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Sam Smith: Isiah Thomas Pessimistic About The Season
[Chicago Tribune] [SPORTS]
ISIAH'S PESSIMISTIC PROPHECY:
MAYBE NO NBA SEASON
Sam Smith
November 17, 1998
He has been on the cover of
Forbes and Sports
Illustrated.
His corporate success has
begun to rival his athletic
success.
When he was president of the
National Basketball Players
Association (1988-94), the
union enjoyed some of its
greatest growth. When he ran
the Toronto Raptors, the team
was regarded as one of the
fastest-developing expansion
franchises ever.
So future Hall of Famer Isiah
Thomas may have more insight
and perspective about the NBA
labor dispute than any person
in the world.
And Thomas, who is getting
ready to move into the
electronic computer industry
from his corporate base in
Michigan, is not optimistic
about what he is seeing.
"This is going to be a long,
nasty one," he said. "I don't
know if we'll play this year
because (the players are)
dealing with a different type
of mentality from the
ownership side now. This is
not a game (the owners are)
unfamiliar with."
Thomas speaks from experience
as a businessman. His
ventures include American
Speedy Printing and sports
and entertainment companies.
""This is not a mom-and-pop
game anymore," he said. "Now
you have corporate cultures
and mind-sets coming into the
sports industry. For them,
these types of downsizing,
cutting middle management . .
. they've already been
through these things. In this
whole equation, the only ones
really being hurt are the
players, and as a former
union president that really
bothers me.
"The thing we always prided
ourselves on is not missing
paychecks. I was always able
to make a deal because I
think I had a street
mentality: You fight when
you're strong, you compromise
when you're weak.
"Everyone knew the owners
were gearing up for this
fight. They were prepared.
This is not the time to
fight. This was the time to
live another day and have the
fight three years from now.
This wasn't the time to stand
up and say, `I'm the biggest,
I'm the baddest.' You've got
two sides believing the other
is going to break. Well,
guess what? Neither side is.
You've got to sit down and
make a deal. Being unified is
one thing. But it's all about
the dollar."
Thomas knows something about
that, having cut business
deals that earned him
front-cover notice in Forbes.
And as players association
president, Thomas went
through what the union is
facing now--an internal
battle for power between rich
and midlevel players.
In the late 1980s, Thomas
fought off the rich players
and powerful agents and got a
prepension plan passed over
the objections of agent David
Falk and star players Michael
Jordan and Magic Johnson.
The plan reduced each team's
salary cap by about $1
million, with the money going
into a fund to aid players
over the time between their
retirement and their pensions
going into effect. The
primary beneficiaries were
the lower-earning players.
"A lot of the top agents and
players were mad because they
felt that $1 million would go
to them," Thomas recalled. "I
caught holy hell from Jordan,
Magic, Falk. They all had
things to say. But everyone
benefits now."
Thomas will be back working
for NBC once the season
starts--if it ever does--but
he hasn't been consulted by
union leadership.
"I have spoken with a lot of
players, more than 100," he
said. "I've spoken with
(David) Stern, (Russ) Granik
and players who wanted me to
come to their meeting in Las
Vegas. I didn't think it was
appropriate. I tell the
players they need to stay
unified, that you never go
against the union. Of course,
we never had to worry about
unity and solidarity and all
that other stuff because we
were getting paid."
Thomas believes there is a
solution.
On the players' side, he
said, too many have benefited
undeservedly from the Larry
Bird exception, which allows
teams to pay their own
players any amount. It's a
key issue in the
negotiations.
"What you need to do is
benchmark it," Thomas said.
"You have to meet, say, five
criteria: statistics, selling
out the building, making your
team better, winning,
improving, getting the
points, rebounds, assists.
Then you put a hard-cap
number on everyone else and
they divide it up."
But Thomas doesn't absolve
management of blame in the
current impasse.
"I tell owners it's unfair
for them to ask players to
more or less lessen their
burden because they cannot
control their general
managers," Thomas said. "You
have players and owners
pitted against one another
because the managers screwed
up. Like Big Country (Bryant)
Reeves. Mistakes like that
should not set the market. If
someone else is willing to
make a mistake on a player,
fine. You don't have to match
that. So if you lose your
player, you should know you
can replace him. If a manager
can't evaluate talent
properly, if he screws up,
he's got to go.
"But what this comes down to
is issues that should be a
thing of protest, not
something you miss money
over. These should be issues
you talk about and have the
season going. I tell the
players, this is not good for
them."