Time to be reasonable!

In the last few months we heard everything why it is so important to watch the lockout instead of NBA basketball. ’Money’ has been always one of the first key words and I can truly believe in that (first person who can name five things, not related to money, is my guest for a bottle of russian vodka). Players even the league’s 300 million dollar loss with the 50-50 BRI split, but it’s not enough for the owners and here comes my personal favourite: ’competitiveness’.

My thoughts on this: competitiveness is not related to any system issue or marketsize. Maybe slightly but profit is in connection with these two things. It’s not the system’s fault that David Kahn wanted to improve only one position per draft, even if he had three or four first round draft picks. Minnesota had all the tools to build a young, promising team, which would be far ahead of the one they have now. It’s also not a systemproblem that the Bobcats genetically can’t draft any franchise caliber player or a single 2nd-tier star player. They had a third, a fifth, an eight and a ninth overall selection and they transformed them into this list: Raymond Felton, Adam Morrison, Brandan Wright and D.J Augustin. Felton is not a mediocre player and Augustin will improve in the next few years, but the other two didn’t and won’t do anything mentionable in the USA. These were only the top picks (and don’t forget Sean May at 1/13). Instead of blaming the so called „unbalanced” system, please, owners, start looking at your own staff.

There’s the Pacers. They are on one of the smallest markets and they lose money because the team has been below average since the 2004 brawl. But they did a remarkable job in the last few years that led into a core of Darren Collison, Danny Granger, Tyler Hansbrough, Paul George and Roy Hibbert with tons of capspace in the upcoming free agent market. That’s what I call good job. If they were at the front of the hardliners, nobody would say a damn word about giving them money and some system advantages to keep their players together and narrow their disadvantages coming from their marketsize.  But the situation is that those owners are the loudest who don’t even care about their own staff and their level of job. They don’t realize that system restrictions won’t create them new opportunities that they didn’t had under the last CBA (the Bucks were almost in the luxury tax in the last few years so they won't be able build a better team unless they won't give full MLE to players like Drew Gooden). I go further: the more restrictions, the bigger gap between the Sam Prestis and the David Kahns. Good GMs will dominate the others and will destroy other franchises for years with one or two trades. Then what will be Glen Taylor’s next step? Will he forbid the weather to be so cold in Minnesota or ask city goverment to build a more entertaining environment? Because you can bet on it, nobody will be responsible for the mediocre team that will be in Minnesota for the next several years thanks to Kahn (and of course to Taylor who let Kahn to go on a rampage).

There’s no problem with competitiveness. There were eight champions in the last 20 years. But this stat doesn’t show, there were other 12 teams that were real contenders in this era (Suns, Blazers, Kings, Magic, Jazz, Thunder/Sonics, Cavs, Pacers, Sixers, Nets, Knicks, Wolves). You can argue about this list (especially with Sixers and Nets whether they had real shots on winning a championship), but they all were at the door of success. Only one team can win per year and you can slip on a lot of things. The fact is that two-thirds of the league was able to build a championship caliber team in 20 years. In my opinion, it’s a good ratio.

On the other side of the story: players must be much smarter than they look like right now. They give the 300 million dollars back, so they can feel it’s enough concession from their side. But it doesn’t matter in negotiating. They can feel they are robbed because owners tie their hands with the new rules, but that’s not what really happens. As far as we can know it from the media, the new CBA offer is not much different than it was from 1999 to 2011, except for the BRI split (only player options’ elimination is a bit extraordinary for me). There’s an MLE for taxpayers, sign-and-trade restrictions are non-factor questions (three similar moves under the last CBA) etc. So players can argue about it, it’s not the best offer in the world, but it’s also not a highway robbery. What they have to understand is that fans’ anger will take effect on them, not on owners. Right now I really blame the owners for this circus but few months/years later, we won’t give a sh*t who’s the boss in Milwaukee or Atlanta, but we’ll watch matches and be in touch with basketball players who’s almost equally responsible for the delayed season opener. As Nazr Mohammed once said: put away your feelings and start thinking. This is the best offer you could get and it’s almost the one you wanted. There’s no unguaranteed contracts (you shouldn’t sign one if you don’t want to get fired) which really hurts players rights and help poor GMs to correct their own mistakes and there’s no paycheck rollbacks which is the funniest part of owners threatening (you sign a contract, then you tell your player to waive 10-20% of his money? C'Mon.). Why don’t you accept it? Because you feel, it’s too much concession? Okay than think about this: you won’t get paychecks until it’s all done. If owners really gets mad and go back to 47-53, you will be in a real trouble.

NBPA also has to educate it’s players better during negotiating sessions. It’s almost unbelievable that we are heading into a vote (I hope so) and I’m convinced that two-thirds of the participants don’t even know what they will vote about. It’s nonsense and unacceptable. I truly believe, they are fightning for every players’ rights but if it’s true, players must be more involved. They don’t have to be invited for bargaining sessions, this is why the NBPA and the players reps exist, but if it comes down to a scenario like we have now (I mean the lockout, the exaggerated demands from the owners), you should discuss it with more players and don’t leave this job to the agents.

Decertification is a threat to players and owners too. Going into the court is a long process and you can spend a lot of money on that. Even if players win, it could last for months and maybe jeopardize not just this but also the next season. Use it carefully. David Stern’s „avoiding contracts” threat is just one problem, but a whole year out and there’s no BRI you can fight on. It doesn’t really matter what’s really happening in the background but the important part is what people, fans think about the situation. As I can hear the responds, both side will be punished by their beloved fans if this situation lasts long.

There won’t be a winner, it’s clear. Players will have a worse CBA but hardliner owners can trap themselves if players notice them and play their own hardliner strategy in free agency. The longer the lockout take, the more loss everybody has to account. There’s not much options left: decertification or deal. But it really saddens me if we lose the whole season after the two sides are so close to each other.