RE: The Boston Celtics Mailing List Digest V5 #230

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-celtics@igtc.com [mailto:owner-celtics@igtc.com]On Behalf Of
> Michael Joseph Byrnes
> Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 1998 12:50 AM
> To: Celtics@igtc.COM
> Well, I guess it's time to do away with 2+ centuries of capitalism in the
> United States!!!

Perhaps it is. Another boston product, Noam Chomsky, has some very cogent
points regarding this very proposal.


> To call owner profits "unnecessary fat" is naive and untrue.

In what way? The live in hedonistic plenitude. It is hypocritical to propose
that the players moderate their wealth while the owners do not.

> What has
> stopped NBA players from starting their own league before now?

Their disorganization and lack of motivation.

> If every
> NBA player decided to retire tomorrow, and form their own league, there is
> absolutely *nothing* the owners could do to stop it.  Nor has their ever
> been anything stopping the players from making such a move - except the
> fact that a "player's league" simply wouldn't fly.

Probably not. Although I would love to see one.

>If it were a realistic
> option, it would have happened a decade ago.

Perhaps their thinking has been uneccessarily limited by their
concentration, basketball. Their primary interest is money and basketball. I
doubt they see very far beyond that(at least most of them).

> The owners are just as essential to the sport as the players.

Sport leagues existed before the concept of ownership and they may very well
exist after the concept of ownership has come and gone.

>Where
> exactly would the games in this "player's league" take place?  I don't see
> the players all chipping in to buy stadiums (or finance their
> construction).

Like the owners do either. They force the city to float bonds or raise taxes
to pay for it.

>What about all of the fringe benefits today's players
> have, such as free (and often expensive!) medical care, travel expenses
> including per diem meal money that I could live on for over a
> week, chartered
> flights, pensions, etc.)?  Fact of ther matter is, an NBA player
> making the
> minimum salary is leading a charmed life, at least in some respects.

Yes but my assertion still stands. If the players were able to create a
league on their own and maintain its infrastructure they would have more
money to account for these sundries.

> Finally, a "player's league" would be worse to watch than today's NBA
> because it would really be a "star player's league".

>Who would have more
> power over the Boston Celtics, for example - Antoine Walker or Bruce
> Bowen? The number of players in the NBA who have any sense of how to run a
> team from the management side are few and far between.

It's amazing what consultants can do for you these days.

>  The number of
> *star* players with this talent could probably be counted on one hand.

Again that's what consultants are for.

> Even if it were feasible, a "players league" would very quickly decline
> into a WWF-type situation.

Why? What do you mean?

> Bottom line:  the players and owners need each other.  The sooner both
> sides admit and accept that crucial fact, the sooner they will be able to
> reach an acceptable solution.

I still dispute this assertion. Owners *do* need the players but the players
need for the owners is purely psychosomatic. The players *could* establish a
league on their own and the *league* could work. But if you eliminated
basketball players the NBA could not exist.

> As for profits, owners and players are entitled to their fair share.  What
> consistutes "their fair share"?  That is what the collective bargaining
> system is supposed to determine.

Yup.


> And, how would contract disputes bettwen two players on the same team be
> settled?

That's what a league constitution is for.

> Assuming, of course, that there would be any profits to get.  There
> probably would be, but not in the same league with the profits the players
> currently make.


This is a purely hypothetical conclusion, dependant on the assertion that
the players league would yield less than half of the profits the NBA does
today.

Noah