8 owners take a stand!

["Greg Odegaard" <gmodegaa@longvred.rmc.com>]

Here is an interesting article on ESPN regarding the CBA situation.  I
would encourage a friendly discussion on who we think the 8 owners are. 
Personally it's a lock that one of them is Gaston.  Also those from the 4
that lost money; what do they got to lose.

My guess on the eight:
Celtics
Spurs
Whizzers
Clippers 
Nuggets
Kings
Warriors
Raptors

At the end is the actual 97/98 cap numbers for each team.  
Yeah Celtics are #22.

Here's to Football this winter,
Greg


Report: Eight owners willing to scrap season


Some NBA owners reportedly are willing to wipe out the 1998-99 season to
get what they want out of the current labor dispute.

At least eight of the owners are ready to do away with the entire 1998-99
season if needed, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Thursday. The
eight owners want to scratch the season if an agreement cannot be reached
that is satisfactory to them, the newspaper reported.

The players are digging in also.

"We would like to reach some agreement before the start of the season,"
said Billy Hunter, director of the players association. "But if we can't,
we're prepared to go the distance."

The existence of a group of hard-line owners may explain a statement made
by Commissioner David Stern on June 29, the day the league announced a
lockout of its players.

"Unfortunately, there'll be a number of clubs that will do better not
operating than operating," said Stern at the time.

Team officials are operating under a league-imposed gag order since the
lockout was imposed.

It is not clear how many teams are operating at a loss as varying signals
are emitted from the two sides. The players have contended that only a
handful of teams are losing money. But if there are eight owners already
prepared to sacrifice the season, perhaps there are more.

League owners voted to impose the lockout by a 27-2 vote.

One of the problems that exist is that the league and the players have not
always seen eye-to-eye on the definition of "revenue."

According to deputy commissioner Russ Granik, league revenue is determined
by an independent auditor who passes the information along to both sides.

"That produces the BRI -- basketball related income," Granik said recently.
"The players have received all of the league and team financials over the
last few years. Most, although not all (of the teams), have audited
financial statements and where they do, they have been given to the union
as well.

"Those statements show what they show although the union has come out and
said, 'We think that only four teams, maybe, lost money'. We don't know how
they have arrived at that and frankly we don't look at that as the central
issue in any event."

According to the players association, the four teams that lost money in
1997-98 were the Washington Wizards, Los Angeles Clippers, Denver Nuggets
and San Antonio Spurs.

"The real issue for us is how profitable is the league as a whole," Granik
said. "And we have been in a steady decline in profitability over the last
four years to the point where this year, we feel that for the first time in
maybe 14 or 15 years, the league as a whole, with all 29 teams taken
together, was actually unprofitable."

Stern has said that league profits peaked in 1992-93 and have been on the
decline ever since.

What, then, actually qualifies as "basketball-related income"?

"I don't know anything that's not in there that somebody would rationally
say belongs there," Granik said. "We've had a couple of disputes like
naming rights in the building, or, you know, if a team gets a payment to
move somewhere else, how much of that gets included.

"But we sat down four years ago with the union's accountants because they
had complained in the prior deal that there were lots of revenue items that
were not included and we said, 'Look, you throw in anything you want to and
we'll put it in, then we'll agree on the percentage.'

"And so we really set out to include just about anything. Then we came to
the 48 percent (of the league revenue paid to players) number."

The two sides have not met since the lockout was imposed. They hoped to
meet again sometime in mid-July. 

CAP NOT ONE SIZE FITS ALL
Here are the 1997-98 salary cap figures, in millions of dollars, for each
team, according to the NBA players association (cap limit was $26.90
million): 

Team		Cap
Bulls		$61.87
Knicks		$53.70
Magic		$42.48
Spurs		$42.30
Wizzers	$40.45
Pacers		$39.40
Sonics		$37.58
Suns		$37.18
Fakers		$36.45
Heat		$35.00
Warriors	$32.65
Sixers		$31.42
Kings		$30.90
Hawks		$30.70
Jazz		$28.50
Nets		$28.23
Jail Blazers	$27.78
Rockets	$27.75
T-Wolves	$27.54
Hornets		$27.50
Mavericks	$27.00
Celtics		$26.82
Nuggets	$26.50
Bucks		$25.92
Grizzlies	$25.68
Pistons		$25.00
Raptors		$24.76
Clippers		$24.50
Cavaliers	$24.40