Re: Dave Kindred (TSN): Who Needs The Players

[Mark Piotrowski <pio@nwu.edu>]

I have really tried to bite my tounge about the lockout.  But this kind of
logic just drives me up the wall!! Sorry but I have to vent.

I'm really pissed about the season not starting on time. This is my
favorite time of year sportswise, I love buying the NBA magazines, guessing
who's going to make the playoffs, who wont, etc.

Let me preface this by saying I think the owners and players are both at
fault and are both being greedy.  I think there should be a hard cap & that
there should be a profit cap for the owners.

They should fund most of these caps from TV revenue (which I read today was
roughly $25 million a team).  Tickets should be reduced to $25 for the best
seats to $5 for the upper level seats.  Eliminate luxury boxes.  Fund the
rest of the profit cap and the salary cap from concessions, and naming
rights to the stadiums.

Here's what I can't stand about Kindred's logic:

>              I'm fed up. In a league
>              where a Kevin Garnett
>              makes -- What? $20
>              million a year? -- I
>              have not the least
>              little bit of sympathy
>              for players whining
>              about the imposition of
>              a "hard cap" on
>              salaries.
  snip
>              A bad deal? The average
>              player salary is over
>              $20,000 a week. That's
>              a bad deal?
>
>              Have these people
>              completely lost their
>              minds?
>
>              At one point during the
>              long harangue leading
>              to the cancellation of
>              exhibitions, Billy
>              Hunter even said the
>              owners had the audacity
>              to express a desire to
>              make 10 percent on
>              their money.
>
>              Imagine that! A
>              capitalist wanting to
>              make money! And all the
>              way up to a lousy 10
>              percent!
>              Of course, the owners
>              want to make money. And
>              they are entitled to
>              make money. They are
>              the ones putting their
>              butts on the financial
>              line to make people
>              like Latrell Sprewell
>              rich beyond their
>              imaginations.

So, by Kindred's logic,  Paul Gaston or any of the other owners are
justified, no ENTITLED, in wanting to make millions and millions of
dollars, but Kevin Garnett is crazy for wanting to make $20 million.

That's F*!king ridiculous.  (Well, It's ridiculous for anyone to make that
much money, but that's a topic for another day).  Kindred says the owners
are the ones that "put their financial butts on the line" and therefore
deserve all the money they can make.  Last time I checked they wouldn't
make a red cent if there weren't people like Garnett, Mercer, and yes
Spreewell, putting the ball in the hoop, and hundreds other putting the
actual butts on the court.

The "poor" owners feeling they are entitled to 10% profit (10% of $50
million or so in revenues is a sh%tload of money!).  Young unproven players
(a la Garnett and Walker) ask for and can get huge contracts based on
potential.  BOTH are driving ticket prices out the roof and are taking
seats for fans and replacing them with luxury boxes for corporate idiots
who arrive in the 2nd Quarter, leave after the 3rd Quarter and don't know 3
players on either team.

People like Kindred just miss this point.  They act like the owners are
over a barrell and are losing millions of dollars.  WRONG. If they were, as
capitalists, they would sell the team.  They are not in the NBA to lose
money.  The problem is is that THEY ARE JUST NOT MAKING AS MUCH AS THEY
WOULD LIKE (they want 10% of $50 million not just 3% of $50 million).

How much is enough for these idiots?

And they certainly don't want to give money they could use to buy a 3rd
vacation house to any uppity Basketball players.  They don't care if we,
the real working fans, lose out by not being able to afford to go to the
games, they'll just take the seats that we can no longer afford and make
the entire stadium into 100 or so individual luxury boxes (which their
corporate buddies can pay out the rear for and then write off their taxes).

The owners have no pity from me.  The players have not much more.  They're
both being greedy.

Sorry for the rambling,
mark piotrowski
-------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Piotrowski
Registrar,
Northwestern University Prosthetic-Orthotic Center
345 E. Superior St.
Room. 1712
Chicago, IL 60611

(312) 908-8006
pio@nwu.edu
www.repoc.nwu.edu/nupoc/nupoc.html
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