Garnett Occupies Wall Street
by Oceanary on Oct 19, 2011 11:13 AM CDT
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We miss basketball. No question about that. Were business happening as usual, the Wolves would have already played 4 preseason games and would be packing their bags for the annual Sioux Falls trip tonight. That they aren't is a testament to how broken negotiations between the league and its players really are. And a testament, perhaps, to the actions of a very prominent former Wolf.
About two weeks ago, reports exploded that Kevin Garnett exploded in a labor meeting that apparently killed a deal the two sides were close to agreeing on. A deal that Billy Hunter himself said "we though we could live with". Some are trying to downplay KG's involvement. I don't buy that at all. We die-hard T'Wolves fans know for facts two things about KG: he's fully capable of fiery emotion and fiery rhetoric. And when he goes at something, he goes 100%. And if we take this at surface value, the conclusion we reach is this: if it weren't for KG, we'd be playing basketball right now.
The big divide is over the split of BRI: Basketball Related Income. What percentage of the league's revenue goes to the players versus the owners. Obviously this is a fairly big deal. A big percentage for owners means more money for "basketball operations" (IE their pocketbook). Which means a smaller percentage to the players, resulting in smaller contacts. Or vice-versa.
The owners have drawn a line in the sand at 48-and-some-odd-change as a player percentage. The players have put a 50/50 split on the table. A difference of 1.8% might seem like a petty thing to lock out over, but in the NBA that 1.8% translates to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Now, the owners have every right to do what they're doing. Maybe not a 'moral' right, but certainly a business right. The NBA is indeed a business, and they are the collective owners of that business. They can more or less run it as they please. It's the same as how any other business can lay off employees while giving their CEO a multi-million dollar bonus. How government can shut down and lock out state workers. How banks can randomly charge you money to access your money, then take your money and sell it to make more money. It's outrageous, but that's the way the free market works.
On the other hand, just because they can do it, doesn't mean they should. For one, making an executive power play for money during the Occupy Wall Street era is terrible PR. Second, the NBA is a player's league. And not in the sense that the players run the show, but in the sense that the players are the show. We don't go to the Target Center to watch Glen Taylor sit courtside for two hours. We go to watch the players play basketball.
And third....and this is KG's ultimate point....the players have already given up enough. In fact, basically every single concession made in these negotiations have come from the players.
Garnett didn't make a stand for himself. He's 35, injured, with no more big contracts in his future. In fact, by killing a possible deal, he willingly gave up $21 million of his current contract. He made a stand for future generations of players. A sort of social justice, "pay forward" concept to give kids in their teens and 20s the same sort of opportunities he got when he was their age. Garnett has a lot to lose from this: $21 million and possibly his last chance at a second title. But he made the decision that the principle...that the league should treat its employees with fairness and respect...was more important.
Yesterday the NBA and NBPA met for over 16 hours with a federal mediator to try and end the current lockout. Reportedly....and sadly, unsurprisingly....there was no progress made. So yes, we are without basketball, and likely will be for a long time. But in my book, Garnett did the right thing. Even though it might have cost us the season.
What say you? Is Garnett's stand worth losing the season over?
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As much as I dislike KG - and I dislike him quite a bit - I have a hard time
believing this story is completely accurate. Sure, I believe that KG had an outburst and it probably wasn’t taken well. That would make sense. But that this outburst derailed a potential deal? I don’t buy that. Sounds like convenient excuse-making to me.
It is nice to see Garnett is yelling at someone who isn’t a foreign big man or point guard, though.
Follow me on Twitter @timallenonline
What it sounds like is an attempt by the owners to divide star players from middle class ones.
Portraying Garnett as the entitled star who derailed everything makes sense in that way.
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
by feral on Oct 19, 2011 12:58 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
Indeed
There’s a very lost element here, which is the owners and players don’t unanimously agree among themselves even. Dr. Buss cares a hell of a lot less about revenue sharing and a salary cap than Glen Taylor. LeBron James cares a hell of a lot less about guaranteed contracts than Sundiata Gaines.
What makes KG’s actions noteworthy is he’s a LeBron James who made a case for a Sundiata Gaines…..a guy who has absolutely no need to worry about his next paycheck or whether he’ll be replaced by an unsigned FA, taking arrows for a guy who worries about that stuff every day
How do we even know what KG said in that meeting or why he got so upset?
D-Wade went off because David Stern pointed at him. KG could’ve had an outburst without giving one iota about the Sundiata Gaines of the world. Seems like wild speculation.
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Direct quote from an un-named NBA player
Un-named because they aren’t officially allowed to comment:
‘What he’s doing now, to me, it says a lot about K.G. He’s willing to sit out the year, and give up [$21 million] at the end of his last big contract, and probably his last really good chance to win another ring. For him, this is about the principle. I don’t want to hear this stuff from our guys saying, ‘Oh, he can afford to sit out. He’s made a lot of money.’ I respect the [expletive] out of those guys standing up for us right now, him, Kobe, all of them.’"
"Paraphrasing"
In fact, by killing a possible deal, he willingly gave up $21 million of his current contract. He made a stand for future generations of players. A sort of social justice, “pay forward” concept to give kids in their teens and 20s the same sort of opportunities he got when he was their age. Garnett has a lot to lose from this: $21 million and possibly his last chance at a second title.
, said Mplax.
Technically speaking..
…that quote is in the article linked to the blue “Kevin Garnett exploded” phrase….
Gotcha
Sorry for coming of like a jerk. The statement simply would have had a lot more impact explicitly saying that a player had said it, is what I was going for.
KG has been helping mediocre players get paydays his entire career
There is T-Hud, Mike James, etc.
"My love for Jerry Kill knows no bounds." - Jeffrick
by TheEvilProfessor on Oct 20, 2011 7:56 AM CDT up reply actions
Ya im not buying this
I'm Trill, I'm running w/ the WOLVES
by running with Twolves (and scissors) on Oct 19, 2011 1:20 PM CDT up reply actions
This
As much as I dislike KG – and I dislike him quite a bit -
Is rather sad coming from such an important member of this site. Frankly, its Blasphemous.
I’m not trying to start a dialogue, i just thought this needed to be pointed out.
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Twitter: @loisaidabbclub
by beatsandpeasnyc on Oct 20, 2011 10:16 AM CDT up reply actions 2 recs
I know we've only had one superstar player in Timberwolves' history (maybe 2 w/Love),
so fans can get defensive about ol’ #21…but the guy is a jerk and a dirty player, plain and simple. Although I respect his abilities, I don’t respect his antics and can’t root for a guy like that.
Follow me on Twitter @timallenonline
Yeah, let's just gloss over the important stuff...
Like how he’s probably also the hardest-working player in team history who gave maximum effort on every night in a league where that’s not the norm for superstars. Why does it matter that a player is a jerk on the court, anyway? That’s a much better place to be one than off the court. I just think not liking KG because he’s a jerk on the court diminishes his massive contributions to this franchise and that focusing on demeanor over work ethic and focus is so backwards when it comes to what we should be valued in a person. I’ll take a surly and highly-productive person over a mediocre polite one any day.
The good news is hopeful doesn't mean dumb. The bad news is cynical doesn't mean smart. -- Sarah Silverman
by pagingstanleyroberts on Oct 20, 2011 12:01 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
There are a lot of hard-working players in the NBA.
I don’t think you can be a great player in any professional sport without working hard. That doesn’t magically make me dismiss things like crawling on the floor and barking like a dog at Jerryd Bayless or growling at Ben Gordon from the sidelines (when Garnett was in a suit and not playing) like an immature little kid. I respect Garnett’s production and think he’s probably a top-5 all-time power forward. Maybe you can dismiss his demeanor in favor of “work ethic” and “focus”, but I can’t.
And you could argue that while Garnett did help to build the franchise, much of the current state of the Wolves is also his fault.
Follow me on Twitter @timallenonline
I'm not dismissing anything
It’s just that his work ethic and focus (don’t put sarcastic quotes around them like they’re meaningless) are at least 10x more important on the court than his demeanor. These are grown men he’s doing this to, not children; I think they can handle it. If I were a Celtics fan, watching Big Baby cry after KG reamed him out would make me think much less of Big Baby than KG. Is it embarrassing to watch? Yes. But if he was still on this team, I’d be willing to put up with the embarrassment for the tone he sets defensively and his ability to put his team in a much better position to win than they would be without him. There are few players as talented and productive as KG. That matters so much more to me than a player’s demeanor on the court.
As for your second assertion, you could argue it, but it’d be moronic. I’ll just put it this way: Mark Cuban and Donnie Nelson would probably have said no to KG when he pushed for different guys that hamstrung their cap. Also, I haven’t heard any reports of him pushing for the Marko Jaric trade or the Mark Blount trade, the two biggest boners made during the late stages of that era. Nor did he push for Flip Saunders to be fired.
The good news is hopeful doesn't mean dumb. The bad news is cynical doesn't mean smart. -- Sarah Silverman
by pagingstanleyroberts on Oct 20, 2011 1:42 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
Well, therein lies our disagreement. I don't think those things are 10x more important.
Maybe they are 10x more important for winning basketball games, but for me, they are not 10x more important for who I will root for. Winning and production, to me, are not the most important qualities for my fandom.
Follow me on Twitter @timallenonline
Yes, it seems so.
I just don’t get why sportsmanship matters that much at that level. All of these players can “shut him up” if they want to by scoring on him or knocking him on his ass. This isn’t a H.S. senior trash talking a freshman.
The good news is hopeful doesn't mean dumb. The bad news is cynical doesn't mean smart. -- Sarah Silverman
by pagingstanleyroberts on Oct 20, 2011 5:03 PM CDT up reply actions
Time will tell, but I would say Garnett's stand is misguided.
I think Larry Coon summed it up best and I’m paraphrasing not quoting here
“You continue to negotiate as long as you perceive a real chance of the offer on the table improving. At some point things turn toxic as revenue is lost and the offer gets worse. The key is waiting for the best offer and then taking the best offer before circumstances eliminate it.”
If the past is any example the best offer has already probably been put on the table. The deal the NBA agreed to after the last lock out was inferior to the one on the table before games were lost. The deal the NHL agreed to after losing a year was inferior to the deal offered before games were lost. Billionaires win the battle of attrition. The players time to get it done was likely the very meeting the Garnett made his stand. Whether his stand had any impact on the leadership or other players is hard to say. I’m sure he was loud, but I’m not certain he derailed anything.
600 N First Ave "like a Pirate's cove".
Exactly.
KG may have proved to be principled, but what exactly do we, the fanbase, receive from this? I see no reason to applaud greed at this juncture, even if, as Oceanary says, it can be construed as a magnanimous greed. Players, $2B per year is enough. You’ll manage, I promise. If all else fails, just break out the food stamps like everybody else…
If KG really cared about the 99%, he’d hurry his fellow players along to take a deal to spare the jobs of the arena workers and administrative staff that will disappear with a lost season. Should he care? Not really. But neither should he be lionized for derailing what was probably a sensible deal (assuming the accuracy of the reports that he was to blame, etc).
"Just give up and give the billionaires all they want"
Screw that.
“what was probably a sensible deal”
The owners run their teams like people play poker when the chips have no value. And the players are being expected to solely take the weight of their horrible mismanagement.
Salary cap has gone up for the past what, 5 years? That means that the total league revenue has gone up. Yet here the owners are asking the players to take less of the “pie” that continues to grow.
In the analogy, sure. Not in the real world.
This battle has absolutely zero bearing on the middle class. None. The players could win a symbolic battle, sure (by agreeing to merely go halvsies on $4 billion annually – yeah, cry me a river, KG). But what does that actually mean for the local, national, and global economies? Will the owners (corporations in your analogy) suddenly make a fundamental change in how they do business? Hell, even an incremental one?
Again, considering the middle class element in the lockout, let’s say KG gets exactly what he wants: 53%. Hell, let’s keep the number at 57%. Does that have any effect whatsoever on the wages and benefits offered to the Jonah Ballows of the world, not to mention the arena workers whose jobs are really in the crosshairs here? If anything, owners would pinch pennies all the harder where they could, giving the intrusion into their revenue. (Not arguing that the peons get raises if the owners get 53% in their favor – I’m saying this fight doesn’t have ANY potential positive effect on the middle class.)
by deus04 on Oct 19, 2011 3:08 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
Other than the middle class gets to watch the games
IF there is a season.
It’s called bread and circuses. Take away our cheap food and entertainment, and suddenly all those guns in circulation in this country become something more than a political debating point.
Even when the Wolves are losing, my life is better during the NBA season. The off-season sucks for me, sportswise. This is my one sport and I get great enjoyment from it. The owners are taking that away from me and yes, I do feel like I’m getting screwed. Even hard core sports fans need the NBA to fill that gap between the Super Bowl and MLB’s opening day.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
Yeah, I guess the potential positive effect is that we get to keep the status quo
No one gets laid off. We get to continue to watch our team. That’s really the extent of what I’m rooting for right now.
Very true...
….but it should also be pointed out that the Jonah Ballows have no work at all right now because of this
by Oceanary on Oct 19, 2011 7:06 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
KG, a 1%er fighting for the 99%ers
Don’t kid yourself: what’s happening in the NBA lockout is a mirror to what has happened in our country in general. The rich and powerful, when confronted by unions or workers who stand up for themselves, have mercilessly shipped those jobs overseas — whether it added to their bottom line or not.
Ask not whose balls are being crushed. Sooner or later those balls will be yours.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
by TMiss on Oct 19, 2011 12:33 PM CDT reply actions 2 recs
Aye
And the current era of union demonization is ridiculous. Unions are the only thing that working class has going for them, and if you go back through time and track the deunionization of the US you will find that median worker pay has followed the same trend: downwards.
I’m all for the players on this one. 100%. They are the product. They are the reason the league exists. The owners already rake nearly half of the profits enabled by their play, as well as strong-arm us into building them hundred million dollar stadiums.
You know what they say,
You can’t hate a union until your in one. I find the concept of a union great, but in general I have found that in my workplace (United States Post Office) the union spends all of its time protecting the lazy who refuse, literally refuse, to work. I have seen them walk up to supervisors and stream profanities because a supervisor asked them to do a task that takes 10 minutes. The supervisor has no action to take against this because the union will protect this worker. However, if something happens that endangers workers or hampers the work environment, for example the other day a package busted open and leaked a brown liquid that smelt like feces. It took 2 hours of asking for maintenance to come with the chemical clean up kit, which they just gave to one of the non-custodian workers and made them clean it up. I like the idea of unions, but they tend to protect the lazy and punish the hardworking.
I think that varies from workplace to workplace
I used to prepare 991s as part of my resume service, and biggest gripe I heard from overachieving postal workers was how management always went with the brown nosers and to hell with the people who did the work.
Unions are only as good as the people in them. If you work at a substation or sorting facility that has lousy morale, chances are you also have a lousy union presence. Fwiw, I’d like to fire the Postmaster General and replace him with a cutthroat CEO for a couple of years. Not permanently, just long enough to drop USPS overnight packages to $5, put UPS and FedEx out of business, and then jack the rates back up to over $20 because if you absolutely have to have it there by tomorrow, you’re a loser POS who should have to pay outrageous fees to compensate for your incompetent planning.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
I do work at a sorting facility with terrible moral.
Basically how it works is the lazy people who complain get left alone, and the type of people who put their head down and plow through hard work and finish what they start get abused. The supervisors take the hardworkers and pile the work of the lazy on them instead of addressing the problem being lazy people not earning their wage. Blame can be assigned to both parties I guess, but it just frosts me when I see these lazy S.O.B.’s literally have a line full of work in front of them, and they sit down and look at it til a hardworking person gets pissed about it having supervisors complain to them about it and does it for them.
As for having a hard-nosed CEO take over I 100% agree. The post office gets billions from the government and a monopoly on mailboxes and standard mail. From a business perspective there should be 0 ways a private company can compete, but it is so messed up from top to bottom the UPS and FedEx (both companies who use the USPS to sort and deliver their mail) exist.
Any reason you as a fellow union member
can’t make life difficult on the lazy union members? There are many passive ways to get people to pull their own weight…or at least something closer to it.
"My love for Jerry Kill knows no bounds." - Jeffrick
by TheEvilProfessor on Oct 20, 2011 8:03 AM CDT up reply actions
Sounds like the "union" problems ...
are really the problems of supervisors not doing THEIR job. It’s not up to individual union members to pressure their fellow workers to pull their weight. That is the job of the folks in charge.
by ogishkemuncie on Oct 20, 2011 9:55 AM CDT up reply actions
Again
it’s amazing how few union problems there are in workplaces where supervisors understand how to get work done.
I spent the ’70s as a union steward, and laziness was one issue I never had to deal with. If you were lazy, your coworkers would make your life hell because you were making them work harder. Slugs who were hard to motivate suddenly worked harder once they figured out that was the only way to keep people from effing with their lunchpail.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
Sorry boss I was gonna get that done
but it takes a lot longer than you think to eff with 60 lunchpails.
Also, most employees spend a lot of extra time in the break room with their lunches. Another gripe I have is that routinely a 15 minute break takes 30 minutes and that a 30 minute lunch takes an hour. I watch people who sit down, eat their sandwich, clock out for lunch, play chess, clock back in, finish their game, then go back to work. I would love to see a hardnosed boss put the hammer down there. It would be a messy situation. I think near 50% of people there would be replaced because somebody can do their job faster and better than them.
IMO,
there are two kinds of workers: those that want to coast and those that push themselves. Unions are great for those that want to coast. They protect each other from harm while also keeping each other from excelling. Non-union jobs are great for those people who have goals and want to succeed (or fail) based on their own merit and skill.
I don’t appreciate public sector unions for the most part. And I believe private sector unions have done their job and were the cause of dramatic government regulations that have essentially made unions obsolete. However I would not abolish private sector unions if I had the power. Let those guys live or die together with whatever companies put up with their crap.
Just down the street from my job, a company shut down for 2 weeks because their workers were on strike for a $1.50/hour raise. Way to go guys! You put the hurt on your evil, greedy boss. Hopefully you didn’t cripple the business to the point where you all don’t even have jobs anymore. I think if they weren’t union, any one of them worth their salt would have easily gotten a $1.50 raise if they asked. If they didn’t get it, it would be because they aren’t worth it in a free market.
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 20, 2011 6:08 PM CDT up reply actions
I appreciate public-sector unions.
You know, being a member of one and all. My union is one of the primary reasons why I can survive with just my teaching job in Minnesota (though I keep a second job to stay busy), but had to hold two and three jobs at a time to make ends meet in Oklahoma, which has no union for college instructors.
Public sector unions aren’t evil, and teachers (and firefighters and police, etc.) aren’t breaking the bank. Good workers work hard whether they’re in a union or not. And it’s not impossible to fire a poor performer even if they are unionized. This whole conservative campaign against unions is ridiculous.
"Of what use is a philosopher who does not hurt anybody's feelings?" -Diogenes of Sinope
by Cynical Jason on Oct 20, 2011 10:54 PM CDT up reply actions
And it’s not impossible to fire a poor performer even if they are unionized.
Well that’s encouraging.
But the teacher’s union, for example, “negotiating” their salaries with the people they elect is indefensible.
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 21, 2011 12:02 AM CDT up reply actions
What?
That doesn’t even make sense.
"Of what use is a philosopher who does not hurt anybody's feelings?" -Diogenes of Sinope
by Cynical Jason on Oct 21, 2011 12:26 AM CDT up reply actions
Really? Come on.
"The difference between traditional collective bargaining and collective bargaining with public employee unions: while collective bargaining in the private sector is a cherished right to be respected, the same is not true in the public sector. In the private sector, the unions – responsible to the members – bargain with an independent management – responsible to their shareholders. There is a natural balance between the wishes of the employees to maximize their compensation and the management’s needs to control cost to remain competitive. But in the public sector, public employee unions bargain with a management whose campaigns they financed and who are dependent on the union’s financing for re-election. There is no balance."
Obviously you know this.
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 21, 2011 10:16 AM CDT up reply actions
I don't know who you're quoting there,
but that person doesn’t like logic.
Unions contribute to campaigns, but they aren’t the sole (or even majority) contributors. To say that unions finance the campaigns of elected officials is like saying I finance Cub Foods because of that gallon of milk I bought.
Unless you figure it’s a conspiracy. I know that’s pretty common with conservatives.
"Of what use is a philosopher who does not hurt anybody's feelings?" -Diogenes of Sinope
by Cynical Jason on Oct 21, 2011 10:29 AM CDT up reply actions
It's a quote from Larry Huss at the Oregon Catalyst
You may know Larry from some of his other columns like “Nitwit Diplomacy: President Obama and His State Department,” or “Can Chris Dudley Be a New Beginning for Oregon?” I scrolled back a full year and it appears that every other column he writes is a screed about evil public unions and how the private sector just can’t catch a break in Obamasocialist Amerika.
If Caseycheesecake is a Larry Huss fan, I don’t think there’s much chance we’ll ever find much to agree on.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
Point taken.
"Of what use is a philosopher who does not hurt anybody's feelings?" -Diogenes of Sinope
by Cynical Jason on Oct 21, 2011 11:49 AM CDT up reply actions
Never heard of him.
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 21, 2011 12:40 PM CDT up reply actions
Really?
Because he wrote that quote you used. Put quotes around any part of it and put it into Google and it will identify Larry Huss as the author.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
You said I am a Huss fan.
I said I’ve never heard of him. I found his quote while looking at relevant, recent examples. All I knew of him is his name until now.
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 22, 2011 12:22 AM CDT up reply actions
Really? What about this one?
“… Meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the government. All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations … The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for … officials … to bind the employer … The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives …”
Dictionary.com —> “Incentive”
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 21, 2011 12:39 PM CDT up reply actions
I imagine
you have an endless supply of quotes like these, but since they’re all nonsense I suppose I should stop reading them.
There are a number of assertions made in that quote. None of them are supported, and I’d argue that none of them are supportable.
"Of what use is a philosopher who does not hurt anybody's feelings?" -Diogenes of Sinope
by Cynical Jason on Oct 21, 2011 12:53 PM CDT up reply actions
Nonsense = Disagreeing with Cynical Jason
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 21, 2011 1:09 PM CDT up reply actions
That last one was FDR btw.
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 21, 2011 1:11 PM CDT up reply actions
Huh.
Unsupported claims, an ad hominem, and an appeal to authority. You’re building a pretty good collection of informal fallacies.
"Of what use is a philosopher who does not hurt anybody's feelings?" -Diogenes of Sinope
by Cynical Jason on Oct 21, 2011 1:14 PM CDT up reply actions
I should take a pointer from you and just say
“nu uh!”
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 21, 2011 1:32 PM CDT up reply actions
FDR
lived in different times and corporations were still murdering unionists who dared organize their sweatshops.
I’m very cynical about quotes from the past as they usually spoke to different circumstances. I’m more partial to economic data, like the countless studies that show that a strong unionized middle class lifts all boats, as opposed to the pissy drizzle down nothing we’ve been getting from the trickle-down crowd.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
The thing that gets me about today’s anti-union BS is that unions are one of the best ways to keep government out of the workplace. If you don’t like government intervention, then one of the best ways to do it is to make an agreement on workplace safety conditions, health care, education benefits, etc with your workforce. This isn’t rocket science. (Take pro sports, for instance. Leagues like the NBA can skate anti-trust laws because owners and players collectively bargain.) It allows for greater local control over everything from environmental regulations to health care. Don’t like one size fits all regulation? Then collective bargaining and a robust relationship between ownership and labor is probably for you (never mind it being a good economic argument: high levels of unionization brings about greater income equality which brings about greater growth).
Also
In terms of a non sports example, say that you have a fundamental opposition to things like a living wage or government mandated health care. These are perfectly reasonable positions. However, they also seem to be driving factors in income inequality, which a) seems to lead to many bad things and b) is widely viewed as being a problem by most people across the political spectrum. Unions would seem to be a fairly reasonable tool to address several of these concerns in a way that avoids excessive government intervention. Workers negotiating things like education bennies, health care plans, workplace safety conditions and general compensation with their owners seems like a good way to address the problem of people not wanting government intervention while, at the same time, wanting to address income inequality…which is a terrible thing that very few people want.
Public unions have great intentions but in reality they exist at the cost of a party – be it consumers, investors, workers, employer, or the tax payer. They exclude workers, competition and drive up costs for consumers and tax payers.
Through the free market ie; firms competing for the best workers and workers competing from the best jobs, there is more for everyone.
Anyway I just think most public sector unions are a sham and most private sector unions do more harm than good in this day and age.
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 22, 2011 12:38 AM CDT up reply actions
The free market BS has flown the coop at this point
Capitalism is wonderful. Free Market Capitalism is a sham that exists only as a machine to manufacture middle class wealth into more mansions for Daddy Warbucks. The idea that the Free Market is going to generate “more for everyone” is laughable at this point. FMC has held that growth and income equality are exclusive and the vast amount of data suggests that this is a horrible joke.
All unions exist at the “cost” of a party. All companies exsist at the “cost” of some taxpayer initiative.
Fwiw
I’m sympathetic to the idea that public unions are problematic. No one in their right mind would allow the military to organize. However the kicker here is that we provide the military with things like free government housing and health care. We give vets access to a single payer system. Also, when was the last time you heard anyone call for the slashing of the military personnel budget? Who is out there saying that we need to cut funding for VA health care? Now think about that sort of rhetoric in the area of, say, teachers.
I don’t know how teachers, municipal employees, police, fire, first responders, etc are supposed to acquire reasonable compensation at a wide cost-beneficial level (bargaining in numbers has obvious fiscal advantages— the bargaining power of a state wide union costs the government less for a certain benefit than does a patchwork of smaller deals). Without access to universal health care, paid higher education, and retirement benefits (all of which the non unionized military has access to, btw) what are these workers supposed to do in order to reasonably compensate their value to our society (I.e. For teaching and protecting all those valuable free market workers)?
If government weren't involved in healthcare or higher education,
it would be reasonably affordable for everyone though competition. The reason college is so effing expensive now is because they don’t need to compete for our business because the government will cover whatever we can’t. It’s a sham. No incentive to compete. Same thing with health care. There’s a reason things that aren’t covered on most plans (cosmetic surgery, lasik eye surgery, etc…) are all becoming better and cheaper over time while nobody even knows how much an ultrasound really costs because they don’t care. They pay their deductible and the government covers whatever outrageous cost the hospitals charge.
If I officiated basketball like the government, who is supposed to officiate our markets, I would probably block 3 shots and get 5 steals a game.
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 22, 2011 11:03 AM CDT up reply actions
Also,
All companies exsist at the "cost" of some taxpayer initiative.
This can be fixed by eliminating loopholes for the current president’s (whoever it is at the time) favorite companies. Unions can’t fix their cost. Just the fact that they exist by excluding competition is a spit in the face of capitalism.
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 22, 2011 11:09 AM CDT up reply actions
Also...
…I think it lies in your seeming preference for FMC over regulated Capitalism. Competition is great, but only on an even playing field.
No i'm totally for the government being the regulator.
But becoming players in the game – in multiple markets – is counter-productive.
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 22, 2011 2:22 PM CDT up reply actions
But that's just an insanely unrealistic...
…expectation for government. It’s “we the people”. It’s job is to become “players” in “multiple markets” What do you think this country would look like without the DoD budget? What do you think it would look like without an interstate road system? I get and sympathize with the psychology behind what you are saying (wanting things to be as unregulated and as unfettered by government as possible is a position smart and successful people are naturally drawn to) but I think it’s not only an inaccurate representation of what government actually is, but a really unrealistic take on what things would be like if it wasn’t a “player”. It is. It always has been. It always will be. The trick is making sure it is as efficient and as fair a player as possible. This should be reason #1 why nobody should vote for people who want to drown it in a bathtub. You want it to be a good player, not an incompetent one.
Yep
The free market and it’s invisible hand are a myth. We’re a government-regulated capitalist society, and that’s not likely to change any time soon. Once we start talking about taxation and regulation in contextual specifics and in more qualitative than quantitative terms, we’ll all be the better for it.
Gary, you didn't kill your brother. Those gorillas did.
This is just....
….patently false. Ridiculously false. Americans pay an obscenely larger amount per capita on health care than other industrialized countries. Also, you do realize that we have a privately insured health care system, right? Not only that, but the government does the heavy lifting for the insurance companies by taking care of the elderly, poor and military.
Also, health care in general is increasing in cost. It’s skyrocketing and if it continues to be privatized we’ll get the same results we see with the general economy: massive inequality (we already have it) which drags down the economy.
Your claims about the efficacy of competition in either of these realms have very little data to back them up. Unfettered competition has a habit of creating inequality and the benefits you imagine cluster at the top and never trickle down. That’s the sham.
?
“The reason college is so effing expensive now is because they don’t need to compete for our business because the government will cover whatever we can’t. It’s a sham. No incentive to compete.”
Bullshit. There are a number of for-profit colleges now, and they’re terrible. Terrible for students and for teachers. They meet their goals (turn a profit), but those goals aren’t education.
"Of what use is a philosopher who does not hurt anybody's feelings?" -Diogenes of Sinope
by Cynical Jason on Oct 22, 2011 12:28 PM CDT up reply actions
They're for profit - and the government pays.
If they actually had to compete for people’s personal money, not government student loans, it would be cheaper overnight. Heaven knows they aren’t paying the professors the same raises that they’ve been charging customers the last 15 years.
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 22, 2011 2:21 PM CDT up reply actions
Yeah...
…because if there’s one place someone with money wants to go to, it’s Argosy Online.
You keep saying things that make sense as a general philosophy against government programs an interventions, but have no real tie to things that are actually happening. We do have a system where private colleges compete for people’s money. I went to one of their schools. It’s called “Creighton”.
I’m all for telling the Phoenix Universities of the world that they can’t have any government money. Let’s see how long they would “compete” after the GI Bill is taken away. Let’s see how long they would “compete” after their lax enrollment practices are stacked up against traditional private colleges.
The problem here is that training large amounts of people to do something isn’t exactly a profitable venture. The profit comes when you have a state or a country with highly educated people in it.
BTW: The fact that GI Bill funds are on the 10% side of 90/10 is kind of insane.
Again
that is absolutely not true if the supervisors are doing their job. The only employees whose jobs I ever saved were those who were being wrongly singled out, or victimized by a pissy supervisor with a grudge. Workers who didn’t work got fired in my union shop, and no one cared because they weren’t pulling their weight. (I should point out that this was the Firestone factory in Des Moines, the largest tire plant on earth with over 1,600 clock card employees. I think we had a clue as to what we were doing.)
A production workplace is the easiest place on earth to supervise. All you have to do is look to see what got done at the end of each shift, and where things came up short, you focus and find out why.
This isn’t rocket science, and literally NO ONE who works with their hands in this frickin’ country is overpaid.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
Seriously
your supervisors are utterly incompetent. Everything you mention falls on them.
More to the point, this speaks to an incompetent Postmaster for the Twin Cities.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
Way to take away all personal responsibility!
It’s not their fault they aren’t working hard, it’s their supervisors!
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 21, 2011 10:09 AM CDT up reply actions
Employers have the rock solid undeniable right
to fire anyone they hire the first 30-45 days on the job, no questions asked.
If you have lousy workers, you 1) didn’t screen them during the hiring process, 2) didn’t pay attention to them during their probationary period, and 3) aren’t properly supervising them to make sure they’re doing their jobs. That’s three counts of management fail.
It’s harder to fire an employee who makes it past their probationary period, but not much harder. Write them up three times for not doing their job, and no power on heaven or earth can get them rehired unless you totally screw up the paperwork.
And I’m speaking as someone who has represented both employers and employees at unemployment hearings. Anyone who can’t fire an employee and make it stick is utterly incompetent and has no business being in management.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
by TMiss on Oct 21, 2011 11:50 AM CDT up reply actions 2 recs
Anyone who can’t fire an employee and make it stick is utterly incompetent and has no business being in management.
Uh oh…they are anyway. What now?
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 21, 2011 12:28 PM CDT up reply actions
We start a new league
The NBA isn’t wired into the Constitution like MLB. There is absolutely nothing stopping our largest cities from forming a new league, a league without owners (other than the local citizenry, like Green Bay).
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
(I don't know where your answer came from but I'll run with it)
In Sacramento, a publicly owned team would get voted down so fast. Obviously I can’t speak for other teams.
Would the government bypass a vote or something? I don’t know the origins of Green Bay’s situation.
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 22, 2011 12:43 AM CDT up reply actions
Honestly, I normally don't agree with you,
but this here is something I am on board 100% with. Although I do believe that personal responsibility needs to be stressed not only in the workplace but in all decisions people make. For the workplace example I see it as a 2 way street, if all supervisors would take responsibility to correctly do their jobs, we wouldn’t have to worry about unproductive and lazy employees. However, if the employees were responsible and cared about their job, the need for supervisors would be totally unnecessary, saving the company money on salaries (not directly related because this person isn’t a supervisor but honest to God, I saw somebody who ties up and throws bags of mail take home $2300 in a 2 week pay period. He works 12 hour shifts every day, but these wages are out of control) and being for the better good of all parties involved.
Ha!
Just because you need something overnighted, “you’re a loser POS”? WTF?
More often than not
it indicates a lack of planning.
"Of what use is a philosopher who does not hurt anybody's feelings?" -Diogenes of Sinope
by Cynical Jason on Oct 20, 2011 2:49 AM CDT up reply actions
In real life
it is exceedingly rare for anything to have to absolutely be there the next day UNLESS someone didn’t do their job on time.
Working with both private delivery company employees and USPS workers, I heard a surprising number of horror stories about executives overnighting envelopes between floors of the same building (literally between depts. of the same company). There is a huge culture of self-importance in our business community who think of premium service as a minimum standard when executive egos are involved.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
You and I work in different sectors I guess
Either way, “loser POS” seems a tad much.
Also, if your company’s got an account with FedEx/UPS, overnighting isn’t that expensive.
It's not that expensive
because UPS and FedEx are cannibalizing the USPS, taking the easy money while not even thinking about delivering first class mail.
It’s as if your boss hired a new guy, gave him all the easy jobs, then promoted him and cut your pay based on performance.
We have email now. Why on earth would anything need to be overnighted other than the occasional legal document?
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
Yes, but this is because people suck.
If people didn’t suck, we wouldn’t need unions to protect the workers from their bosses. But because they do suck, whether they are running the unions or the companies, you have to tolerate the accompanying BS becuase it beats sending 12 year olds into the coal mines.
B-b-but
12-year-olds don’t have to stoop so much, and they use way less air! %
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
indeed
they also have an abundance of energy that we can all profit off of and have no concept of adequate compensation.
"My love for Jerry Kill knows no bounds." - Jeffrick
by TheEvilProfessor on Oct 20, 2011 8:04 AM CDT up reply actions
I think this is good news
Not hearing anything is good. This gives me more hope than I’ve had for a long while.
Also: The ONLY way you get NO ONE to leak is by telling them this one little thing: whoever leaks any info is trying to sabotage the deal. Leaks can pretty easily be tracked back, at least to one side or the other.
The issue is pretty clear cut: The owners gave up too much in previous CBAs, they didn’t set up safeguards to protect themselves from themselves, and there is no way they’re going to play again until they right the ship. There are probably a few things they threw in the offer to give up eventually, but for the NBA to continue, the players are going to take a loss or stay even on every point. They are going to lose.
Players have a choice…they can play overseas. I can guarantee that is not a good choice for most. Time for the players to find something they can twist into a “win” to act like they won something.
You can't dust for vomit.
by twinstalker on Oct 19, 2011 12:39 PM CDT reply actions 1 recs
The best win for the players
would be no NBA season and the birth of a players league in which the franchises would belong to the municipalities they play in. In a truly free market, player income would derive from the gate, not contracts.
And this, of course, would be a huge win for the fans and the cities with teams. Just cut the owners out of the loop entirely. Any semi-competent events planner could run the league, and would do so for a low-end six-figure salary and an office full of entry-level clerical staff.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
One problem:
“Cities with teams” would basically amount to LA, Miami, NY, Vegas, and maybe Chicago, with a dozen teams scattered between them. We’ve seen pretty definitively that players who can choose where they want to play will flock to those destinations (and I’m assuming Vegas would fit right into that). Anyone here really think MN gets a player’s league squad?
Oh, and second problem: with a smaller league (which it would have to be, given the lack of infrastructure) you’d only be able to offer jobs to maybe the top 35% of players – not really a bad thing from a fan’s standpoint, but that’s not a win for the players as a whole. Not to mention, who gets to be the gatekeeper? That is, who decides which players make the cut, and who gets drafted to which team, and which players aren’t cutting it and need to make way for a D-leaguer? If it’s truly a “player’s league” and not a generic rival league, will the players employ bosses who have the authority to terminate employment, trade to an undesirable location, etc?
On the other hand, if it isn’t really a player’s league, and more accurately a municipality-owned league, you’ve basically just sold the NBA to the government. Local government, but still probably enough to give the Fox Newsers a heart attack.
All that said, if such a league were feasible, and if MN were promised a team with Love, Rubio, and Adelman, then hell, why not? I’m sure they could work some games in at Roy Wilkins around the Rollergirls.
Not sure I agree with some of your points
1. There will always be players willing to play for money. So there will be a team in Mpls if Mpls wants one. Attracting top players might be tough, but we don’t know for sure. Some top players would rather be built around in Mpls or Portland than a 2nd tier player in NY or LA.
2. If there were a players league, I’m guessing player salaries would be less than now. Much of the attractiveness of owning a pro sports team is the tax benefits to billionaires. They can depreciate the value of a player year by year. This, even if the team is in the red at the end of the year, the tax write-off can be applied against other income, thus the billionaire owner gets a financial benefit anyway.
Continuing on the above point:
- If municipalities owned teams, this tax benefit goes away, as most municipalities don’t make money from other sources that can be offset by business losses from the team.
- Likewise, if players owned the team, the tax benefit would be worth much less. If spread among owner-players, the guys earning $600k would probably not have other income to use the write-off against. Of course, the guys earning the big big bucks could probably use it to offset endorsement income, but then it favors the rich again.
3. If players owned the league, would they give up ownership after they retired? Or would a few players like M Jordan end up owning the whole thing, and just become a different set of megamillionaires with beefs against the rank and file?
Anyway, under current tax laws, I think players benefit from billionaire ownership, they make more than they would if they created their own league. Of course, if we got to more rational tax laws that could be written on a few pieces of paper, that situation changes. I don’t think that will happen by next season, or even within the term of existing player contracts.
What is right and true and equitable? I dunno, but it is a tough putt to get to a player’s league from here.
In fact, if superstars quit and started their own league, I’ll bet the owners would just draft different players and continue playing. They already have the lease on the stadiums, the contracts with the broadcast networks, the rights to the team names and logos, the infrastructure to do the promotions, and the financial incentive to keep on ‘losing money’ on the team in order to get the tax write-offs. The players league would have to settle for inferior venues in most cases, and huge startup costs for marketing, broadcasting and so forth. By splitting the audience between two leagues, no one would be making much money, and player salaries would likely be less than today.
JMHO…
tax writeoffs are designed to favor the rich
that’s kind of what they are there for. Notice how there isn’t a credit for single mothers…because they can’t afford a lobbyist.
"My love for Jerry Kill knows no bounds." - Jeffrick
by TheEvilProfessor on Oct 20, 2011 8:10 AM CDT up reply actions
I have no clue where you're drawing your conclusions from
The easiest route for the players would be to start their league in the same cities, with the same players. There’s no time for a draft or anything fancy and unless dozens of players opted for overseas contracts, the only way for the new league to employ all the old players would be to have the same number of teams. Target Center would leap at the chance to host the new league’s games because what else are they going to do with those dates the Wolves have locked up?
But more to the point, if you don’t like our government, why do you live here?
The City of St. Paul is run by people I voted for, and I’m reasonably happy with their governance. If I wasn’t, I’d move across the river to Minneapolis. If I still wasn’t happy, I’d move to a burb that reflected my values. And if I just hated people in general, I’d move to the country. Half the reason I live in St. Paul instead of Des Moines is that I got very tired of Gov. Branstad and Senator Grassley so I voted with my feet to live in a place where the government more accurately reflected my progressive values.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
I’m assuming Taylor/NBA would work hard to keep Alt-Wolves out of Target Center. As primary tenant, I think they’d have a lot of muscle to flex there – especially if they bring in replacement players and try to keep the league going. But maybe not. Who knows.
Still don’t see how a league works without front offices to govern player movement, set salaries, etc. And I agree with tim muggs that the players would take a pretty significant financial hit. Infrastructure matters. TV revenue matters. And remember, people root for laundry. I would be shocked if Alt-Wolves (i.e. Love, Rubio, D-WIll, etc) outdrew an Adelman-coached T-Wolves squad of former Golden Gophers, former MN prep stars-turned-JuCo ballers, etc. The CHers would stay with the guys we’ve been following, but the bulk of the people will go with what’s familiar, established, marketed professionally, consistently on TV, etc. As tim muggs said, there wouldn’t be enough audience for both leagues—and honestly probably enough would migrate to NCAA that both leagues would die.
And I realize I didn’t make this clear, but I personally have no problem with government “intruding” on corporate affairs, trust me. I just figured there’s plenty of people who would object. And though I’m not particularly well versed in the local political scene, I’m very happy in the Twin Cities, always have been, and would never move.
To TMiss on the Target center
Target Center has a contract with the TWolves for those dates. They cannot just kick out the TWolves, it would violate the contract.
If the players started a league, I’d bet a paycheck that the NBA owners would retaliate by keeping the NBA league, and recruit whomever they could, which would probably include some ex-NBA players, some current union members at low pay scale, some college player 2nd rounders, and maybe even some Euro players. No problem finding players, just probably not the big stars.
From an owner’s perspective, they would carry on with existing contracts just to freeze out the player’s league. They would have to take a pay cut from ad revenue due to smaller audiences, but they’d have lower salary expenses and they could probably get a lower rate from Target Center just to keep the place in business.
As a veteran of corporate life and corporate wars, I guarantee you that there is no fairness involved. The NBA owners would do whatever they could to undermine the new league — up to the edge of the law.
Players starting their own league would be like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland putting on a show in grampa’s barn. First thing they’d have to do is hire some professionals at marketing, scheduling, salary & personnel experts, guys to handle insurance and health care, guys to negotiate deals with networks, guys to negotiate deals for selling jerseys and bobbleheads, CPAs and accountants to track the money, and on & on. Who will pay those salaries? LeBron and KG? Ain’t no other money coming in until the games are played.
The 1st couple of years would be very very tough, and after LeBron and Wade saw that they could make a lot more money playing for ‘the man’ — in a profession that has an early sell-by date as skills erode — they’d either come back or just retire & live off their current earnings.
Consider this: with owners paying out huge salaries to guys with limited talent (not talking about LBJ & DW, but plenty of others) why would those lazy guys on huge contracts suddenly want to become barnstorming entrepreneurs and give up the big bucks they are already contracted to receive? What about lottery picks from this year & last year, with guaranteed million plus contracts. Would they want to give up their paydays to support a venture with significant risk of success?
We talk about the difference between the KG / LBJ / PP / DW type players and the $600k journeymen, but it is the overpaid deadweight on contracts between $3m to $13m that would really lose out. They would have to negotiate new contracts with a player’s league team, and probably take a multimillion dollar cut. Consider Darko in the new player’s league — would he get a bid to play at all? Lotsa millionaires like him would lose out, either via pay cuts or no work at all.
And finally, consider the agents role in all this. They’d be losing money too. In a player’s league, they might just be fired & replaced with guys who would work for less. That means either no money or less percentage from salaries, and probably less money from endorsements. I’m sure this has occurred to them, as they look out for themselves pretty well. When the reality of a player’s league really dawns on those guys, they might start to change their tune as they see their livelihood shrink. Probably have to trade in the trophy wife for an older model with a few miles on her. That tends to focus the mind and I’ll bet they’d change their story with the players.
Just a thought…
by timmuggs on Oct 19, 2011 6:59 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
I hear where you're coming from
but in all honesty if the NBA attempted to run a scab league (and I strongly suspect there are many legal impediment to that), they would be putting out an inferior product. I’m not kidding when I say there are millions of Americans, myself included, who could easily use new teams and a new league to thrash that scab league into oblivion.
Target Center is not booked every night of the week. Not even close. Maybe the new league would have to play on Mondays and Thursdays, but they would be able to schedule a full season at the same venues the NBA uses. Athletic arenas and stadiums are some of the most underused facilities in this country.
As for the rest of your arguments, once you establish a new league based on gate and not contracts, you don’t need nearly as many lawyers or accountants.
Think about this for a moment. Nearly every music concert tour ever was run by druggies, drunks and sycophants. Yet the show (almost) always goes on. Compared to the crowds at heavy metal concerts, athletic competitions are pretty easy to set up. I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure the folks who install the floor and set up the electronics for Wolves games are Target employees, not Wolves employees (?).
Putting on an NBA quality basketball game is not rocket science. Furthermore, a player-driven league probably wouldn’t jack the volume up to bleeding eardrum levels like the money-driven NBA does (for reasons that utterly elude me but which I’m sure are tied to ego).
I watched the AFL and ABA eat the NFL and NBA’s lunches respectively. Challenging an established league isn’t hard at all, especially not when the established league is being run by a pompous ass.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
Jacked-up arena volume
is something I completely despise about the NBA. I even remember one game where they didn’t do this in crunchtime (not sure if it wasn’t working, or what) and it was really cool to hear the real crowd cheers.
TMiss -- on AFL and ABA...
Here’s the way it looks to me:
The AFL and ABA were successful mostly in expanding the territory of the NBA and the NFL. They did not put the NBA and NBA out of business, so “ate their lunch” is perhaps not the most accurate way to characterize their effect on pro sports.
However, I think you help me make my point, which is that a player’s league will not work.
The AFL and ABA were funded by rich businessmen who had so much money they were looking for tax deductions. They were not player’s leagues by any stretch, just another iteration of the NFL and NBA, taking advantage of the fact that urbanization had created markets for pro teams that were not being addressed.
I think that the original NFL and NBA opposed the rival leagues because their owners did not want competition. Turns out the result was an expansion of the elder leagues, not their demise.
So why do I think that a player’s league will fail? You need at least 16 owners with $500 million minimum of assets to make it work, and most should be billionaires. The players make a lot of money by our standard, but it is mouse-nuts compared to what is needed to own a major league pro team. There are not 16 players that could fund a team, maybe not even one. And then there are the questions I raised earlier — would a player that owned a team have to sell it if they retired from playing? Plus a host of other questions to do with the management of the league.
I could see the following scenario happening if there is a real lockout this year (I’m not convinced it won’t be settled). Ok, here goes:
- A Russian or Chinese billionaire could come onto the scene and say that he will finance a new league.
- He would put up $160 million, maybe twice that amount.
- A league of 16 teams would form, each team gets $10 – $20 million startup funds. Management would form, shares in the teams would be sold, players could buy a share of a team they played for, if they promised to play for the team for their career (maybe some other terms would be worked out).
- The league would play for 32 weeks (for example).
- The big buck backer would stipulate that each team would have to play for two weeks each year in Russia (or China, depending on the backer’s nationality). Each team goes abroad for a different two weeks, and each plays the same set of teams in the backer’s home territory.
That would give global exposure to the new league, create a global ad market, and add value to the league.
OK, maybe the big buck backer would be European, or a consortium of Euro guys. The outline would stay the same, each team would spend two weeks playing abroad, and only one team would be abroad at a time. Thus there would be a 32 week season where one or another of the USA pro teams plays abroad in each week. Maybe the teams from Russia (China or Euro sector) take a 2 week stint in the USA for the 32 weeks, to balance the schedule.
The chances of success would be pretty good, but it would not be a player’s league, it would be a rich man’s league, just like the ABA and AFL were.
The reason it could succeed is the same that worked for the ABA and AFL — it would expand the territory — not to new cities in the USA, but by providing a basis for a truly international basketball league. It probably would not supplant the NBA, the current owners would respond somehow. But it could well be swallowed up by the NBA in some form.
Regardless, it would still not be a players league, it would be another league of rich owners, and players would be employees.
Maybe KG and Kobe would have enough money to own part of a team, but MJ is probably the only ex-player with the loot to stand in there with the billionaires. Still, he’d be what he is now, a rich owner, not a player/owner.
Just an idea that will almost certainly not come to pass…
After Paul Allen vetoed this season
I’d sure like to see the players at least try to put together a league.
More to the point, I’d love to see R.T. Rybak announce that the City of Minneapolis is there to help a new league establish a franchise here.
How long would the NBA continue this lockout if 29 U.S. mayors said, sure, we’ll help you get started?
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
Also...
…for those people who still write this off as a “millionaires vs. billionaires” problem that is beyond their comprehension, let’s put those two numbers in context.
For instance, let’s turn “dollars” into “seconds”. Let’s take a modest 50,000 seconds. How long is that? About 13.8 hours. One million seconds is about 11 1/2 days. A billion seconds is almost 32 years.
If you think about it in terms of the solar system, Mercury is about 35 million miles from the sun. Neptune is 2.7 billion miles.
Having a thousand million is a pretty big advantage.
an office full of attractive entry level clerical staff?
"My love for Jerry Kill knows no bounds." - Jeffrick
by TheEvilProfessor on Oct 20, 2011 8:08 AM CDT up reply actions
I don't blame KG at all (and find that Woj story to be seven shades of fishy*), or the players. I don't even blame the owners.
The NBA business model was untenable and this was going to happen.
I do blame the fans that say “The players make enough, just sign the deal.” That’s some messed-up selfishness there.
: When I say fishy, I mean that I don’t think they had a deal until KG *bleeped it up. I do believe KG went KG in a meeting, but I don’t think that stopped a deal.
by googoleeoottooooleeoottooooleeeatta on Oct 19, 2011 4:30 PM CDT reply actions
Blame the fans for what?
Since I expressed a form of what you’re describing here, I’ll try to respond/explain.
I don’t think the players have an obligation to take any deal. Selfishly, I wish they would, yes, just so we can get back to what looks like a promising season. But while I wish they would give in, if they truly believe it’s an insulting offer, then sure, they should dig in. Unions shouldn’t bend over for the man, even if it would be a rather nice sodomizing, all things considered (again, I don’t see how a 50-50 split of $4 billion could be construed as a shameful offer).
That said, for KG to march in and denounce a negotiation that he wasn’t part of—I mean, like you say, Googs, I’m sure that KG didn’t singlehandedly ruin anything. But to me, that’s just matching the childishness of the owners who are all too eager to pick up the ball and go home—I just don’t see what’s worth applauding in that act. Unless the players simply don’t trust Fisher and KG was staging some kind of intervention. Looking at this from the players’ perspective, surely either KG has to be considered petulant, or Fisher treasonous.
An interesting wrinkle here is that KG basically caused the last lockout by turning down a $106M deal (or whatever it was). He was within his rights to do so, but it smacked of greed—and it resulted in the max contract structure. I suppose you could say he owes LBJ, Wade, Durant, and others a fair bit more than $21M… (I’m not being fully serious here—if KG hadn’t broken the system, someone else would have—but it’s possible he does feel like there’s restitution to be made.)
Bottom line: Collective bargaining is collective bargaining, regardless of the size of the pie or the size of the slices. I fully agree with the players’ right to negotiate. But they are not part of the middle class, which means I am only going to be able to empathize so far before I start to lose patience.
by deus04 on Oct 19, 2011 6:43 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
Well said.
And, ftr, I wasn’t directing it at any comments on here or you. I was thinking of the Rube-chat people out there.
by googoleeoottooooleeoottooooleeeatta on Oct 19, 2011 8:45 PM CDT up reply actions
'Going KG' is my new favourite expression.
Live And Stupid From England
by JonesTheCat on Oct 20, 2011 12:09 PM CDT via mobile up reply actions
Context
Nearly everything I have to say in these threads is driven by one fact: the NBA has worked diligently over the past couple of decades to remove games from free TV, and to hide them on pay access channels (cable, dish). For that reason alone, I despise David Stern and the NBA owners. They are hiding the game behind paywalls and that is flat out evil.
Sports are not just entertainment. They are a common experience that binds entire nations together in a shared pastime. Once you restrict access to only those with money, you dilute that shared experience.
Please note that we’re not arguing over hand checking or where the three-point line should go: we’re arguing over how much billionaires should pay millionaires. That’s not a discussion that has anything to do with the game, but it seems to be all that’s important to the ass-clowns who bring us our basketball.
No sport should be privatized. If it’s not in the public domain, it’s not sport, it’s entertainment. When I want entertainment, I’ll go to a movie. Entertainment is scripted, sports are not (except in the mind of David Stern, lottery fixer and big media market enthusiast).
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
In other news, Glen Taylor...
… was re-elected as the chairman of the Board of Governors of the NBA.
I think you misspoke in the original post
As diehard Wolves fans we know “3” things about KG. 1. He is fiery and passionate. 2. He goes 100% at everything he does. And 3. He sometimes misdirects that fiery passion because he is not exactly Einstein.
These things add up to me being completely able to believe that he walked into the middle of a negotiation and started messing sh!t up.
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