Lockout!!!

[Dr. Jones]

just curious if there's a reference to something a player said with the, "2am, in the morning" thing?

 

[Chris-L]

I like how most of the remaining stars and superstars are close to signing overseas for millions while the rank and file players will be paying for their Thanksgiving and Christmas meals with unemployment checks. Let's see how long this lasts.

Makes me wonder, will these guys actually get unemployment checks if they apply? Never been on unemployment, but don't they give you like 70% of your income?. I'm not OK paying these guys 100k+ a month because they couldn't budget wisely.

 

[Chris-L]

....well, that's the type of thinking you have that comes from guys who think nothing of covering there ENTIRE bodies from neck to foot with tattoo's.......and who think nothing bad happens at 2 am in the morning at Strip Clubs! Do you honestly think these guys have an ounce of brains or any common sense whatsoever?

Are you saying people who tattoo their bodies and enjoy looking at boobs are stupid and have no common sense? If so, I take that personally.

 

[Ben10]

Makes me wonder, will these guys actually get unemployment checks if they apply? Never been on unemployment, but don't they give you like 70% of your income?. I'm not OK paying these guys 100k+ a month because they couldn't budget wisely.

Unemployment pays 70% percent up to a max amount. For example the max unemployment you can get in the state of Nevada is $398.00 per week. So if a guy makes $40,000 a year he would get $398.00 per week. Is a guy makes $100,000 a year he would get $398.00 per week. So no worries about these guys getting a ton of $ off of Unemployment

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Whether they have enough savings to live on (vs. drawing unemployment, begging, mooching, doing promotional appearances here and there, etc.) is not particularly relevant to the notion that by not approving the deal (partly by not having a chance to and not really having had much explained to them about it), they are missing out on six, seven, or maybe even eight figures of salary this year that they will be hard-pressed to recuperate in alternative lines of work, including overseas play.

I think that most fans here care more about whether they play (and maybe what their decisionmaking process is in doing so) than whether they survive, which is probably a non-issue as you correctly suggest.

I think the issue is less about $$$ and more about pride.

 

[carolinajazz]

just curious if there's a reference to something a player said with the, "2am, in the morning" thing?

.....where have you been...the Antarctica or something? Every time one of these sports figures gets busted or in trouble for malfeasance while patronizing a Strip Club at 2 am in the morning.....the coach, newspaper guys and anyone else who may have some sense will say "NOTHING good happens at 2 am in the morning at night clubs!" But these athletes think they can go there, have a good time and then leave unscathed!

 

[Dr. Jones]

.....where have you been...the Antarctica or something? Every time one of these sports figures gets busted or in trouble for malfeasance while patronizing a Strip Club at 2 am in the morning.....the coach, newspaper guys and anyone else who may have some sense will say "NOTHING good happens at 2 am in the morning at night clubs!" But these athletes think they can go there, have a good time and then leave unscathed!

just curious where the redundancy of "2am .. 'in the morning" germinated?

 

[InGameStrategy]

I think the issue is less about $$$ and more about pride.

+1 on that.

Chauncey Billups is among the proudest, giving up $14ish million in the final year of his contract.

As a thirtysomething.

For pride.

Some of these youngins, especially with nonguaranteed contracts, will be hurt the most.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles...eaction-on-twitter-to-union-disbanding/page/4
If they had better advice or common sense, they would have been screaming from the raptors--er, rafters--to get a deal done. Some of them will probably not even make it into the NBA. They journeyman should have gone Occupy Conference Room on the executive committee. The lawyers will definitely win ($$$, no pride (or shame, for that matter)).

The agents might win, although they are probably giving up a percentage of year's salary just like everyone else. I don't fully understand their motives, although they probably have ambitions to make some cool cash on a short-term All-Star touring team or even a competing elite league. The former is much easier than the latter, and I still think that most of the agents will have been better off just going with 50-50.

 

[billyshelby]

Well if the remaining players hold off until the start of the next Euro season I'm sure they could all get jobs playing in some league. You make it sound like they are going to starve. They will survive. These aren't people who are use to being millionaires their whole lives.

I kind of doubt this. I'd bet only half the current NBA players would find jobs at best. The obvious problem is foreign leagues have guys under contract as well which limits opportunity. But the unseen issue is foreign teams have their own players who sell seats. My guess is foreign teams LOVE the idea of adding an NBA player, or even two, but know their fans want to see NBA guys playing with the guys they already know, not taking over the whole league.

 

[LogGrad98]

just curious where the repetitive redundancy of "2am .. 'in the morning" germinated?

Fixed.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Fixed.

yep, that

 

[freakazoid]

You can't oversell how disorganized Hunter's side has been — especially last weekend and on Monday, when they never allowed the players to vote, failed to give them enough information and couldn't even wrangle every player rep to Monday's meeting in New York. It took them five solid days to respond to Stern's offer; instead of countering with four or five system tweaks like Stern expected (he would never admit that publicly because it would belie his whole "take it or leave it" stance, but it's true), the players simply shredded it and launched the NBA's "nuclear winter" (Stern's words, and really, his only inspired moment of the past few months). Anyone who commends the players for standing up for themselves should mention that, during those five days — which doubled as the five most essential days in the recent history of the players association — many players couldn't even get in touch with their team reps (much less Hunter or Fisher). Those players were standing up for themselves, all right — they were standing up to make sure they had cell phone reception because nobody was emailing them any updates. What a mess.

4. The Agents
If the players don't trust the owners or Stern, and they're losing trust in Hunter and Fisher, who's left?

You guessed it … it's those shrewd and lovable legal minds who negotiate for players, call them every day, know their kids' names, won them over years ago, spent the last few months quietly undermining Hunter, know how to butter up media members and curry favor, and currently have their clients lathered into an anti-The-Man frenzy. The agents despised the owners' latest proposal — they don't want the middle class compromised in any way, or sign-and-trades, or the luxury tax, because that might curtail player movement (their bread and butter). They would rather lose a season to protect what they have, knowing they have much longer careers and they'll make those commissions back over time as long as they can prevent the NBA's model from changing against them too drastically right now.

Make no mistake: The agents are the single smartest group involved in this lockout. They make absurd commissions working over general managers (usually ex-players) who are almost always unequipped to negotiate with them. You know that saying "laughing all the way to the bank"? That's what the best sports agents do. Trust me, they have done the math. They figured out exactly where this lockout needs to end for them — repeat: for them — and advised the players accordingly. Meanwhile, these players can NEVER get that lost season back from three standpoints: how it affects them financially, how it affects their playing careers, and how it affects their fans (especially the casual ones who hopped on the bandwagon these past two years and will just as quickly hop off). The agents were supposed to be protecting these guys; instead, they protected themselves. Of course …

You know what the real irony is? The owners' last proposal actually made a ton of sense. Read Howard Beck's breakdown of what it would have looked like, potentially, and try to find ONE thing that isn't logical. Contracts should be shorter so fans aren't getting constantly turned off by that relentlessly overpaid mediocrity. The gap between big market teams and small market teams should be smaller. A team like Cleveland should have a more favorable chance to keep its best player. A star like Carmelo shouldn't be able to force a trade and get rewarded with a mammoth extension. The mid-level exception should be tempered — it spawned too many dumb contracts and made it harder for teams to improve. What's wrong with coming up with a smarter model in which the right money goes to the right people? That's a bad thing?

Hunter and Fisher failed to prepare the players, fed their anti-Stern neuroses, never unearthed a decent strategy and misread every conceivable tea leaf. Their goal from Day One should have been, "We have no leverage, we need to get the best deal we can without missing any paychecks." Even last week, they mistook Stern's ultimatum as "take it or leave it" when it was really an "S.O.S." — with his influence eroding, Stern barely had enough owner votes and knew small-market teams (along with Washington and Denver) wouldn't back any other offer unless it pillaged the players.8 Hunter and Fisher thought he was bluffing. They were wrong. Dead wrong. That offer is gone. And it's not coming back.

https://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7250994/business-vs-personal