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Re: Peter Vecsey Blasts Billy Hunter
Amen! I hate Billy Hunter with a pure loathing which I can't even sum
up for Falk and Mishkin. The one good thing about this lockout is
that you can hate Billy Hunter with all your heart and soul, and know
that the players could have had this deal in September. He's the
Nixon of the NBA, dragging out the war endlessly for no reason. I
hate him. I hope he breaks his head. I hope hundreds of players read
Peter's column, wake the fuck up, and make waves to get this resolved.
What the hell are they thinking? You used to at least be able to
count on money talking and bullshit walking. Now bullshit is walking
and talking.
---Way Of The Ray wrote:
>
> [New York Post]
> SPORTS
>
> BILLY BALL ISN'T WORKING
>
> By PETER VECSEY
> --------------------------------------------
> VETERANS on the downside of their careers
> and disadvantaged free agents should think
> about this (as the harmfully inexperienced
> and/or, destructively incompetent Billy
> Hunter wastes valuable time and gamble
> precious money, none of which is his own)
> as they set their Thanksgiving table:
>
> Not only are the players seriously risking
> the permanent loss of one season and one
> full salary, but they're jeopardizing their
> careers (NBA life expectancy is
> four-to-five years) as well. Should their
> leader and their stumbling staff screw
> things up any more than they have,
> resulting in the season's cancellation,
> they'll be two crops of rookies and two
> groups of free agents vying for jobs next
> summer.
>
> Roughly 100 current players would find
> themselves out of the league; none of them,
> I suspect, David Falk would have time to
> represent.
>
> Judging by Hunter's repeated (supposedly)
> misunderstanding of a critical mechanism
> (specifically the escrow fund) and sinful
> inaction over the last five months, the
> union's executive director obviously thinks
> dragging out negotiations will somehow
> translate into a better deal.
>
> Oh, really? Guaranteed, the same agreement
> (54 percent for the players, 46 for the
> owners) that inevitably will be reached as
> early as next Wednesday, it says here -
> despite the bitterness that abruptly
> engulfed the stalled negotiations over the
> last three days - could've been easily
> struck last June, early September, a month
> ago, whenever, had Hunter wanted to make a
> remotely fair deal.
>
> Instead, Hunter seems intent to prove,
> above all else, he's making it up as he
> goes along and he's not cowered by David
> Stern.
>
> Perish the perception!
>
> That's why this mess has lingered in limbo
> so long. Clearly, Hunter's primary strategy
> was to delay, delay, delay. That way he's
> in charge, not at Stern's beck and call.
> How many times did we read that he was
> supposed to get right back to the league
> and waited a week or more?
>
> Hunter's secondary mission was to incite
> his constituency in order to maintain
> solidarity. How many times has he faked the
> players into believing the owners were
> disrespecting or deceiving them by making a
> mountain out of molehill issues?
>
> Remember when negotiations got positive in
> late October and league officials had the
> audacity to show their optimism? Hunter
> fixed 'em good. First chance he got he
> recanted a comprehension of the framework
> that had been established.
>
> Now we're informed that the framework again
> was misunderstood by Hunter! How can this
> be after 10 hours of negotiations last
> Friday and all the highly paid lawyers
> surrounding him? Hey, Billy, who's on
> first? Maybe Hunter and henchman Jeffrey
> Kessler should just get it over with and
> change their names to Abbott and Costello.
> Or is this, as Stern suggested last time
> around, the ultimate Falk Pas?
>
> Naww, I can't believe David Falk is behind
> Hunter's gradual mood swings and mind
> alterations. Come on, if the agent for the
> mindless had that much influence, he
> would've cracked the Top Ten of The
> Sporting News' most powerful people in
> sports list versus having to petition
> editors in person for an a slight upgrade.
>
> The truth is, at the time of the first
> misunderstanding, 78 percent of the players
> were repulsed by the word work, while the
> remaining 22 percent declared the owners
> would never get away with framing them.
>
> Not that I didn't find Hunter's statement a
> month ago mournfully incriminating. When a
> report surfaced in this space that the
> season might begin Dec. 1, he quickly
> lowered expectations to meet his comfort
> level and coordinate with his game plan or
> lack thereof.
>
> As far as Hunter was concerned, he couldn't
> visualize it starting until early January -
> as if to punish NBC, depriving it of its
> showcase Christmas doubleheader. That'll
> teach the network to subsidize the owners
> during the lockout. If not for NBC's
> commitment, the owners might've been forced
> to borrow money from Sonics team rep Jim
> McIlvaine (if anybody should be seated on
> the side of ownership it's this stiff) or a
> car from Kenny Anderson.
>
> This has been the situation throughout. The
> capacity to cancel the season belongs to
> Stern, who can't be expected to hold off
> owners indefinitely from doing what a
> number of them wanted to the moment Pious
> Patrick Union began preaching about the
> sanctity of marriage, er, the players'
> suffering.
>
> On the other hand, there's no doubt the
> players' blind allegiance and the time
> table to tip off the season belong to
> Hunter. Larry Fleisher, Charlie Grantham,
> Simon Gourdine and Alex English may have
> been pushovers for the commissioner - which
> is why the players only managed to pocket
> 57 percent of the 1997-98 and average $2.6
> million but Stern will never dominate him.
>
> Meanwhile, Hunter, Kessler and Falk's
> foolish followers already have cost union
> members $350M (there's plenty more where
> that came from) in deleted games. So much
> for the league's Stay In School Campaign.
> It's not healthy, I submit, to see players
> using their degrees from Wharton's School
> of Business to their detriment.
>
> No one, of course, has taken a bigger hit
> than Rita Ewing, er, Patrick, who losses
> $219,512 or so per missed national anthem.
>
> So why aren't I impressed? Because Patrick,
> Michael Jordan, Alonzo Mourning, Juwan
> Howard, Dikembe Mutombo and other
> self-styled, penthouse revolutionaries have
> had plenty of time to accumulate a fortune.
> They can afford not to sweat. The ones
> hurting are the silent, shouted-down,
> Kool-Aid-sipping majority.
>
> As if anyone really cares about anybody but
> themselves at the bargaining table (the
> players negotiating committee will sell out
> the under-represented rookies in a wink if
> it can sweeten the next contract of those
> in the room, er, league.
>
> Someone can throw out the greatest abstract
> concept ever heard, but the reality is, all
> the players really want to know is how it
> affects them now and in their next deal.
>
> Mark it down as one more step backward in
> the Age of Entitlement; which began,
> researchers have discovered, when athletes
> started to refer to themselves in the third
> person in order to remove their
> fingerprints from the crime scene. That way
> no one can hold them responsible for impure
> thoughts, word and deed. It's always the
> fault of their evil twin.
>
> This just in: Abe Hirshfeld has offered
> Hunter $1M if he agrees to a new collective
> bargaining agreement next week.
>
>
>
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