David Stern, Eternal Idiot
It seems after a while of being the head of a large sports organization no matter how good your prior reputation, the power of the position eventually begins to drive them crazy. Gary Bettman, Paul Tagliabue, Bud Selig, Stern, and Sepp Blatter have all had their share of stupid ideas and statements.
Today, Mr. Stern in his infinite wisdom is trying to use the upcoming expiration of the labour agreement between the NBA and the Players' Association as a way of forcing the players to give the owners a way of dumping huge long-term contracts without regard to the cap.
Stern argues this will free up more money to be spent on relevent members of the roster who are still active, and allow for more player movement among teams. By dumping contracts of inactive or seldom used players, he believes this money will be filtered back to the upper echelon of players in the league.
I have little doubt that all Stern is doing is attempting to throw a smokescreen to the real problem which is owners simply throwing money at the best available free agents then coming to regret it later when they realize they overpaid. A contract is binding for a reason, and if Stern succeeds in pushing this through, the NBA gains one of the more negative aspects of free agency that hurts the legitimacy of the NFL's system.
The more sneaking suspicion I have is that by throwing ideas around in the media like this now, Stern is more likely to be setting up a scenario where he 'concedes' issues such as this in order to have a better chance at adopting changes like increasing the minimum age to 20.
In most cases of labour strife between owners and players I tend to side with the owners, but this case bugs me for some reason. It isn't enough really that some of the biggest stars are coming straight out of high school, but it allows owners two further years to extend rookie salary caps, retain their players and prevent them from signing long term mega-deals until later on.
Kobe just got like $117 million, and he's only 26. Had he been forced to college, the earliest at most he'd even have the chance to sign a deal like that would be near 30, the age where contracts on average start declining in value. Couple that with proposed contract lengths being reduced and you can see how this really disadvantages the players' position.
It will be interesting to see who concedes what first, and whether both sides will actually put their foot down at all to get what they want. It appears the owners have more to gain than the players, only time will tell if that remains the case.
Today, Mr. Stern in his infinite wisdom is trying to use the upcoming expiration of the labour agreement between the NBA and the Players' Association as a way of forcing the players to give the owners a way of dumping huge long-term contracts without regard to the cap.
Stern argues this will free up more money to be spent on relevent members of the roster who are still active, and allow for more player movement among teams. By dumping contracts of inactive or seldom used players, he believes this money will be filtered back to the upper echelon of players in the league.
I have little doubt that all Stern is doing is attempting to throw a smokescreen to the real problem which is owners simply throwing money at the best available free agents then coming to regret it later when they realize they overpaid. A contract is binding for a reason, and if Stern succeeds in pushing this through, the NBA gains one of the more negative aspects of free agency that hurts the legitimacy of the NFL's system.
The more sneaking suspicion I have is that by throwing ideas around in the media like this now, Stern is more likely to be setting up a scenario where he 'concedes' issues such as this in order to have a better chance at adopting changes like increasing the minimum age to 20.
In most cases of labour strife between owners and players I tend to side with the owners, but this case bugs me for some reason. It isn't enough really that some of the biggest stars are coming straight out of high school, but it allows owners two further years to extend rookie salary caps, retain their players and prevent them from signing long term mega-deals until later on.
Kobe just got like $117 million, and he's only 26. Had he been forced to college, the earliest at most he'd even have the chance to sign a deal like that would be near 30, the age where contracts on average start declining in value. Couple that with proposed contract lengths being reduced and you can see how this really disadvantages the players' position.
It will be interesting to see who concedes what first, and whether both sides will actually put their foot down at all to get what they want. It appears the owners have more to gain than the players, only time will tell if that remains the case.
posted by David at 6:32 p.m.
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