Re: TSN's Dave Kindred

[JIm <gandahlf@capecod.net>]

Yup, and the fact of the matter is they (the players) already average
more salary in one year, than most do in a lifetime. Hmm at a ten year career
thats 30 mil. The owners are so unfair to want to run a profitable league.
A good example is our own Mr. Gaston. He invested over 160 million in the
Celts
last year, and pocketed 14 million in profits, thats around a 9%
profit margin. Hardly a pocket lining percentage, you could probably do that
well at a bank. I really feel bad for these miguided malcontent players.



At 10:16 AM 10/7/98 -0500, J. Mark Estepp wrote:
>I'm beginning to enjoy reading this guys stuff.  He makes sense to me!  He
>is saying a lot of what the average person thinks (at least THIS average
person)
>It reminded me of what Patrick Ewing said a couple of months ago.  In
>defending the players, he said "What the public doesn't understand it that
>our careers only last for about 10 years"
>Yea, Patrick, at $20,000 a week.....         
>
>    Who needs
>               the NBA?
>               Keep 'em
>               locked, fellas
>               OCTOBER 6, 1998 
>
>
>               Dave Kindred
>
>
>               Gotta know when to hold 'em and know when
>               to fold 'em. So far the NBA players have failed
>               this simple test of wisdom. 
>
>               There is no public sentiment on the players' side
>               in the labor-management war that now has
>               caused cancellation of the NBA's entire
>               schedule of exhibitions. 
>
>               No loss, those exhibitions. But NBA deputy
>               commissioner Russ Granik says the league is "a
>               week away from losing regular-season games." 
>
>               Know what? No loss there, either. 
>
>               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. 
>
>               By his repeated defenses of the indefensible
>               Latrell Sprewell, the NBA players' union boss,
>               somebody named Billy Hunter, already has
>               disgraced himself and diminished whatever iota
>               of dignity he might have once had. So who
>               wants to hear him now when he says of the
>               players/fools paying his salary: 
>
>               "We're not going to accept a bad deal, and
>               we're not going to be intimidated into accepting
>               a bad deal." 
>
>               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! Newspapers make 20 percent, TV
>               stations make 40 percent. Good heavens, the
>               first time Wal-Mart made as much as 8 percent
>               on its money, chairman Sam Walton put on a
>               grass skirt and danced a hula down the
>               corporate offices in Bentonville, Ark. 
>
>               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. 
>
>               I hope owners don't budge an inch. I hope they
>               show the players they will lose less money by
>               shutting down than they will lose by playing the
>               games. 
>
>               So this is my message to NBA players: 
>
>               Go away. 
>
>               Stay away. 
>
>               I'll tape the World Series and watch it all winter.
>
>
>
>Mark Estepp                            704 262 3111
>Appalachian State University                   704 265 8696 (fax)
>Esteppjm@AppState.edu
>