Do you really want guys like KG and Pierce determining the lockout length?

[Redz]

in response to the thread title...

well, i dont have any say in who determines parameters of the lockout. hence, my wishes/wants/desires are not relevant. (not unlike many other things in life it seems.)

next, i would prefer them  doing it instead of me since as bad as they may be, they still know a lot more about the specifics than i do.

next, next...since they are the ones who will really be affected most by the lockout, they should have more right to determine than i do.

ok, next topic.

The same could be said for just about every topio ever posted on this site. That hasn't stopped a gazillion opinions from being tossed around over the years.

[dtrader]

It's not a fair analysis of the situation to say that the owners are trying to fix the system, and the players are just trying to keep things as they are.  If that were the case, the players would be calling for 57% of revenue.  Theyre not.  They themselves offered to drop it to 54%, so that they could help "fix the system", while retaining a majority share.  Since then, they've come down to stating that they'd take 53%. 

I think it's great to have players like PP and KG involved.  Maybe if it was a bunch of pushovers at the table, the season would start sooner, but I'd lose some respect for the players if they didnt at least show some business savy, and try to negotiate to the best of their ability (especially when I am of the opinion, that the owners carry the bigger blame for the systems failures).

These players aren't really business men though... Sure some are, but the majority aren't. Just because you make a lot of money doesn't mean you understand business. There is a reason most of these guys go broke after about ten years. Reggie and Barkley are right. There needs to be more checks and balances and the system needs to be more like the NFL then MLB.

If CP3 went to NY and Howard to LA then whats the point in even watching until late May?

I never said they were business men. I said that it's good that some of the players are capable of at least showing enough business savy to negotiate properly.  I think it's good to have vets like KG and pierce speak up, because even though their biggest contracts will be done before this contract plays out, they have a perspective that the younger stars dont, in that their careers grew through the CBA that the previous generation negotiated for them.  They understand more than anyone, that theyre not fighting for the stars already in the league, but those entering in the coming years.  Those are the players that stand to suffer the most if the players back down. 

If CP3 wants to go to NY, and Howard wants to go to LA, theres going to be ways of making it happen under whatever system is agreed on. That doesnt change anything though.  You still have to play the games. Just ask Miami =)

[Celtics4ever]

LA is old even with Howard they would be as old as us.

[Chris]

I don't like it, but I also don't think this is happening.  This is another subtle (and possibly brilliant) ploy by Stern to cause some cracks in the union.  The important part of this story is not that guys like Pierce, KG, and Kobe were front and center in crucial parts of the negotiations, but that it is being portrayed like Hunter is not really in charge.

Stern has taken up this latest campaign over the last week or so, making subtle comments that suggest Hunter is being cut out of the crucial parts of the negotiations. 

I believe he is hoping that some of the players will hear these things, start to panic a little, and tell their leaders that they want them to get a deal done NOW, before the wheels come off.

[Celtics4ever]

I had read that KG told the Union to stay firm elsewhere.

This isn’t nobility. This doesn’t make Garnett a social worker, a teacher working for low pay in an urban school, a missionary in famine-stricken Africa. He doesn’t deserve a standing ovation, nor a parade, nor much beyond this simple fact: He doesn’t need to apologize for fighting for his side in this dispute.

The NBA owners never wanted to go north of 48.5 percent for the players’ share of the basketball-related income (BRI), league sources say, and commissioner David Stern had lean support when he pushed the most recent offer to 50 percent. There hasn’t been one source in ownership, in management, who believes the players will get that offer again – at least no time soon. Now, the union has boxed itself in with declarations it won’t go that far to get a deal with the owners, so there’s a real chance these two sides are hunkered down again.

Truth be told, the commissioner probably pushed his owners as far as they’re willing to go now – to really try to end this lockout – and it didn’t happen.

Perhaps eventually, the players will make more concessions, and this deal will get done. Nevertheless, Garnett, Kobe Bryant (notes) , LeBron James (notes) , Dwyane Wade (notes)  – all of them – are justified to call the league’s bluff on these concessions. Superstars have long made the NBA, and long driven the economics of the sport. It’s hard to deny the immense value that Garnett himself brought to the Wolves and, now, the Celtics, where all he did was return the glory, the profitable standing, of the NBA’s most historic franchise.

When the Wolves had little else, they had Garnett. He covered for a bad owner, and a mediocre front office. When Glen Taylor was pinched for a secret contract with Joe Smith (notes) , the Wolves paid a steep price in Garnett’s prime. He never demanded a trade, never asked out. In good times and bad, Garnett was a franchise player. He understood the burden of it: Even when it wasn’t easy, K.G. knew that he was paid to carry it all.

[Related: Stern sets deadline to save start of NBA’s regular season ]

He was the reason those Wolves sold out games, the reason they made the playoffs, the reason they had relevancy in the NBA. Once he left, the Wolves fell apart. Taylor hired an unqualified general manager, David Kahn, to run the franchise, and the Wolves kept slipping further and further. Small markets have a tiny margin for error, and Taylor obliterated it.

 
Garnett, sources said, has urged players not to make any additional concessions to NBA owners in the split of the league's revenue.

(AP)
 Only in this twisted NBA ownership culture, could Taylor – who lorded over what Stern declared was “one of the most far-reaching frauds we’ve seen” in the Smith scandal – become the chairman of the NBA’s board of governors.

When Taylor got busted in 2000, everyone expected Garnett to start working on his exit strategy. It never happened until 2007, when the Wolves were ready to move him and rebuild again.

“It’s very, very easy to jump ship when things get hard,” Garnett said. ”It’s very, very easy to start thinking differently. I’m not that type of person.”

Now, it’s the end of the line in 2011, and there was Garnett in the private players meeting on Tuesday in New York, screaming to his peers. “Apoplectic,” one source said. K.G. screamed that the players owed it to the next generation to stand firm, to concede no more to the owners in these talks. He had everything to lose – his $21 million for the year, his last chance at a championship with Boston – and still he keeps fighting for something here. When the NBA had its biggest member meeting in New York prior to the start of the lockout, it was Garnett delivering the most riveting, most emotional speech of this saga. It may not be what you believe in – or believe is justified or fair – but all these years later, when this labor fight didn’t have to be about K.G., he’s still willing to take the hits for it.

It doesn’t make him a hero, a martyr, or anything of the sort. With K.G., though, you know where he stands. Give Kevin Garnett that, anyway. You know where the man stands.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-wojnarowski_nba_lockout_kevin_garnett_100611

[LB3533]

I read that KG will be making 95% of his remaining salary in deferred payments.

[Chris]

I read that KG will be making 95% of his remaining salary in deferred payments.

Right, which is much ado about nothing IMO, since everyone else could just have that money sitting in back accounts, accumulating interest.