NBA Season 2011-12 Thread

[Rodster]

To kick start things in the right way. According to CNN SI both the NBA and Refs have agreed to a 5 year deal.

Source: NBA, referees agree on 5-year deal
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/b ... &eref=sihp

[wco81]

Is there going to be a deal?

Forget the number but a lot of teams lost money last year, including NO which had to be taken over by the league. I want to say over 20 teams, which if accurate does not bode well for the league.

Some have argued that the league needs to contract, that there aren't enough markets which can support an NBA franchise. NBA is resisting that but may have to confront reality. It's telling that the Maloofs thought they could make more money as the third team in SoCal than having Sacto to itself. Of course the Maloofs are broke and OC was dangling big money in front of them. But that would have messed up the Lakers' local TV deal.

NBA players have better contracts than NFL players, whole contracts guaranteed. But their sport is weaker financially. They're going to resist any changes which threaten their pay while the league may try to prevent contraction by demanding big concessions from the players.

Or maybe, players will take less, if so many of them are really willing to go play overseas for a fraction of their NBA contracts.

[JackB1]

To kick start things in the right way. According to CNN SI both the NBA and Refs have agreed to a 5 year deal.

Source: NBA, referees agree on 5-year deal
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/b ... &eref=sihp

That's great, but the referees will have nobody to referee unless the players and the owners make a deal.

It's getting really late now and doesn't look promising for a full season at all. It's frustrating as a fan when the owners want more
and the players want more. But I have to side with the owners. It's becoming nearly impossible for any teams to make money
unless they are in one of the top markets. This translates to higher ticket prices and more empty seats. They need to find a way for
small market teams to be profitable and for you to be able to take your family to an NBA game without breaking the bank.

[greggsand]

I predict 'No Season'. Both sides couldn't be handling it any worse. I'm going to miss it this year, but if it somehow ends with teams being contracted (unlikely), it would TOTALLY be worth it.

[AJColossal]

Based on the title, this thread should be completely empty.

[dbdynsty25]

Based on the title, this thread should be completely empty.

It's the annual NBA thread...it's usually fairly empty anyway.

[lexbur]

I wonder if Delonte found a job yet.

[pk500]

Simmons had an excellent podcast with David Stern about a month ago. Stern outlined the owners' stance and demands yet still insisted the season would start on time.

Stern is full of sh*t, based on what I heard in that podcast. The owners want the players to take an 8 percent pay cut. Billy Hunter and the players are telling them to get f*cked, as it wasn't their fault the owners accepted such a lopsided CBA in 2005. Remember, those negotiations occurred shortly after the NHL lost an entire season, so the NBA owners caved to avoid a long, costly work stoppage in their sport.

Here's a link to that podcast. A very interesting hour: http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=6856992

The season starts around New Year's, at the earliest -- if it starts at all.

[dbdynsty25]

The season starts around New Year's, at the earliest -- if it starts at all.

Yup...it's gonna be 98 all over again at best. Which is actually a good thing for a few of the older teams (Celtics, Lakers) who are making their final few runs at the Championship.

From what I heard from Simmons' twitter feed yesterday, it's really a few owners that are holding it up...Sarver (Suns, I hate you), and Gilbert (Cavs, he hates Lebron). Those are the two who absolutely will not budge when it comes to the revenue sharing. So we'll see if they do budge eventually...but it certainly isn't looking good.

Especially for you PK who finally found an interest in the NBA again last year. Nothing like slapping you in the face and telling you it was a mistake to be interested eh?

[Rodster]

I agree that there needs to be a balance in the NBA amongst teams. The NFL has done it right where ANY team has a chance to win the Super Bowl within the salary cap. But hell no one held a gun to the owners head saying you have to pay LeBron or Kobe insane amounts of money. I think it's the owners who are at fault for lack of financial self control who are willing to throw gobs of cash at a Superstar. They are the ones who want to win the NBA Championship regardless of cost.

So these guys are to be believed that NOW they want to regulate themselves with a fixed salary cap? I can never blame a player who gets payed stupid money by management, Bobby Bonilla anyone?

If the market decides they are worth X amount of money and some stupid owner feels the need to have their services, sorry but I can't blame a player for that.

[pk500]

Especially for you PK who finally found an interest in the NBA again last year. Nothing like slapping you in the face and telling you it was a mistake to be interested eh?

Yep. An unwelcome knee to the nuts.

That's always the risk to any work stoppage for pro sports leagues. There's always something lurking nearby to fill the void, especially in this era of constant content availability and consumption.

[dbdynsty25]

Funny...Simmons just posted part of his rant in his NFL column today on Grantland...here's the important part:

After wasting nearly the whole summer pointing fingers, leaking stories to reporters and doing everything except getting in a room and negotiating, Billy Hunter's side finally came down a little … and, of course, instead of just agreeing on a better revenue split (right now it's 57/43 for the players, but both sides know it will land somewhere around 51/49), four-year maxes for guaranteed contracts (easily achievable, and absolutely necessary because teams literally can't stop themselves from overpaying players and being crippled by their deals) and a slightly harder salary cap — three moves that would have gotten us 87 percent of the way there — a few of the newer owners (Cleveland's Dan Gilbert and Phoenix's Robert Sarver are the biggies) are now pushing for even more stuff and that's bogging everything down. This faction believes the players' side is crumbling because a few of the biggest NBA agents (Jeff Schwartz, Arn Tellem, etc.) lost faith in Hunter and are investigating the decertification process (which would be THE dumbest thing they could do). These owners don't just want to win this lockout, they want to take a hatchet to 65 years of progress by NBA players … who, by the way, did nothing wrong other than continue to cash in on the ridiculous contracts that owners kept giving them.

Let's take a step back and consider the stupidity of this. Sarver and Gilbert both overpaid for their teams and hope to blow up the system, then create a more favorable one that would cover up the fact that they overpaid for their teams. In Gilbert's case, he coddled LeBron for years, overpaid just about every player on his team (did Daniel Gibson write his deal himself?), showed no roster savvy whatsoever (his front office was really the Bizarro Sam Presti), crippled his own cap season after season, then flipped out when LeBron finally said, "I gotta get out of here, I need to play with better players"5 … and now he blames "the system" for what happened because there are apparently no mirrors in his house. Sarver overpaid for the Suns, realized it about a year later, then spent the next few years pinching pennies … which would have been fine if he didn't have a legitimate chance to win the title from 2005 to 2008 and also in 2010. He's the kind of guy who watched Steve Kerr build a team that came within a couple of breaks of making the 2010 Finals, then offered Kerr a pay cut. His fans hate him; hell, his own players hate him. When I made a few Sarver/Gilbert tweets yesterday, Steve Nash retweeted one of the anti-Sarver tweets.

Yes, I hate Sarver...100% correct...apparently Steve Nash does too, lol.

[JackB1]

Especially for you PK who finally found an interest in the NBA again last year. Nothing like slapping you in the face and telling you it was a mistake to be interested eh?

Yep. An unwelcome knee to the nuts.

Is there ever a "welcome" knee to the nuts?

[wco81]

The basic issue is that there's no huge TV contract which is shared equally. Instead, the situation sounds more like baseball where ticket sales and TV deals are far different from market to market.

So big market clubs can sign have the max contract players and pay the luxury tax while small market teams can't even make it. Look at how many teams have moved in the NBA compared to other sports besides NHL.

Hard cap would help bring more competitive balance but is that what the NBA or the players really want? NBA gets better ratings when certain teams have long runs in the playoffs. And players will see their salaries go down if theres a hard cap.

So the league is likely to remain a handful of Globetrotters and the rest are Washington Generals, just foils or fodder to make the glamor teams look great.

[greggsand]

So big market clubs can sign have the max contract players and pay the luxury tax while small market teams can't even make it. Look at how many teams have moved in the NBA compared to other sports besides NHL.

Hard cap would help bring more competitive balance but is that what the NBA or the players really want? NBA gets better ratings when certain teams have long runs in the playoffs. And players will see their salaries go down if theres a hard cap.

So the league is likely to remain a handful of Globetrotters and the rest are Washington Generals, just foils or fodder to make the glamor teams look great.

Many small market teams make some truly idiotic deals that wreck their franchise. Cleveland, for example, made ridiculous deals for mediocre players to "surround" Lebron. Now Cleveland is one of the teams crying foul on the current salary levels. Some of the most unbelievable contracts out there have come from small market teams over the last 5 years. Although, big-market New York is probably the WORST offender of big contacts (esp in the Thomas era).

A hard cap would not make Minnesota, for example, any more competitive considering the bone-headed moves they make in the front office. A franchise tag would probably go a lot farther to keep good players on small market teams, but the players will resist that to the very end.

Contraction is only the thing I can see that would help balance the league in that regard.

[F308GTB]

Marcus Camby...busted

Arrested about a mile from my house for pot. Didn't even realize he lives less than 2 miles down the street from me.

[Rodster]

First 2 weeks of the regular season, cancelled.

[wco81]

They said the lost revenues from those 2 weeks account for more than the difference between what the owners and players want.

[Aristo]

I am hearing almost nothing about the Basketball lockout. It's like this minor dust-up in Shaftesbury compared to the hostage crisis the NFL put us through. And the NFL didn't even lose regular season games. Although this early part of the season has featured very preseason-like quality of play.

I was listening to NPR while driving my daughter to school, when they brought up the latest news. They mentioned the last time the NBA lost regular season game was in the 98-99 season. My thought then was, "Man that was a nicer season with the short schedule."

I wonder if this could become the lockout no one cares about.

[FifaInspected]

I am hearing almost nothing about the Basketball lockout. It's like this minor dust-up in Shaftesbury compared to the hostage crisis the NFL put us through. And the NFL didn't even lose regular season games. Although this early part of the season has featured very preseason-like quality of play.

I was listening to NPR while driving my daughter to school, when they brought up the latest news. They mentioned the last time the NBA lost regular season game was in the 98-99 season. My thought then was, "Man that was a nicer season with the short schedule."

I wonder if this could become the lockout no one cares about.

the only thing that bothers me is no "NBA Today" in 2K12.

[pk500]

Different leagues, different times.

The NFL is our national sports obsession. It's far and away the most popular pro league in America. NFL regular-season TV ratings dwarf those of the regular season or postseason of any other sport. No news flash there, I know.

Plus the NFL lockout reached its fever pitch during July, when there is nothing significant to see on the American team sports landscape. Baseball is in the proverbial dog days of its endless schedule, and the July games are seemingly meaningless calendar place holders for all but the hardcore fans. The All-Star Game is a one-night respite from that tedium.

So combine football's place at the pinnacle of American sport with a dead spot in the annual sports cycle, and it was inevitable the NFL lockout would feel more like Armageddon.

But you're on to something about the apathy regarding the NBA lockout. There are a few factors at work.

One, does anyone care about the NBA in late September and early October even during times of labor harmony? Only the hardcore.

Two, it's an unbelievably brisk time in the sports schedule in early October. Pro and college football, baseball postseason, NASCAR Chase.

Three, and I think this is most important: The two sides in the NBA labor dispute are so far apart that there seems to be this predestined sense of a truncated or lost season. The cancellation of anything up to half of the season should rank right up there on the surprise meter with "Sun rises in east, sets in west" to anyone who has followed this story even on a basic level.

The sides in the NFL lockout never were that far apart in their bargaining positions, so there was more intense yearning to just bridge that final crack and get on with the season. The gap between NBA owners and the union isn't a crack -- it's the Grand F*cking Canyon.

I'll be surprised if the NBA follows the black hole blueprint of the NHL's lost season of 1994-95 and cancels the entire schedule. But anything short of that won't cause me to raise more than a few eyelashes, which is sad because I really got back into the NBA last season like I never expected. I wasn't alone, as there were record ratings last season for the Association.

This definitely has the feel of the lost NHL season. The Rangers had just won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 54 years in an epic Stanley Cup Final featuring charismatic players like Messier and Bure, and hockey was relevant and cool again. Then it melted all of that momentum with the lockout.

Looks like the NBA might do the same. Lessons lost.

[vinny-b]

I wonder if this could become the lockout no one cares about.

it will become the lockout i don't care about. And if NFL players don't stop having a f#cking orgasm every time they make 1/2 of a play, the NFL will follow suit for me, in near future. That sh*t is getting old FAST

[dbdynsty25]

I wonder if this could become the lockout no one cares about.

it will become the lockout i don't care about. And if NFL players don't stop having a f#cking orgasm every time they make 1/2 of a play, the NFL will follow suit for me, in near future. That sh*t is getting old FAST

If I could orgasm with half the effort...I'd do it. Just an FYI.

[vinny-b]

I wonder if this could become the lockout no one cares about.

it will become the lockout i don't care about. And if NFL players don't stop having a f#cking orgasm every time they make 1/2 of a play, the NFL will follow suit for me, in near future. That sh*t is getting old FAST

If I could orgasm with half the effort...I'd do it. Just an FYI.

lol.

[wco81]

It seems the NBA players don't have as much sympathy as the NFL players did, relative to the owners. Of course, when the NBA is saying there was a combined $300 million loss among 20-odd teams (but what was the combined bottom line of the remaining teams, probably the most profitable franchises in the league?), owners may get more sympathy, especially since the big stars get huge, guaranteed contracts.

But cancellation of the first 2 weeks seems to be a gambit to try to break the players' solidarity and maybe get more public support.

Looks like they're unwilling to consider contraction, because that would be perceived as losing ground, even if financially, there aren't 32 markets for pro basketball in North America.

Once the baseball playoffs are over, there's going to be a gulf during the week. Not sure NHL and NFL talk are enough to fill that gap.