On the first front, the issues of the impending lockout, CBA restructuring, and contraction, we were all in agreement that contraction isn't really on the table - yet. If a work stoppage were to take longer than a full season (kill me now) then maybe the league comes back with fewer teams. But until then, contraction seems a poor way to redress the league's alleged economic woes - yes the league as a whole saves perhaps $75 million in player salaries per year per team contracted, but it also loses the revenues of 41 home games, plus local tv and radio rights a certain amount of jersey sales and so on.
Edit: TSC raises good points here:
Wouldn't the focus be on teams that are already losing tons of money and/or in markets that aren't generating large amounts of revenue. There is more than just losing revenue, these teams have expenses that are far exceeding revenues because they have to fund operations in stadiums that aren't close to capacity. Not to mention their stadium deals may not be ideal (not sure on specifics here). I really have no clue how much local TV/Radio revenue we are talking about here, but I doubt its that much in these two markets (Sac and NO). Jersey sales is meh since that can be transfered to another team since the big name stars on those teams would be playing elsewhere and selling jersey's elsewhere (I would assume).To be clear, I don't disagree with any of this analysis - the league may wish to investigate whether some of these are viable markets for teams with current ownership in place. But, that's really a separate discussion from the context in which Stern raised the issue and that is the impending CBA. In that regard, it's nothing more than a big stick to swing at the players' union.
Further, the teams contracted wouldn't just vanish - there is no way an owner is just going to walk away from his franchise like a homeowner upside-down on his mortgage when other franchises are still selling for hundreds of millions of dollars. So the remaining owners would almost certainly have to make large payments to the owners being contracted, which further eats away at the "savings".
Finally, the league doesn't really [b]need[/b] contraction from a competitive sense. Whereas in the late 90s and early 2000s there may have been a dearth of NBA ready talent to fill out the 8 or so rotation spots per team, due in part to teams spending draftpicks on raw highschoolers or large and largely unknown Eastern Euros, we are in something of a golden age with respect to talent as the overseas game (and more importantly, scouting of that game) continues to improve at the same time we have had several successive deep crops of rookie players. While the Jared Dudley's and Carlos Delfino's of the world are not superstars, they are professional basketball players. Where teams can't field full rotations of minimally competent NBA players, the reason is no longer a shortage of good players but rather a failure of management (KAHHHHHHHHN!) or purposefully bottoming out (the Knicks of recent seasons).
Realistically, contraction would present more of a competitive problem than it would solve. Of the first franchises on the chopping block, two would likely be New Orleans and Sacramento - how does the league go about reassigning the marquee assets of those teams (CP3, DMC, Tyreke)? All of a sudden the Clippers add Paul to Blake Griffin and Eric Gordon virtually for free? You think this ISN'T what the league would like to see happen?
In actuality, this is merely Stern-Bot 2k11 threatening the NBAPA with 30-60 fewer jobs if they don't cave to the owners demands. Similar to the claimed 33% reduction in salary, it's a bargaining position and likely nothing more. As to what actually happens to next season, I think Etats360 outlined the most likely scenario a few weeks ago:
Here's what will happen:
1. Owners hold off as long as possible to start negotiations, so that the min salary players start to panic
2. Around July-ish, the owners purposely bring unreasonable demands to the table so as to gain leverage in negotiations. At the same time, the NBAPA starts using the media to try and influence public opinion in their favor. This will come in the form of leaking false rumors and twitter sympathy.
3. NBAPA refuses to budge to the unreasonable demands. The owners call for a lockout.
4. All the players who are desperate for money (and comprise a majority of the NBAPA), beg the NBAPA to come to a resolution as fast as possible. This is expedited when the owners set a deadline to cancel the entire season.
5. The NBAPA and owners reach an agreement, which includes a hard cap, salary reductions on existing contracts, and raising the min salary. The shortened season begins around late January.
The only thing I'd add to point 4 is that the owners costs go down dramatically during a lockout, whereas the players (cars, houses, child support, entourages) likely do not.
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Moving on to 7 team league pass, JOA grabbed the following list of "non League Pass Broadband games" (ABC, ESPN, TNT, NBATV) to demonstrate which teams are best value for money if one is choosing the "7 team" package for league pass broadband:
Boston: 33
Miami Heat: 29
Orlando: 29
LA Lakers: 27
Chicago: 27
Thunder: 25
Suns: 25
Dallas: 24
Spurs 23
Blazers: 21
Knicks: 18
Jazz: 17
Hawks: 14
Clipper: 12
Rockets: 11
Bucks 8
Hornets: 7
Kings: 7
Grizzlies: 6
with a few not listed. The best values in terms of entertainment + most games would be Clips, Bucks, Warriors, Kings, Wizards, Hornets and either Grizzlies or Jazz in my opinion.
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Finally, we talked at some length about the LBJ commercial:
For me, this is a really good commercial and getting a little further in depth (hopefully for the last time), it does make sort of sideways glances at a few important points:
1) For all the hate he's gotten this summer, he didn't actually do anything. Yeah, "The Decision" was poor in conception and douchey in execution, but he's not an actual criminal, like Mike Vick, Big Ben* or Kobe* have been before him. Nor does he have obvious and severe issues a la Tiger (no way we know even close to the whole story on that, but that's a whole other topic). So, "what do you want me to do?" is a perfectly reasonable question for him to ask. I he had stayed in Cleveland, dollars to donuts, the same people ripping him for "ring chasing" would be ripping him for not caring about winning. Had he gone to New York, it would have been chasing "global icon" status. In short, ESPN is the GOAT LeBron troll.
* allegedly though we can't talk about it due to a sealed private settlement in a civil suit.
2) That said, there's a middle ground between "stop listening to my friends" and abdicating his decisions to the Nike marketing department. Assuming that his lifelong friends are real and absolutely have LeBron's best interests at heart, that loyalty is not a perfect substitute for experience and expertise. With some trusted professional guidance, "The Decision" could have come off a lot better. For example, if he really was making his announcement that way "for the kids," why not involve the kids? The optics of the whole situation change if it's one or a procession of 15 year-olds tossing him the same softball questions Jim Gray did. As noted above, haters were going to hate, but that doesn't mean he had to do things in a way sure to promote maximal ire.
3) Really, who the hell is anyone else to tell him he's wrong for deciding to play for championships with D-Wade, Bosh and the merry band of redshirts? While you or I or MJ or Bill Simmons or whoever may have done things differently, it's his choice to make, and until we've walked a mile in shoes, it's just like, our opinion, man.
4) Finally, speaking of MJ, the playful shot at Charles Barkley with the "not a role model" and the pink donut is pretty obvious. Less obvious and harder hitting was the shot at MJ's horrifically bitter Hall-of-Fame induction speech. A welcome reminder that Michael was no prince, but the media in his day was largely sycophantic, with the closest thing to being a hater was Sam Smith. Rereading The Jordan Rules it's like a Suzy Kolber puff piece compared to the lunatic ravings of Skip Bayless, et al that Lebron has to deal with. So again, LBJ probably has some grounds to ask of MJ "who the fuck do you think you are to tell me how to live?"
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So that's what you missed, hopefully we get the technology better next time.
Nice job, gents. Look forward to reading more in the future.
ReplyDelete-- bowens