(05-17-2011, 04:43 PM)Black Urum Wrote: After yesterday's offer by NBA owners for a $45 hard salary cap I'm confident that there will be NBA players moving to Europe, no matter what happens.

First case if players reject the offer and there is a lock-out. This obviously will be the easiest case for European teams to lure some players. But even if the players accept the deal it means NBA teams will have to spend 25% less on players, so some players who won't got for a 25% pay cut will go to Europe anyway.

(01-05-2011, 12:17 AM)Scout200 Wrote: Many people are saying that a lockout is inevitable for the 2011-2012 season. What impact will it have on the NBA, players, fans.. and in general, America? Also, if there is a lockout, who would be to blame?

(09-23-2011, 02:38 AM)ZEUS Wrote: The minimum wage per year for an NBA player is $430 K. And those fuckers can't make ends meet? Let 'em survive on bread and olives

(09-23-2011, 12:31 PM)stefans Wrote: The best players in NBA should make not higher than 15m dollars!!

Even football that is (sad but truth) most popular sport on planet give less money to players than NBA.

Only Samuel Eto has much money than NBA stars(20m euros = 26m dollars).

And Kobe have 24m dollars.

(09-23-2011, 09:55 PM)Fivepack Wrote: Bread and olives.. that's for the working and impoverished class.. they're into Lobster and French Champagne!!

• The league is not static and can extend from year to year by new generic clubs.
  
  
• Not a single legendary player will disappear if you play with the "Live Legends".
  
  
• You can create also your own club with a unique name and logo.
  
  

Quote:The rich do some stupid things.

This mutual suicide pact among NBA owners, for example. They had another meeting Sunday night to suss out the details. Slow poison, or a quick bullet to the brain? We'll hear more about it Monday afternoon once NBA commissioner, executioner and grief counselor David Stern starts canceling regular season games. At least that's what we've been told. Or threatened. It's just the latest phony deadline in the absurd story of a nonsense lockout.

We're on the brink! The whole apparatus is at risk! Save us!

Idiots.

Sorry. I had a whole polite thing worked up. Lots of statistics. Reasonable. All points of view represented. But this is just deeply, impossibly stupid. In fact, the more I think about it, the angrier I get, and the more I realize that any owner who can't break even on professional sports in this country is a moron. Or a liar. Honestly. If you can't manage a pro team at a modest profit in the United States of America in the early years of the 21st century, you shouldn't be allowed to vote or operate a motor vehicle. You shouldn't be allowed near the stove.

At a time when the production and consumption of distraction are the only healthy sectors of the American economy, and when city, county, state and federal tax dollars pay for the arenas and the stadiums, to lose money on the operation of a pro sports franchise has to be grounds for involuntary psychiatric commitment. Or prosecution.

And if any of this sounds familiar, consider where we've heard it before.

The NBA, too big to fail!

What Now?

Deadlines sometimes force action. But if nothing happens today, don't worry. The sides have more to lose by cancelling games than by reaching a deal.

Andrew Brandt »

Because between the lines of all this basketball madness is just another example of the nitwit superrich expecting their employees and/or the government and/or the general public to bail them out.

Save us from ourselves! they cry. Save us from our cartoon greed and our lurid excesses!

These credit derivatives are a win-win-win right down the line!

These credit default swaps are in no way a ticking time bomb!

This Eddy Curry contract will never blow up in my face!

Never!

So here we are.

We'd watch more barnstorming Dwyane Wade and LeBron James and friends if the NBA cancels games.

Back to the sort of disaster capitalism we've seen from the leagues before. And from Wall Street. And from Congress. Another bogus stalemate in which the fan loses and for which the little guy pays. Same old con game standoff between management and labor.

OK. Fine. Let it fail. I'm tired of being played for a sucker.

There's basketball everywhere.

In an economy this bad, most of us will be happy to watch college ball the next six months; or the satellite package with Lega Basket Serie A on it and the Israeli Basketball Super League, down at the corner bar; or we'll thumb through our own season on the Xbox. Or just watch the kids play in the driveway. These are lean days, Clueless Billionaire.

Or maybe the players will start their own league and barnstorm from armory to armory the way they did it back when. The value in the NBA is the talent, after all. And as start-ups go, it wouldn't cost much: just $89 to incorporate in Delaware. Call it the Peoples' Traveling Basketball League (patent pending). Twenty bucks a seat.

Me? I'll go up to the Rucker, or over to 4th Street. Or I'll walk to Sara D. Roosevelt Park and watch the neighborhood game from a bench with the other old kibitzers. See some young men as gifted and ambitious and carefree as players anywhere. Beautiful to watch. Once it gets cold out, we'll move the game inside to the community center. Whole thing costs nothing. Unless we go around the corner to Yonah Schimmel's for knishes at halftime. Then it's $3.50. Try the kasha.