Players Turn Down Offer - What's next?

[Randy]

So the Players just announced they are turning down the NBA's offer. They didbn't say "Decertification" but it sounds like it. They hired a new lawyer - the ultra heavyweight David Boyce(sp?) He was Al Gore's lawyer in Bush. v. Gore. I;m gurssing now nothing happens in the negotations for at least 2 weeks or so, since both sides need to posture for a while.

[Randy]

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/page/nextforplayers-111114/nba-players-do-next

Explains a bit. Players were talking about "Disclaimer of Interest" rather than Decertification. The above explains the difference, though the idea seems about the same.

[Deeman]

They can lock the players out the whole season I don't care. I'm tired of these greedy players and owners they deserve each other.

[AHF]

If they disclaim interest it will play right into the lawsuit the owners already filed so that case will suddenly get very interesting. The NBA will try to void all existing contracts for leverage as well.

[WraithSentinel]

This will get interesting. As for this season say goodbye to it. A blackeye in the short term but the league will be better off long term.

[AHF]

I hope the NBA players have their plan together on this. They are risking a repeat of the NHL scenario where owners got many more concessions out the Union after the Union rejected the last offer and the season got cancelled.

I had read where Houston's Kevin Martin was publicly calling for a full vote so the players could make their own individual decisions on this but obviously no one except the player reps made this decision (presumably informed by the vocal members of their respective constituents).

[lethalweapon3]

Will the Nets ever see New Jersey again?

Will the Kings ever see Sacto again?

And if Dwight eventually gets back on an NBA floor, what jersey will he be wearing?

~lw3

[Randy]

Interesting point - during the Players News Conference, they said all the team Reps were on board. But there was a tweet by the Orlando Rep (Chris Duhon) saying they supported the deal..... I do think the players will soon be at each others' throats, esp. since most of the areas of dispute are for the big $ guys rather than most of the players that are making league miniums, or are at the low end of the scale. Also, the older players know they will never get their money back if they lose a season of paychecks.

[HawkItus]

At this point although I support the players......I'm hoping for a complete wipeout of existing contracts. Free market baby. Let teams go to the highest bidder and get on with it.

[BudBall]

I hope the contracts get voided. We would benefit greatly.

[lifelong]

Man, what a sh!tshow this is going to be. I wonder if this "voiding contracts" thing is just an empty threat or if they really plan to do it. If they are going to do it, I also wonder if they can selectively void contracts (i.e. overpaid players) or if it is an all or nothing deal. I guess we'll be seeing a lot of Chris Broussard reporting in front of a random courthouse for the foreseeable future. Super.

Edited November 14, 2011 by lifelong

[lethalweapon3]

Golf bags for...

Juwan Howard?

Joe Smith?

Theo Ratliff?

Ben Wallace?

Erick Dampier?

Antonio McDyess?

Jermaine O'Neal?

Grant Hill?

Kenyon Martin?

Jason Kidd?

Mike Bibby?

Mo Evans?

Derek Fisher???

~lw3

[Eddielives]

I would love to see Joe's contract voided. I would then love to see him have to sell his douchey truck to pay his bills. A little reality check for an overpaid example of what's wrong with the league.

[HawkItus]

I would love to see Joe's contract voided. I would then love to see him have to sell his douchey truck to pay his bills. A little reality check for an overpaid example of what's wrong with the league.

Wow, where is that libertarian since of free market? So funny how it's okay to hate on the rich when they are athletes. What has Joe ever done to you?

[Gray Mule]

Well, dang.

No more NBA. It just died. We begin again. Sounds good. No one has a contract. Cancel

all of them. Let them sell themselves to the highest bidder. Their agents get a great big bonus.

The super stars get together and demand mega bucks. Rich owners sign DL players and tell

the super stars to kiss their paycheck good by.

JJ is now selling real estate and Lebron is an insurance agent. Kobe, who is selling autos will

be listing JJ's truck for him.

Ain't life wonderful!!

[Randy]

Pure free agency would probably favor the owners more than players. If every player was on the market every year, threre would be lots of guys to chose from. Now, there are only a small fraction of all players on the market each year, and the owners bid them up. Anyway, I'm with the guys that say tear up JJ's contract, if they can. Marvin's too.

[AHF]

The argument for voiding contracts is that the contracts are conditioned on there being a valid Union. Without seeing the language it is impossible to see, but there might be an argument that if the Union reforms then the contracts come back into effect. As the players sue for anti-trust damages, though, the league will argue that the players aren't entitled to their contract terms because the contracts are conditioned on a valid union and the players voluntarily got rid of the Union.

I wouldn't count on existing contracts being wiped out for the long term even if the voiding happens unless I see more.

Pure free agency would probably favor the owners more than players. If every player was on the market every year, threre would be lots of guys to chose from. Now, there are only a small fraction of all players on the market each year, and the owners bid them up. Anyway, I'm with the guys that say tear up JJ's contract, if they can. Marvin's too.

It would be interesting to say the least. Even hawksfanatic would have to stop arguing that team payroll was irrelevant if the league decided to operate without contracts. Can you imagine the rosters that the New York Knicks would put together compared to what teams like the Bobcats and Kings could afford?

There would likely be contraction of teams in a hurry and fewer total jobs in the NBA for the lesser players.

[Eddielives]

Wow, where is that libertarian since of free market? So funny how it's okay to hate on the rich when they are athletes. What has Joe ever done to you?

I can dislike the situation Joe and his contract have put this team in without having any principal disagreements as towards how he acquired it. As a fan, Joe could definitely be a worse guy as far as his attitude and off the court issues but his contract is an albatross on this organization. He knows it, the organization knows it and most fans know it. The organization could have let him go but either way they'd still be losing money. In my opinion, he's an example of why the league is in the situation it is in right now.

[AHF]

Obviously comparing the NBA and MLB is apples to oranges based on how the games are played and what the marginal impact of a player typically is, but indication from MLB (no salary cap) is that payroll doesn't explain much of the variation in wins. Currently, payroll doesn't explain much of the variation in wins for the NBA but one could argue the salary cap is the driving force behind this.

If the league operated with no salary cap, then we could run the same tests again to how much of the variation in wins is explained by payroll. I don't see how I would "stop arguing", it would just lead to a way to test the hypothesis that payroll dictates team success. So far the evidence that payroll explains team success is pretty weak. I highly doubt we will see a difference, and as of right now you are just making conjectures (I find them baseless) as to what would happen in the fictional world of no salary caps.

My assumption was that much of your argument was that smart drafting is more important than spending. In a decertified league, no team would have any players under contract and they would be simply bidding on free agent players. I don't see how you could possibly argue that a team with 60M to spend on players in that environment could compete with a team with 150M to spend.

The only way that doesn't happen is if the courts allow the owners to engage in certain concerted action in restraint of trade that would not be permissible in any other industry. This is possible, but in the hypothetical world were teams void all contracts and enter a free market I don't know how anyone could think that large payroll differences would not be significant.

[Vol4ever]

The players just made a nuclear mistake.