freakazoid
Well-Known Member
I say we shut it down for two years and see which side gains a new perspective.
Lockout!!!
- Thread starter colton
- Start date
I say we shut it down for two years and see which side gains a new perspective.
Let's balance that idea a little more: let's just blow up the league. Players walk on their deals and owners eat their debt. I wonder which side gains more perspective.
billyshelby
Well-Known Member
It would be hilarious enough reading the stories of NBA players after one year of losing paychecks. Two years would be a parade of misery. In that time, the worst NBA owner story would be a guy suffering through sympathies at the yacht club over '88 bottles of Lafite Rothschild and the indignity of knowing their net worth is crumbling towards 999 million taking them out of the billionaire club.
mellow
Well-Known Member
The teams and the players have made each other lots of money, and could continue to make money together for many years. But the idea that they one has to 'beat' the other and 'win' the negotiation is putting the entire money making venture in jeopardy. If they can ever realize they are only fighting themselves they will reach agreement, until then they are killing each other. 
freakazoid
Well-Known Member
I'm guessing one side would still be rich, while the majority of the other side would find out what it's like to have to work for a living.
Seriously though, let's forget about hypotheticals. Let's cancel the season and see which side gets a dose of reality. If the players can start their own league or find a better life in China, then more power to them.
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billyshelby
Well-Known Member
I ridiculed the New York Times and here's my mea culpa: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/24/...d-players-resume-negotiating.html?_r=1&src=tp
I've also been very hard on Hunter, but the article states he may be the guy who hired Quinn who might be the guy that puts presents under our tree this year.
I'm desperate to be wrong about everything I've ever believed if we get this San Francisco Slap Fight settled quickly.
I've also been very hard on Hunter, but the article states he may be the guy who hired Quinn who might be the guy that puts presents under our tree this year.
I'm desperate to be wrong about everything I've ever believed if we get this San Francisco Slap Fight settled quickly.
billyshelby
Well-Known Member
I'm not optimistic. I'm delirious. And if I don't see a pro basketball game soon I'll become homicidal. I have to believe. Or I might hurt things.
Maybe I'm reading this totally wrong (and let me have it if I am), but it sure seems this lockout is producing some strange politics -- particularly anti-free market politics among conservatives.
In conservative Utah, we're most strongly supportive of the owners, and eager to call the players greedy. Meanwhile we're supporting the owners in trying to instill as many anti-free market policies as they can. All evidence suggests that if the NBA were truly a free market, the "greediest" players would get more money than they do now.
And why not? In a truly free market, they deserve it. They are among the world's 500 best at a very marketable skill. The owners? Not so much. You can't tell me that compared to the players there's not two, three, 10 or even 100 times as many people in the world who couldn't competently own an NBA team. There may not be that many with the cash on hand, but there's certainly that many with the skills.
Anyway, it seems that the strong Utah support for the owners is either a small-market thing (which probably factors in partially), or a more fundamental belief (superseding faith in the free market) that ownership confers the natural right over labor to control wealth. (. . . I'll end my neo-Marxist screed now.)
In conservative Utah, we're most strongly supportive of the owners, and eager to call the players greedy. Meanwhile we're supporting the owners in trying to instill as many anti-free market policies as they can. All evidence suggests that if the NBA were truly a free market, the "greediest" players would get more money than they do now.
And why not? In a truly free market, they deserve it. They are among the world's 500 best at a very marketable skill. The owners? Not so much. You can't tell me that compared to the players there's not two, three, 10 or even 100 times as many people in the world who couldn't competently own an NBA team. There may not be that many with the cash on hand, but there's certainly that many with the skills.
Anyway, it seems that the strong Utah support for the owners is either a small-market thing (which probably factors in partially), or a more fundamental belief (superseding faith in the free market) that ownership confers the natural right over labor to control wealth. (. . . I'll end my neo-Marxist screed now.)
That's the problem with a free market society. Everyone is trying to get as much as they can without any thought to the overall good.
What if everyone held out for their own "worth".
You are already filthy rich, and in a different class than most human beings yet still you feel you are entitled to more.
The fact is the players may have a marketable skill but they can't run the show on their own. Most have no idea how to run a business. They do in fact need the owners.
The owners give them the market for their "skill".
What if everyone held out for their own "worth".
You are already filthy rich, and in a different class than most human beings yet still you feel you are entitled to more.
The fact is the players may have a marketable skill but they can't run the show on their own. Most have no idea how to run a business. They do in fact need the owners.
The owners give them the market for their "skill".
gomretat
Well-Known Member
Team based pro sports are not a free market - never have been and never will be. The free market model doesn't work if you want a league with any degree of parity and teams spread out across a country. Free market is WalMart and Home Depot in major markets with Ace Hardware at best in small markets. Free market is not the NBA or any pro team sport and frankly makes no sense as a basis for discussion unless one wants to completely tip the current system upside down. If you really go free market, small market teams simply become the D-league to 10-12 NBA teams.
The issue is not about free market. Free market is exterior. The limiting of government intervention into the marketplace. What is at issue is who controls how a business is run. Is it the owners who have taken all of the financial risk? Who have a responsibility to not only the players, but shareholders, concession folks, security, janitorial staff, etc. or is it the players who take no financial risk? Who get paid their guaranteed contracts no matter what, can walk away with no financial liability if the leaque fails (other than the lack of a paycheck).