Looks like quite the festive environment…
I do like that after the wicked around-the-back/crossover move, he was looking to pass. He’s going to be a good one.
Tag: NBA lockout (Page 7 of 8)
The headline is the good news. This is the bad news…
When the sides last met on June 30, the players offered a six-year agreement in which they would cut their take of basketball-related income (BRI) from 57 percent to 54.6 percent — or $100 million per year over the six years.
Owners are seeking a 10-year agreement with a hard salary cap, and their most recent proposal targeted paying the players at least $2 billion in salaries in each of the 10 seasons.
Players have argued that their cut of BRI would be cut from 57 percent to less than 40 percent under the owners’ most recent proposal, while owners have maintained they need fundamental financial changes to an operating system in which they claim 22 of the league’s 30 teams lost money last season. The union disputes that contention.
As Larry Coon explained a few weeks ago, the two sides are miles apart. They can’t even agree on which numbers to use.
Derrick Rose, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and others take on Smart Gilas in the Philippines in late July. (Apparently there’s no HD over there.)
Remember when Josh Childress signed a deal with a Greek team because he wasn’t happy playing as a restricted free agent for the Atlanta Hawks? One would think that with the interest being generated in Europe that Greece’s biggest teams (Olympiakos and Panathinaikos) would be big players. But as HoopsHype reports, the economy in Greece makes that a non-starter:
“It’s ironic,’’ says agent Marc Cornstein of Pinnacle Hoops, who has extensive experience placing players in Europe. “(Olympiakos and Panathinaikos) were in the forefront with Childress and Kleiza. They were very aggressive in the past. But they are lagging because of the economic climate over there. It’s very quiet.”
Has Cornstein heard anything about either Greek team making approaches to NBA players?
“In a word – no,’’ he said. “It’s a shame, really. They were two of the biggest teams in Europe.”
Greece’s volatile and tumultuous economic climate certainly militates against signing a big-name player. As Cornstein put it, “you would have to be very, very cautious about sending a player there right now, and not even from a basketball standpoint. Look at their economy. That has an impact on all industries, including basketball.”
It’s also not as financially advantageous. The pro basketball players in Greece used to be taxed at a flat, 20 percent. Now, they are taxed the same as all Greek citizens and, for any highly-paid player, that means the tax would likely be 45 percent.
If not for the Greek financial meltdown, Olympiakos and Panathinaikos would likely be major players during the NBA’s lockout. NBA players are likely to consider only those European franchises on the most solid of footing, as basketball in Europe has long been plagued with stories of bounced paychecks (or no paychecks at all).
In a memo sent to players on Tuesday night and obtained by ESPN on Wednesday, [Billy Hunter] said the NBPA supports all players “who are taking steps to continue to earn a living, stay in peak competitive shape, and play the game that we love while the unfortunate league-imposed lockout is in place.”
“This lockout is intended to economically pressure our players to agree to an unfavorable collective bargaining agreement,” Hunter wrote. “It is important for the owners to understand that there may be significant consequences to their decision to put their own players in these difficult economic circumstances.
“If the owners will not give our players a forum in which to play basketball here in the United States, they risk losing the greatest players in the world to the international basketball federations that are more than willing to employ them.”
This support flies in the face of Stephen A. Smith’s assertion that Deron Williams is selfish for signing a one-year deal to play in Turkey. If the players are able to prove that they can find work elsewhere, it will put them in a position of power since it will prove that the owners need them more than they need the owners. Not everyone is going to go overseas, but that doesn’t really change the dynamic within the union. Deron Williams wants to lockout to end just like every other player in the league, whether he plays in Turkey or not.
Here’s an idea — every player that plays elsewhere during the lockout puts 25% of his pay into a slush fund that will be distributed amongst all mid-level and lower players in the union. That way, those rank and file players will keep getting paychecks (however small) and the union’s position will be that much stronger. No one would question the union’s togetherness with such a system in place.
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