Re: Charity begins at home

[j.hironaka@unesco.org]

Paul M wrote:

> And maybe you aren't reading what I've been writing. I agree that
> something
> needs to be done about the escalation of salaries. But I think the
> players
> are under no obligation to ensure that the owners will never make a
> bad
> investment again. Should they HELP the owners get their spending under
>
> control? Absolutely. From what I've read, and none of us have been in
> the
> room, the players have agreed to changes in the CBA. Have they gone
> far
> enough? I'm not sure. However, it seems to me that the owners want a
> hard
> cap and nothing else. It seems that they want to set limits on
> salaries
> and, at the same time, be able to draw from a fund supplied by the
> players
> if salaries still go over an agreed percentage of revenues. They seem
> to be
> saying that the players need to carry all responsibility when it comes
> to
> getting the owners spending under control. It sounds to me like the
> owners
> are saying that they are and have been helpless when they walk into a
> room
> to negotiate. For a decade they marketed the players as the whole
> show,
> they marketed the game as just another form of entertainment...and
> surprise, surprise...the players demanded to be paid as entertainers
> who
> are the whole show. And the owners profited throughout. I wonder what
> Donald Sterling pockets from all basketball related revenues? There's
> a guy
> who's done a wonderful job. Are there any revenues not shared with the
>
> players? Have the owners been honest about declaring revenues that had
> to
> be shared with the players? Look, there's this constant barrage on
> this
> list and in the media about the immoral behavior of the players. A lot
> of
> them are idiots. But...the owners are any better? One more thing. The
> players have asked for a third party to come in and mediate this
> thing.
> This can hurt? What's the problem? This isn't a red flag signalling
> that
> the owners aren't interested in settling this thing fairly? I have to
> go to
> work. More later. Concerning Walker, it's unclear to me that they
> would
> have to pay him $100 mil., and it's unclear to me that even if they
> did, it
> would be a bad investment.
>

This need not come as a great shock to anyone, but I go along with the
above post line by line.

I'm not a labor history expert but it seems to me just intuitively that
the owner's insistence on elements of command-economy, market-rigging
would draw howls of protest from ordinary folks if it were imposed in
almost any other American labor context (whether against super wealthy
screen-actors or working-class truck-drivers). On the face of it, the
escrow system really seems to me like an almost comical demand. How many
bosses do you know would be ballsy enough to ask you (with a straight
face, even) "just in case I spend too recklessly, can't I please just
deduct it from your future salary?"

I guess what spares this owner-imposed lockout from being more uniformly
perceived by both conservative and liberal pundits as strangely
"un-American" and "anti-competitive" is that the player's are widely
characterized as super spoiled and shallow people, regardless of how
hard a few <g> may have worked to beat the many and staggering odds it
takes to earn a job in the NBA.

Joe