When the NBA Lockout began, I, as a writer and as a fan, refused to cover it, and refused to write about the league at all.
A couple of my friends suggested this was just an opportunity to be lazy, hell even my editors probably thought so. They couldn’t have been further off. Truth be told, there isn’t a sport I’d rather cover, nor write about. It was more like a self-imposed punishment, as if I wasn’t being punished enough by the fact that my favorite sport, and favorite league, was a lot closer than a casual fan may think to not having a season at all. Had the league been canceled, would I have continued my NBA writing boycott? Hopefully we’ll never find out.
The real reason for my refusal to write about, or cover, the greatest league in American professional sports was simple – it was the only leverage we as fans had. For the professional in me, yes the NBA Lockout is something that ought to have been covered, but I’m also a fan. The only power we the fans had was to ignore it, front like we could careless.
It works the same way as when your team isn’t being managed well, coached well, or when your favorite team’s players aren’t giving you their all night in and night out. If you are not getting the most out of the money you are spending, spend it elsewhere. Stop purchasing merchandise, stop attending games live, if you want to take it to the absolute extreme (and this is something I just could never do because I love the game too much) stop watching. You may not feel like you’re doing anything, but you are. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this or not, but you pay these athletes the millions of dollars they make. Okay, obviously not you individually, but we as fans do – collectively. For example, if there isn’t anyone in the stands, said team is not making money. If there isn’t anyone on your team who’s jersey is worth purchasing, or no one’s jersey you’d want to be seen in, it goes without saying, but don’t purchase it. If your team’s front office is running your team poorly, abandon buying anything representing that team as well. If you are simply a casual NBA fan, and the product they are putting on television is not up to your standards, don’t watch. Lower ratings equals less revenue earned by the league in television deals, and less money that can be charged in advertising, be it game sponsors, league sponsors, or local/national commercials. Can one person make put a dent on the league or a team’s financial gain? Sort of, not really though. But collectively, without a doubt we can.
It may come off as childish, and I could careless if it did, to me a lot of how the lockout was handled was childish, for lack of a better term, but not once did I get the impression that the owners or the players (save for the streetball style games we got to watch online or attend live) give a lick about the fans during the negotiations, surprising, I know. I’m sorry but if you don’t care about me, then I can’t help but to care slightly less about you. It’s human nature.
The NBA Owners didn’t seem too keen on the what the players wanted, let alone the fans. They felt they had all the leverage. The main reason they felt this way was simple, they were willing to miss 30 games to get what they wanted if that’s what it took. If necessary they were willing to miss a whole season, maybe two seasons, three, maybe more — again, thank the basketball gods it didn’t get to that point, and hopefully never will. At least that’s what they claimed. They felt they had all the leverage because they knew the players were not willing to miss that much basketball and the union would cave. When the Players Union declined the NBA’s proposal on November 14 and David Stern declared a “Nuclear Winter”, you could see the surprise in The Commissioner’s eyes. He was distraught, he couldn’t believe the players were standing their ground. Several players and Public Relations representatives, as well as a few lower key agents, with whom I’ve worked with in the past, let me in on some of this information as to where the players stood. I was sworn into oath not to tweet about it at all, that’s how these things work with them guys. If you as as writer don’t agree, it’s quite simple, it’s the last time you get any “inside information” again. They all knew the Players Associations was not going to accept the November 14 deal, they also knew, it was going to catch David Stern by huge surprise, which it clearly did. To those of us who knew, we weren’t surprised at all by that look on Stern’s face after the proposal was declined.
David Stern’s “Nuclear Winter” statement was in typical Stern fashion. See, the majority of fans get their information from the media, naturally. When Stern tells the media that the latest declined proposal is off the table, the fans lose patience with the players, and it not only puts pressure on the players to accept a deal (the next one presumably worse), but it also makes fans angry with the players. Sure they are still upset with the owners, but the most recent piece of news they have heard puts all the blame on the players. No commissioner in any professional sport has ever been better at manipulating the media than David Stern. I know for a fact Stern thought they were close, he had completely underestimated how the players felt. He didn’t think for a split second that the proposal would be declined, especially with his threat of a worse deal to follow if said deal were to be turned down. Read that last statement again. In what negotiation, that you know of, where both sides are looking to come to an agreement, does the side with the “leverage” make an offer, and if that offer is turned down, make a worse offer? Stern and the owners were seriously trying to save the season, and come to an agreement on a new CBA, what sense, at all, does it make to propose a worse offer than the one just turned down by the other party? The players were sick of being bullied around, quite simple. They weren’t going to have it. They know they are the best players in the world, they know there is no league without them. Believe it or not, there are other leagues on this planet for these players to go play in, for the owners, there aren’t any other players on this planet to replace the ones they currently employ. A lot of the players, superstars included, were closer to exercising these options than most think. And they had no leverage? Please. This is why it was so easy, for people in the know, to see the shock on Stern’s face after the players declined that November 14 offer.
Stern and his minions went back to the players to schedule more meetings (the secret ones over Thanksgiving that no one knew about).
This was, again, in typical Stern fashion. He always has to at least lead the media, thus leading the fans, to believe he was in complete control. He wasn’t. Far from it. David Stern would never let the media know this, but he had lost trust in many of the owners, and course, all of his players. Another tangent of these negotiations that were overlooked was the fact that there is a plethora of new owners in the NBA; owners who have no history working with Stern whatsoever and players (especially star players) who were more fed up with their boss than a Burger King cashier. During a crucial labor meeting about three months ago, Stern was going through one of his patronizing lectures when Dwyane Wade had enough, snapped and yelled at him, “don’t you point your finger at me!”
Not just D-Wade, but the majority of the players have had enough. For the past 12 years (since the last time a labor agreement caused the NBA to miss games — 1999) Stern had introduced a dress code (translation: so they didn’t dress like “thugs”), cracked down on physical play and taunting (no more hand-checking, and in-your-face basketball that we all loved about 80’s play), fined and suspended guys for leaving the bench, even if one of their key guys, or team-leaders had just been popped (see Western Conference Finals, 2007), largely in effort to prevent another Kermit/Rudy or Artest melee scenario. Stern pushed guys to participate in “NBA Cares”, fined them for arriving late to All-Star weekend or avoiding the press during the playoffs. Some of this may sound petty, and I’m sure to some it is, but it’s the accumulation of things; it’s the fact that the players feel as though they have been treated like property for the past dozen years.
Neither side had all the leverage in these negotiations, it wasn’t that black and white. But the media continued to lead on that the players had zero. The media led fans to believe that this was still a “thug-league”, that these guys were living paycheck to paycheck, that they wouldn’t stick together and that they would eventually cave. Much to the chagrin of the owners, they did not cave, and they were right for not doing so.
While Stern led his fans to believe the NBA was headed for a “Nuclear Winter” – via the media – what had really happened, is much to the contrary of popular belief, (and in spite of Billy Hunter’s lack of negotiation skills) the players had stuck together. As agent, Aaron Goodwin put it, this was the first time the NBA players had the opportunity to say “no”.
That aforementioned look on Stern’s face was, hindsight 20/20, his “Plan B Look”. Either the owners were bluffing the entire time (about missing the entire season, perhaps more), Stern didn’t want this lockout as one of the final few lines on his resumé as the NBA commissioner, or they simply realized; the players are standing firm. This led to the, “never made public as in typical Stern fashion” 15 hour-long meeting the day following Thanksgiving.
With that sudden urgency, a deal was agreed to in principal. NBA Players Union leader (if you want to call him that), Billy Hunter is on record (as long ago as two to three years) as to saying he knew that this upcoming season was in serious jeopardy. Ok, so we all did, the point is then why do we as fans have to wait until after Thanksgiving to see any real urgency? As I was simply told by someone in the know, “that’s how these things work, no one does anything in negotiations of this scale until they have to, Stern, who works for the owners, finally had to.”
When the Summer of 2011 began, your average NBA franchise was was more valuable for the investment itself, than the actual revenue it yielded. If you owned one of the “average franchises” and you don’t care that your business stops, that whatever revenue you were bringing in, stops coming in, then how can anyone negotiate with you?
So, again, you expect me to care about something you own, when you don’t even care about it… please! And I’m a die-hard, so do you think casual fans, even after two consecutive Godsend of seasons, care? Of course not. It’s always been a nine week season to them (the playoffs). To even some of the die-hards, the league saved us over a months worth of cash on season ticket and concession money. David Stern is quoted as to saying (paraphrasing) he wants a league where all 30 teams have a chance to win a title each season. Yea, he says this until the Bobcats meet the Grizzlies in the NBA Finals and no one watches it. The NBA will never be the NFL in that perspective. Want even more proof? The NBA disappeared for an entire month, and no one cared. Let the NFL disappear for a month in this country – and see how that boils over.
OLD DEAL / NEW DEAL
The new CBA can’t be conversed about without initially stating the number one reason as to how we got here. During “Bryan Confer’s NBA Writing Lockout” this topic was not covered by yours truly because, well we’ve been here: My refusal to write about or cover this league during the lockout. The NBA, where a die-hard fan and columnist boycotts the league, happens.
We aren’t going to look at every aspect of the lockout, we’d be here forever, but we will look at a major point, which nearly went unresolved — Contracts.
The league claimed of losses of upwards of $300 million last season.
• We’ve all either heard or personally used the phrase, “the owners and general managers need to be saved from themselves.” If you were ever uncertain about what exactly that meant, well, that’s why I’m here. What follows is a list of NBA players and their individual salaries (in millions) from last season.
Vince Carter (17.5), Yao (17.7), Sam Dalembert (13.4), Elton Brand (15.9), Eddy Curry (11.2), Hedo (10.2), AK47 (17.8), Michael Redd (18.3), Rashard Lewis (19.6), Baron Davis (13.0), Gilbert Arenas (17.7), Troy Murphy (11.9), Mehmet Okur (9.9), Andris Biedrins (9.0), Joel Pryzbilla (7.4), Vlad Radmonovic (6.8), Matt Carol (4.3), Rip Hamilton (12.5), Jose Calderon (9.0), Jason Kapono (6.6), Marcus Banks (4.8), Darius Songalia (4.8), Jermaine O’Neal (5.7), Ben Gordon (10.8), Moe Williams (9.3), Marvin Williams (7.2), Mike Dunleavy Jr (10.6), Jared Jeffries (6.8), Boris Diaw (9.0), TJ Ford (8.5), DeSagana Diop (6.4), Antawn Jamison (13.8), Dan Gadzuric (7.2).
This is $354.6 million. If the owners want to know where their $300 million in losses came last season, they can look no further than this list of 33 players, few of which were worth their 2010 – 2011 salary in their primes, let alone where just about every player on this list is in their respective careers presently.
People who are threatening suicide attempts need to “be saved from themselves”. The owners and GM’s cutting these checks simply shouldn’t be owners or GM’s of an NBA franchise, yet the likes of Ed Stefanski and Billy King, and Brian Colengo, to name a few, still have jobs as general managers in this league.
CONTRACT
One of the main reasons we had a lockout went unresolved by the time the lockout was lifted. Gotta love the NBA. That list of 33 players above… You’re never going to believe this but the owners want to be able to get out of such contracts. When the players refused any CBA which eliminated guaranteed contracts, it left the owners with few options. They settled with this:
If a player is resigning with his own team, that player can sign for five years with 7.5 percent annual raises. If a player signs with a new team, he can only sign for four years with 4.5 percent annual raises.
For sign and trades, the player being traded may only extend for three years (including the years remaining on his current contract).
Both of these are ways to “save the owners from themselves”. This commits them to fewer dollars in their near future and adds extra incentives to players who wish to remain with their current team. It’s the owners way of trying to prevent what happened with Carmelo Anthony last season.
The owners didn’t get exactly what they wanted here (non-guaranteed contracts) but settled for the next best option. Essentially one of the main reasons this lockout drug on was over contracts, and the owners didn’t get exactly what they wanted anyway… An you thought the players didn’t have any leverage.
Season
After Stern and the owners concluded that something had to be done, that the players weren’t effing around, and that the season was in serious jeopardy, they settled on the aforementioned solutions and stuck in a 66 game schedule over 120 days. Why 66 games and not 60 you ask? One word. Money. Sixty games in 120 days would have been perfect. But as we all know, NBA owners are greedy. Sixty-six games gives each owner 3 more home games to make up for lost revenue over a lockout that they induced. Wouldn’t you want to keep your players rested and healthy? Keep putting a good product out there? You would think so, but not with these guys. This NBA season has been all about quantity over quality. Do the owners care that you paid to see Kobe Bryant, yet he’s playing his 7th game in 12 days so you’re not getting the full Kobe Bryant you thought you’d paid for, that you’re getting a tired-legged, not bitch at my teammates as much because I’m not playing that hard either Kobe Bryant? No.
What’s even more fascinating is that the fans, especially the die-hards, don’t really seem to care, just that there’s basketball again. There’s also a little more to it, five reasons actually, why the NBA is flourishing, and again, ratings are as high as they’ve ever been.
5) The Miami Heat. The worst thing about the lockout? It prevented the Heat from throwing their annual pre-season championship party. Every one who cares even the slightest about the NBA has an opinion on this team, they’re compelling.
4) Plethora of young talent. Even in what was considered to be a weak draft class, the league still has young players that are going to be around for a while and are definitely fun to watch. Kyrie Irving has been a gem. Add, “the Cavs should have drafted Derrick Williams over Kyrie Irving” to my list of stupid comments over the years, which being me to…
3) Point Guards. A must have position in 2012. Look at the list of point guards in the NBA right now. It’s absurd. From the veterans (Nash, Kidd, Parker, Miller), the in-their-primes (CP3, D-Will, Rondo, Rose, Westbrook) the up-and-comers (Holiday, Jennings, Curry, Conley, Lowry, Lawson) to the sky is the limit’s (Irving, Wall and finally… Ricky Rubio). And I didn’t even mention Collison, Billups or, gulp, Baron Davis (note: we can’t give the Knicks a fair assessment until they get to play with a real point guard, not sure Davis is it though).
2) Competitiveness. Other than the teams that simply lack talent (Washington, Charlotte, Detroit and Toronto), teams that had too much turnover and with no training camp (that lockout again) and thus no time to work together (Sacramento, New Orleans, Cleveland), teams who refuse to let their star go, even though he’s earned it but is too good of a teammate and won’t force a trade (Phoenix) and teams clinging to hope of landing Dwight Howard (New Jersey), the league is loaded with competitive balance. Most of this will suffice come playoff time and when teams like Miami, Chicago, LA (pick one), and Oklahoma City get equal rest of teams like Philly, Denver, Indiana and Utah, the better team will win the 7-game series, as always in the NBA. But just for the regular season, this has been fantastic to watch. There isn’t one team with some player who’s exciting to watch, or a team without purpose, save for the ones mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph, and even most of them have something/someone to look forward to on a nightly basis.
1) Starting the season on Christmas Day. Who would have thought. Only the die-hards follow the NBA through the NFL season. Most fans watch the opening night games and are in cruise control until Christmas, when the NBA takes over.
TNT’s Christmas Day opener (Knicks – Celtics) notched a 5.9 rating, becoming the fourth most watched NBA regular season game ever on cable. ESPN’s first 14 games averaged an incredible 1.7 rating, up 31 percent from last year’s Christmas until now time period. Meanwhile, TNT’s ratings are up 70 percent from last year (big help from the season starting on Christmas) and NBATV’s ratings are up 68 percent during games.
The product itself has been lackluster at times (my 66 instead of 60 games in 120 days complaint) but people are watching. Starting on Christmas Day got everyone in tune with the league from its opening day. It seems like common sense. I have friends who are casual fans now ordering League Pass. The reasons everyone seems to be tuned into the NBA are simple. Everyone thought there wasn’t going to be a season, the league shut down for five months, then suddenly, bang, a four week fest of free agency/trades (fun for everybody) and a season starting on Christmas.
Fact: The NBA season should start on Christmas every year. The league would completely miss college football (save for a few bowl games and national championship), completely avoid competing with the NFL season (at Halloween, the NBA’s usual start date, the NFL is in full swing and no one cares about basketball). Starting on Christmas has them only competing with the NFL Playoffs (12 teams, not 32) and disgruntled Cowboys fans can move on to their Dallas Mavericks. After the NFL playoffs are over the NBA owns the rest of the winter. The league has a slow point toward the end of the year when Major League Baseball begins and NBA teams are tanking (sorry its going to happen, it’s unavoidable). After baseball’s new car smell is gone the NBA playoffs would be in full swing (when everyone watches regardless of when the season started) allowing the NBA to own late June and early July (that super dull sports week during MLB’s All-Star weekend) leaving the NBA’s only competition during that time to Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and depending on when they end, the Stanley Cup Finals. Sure starting on Christmas may force the league to a 70-75 game schedule, which they don’t want because, well you know.. Money. Looking at the big picture though, the league is flourishing because of these five reasons that I somehow turned into fifty — and whether they want you to know or not… making money. There’s just that much good going on in a league that looked doomed just a few months ago… And we didn’t even mention the Chris Paul PR debacle.
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