teledin wrote:
Are the franchises under the same umbrella as the NBA, so to speak, or are they separate entities responsible for their own finances/management structure/etc.?
[/quote]
I don’t know the specifics very well, but I’m pretty sure past the rules guidelines set up by the NBA [an example would be things like minimum payroll and salary cap] they can manage their finances any way they want. They also have to be approved with certain large changes in ownership, etc. But otherwise I think they can do what they want.
[/quote]
whoa. you “don’t know the specifics very well”, but you just finished writing a treatise in favor of the players. shouldn’t you know some specifics before forming your opinion? the reality is that there are one or both of two things that will need to occur… contraction or cutting salaries.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
Your post is too long to go thru. No thanks. I disagree with at least the first two paragraphs. I didn’t go further. As for bargains made, that was the old CBA. It’s expired. There is nothing unfair about negotiating a new one. And in the real world, unprofitable companies lay off employees, so yes, salaries ARE tied to profitability. Talk to the many people here who haven’t gotten a decent raise in years or who have been laid off. The rest of your post is too meandering to be bothered with. The league is losing money. This CBA will be very different, whether the players like it or not. [/quote]
What you said about it being the old CBA is irrelevant. You were referring to past event in your post were you not? Therefore I pointed out that those deals are in fact agreed upon by both parties and a thus fair.
Guaranteed contracts may be a perk but at the end of the day they are negotiated, but teams agree to take on the risk of the player’s performance deteriorating as time goes on or for other reasons. When an older player like Dirk Nowitzki get a raise and a 4 year deal you almost assume it’s despite the fact that the team knows he will probably slow down by the end of that deal. That’s fine, they think it’s worth it [and in that case it was].
Teams may be losing money but who agrees to those huge contracts? Teams aren’t trapped into paying those salaries by anything other than the minimum payroll set out by the league. The reason many feel the pressure to sign big deals to players that actually don’t deserve them is because the league doesn’t have strict caps on TEAM payrolls, as opposed to player salaries.
Again, you should actually read my post entirely, as I covered most of the arguments you made twice already.
OR: Simply answer this, why is it better to lower the limit on individual salaries when you could just have a stricter team payroll cap that would lower the average salary just as much while giving teams more freedom to run their teams as they see fit? That’s what I was proposing and it’s a lot better than your idea, which make NO sense in any business, including a sports franchise.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
[quote]LarryDavid wrote:
[quote]Teledin wrote:
Are the franchises under the same umbrella as the NBA, so to speak, or are they separate entities responsible for their own finances/management structure/etc.?
[/quote]
I don’t know the specifics very well, but I’m pretty sure past the rules guidelines set up by the NBA [an example would be things like minimum payroll and salary cap] they can manage their finances any way they want. They also have to be approved with certain large changes in ownership, etc. But otherwise I think they can do what they want.
[/quote]
whoa. you “don’t know the specifics very well”, but you just finished writing a treatise in favor of the players. shouldn’t you know some specifics before forming your opinion? the reality is that there are one or both of two things that will need to occur… contraction or cutting salaries.
[/quote]
You don’t know the specifics any better than I do, and to make matters worse you only take things out of context from my posts when responding. Just like you did here. How about actually responding to what I wrote instead of resort to a cheap tactic like this? I knew enough to make the points I made earlier.
It’s weird you have no time to read my posts completely, but you can continue with irrelevant points, and have pointless arguments elsewhere on the board. Aren’t you always getting into large arguments in other threads with you typing much longer posts than mine, for days on end? I’ve been pretty respectful when responding to you and yet you can’t seem to do the same here.
You’re all over the place. Make a single, cogent point and I’ll be happy to debate it with you. As for taking things out of context (ahem), it should be noted I have not put forth an “idea”. As for becoming informed about the intricacies of the whole deal, I can pick up the phone and contact a number of coaches and agents. The fact of the matter is…I’m really not that interested. But I’ll play along…make a single concise point in one post, and I’ll discuss. Then we can move on to your next point. If you make more than one point, I won’t play. So, take a position, we’ll discuss it, move to the next.