Enjoy Next Season - We're On The Road To Lockout

Personally, I am a basketball, Celtics, and celticsblog.com junkie! If this really happens (I really hope it doesn’t), we can only hope a resolution is resolved immediately or in as timely a fashion as possible. Damn, right when things couldn’t get more interesting in the NBA (at least from a Celtics, Heat or Lakers fan point of view), we have to deal with this non-sense. My biggest beef with this is I want as many games as possible of Shaq in green before he retires. I hope if this is truly so, it adds that extra bit of motivation to an already tremendously motivated Celtics team. I want to spoil Kobe’s possible 3peat, I want our big 3 and Shaq to get another ring, and most importantly, I want the Heat to take their “super team” and shove it up their asses!

I’ve been reading here for a couple of years but didn’t sign up for an account until last month. But I have to say that it is one of the best and most well run blogs I have ever read/visited. I get almost all of my Celtic info on this board (I live in L.A.).

Your posts are timely, honest and easy to read. If there is a lockout, I hope you find other topics to write about on a daily basis.

so much money to go around for everyone. no excuse not to get something worked out by then unless one (or both) sides are just out to break the will of the other.

I’ll go nuts if this happens. I have a hard enough time dealing with the slow summer months here between the draft and training camp. I don’t think I can deal with a lockout.

Do you think they will lower ticket prices? How about parking? Concessions? If not, then I don’t care if everything stays as is.

And yes, I already know the answer to my rhetorical questions.

the contract structure is kind of insane. you basically have max contracts, mid levels, lower levels, and rookie contracts. not much else. not that i like the owners, but there is something to be said about good players getting max contracts. its a problem. though the owners are the ones offering the contracts in the first place. anyway, there is little doubt the CBA will change a bit, becoming more restrictive. teams spending like crazy this offseason will almost certainly regret it. ainge has been smart about the 2 year deals. he knows things are gonna change, and when they do, we’ll be in prime position to benefit. we’ll only have 2 big money deals, pierce and rondo.

hoping and praying we win banner 18 we miss a few nba games more rest for the already old big 3 which will be even older if we make a long push 2 the finals and win it

think TITLE

At the Team USA scrimmage tonight (lebron was there)…they annoounced that the meeting went very well today…and fourteen player reps were in attendance. They are going to have another meeting before training camp.

pay scrubs top dollar but then cry for a bailout from the union-Stern is useless

the funniest thing about it would be the break up of the super friends. would be interesting to see how good they get along if they knew someone had to go.
besides that, as long as they pay guys like joe johnson almost 130mio$ the owners can’t talk about losing money

I don’t know how it works in the other pro-sport leagues and I’m not even American but isn’t hard salary caps are better for big market teams? And for low-tax land teams? Small market teams have to overpay to lure top-free agents. I don’t want a hard salary cap if it just means more Lakers titles.
I don’t know how the NFL does it but they are more unpredictable than the NBA. There are surprise winners there AFAIK while you can pick 3 or 4 teams in the NBA for winner at the beginning of season and you can’t miss.

I’m all for non-guaranteed contracts though except for rookies.

1) What is the current and proposed revenue sharing arrangement. This will determine how well small market vs large market teams will do (of course you still have to have competent people running the franchise: I am looking at you Knickerbockers and Clippers)

2) The NBA has a more pronounced problem than other leagues because one or two players can be so game changing. It tends to drive up the bidding. At the same time, the results often don’t come, and then you have a payroll higher than your ability to draw. In football these screw ups are masked because such a large portion of revenue comes from league wide sharing, and the ability to reset each year since most contracts aren’t guaranteed.

3) Some sanity could be developed if they expand the concept of the minor leagues, and the ability to develop players cost effectively as baseball does (the only part of baseball finances that makes sense). Part of the problem is the limited talent pool is further reduced by lack of skill development because college stays are shortened.

4) We really have no idea of the finances of the owners: this could be crucial to the survival of a number of franchises, or it could be the perfect storm of opportunity to squeeze the players. I can’t tell you.

5) While free markets are good for most things, one of their virtues is inefficient participants go out of business. Having franchises fail would not be an outcome with which most fans would be happy. The question is what set of rules make it a level playing field

some of these teams lose money every year so for them the lockout may be beneficial financailly. there’s no question that the system has to change

These players all think they are entitled to huge contracts when their production doesn’t justify it or they just dog it once they get the contract so they don’t get injured before they sign their next one. They need to cut out the gaurantee like the NFL does. The NFL gets it right, everybody plays their hardest, or they get cut. The NBA would do better overall because you would have a more competitive product on the floor an no team would be perennially bad due to bloated contracts of losers (Hello, Mr. Arenas) on their cap. That is one of the reason why college ball is so enjoyable to watch, the players are all playing their hardest. Until they stop over paying players with long term gauranteed deals, the league will remain less competitive and less interesting than it can be.