top 10 ways to avoid lockout?

[wiley]

In the interest of the Celtics winning back to back championships, this year and next, please list the ways owners and players can avoid a lockout.  You can do top 5 ways for players and top 5 ways for owners.  Lawyers and legal experts please join the thread. Maybe Celtics Blog can come up with some solutions that help minimize the chances of a lockout, and get a bundle of Tommy Points from the league.  My reasons aren't based in reality.  Experts please bail out my thread.

Top 5 ways for players:

1.  Reduce greed
2   Be happy
3.  Enjoy the important things in life
4.  Let salaries be reduced while getting some kind of major coverage for injury, including  
     beyond the contract (not talking about loads of money, just something that allows a player  
     to figure out how to transition his career.
5.  ?

Top 5 for Owners

1.  Give the players everything they want and deal with problems when Celtics run is over
2.  Hire top spiritual leaders in world to give speeches to players about important things in life
      and importance of lower salaries in order to have lower ticket prices to get back to a
      reasonable situation less market driven where everyone wins and has a blast like in the old
      days..
3.  Give players some kind of injury coverage so that if a guy like Leon Powe sudenly gets
     injured at the end of a contract (and is really done for good and won't get another
      contract), he can survive for a while until finding new employment (this is about marginal
      players with major injuries who will never play again, not guys who can reduce their level
      and go play in Europe, etc...)
4.  ?
5.  ??

[Celtics4ever]

Reducing greed?  Yeah that is going to happen. 

Truth of the matter is both sides need to realize that economic factors have changed since the last agreement.   But I doubt this comes easy to avoid the lockouts. Owners think they should get more and won't want to lower prices for the consumers as they put forth the product.  Players perceive that there present income is hard fought rights won from the owners.  That climate makes its very hard to make compromise happen.  Couple that with ambivalent consumers, high unemployment and overcall economic uncertainity it makes consumers much more picky with their entertainment dollar.

Stern has talked about compression and reducing the league size.  That would help some I think with league costs in weak markets.  It would also strengthen existing teams assuming they had a draft letting the worst teams pick first from the present teams.  Players are not going to like this as its less jobs though.

Were, I an owner, I would want an end to the guarenteed contracts like the NFL has, the players will never comply to this, but it would make it easier on the owners and us fans to cut loose the dead beats of the league.

[Bankshot]

Reduce greed.  LOL

[greenpride32]

I'm certainly hoping the lockout can be avoided.  But if anything positive can be said the cloud certainly benefits a team like ours with guys like KG Ray Shaq Jermaine.  They are more motivated than ever with what might be their last shot at glory.

[Jeff]

"greed, for lack of a better word, is good"

I'm guessing that they will do more things like the amnesty rule that let teams cut bait on a player for cap reasons but were still on the hook for his salary.  Gives owners some relief from their own drunken sailor spending without taking guaranteed money from the player.

[papa shuttlesworth]

I think if the NBA banned Chris Wallace from management positions, most problems would go away.

(I'm somewhat serious.  He is a classic example of a GM that overspends relative to his team's size/earning potential and drives up the price on players for other teams.)

[Jeff]

maybe the NBA could buy teams from all the bad owners (Sterling, Glen Taylor, etc.) - that would help

[GreenEnvy]

I say we take home trophy #18 before June 20th, then worry about June 30th and the aftermath if and when it comes.

[JHTruth]

I don't see a lockout. Players are always in far too tenuous financial positions to be not getting paid. They'll posture for a month or so and then go back to work..

[LooseCannon]

Top 5 ways for players:

1.  Reduce greed

Why don't you ask the owners to reduce greed?  They're the ones who are trying to change the system so that even bad owners who run teams poorly are practically guaranteed a profit.

The NBA needs more revenue sharing between teams, but the owners of the big-market, high-revenue teams are going to try to take as much money from the players first to minimize how much revenue they have to share.

[cdif911]

Two words: revenue sharing

player contracts should be tied to how much money the team makes - each team gets 2 tier 1 contracts (max), 3 tier 2 (starters), 5 tier 3 (bench) and 5 tier 4 (scalabrine/d-league)

max guys make a minimum of 8 million x profit calculation which would be based off of years served in the league + how much money the team makes - so a 10 year vet on a financially sound team might make 8 million x 2.5 (obviously the formula needs to be worked out)

[Celtics4ever]

Gambling is the NBA owner's top weapon in this lockout.  A lot of NBA ballers have a problem with it.

[Eja117]

Lower salaries but give instant vesting in the pension and health benefits for life so these guys can support their families instead of being completely broke only a few years after their first contract.   

If you keep raiding the college game pay for them to go back to school after their careers are over.

Actually doing the right thing might go a long way