2011 NBA Offesason Thread

[MadmanLA]

The NBA released the schedule for the upcoming season earlier today (yeah, I know)...

http://www.nba.com/gameline/

http://www.nba.com/schedules/national_tv_schedule/index.html (National TV schedule)

Season Opener, November 1st: Chicago @ Dallas (8pm ET, TNT), Oklahoma City @ Lakers (10:30pm, TNT), plus Houston @ Utah (9pm ET, League Pass)

Christmas Day: Boston @ New York (12pm ET, ESPN), Miami @ Dallas (2:30pm ET, ABC), Chicago @ Lakers (5pm ET, ABC)

[Lights Out]

And our Clippers got a franchise-record 20 national games! Sadly, this most likely won't be the final schedule, but nice to see some love from the national media for once.

[cameroncrazie07]

Knicks open up with Miami at home. That should be incredibly fun. Also I can't complain with the Christmas day game vs Boston. If I counted correctly they had 28 national games, and about 4 or 5 Sunday ABC games. I can't remember the last time they had a Sunday game on ABC.

[MadmanLA]

Knicks open up with Miami at home. That should be incredibly fun. Also I can't complain with the Christmas day game vs Boston. If I counted correctly they had 28 national games, and about 4 or 5 Sunday ABC games. I can't remember the last time they had a Sunday game on ABC.

Not counting game 4 in the first round series versus Boston, it's been awhile they played Sundays on ABC.

[Gary]

And our Clippers got a franchise-record 20 national games! Sadly, this most likely won't be the final schedule, but nice to see some love from the national media for once.

Possibly this Blake Griffin kid could be the reason why

[loogodude90]

Geez, they sure revealed the schedule early this off-season. I can't remember it ever being released before August 1st.

[The_Admiral]

They want us to know about all the cool games we're not going to see because the players are greedy swine

[dfwabel]

I have yet to listen to it, but David Stern spoke with Bill Simmons for The B.S. Report

[DustDevil61]

==BUMP==

I know that it's been a while, but here's where we are after Tuesday's meeting:

NBPA to Players: Be Paitient

Derek Fisher: Owners Can't Agree

We also have the owners, who are split on things, meeting in Dallas today, and NBPA Director Billy Hunter saying that the players' union won't decertify. Also, NFLPA director DeMaurice Smith spoke to the players today in Las Vegas.

Where does everyone think we're heading with this?

[NJTank]

The NBA is getting nervous that some owners see players going to Europe and they may be on the verge of splitting apart, at least this is what the NBAPA thinks. If its true we may get a deal if the Owners are together though it could be a longtime before their is a deal. I think the players going overseas is scaring the NBA and its a wildcard they never thought of when they tried to break the union and lower the cap. This may indeed force Owners to offer a better more acceptable deal and could save the season.

[The_Admiral]

Good point. It also dilutes the solidarity of the union when you can just get up and go find work elsewhere. Turkey, you've saved our season.

The owners aren't unified enough for a long lockout. The league's real power brokers are the ones whose best interests lie in running their successful businesses. Even Clay Bennett, who we thought would be as loyal an ownership foot soldier as you can find, seems to kinda want a season, what with Kevin Durant making lots of money for him at the moment. There will be a little bit of a salary rollback and revenue sharing, but for the most part this will end with Jerry Buss telling Michael Heisley to get bent and no major systemic changes being made.

[dfwabel]

The NBA is getting nervous that some owners see players going to Europe and they may be on the verge of splitting apart, at least this is what the NBAPA thinks. If its true we may get a deal if the Owners are together though it could be a longtime before their is a deal. I think the players going overseas is scaring the NBA and its a wildcard they never thought of when they tried to break the union and lower the cap. This may indeed force Owners to offer a better more acceptable deal and could save the season.

Players going to Asia or Europe is not the biggest issue since some teams will make more money at the end of the year by not playing. Plus, if/when a paycheck for a player in Europe or Asia bounces, those not playing will realize how risky playing there is. Travel is not NBA travel, housing/lodging is far less than NBA standard, and even before we talk about crowds and officiating.

The much larger issues are:

1-Owners wanting the Players to have:

*shorter contracts

*less of the BRI (Basketball Related Income). The old CBA gave the players a 57/43 split.

*a hard salary cap

*less (or no) guaranteed money

2-Owners have to agree with themselves on revenue sharing. Home gate and local TV contracts are not shared. Only the national TV contracts, plus the money taken from the assessment of the luxury tax is split. Plus the amount a team can receive is tied to the McKinsey Formula and according to some owners does not close the financial gap enough.

[DustDevil61]

One of the last people you'd expect to be opposed to revenue sharing and a hard cap appears to be in support of it:

Lakers' Owner Ready for Revenue Sharing + Hard Cap

[The_Admiral]

Not surprising at all because he wants to get this over with. Even if it means spreading a little money around to the have-nots, he still comes out ahead on the year by fielding a Lakers team rather than not fielding a Lakers team. And of course, no one would say no to the hard cap part because that means everyone's costs are capped while the sky's the limit for big-city revenues. This just leads to the same slow-burning inequity that's screwing up the NHL.

There will be a little bit of a salary rollback and revenue sharing, but for the most part this will end with Jerry Buss telling Michael Heisley to get bent and no major systemic changes being made.

I'm sure Donald Sterling and Jerry Reinsdorf will say the same thing to Herb Kohl and Michael Jordan. Hell, Reinsdorf's been telling Jordan to get bent for years!

[DustDevil61]

After a week of nothing labor-related, members of the NBA and the NBPA staffs are meeting today. If things go well, NBA and NBPA leaders meet tomorrow. Let's hope that things go well...

[DustDevil61]

There are talks for an amnesty clause that would allow teams to drop a player and not have them count against the salary cap, or something to that effect. It sounds interesting.

[Jigga]

The Oregonian article mentions Brandon Roy, but I would think other possible cuts around the league could be Gilbert Arenas (or Hedo Turkoglu), Rashard Lewis, Rip Hamilton, Elton Brand, Ben Gordon (or Charlie Villanueva), Tyrus Thomas, Brendan Haywood, and Emeka Okafor. Maybe a team will cut ties with one of the more recent max guys like Joe Johnson, Carlos Boozer or Chris Bosh, or a near max guy like David Lee that is just stealing money for the next 5 or so years. No need to hold on to your mistakes if you don't have to, right?

However, it's not like amnesty is going to prevent these GMs from giving out new horrible contracts that they're going to try to collectively bargain to roll back in 5 more years. Certainly didn't teach 'em anything last time.

[Lights Out]

There are talks for an amnesty clause that would allow teams to drop a player and not have them count against the salary cap, or something to that effect. It sounds interesting.

LOL... it's been real, Chris Kaman.

[pmoehrin]

I'm actually a little more optimistic now then I was back in August that the season won't be lost.

From what I'm hearing/reading they're basically doing a complete teardown of the old financial system and rebuilding it from the ground up. I was predicting teams like the Hornets might in fact fold and had they kept the old system in place that might have well happened. I think the big market owners are smart enough to figure out that the small market owners aren't going to give any ground on certain issues if they are killing their franchise that much, so I think that's what's driving them towards working together much more then what you would normally see.

As far as the players end I think they are done giving ground. 3% less of the revenue pie accounts to several hundred million dollars, and I think that's all they are going to be willing to give up, but the owners still want them to give up about 7%, so that 4% may take awhile. Unlike the NFL, I don't hear too many players with many major grievences towards how the league conducts business on court wise, so I can't see the NBA offering much in that department so that may be a sticking point, and also unlike the NFL, players do have other options, so incentive to close the gap is far less.

Regular season games will be lost. No way a deal is getting done until mid-October and that's assuming absolute best case scenairo. Right now I'd say the season as a whole is 50/50, but that's alot better then I would have said over the summer. I think that revenue sharing between players and owners is going to be the major issues (as it just about always is) but the good news is that I think the owners are seeing more eye to eye then what was expected.

[DustDevil61]

I'm actually a little more optimistic now then I was back in August that the season won't be lost.

From what I'm hearing/reading they're basically doing a complete teardown of the old financial system and rebuilding it from the ground up. I was predicting teams like the Hornets might in fact fold and had they kept the old system in place that might have well happened. I think the big market owners are smart enough to figure out that the small market owners aren't going to give any ground on certain issues if they are killing their franchise that much, so I think that's what's driving them towards working together much more then what you would normally see.

As far as the players end I think they are done giving ground. 3% less of the revenue pie accounts to several hundred million dollars, and I think that's all they are going to be willing to give up, but the owners still want them to give up about 7%, so that 4% may take awhile. Unlike the NFL, I don't hear too many players with many major grievences towards how the league conducts business on court wise, so I can't see the NBA offering much in that department so that may be a sticking point, and also unlike the NFL, players do have other options, so incentive to close the gap is far less.

Regular season games will be lost. No way a deal is getting done until mid-October and that's assuming absolute best case scenairo. Right now I'd say the season as a whole is 50/50, but that's alot better then I would have said over the summer. I think that revenue sharing between players and owners is going to be the major issues (as it just about always is) but the good news is that I think the owners are seeing more eye to eye then what was expected.

It's certainly not going in the same direction as the NFL lockout, but I, too, think that this NBA lockout isn't going to be as bad as some people think, unless things absolutely go to hell. I still think that we'll lose regular-season games, but I don't see it getting as bad as the 1998-99 lockout. Why? Because owners and players are talking. It's true that talks haven't gone very far at this point, but owners and players had barely began talking by this point back in 1998.