NBA Lockout Breakdown

Welcome to day 126 of the NBA lockout.

I feel a bit guilty about not having discussed the NBA lockout in greater depth, as I spent many posts discussing the NFL lockout.  The NFL lockout was settled in time for the season to begin on time, and while there seemed to be some bad blood between the players and the owners, the scope of the NFL lockout pales in comparison to the NBA lockout.

We are now several months into the lockout (the lockout is just over four months old) and the talks between players and owners hit a deadlock over splitting the revenue.  The owners want a 50-50 split of revenues, the players were willing to go as low as 52.5%, but have yet to say they will go any lower.  Not only has the talks between players and owners been heated, but some of the players have expressed anger at the union as well.  The big split seems to be between union head Billy Hunter and player rep Derek Fisher who seemed to have come to a disagreement over the revenue split.  It is reported that Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher were pushing to accept the 50-50 split, and that Billy Hunter actually confronted Derek Fisher about this.  It came to the point where Derek Fisher had to bring in the lawyers and publicly make a statement that there is no split in the union.  Officially there is no issues in the union.

NBA veteran Jerry Stackhouse came out and disagreed with this on ESPN Wednesday, he stated:

“Not to say anything against Derek Fisher, it’s not that I don’t think he’s a great guy,” Stackhouse said, “But I don’t want him negotiating my contract. I want an agent who knows the lingo negotiating my contract. Derek Fisher, he doesn’t negotiate his own contract. He has an agent. So why would I want him negotiating something even bigger than his contract? This [Collective Bargaining Agreement] is something more important to everybody…

“David Stern, he’s made this league what it is,” Stackhouse said. “He’s one of the greatest commissioners in sports. He’s got that title, he’s got the NBA at the place where it is because he’s a shrewd businessman and knows how to work his way, play the media, play things up to get what he wants. We don’t do that. Players are emotional. Players get emotional. So no, I don’t necessarily, particularly want Derek Fisher or any of the executive committee negotiating a contract for me.”

So clearly there is a rift in the NBA lockout, which would seem to give some more power to the owners.  The NBA is also trying out a new tactic in the labor agreements: Twitter.  The NBA has a twitter handle now dedicated to posting the ownerships point of view in the labor lockout.  One player (Nazr Mohammed) pointed out that the players can’t talk to coaches or workout at facilities, but the NBA can send them harassing messages about the lockout through twitter (though it is Mohammed’s choice to receive these messages as well).

The lockout has carried on so long to this point, that the league was forced to cancel games all the way through the end of November.  Each day that ticks by is another day lost, as realistically, to get players through camp and have the season ready to go would take about a month (30 days).  So while November is already cancelled, you can pretty much start ticking off the days in December.  The Christmas day NBA games are usually pretty popular, so I wonder if the the two sides might try to push for some resolution.  We know the season will already be shorter, and there is no way they can extend it with the 2012 London Olympics looming in the summer, I begin to wonder if there will even be an NBA season at this point.  While I have pointed out that the owners have stood strong, and there is fractions in the union, it is important to note that many NBA players are currently making money playing basketball overseas.  Utah Jazz point guard Deron Williams began the exodus of NBA players by signing to play in Turkey, and slowly players have moved to teams all over Europe and China.  So while the NBA has suffered bad PR form this lockout, many overseas teams have had the bonus of having the services and star power of some NBA players on their team so far this season.  The NBA has always looked to try and build a bigger global brand, and it is curious to see whether this lockout causing players to go overseas may help/hurt the league trying to become even more popular overseas.

Yesterday, Chauncey Billups had some strong words trying to show the solidarity of the players.  Billups said he was willing to forgo his $14.3 million contract for this season and sit out the entire year to make sure that there is a fair Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in place for the future.  Billups noted that fair means that it would be economically fair to the players.

NBA players are the highest paid players on average than any other professional sport league in the world.  Their salaries have been the big target point of this round of CBA negotiations, as the owners feel they are taking a big hit having to pay such high salaries.  At the same time, the high salaries and lower number of players in the league seem to have created a case where many of the players can actually afford to sit out a season, where NFL players were not able to.  The availability of leagues overseas providing another avenue for players to earn money for NBA players has been another factor which has probably caused the lockout to be so drawn out.  To be honest, the NBA players are in a much better situation for the NBA players, and seem to be willing to take a loss for the time being in order to get a fair contract.  Both sides are losing money, and right now it almost seems to be a game of chicken to see how will flinch first.

Also, I would like to point out this post about the lockout over at The Sports Economist, another great read and take on the lockout from University of Chicago economist Kevin Murphy.

More conference realignment fun

Last week the Big 12 gave an official invitation to West Virginia University (WVU) to become a member of the conference.  Things were confused as Louisville and WVU seemed to have both been competing for the spot, but it was WVU which was ultimately extended the invitation.  Things have become more complicated as the Big East tried to block WVU from leaving immediately for the 2012 season.  WVU has countered now by filing a lawsuit against the Big East.  This lawsuit is to let them out before the 27 month waiting period which schools in the Big East are suppose to go through before they are allowed to be released.  The lawsuit (full version here) states that WVU should be allowed to leave because:

“the denigration of the Big East football conference is a direct and proximate result of lack of leadership and breach of fiduciary duties to the football schools by the Big East and its commissioner.”

They pretty much say the Big East is falling apart, and thus we should be allowed to go do as we wish.  The lawsuit does also note that Texas Christian University (TCU) were allowed to leave the Big East for the Big 12 without being held to the 27 month rule, and that other schools have also been trying to leave the conference as well.  Of course there are major financial implications here, but things got a little interesting today when former WVU head football coach Rich Rodriguez decided to speak up about this issue.

For those of you not familiar with Rich Rodriguez (RichRod to some), he left WVU to go coach at Michigan in 2007, and was forced by WVU to buyout the rest of his contract with the school.  NBC CollegeFootball Talk posted this post (with video) of Rodriguez talking about how WVU had told him that “a contract is a contract” and expected him to pay for leaving early.  Some have pointed out that there is a bit of irony in the situation now that WVU wants to leave without having to pay anything, though I’d be quick to point out that the Big East has pretty much fallen apart, and allowed others out.  RichRod, this is an entirely different situation than your contract issues with WVU was in my opinion.

All of that said, it is curious to see how this will all end up.  Conference Realignment seasons gets interesting with each passing day.  The big question around these parts (the Midwest) is when/if Missouri will leave the Big 12 for the SEC.