RE: LockOUT!

["Noah P. Evans" <ishbak@conknet.com>]

> Good, it's about time the NBA got it's act together. Let's keep focused
> here. I don't care what other sports leagues do. I mainly like round ball.
> First and clear, I'm a company man, been self employed most of my working
> life and love it, why? Profits.


> The owners say their devoting 57% of income to salaries.

Maybe they are maybe they aren't. *say* is the key word here. Their talk of
impending poverty is ludicrous with the new TV deal.

>Average player
> makes $2.2 mil.

That's a bit of creative accounting, the average player *salary* is 2.2 mil.
It's mostly Mourning, Jordan and their ilk as opposed to the Bruce Bowens
and Tyus Edneys of the league.

>Not bad. With 15-28 teams showing red ink, you can see
> where the league is headed.

Yeah right into green wads from the new TV deal.


>I for one am sick of labor whining.

I for one am not. I'm sick of owners rolling in wealth trying to plead
poverty. I, for one, would prefer that the players give the owners the
brushoff entirely and establish a NBA coop.

> If these
> players can't make enough dough, get a real job.

You would call basketball something other than a real job? I would take a
nice accounting job to taking Mourning or Shaq's elbow upside the head every
other day for half the year. Also how many other jobs leave you crippled
when you finish?

>It's become a
> joke.

Yeah, when players begin to show the greed the owners have had all along,
then it's a joke.

>Ticket
> prices have become a joke.

Now whose fault is that? If the owners were less concerned with lining their
own pockets then we wouldn't have this problem. I bet if the players ditched
the owners and their profits entirely and paid their salaries and other
costs with just the TV deal, the players could give tickets away for free.

> "The NBA has had enormous growth, globally even," said Atlanta forward
> Tyrone Corbin, a member of the union's executive committee. "The players
> just want their fair share."

> BULL.

Care to back that up? The players are the ones fighting for rebounding
position under the basket. How many owners do you see do that? The owners
are parasites they are the ones that deserve their fair share, *nothing*.

> "There are ways the wealth can be redistributed and still pay players
> market value," agent Strickland said. "But why should the employees be
> forced to manage the owner's problems?"

>It's simple dummy, if the owner of
> a team is losing green, the players also suffer.

Yup. That's why you ditch the owner and take your salary out of the profits.
No owners problems to manage there, just your own.

> It's called consolidation. The NBA is too big
> anyway, can't support teams w/quality players anymore. Losing a few teams
> would only help.

I agree with you on that one. I would love to see every team with an at
least competant center.

> "All I know," said Corbin, "is basketball was a lot more fun when I didn't
> know about the business side of it."

>He still doesn't!!

Yeah, which is why he and the other players haven't left the owners out to
dry.

> Will management hold fast, I doubt it.

You're right again. Especially with the new TV deal(although IIRC the owners
get paid anyway, even if they lose the season to labor strife).

>Probably just posturing.

>It will be
> a ball laughing at the players making $4-8mil that can't dribble, rebound,
> pass, or even run in some cases.

Have you ever seen an NBA player play outside of NBA games? They're much
better than you think.

> GO OWNERS.

My sentiments exactly. Go Owners, go drown in the effluence of your own
greed.

Noah