Re: Charity begins at home

["Jim Meninno" <jim_meninno@hotmail.com>]

Specifically, what changes have the players agreed to that will reduce 
salary growth?  The escrow system?  The luxury tax?  These are both 
player proposals that the owners have agreed to try, provided there are 
provisions for what happens if they don't work.  If the owners had the 
hard cap they ask for, they would not need the escrow system.  So it is 
not "at the same time" as you have suggested.  The whole reason for the 
ridiculous escrow system being proposed is that the players will not 
concede on the LBE and that means salaries will be unlimited.  The "hard 
cap" the owners have asked for is not an absolute limit that a team can 
spend but, rather, an absolute limit that league wide salaries can 
reach.  Personally, I think all the proposals I've heard so far are far 
too complicated to ever work well.  

This business of hiding revenues is a red herring.  What constitutes 
basketball related income was agreed in the last CBA and must now be 
open to negotiation.  If the players really feel the books are cooked, 
they've got plenty of lawyers and accountants to keep the owners honest.  
This is nothing but PR.

It's pretty clear to me that the owners believe that salaries have been 
growing faster than revenues for a long time and the time has come for 
them to level off.  The players seem to believe that they can keep 
getting a bigger and bigger slice of the pie, with no ill effects to the 
league.  That is an absurd premise.

Jim


>From: damekmo@teleport.com
>Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1998 08:03:35 -0900
>To: celtics@igtc.com
>Subject: Re: Charity begins at home
>
>>Others have pointed out to you before that you are being hypocritical
>>when, on the one hand you criticize the owners for lack of control, 
and
>>on the other blast Gaston for not wanting to pay Antoine $100 million
>>dollars.  How do you explain these conflicting opinions?
>>
>>Jim
>>
>
>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.
>
>Paul M.
>
>
>
>


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