In negotiating, you expect lopsided requests when you start. For the involved parties, you start out asking for the moon and hope to meet somewhere in the middle with each side hoping the middle ends up being a little above their actual price.
But what if instead of asking for the moon, one party goes for Alpha Centauri? That's what the NBA owners have done in their first offer for the new collective bargaining agreement that would start after the 2011 season. Here's some of the things that are reportedly in their offer,
- Cutting the percentage of player revenue
- Less guaranteed money
- Hard salary cap
- The new CBA would require existing deals to be re-worked to fit within the new guidelines. That means that everyone getting huge deals this summer would have to take huge pay cuts. Would teams have to get rid of players if it couldn't re-work deals?
- No more MLE
Sources, 1, 2
I haven't read anything where the league is willing to offer other things to help offset these changes. It seems like the biggest thing they're after is less guaranteed money. They don't want any of the repercussions of signing someone like Curry or Marbury to huge deals and then get killed for the last 2-3 years of the deal when the player is no longer worth it.
Basically they want to be able to make big deals without the repercussions of such a risk.
The owners just might get what they want.
Yeah for the NBA!
Adrian Wojnarowski had the best quote on the deal, "Yes, the NBA delivered its players an initial proposal and it sure did look like a big finger flicked in the union’s face."
Trying to link the Jazz to the Saints win last night is a big stretch considering that the Jazz haven't been relevant in New Orleans for 3 decades, but it was great to see a city that hasn't won a championship finally get one.
Don't kill me RSL fans, I know we have a championship in Salt Lake now. Maybe I should revise that and say that it's good to see a franchise get its first title. Kind of gives me hope for our team some day.
I was looking up some win shares information on this year and a couple of numbers stood out to me. First, Carlos Boozer still leads the team, and by a wide margin, in defensive win shares. I hearken back to when I ripped Boozer for his D after the loss to the Celtics. He has been playing really well and his slap steal against the Nuggets was Malone-esque. He's been aggressive on both ends of the court and has been physical. We just haven't seen that from him. If something has finally turned on in his head, that's amazing. If that something is playing for a contract, then I'm pissed because he should have been doing this all along. We benefit now, but where was this before?
Second, behind Deron in offensive win shares is Boozer. That's not a surprise of course. The surprise is that Andrei Kirilenko is tied with Boozer at 2.7 for offensive win shares. Another sign that AK is playing out of his mind. His PER is also the highest its been since the 2006 season.
Sloan's control over personnel decisions might be less that you think. Here's a snip from Tim Buckley's column,
And that is that he would not stand in the way of whatever ownership and management decide, even if it were to mean moving Boozer or another key component — starting shooting guard Ronnie Brewer has been mentioned in recent trade talk too — just to get under the luxury line.
"If they have a decision to make, a front-office decision, we'll play whoever's here," he said Saturday. "That's our job in coaching. I don't try to tell people what to do with their money, or anything else. I never have.
I think you have to trust Sloan when he says this. Sloan is one of the most straight-forward people ever so he's not going to say something like this without it being true.
However, I still think he has a big say in who the Jazz draft/sign/trade. He may not go to the FO with requests but I'm sure they talk to him about every move and his thoughts probably have a lot of weight.
Monday poll,