Hey, kids, what time is it?
Considering a hostile decline of the owners’ latest slanted offer by the Players Association is all but in tomorrow’s bag, the moment of truth has arrived; locked-out (and up) members serious or delirious regarding decertification?
For the past few weeks, ascendant agents who represent roughly half of the NBA’s 450 dues-paying players — rising rookies have no say and receive no economic benefits — covertly claimed to have more than the necessary 130 signatures to demand a decertification vote. More than half the union would need to endorse the motion for it to go forward, and supposedly support is closing in on that number.
Is it chump chatter? A hollow threat? We’ll find out soon enough. Then again, do Stern and the owners even care if such a tactic (the downside may prove to larger than the upside) is employed?
They certainly did during the 1998 lockout when it appeared (cancer-causing) agents David Falk and Arn Tellem and their mightily-positioned puppet clients (Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning, to name two dip sticks) seemed to have gained enough clout to decertify. Meaning what could be salvaged of the season (50 games) and union executive director Billy Hunter would have been kissed goodbye.
With a Stern-imposed drop-dead date of Jan. 7, 1999, drawing near, the league did everything within its sympathetic orbit — recruiting influential players, agents and journalists — to avoid the unknown consequences of losing the season, as well as its anti-trust exception … and wound up agreeing to a system that greatly benefits the players, one the owners are now intent on demolishing.
Succinctly as possible, many owners have been losing money for the past five-to-10 seasons because the cost of labor has been too high based upon revenue projections. These salary costs are recurring because they are guaranteed whether or not the asset performs well or not. Spending $5 million to $10 million dollars per year on poorly performing players is the problem. Player payroll has been guaranteed at 57 percent and has routinely exceeded 61 percent for the past 11 seasons, with no regard to the growth or reduction of revenue. Whose fault is that? The owners, obviously. Not only are they fixated to fix the problem, their goal is to win without giving up a basket.
Two or three years ago, Stern alerted Hunter the owners would be out for a kill in the 2011 rematch, and were awfully eager to get it on. Again, if, in fact, there are 200 or more players massing at the union border ready to disaffiliate, you have got to wonder how many owners really want to push the process into court where an alien system and new rules might make operating the league and its teams even more expensive.
Not that I believe either side is bluffing. Neither are countless fed-up fans who are finding it a tad tough to relate to rich guys squabbling how to split billions generated by a bouncing ball — and are lining up to invest their entertainment income in the game being run by Jon Corzine.
No matter what they say for public consumption, of course, neither the owners nor the players genuinely care or give a haughty hoot about what paying customers think. Why should they when so many fanatics are so exceptionally easy to exploit in terms of preposterously priced tickets, concessions, parking and merchandise?
So, don’t get hanging on hope. Don’t think for a split second team owners abruptly will decide to negotiate fairly. And don’t think it suddenly will dawn on players that the emasculating deal being offered would be a fantasy-come-true for the balance of those presently breathing.
In other words, figure the NBA to continue business as usual. First, foremost and forever, count on owners and players to look out for themselves. Get wealthier at the fans’ expense so there’s more to squander.
It hurts my heart to break this to you, but I don’t see any way our NBA troops will be home (playing) before Christmas.
* Isiah Thomas called Friday to dispute a claim he has designs to become executive director. Getting through graduate school (a six-hour test Thursday prevented him from returning my call, I was informed) and coaching Florida International University are all he’s focused on, he maintained. I apologize beforehand for this cheap shot: So, apparently any advances by Thomas on Hunter’s job were strictly consensual.
In case you missed it, Stephon Marbury was the latest misguided submarine artist to savage Michael Jordan for having the impudence to get it on with the same thirst for blood as Bobcats owner as he does in every other form of competition.
Hooked on Stephonics offered his on-line take — spelling, grammar, punctuation and coherence optional — that His Airness is a “sell out. He never did nothing that I knew about to change the life off of the court other then hit cats over the head for $100 or $150 dollar sneakers and still doing it.”
Though that may be correct, what it has to do with Jordan’s hardcore position regarding a new collective bargaining agreement is for Marbury’s pet intern to know and you to find out — if you get in the van.
In the meantime, for the information of those looking to slit Jordan’s reputation, if it weren’t for his seismic activity as a player, neither side would be wasting their breath wrangling over basketball related income.
* Former 76ers coach Billy Cunningham had a reunion dinner for the ’83 championship team at his Philadelphia home in September. Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Andrew Toney, Maurice Cheeks, the whole shebang showed up, including support staff such as PR man Harvey Pollack. The lone player not to attend was Mark McNamara, who is a forest ranger. No one knew how to contact him. Ex-owner Harold Katz already is planning a 30th anniversary get together, maybe in Las Vegas.
This just in from column chondriac Richie Kalikow: “Ultimately the owners and players should split 50% of the occu-pie. Even celebrated mediator 50 Cent concurs.”