The name Reggie Wilkes probably doesn't evoke much from you unless you're a hard-core Eagles or NFL fan. Right now though he's the financial adviser to Derrick Favors and other athletes. The Wall Street Journal has an article on him and how he has prepared his clients for not only the lockout, but life after sports,
Anticipating the NBA lockout more then two years ago, Wilkes asked his basketball players to save a total of two years of expenses-one year more than he encourages all pro-athletes to save.
An athlete's career could end at any moment, and they may not get into another line of lucrative work. So Wilkes invests as if these clients were retirees. A 25-year-old NBA star might hold about 35% of his portfolio in stocks, with the balance spread among bonds, short-term CDs and cash. Wilkes also challenges his athletes to save $1 million as soon as possible.
Favors didn't turn pro until last year of course, so he hasn't had the two years to prepare for the lockout. If he's had Wilkes as an adviser from the beginning though, Favors is still likely in a good spot with the work stoppage. He probably hasn't gone crazy on spending his money. He doesn't have a house (that I'm aware of) and his biggest purchase is probably a car.
He made north of $4 million last season and after taxes and agent commission, he probably took home close to $2 million. Under the current CBA, he's set to make around $23 million on his rookie deal. Whatever he ends up making with the new CBA, he's in good hands.
Lockout talk! What else?
Derek Fisher of Los Angeles Lakers urges unity among NBA players - ESPN
"I want to make something absolutely clear about this process," Fisher wrote. "You ultimately have the voice and the power in these negotiations. Those of us that are in the room negotiating with the NBA cannot agree to any deal or deal points, good or bad, without taking your vote. Despite what you may hear, we don't have the authority to sell you out or sell you short." "We are a group of some of the most talented, savvy, businessmen and business owners in the world," Fisher added. "We have built our own brands, launched our own and other people's companies, helped our communities. I keep that in the forefront of my mind each time we go into a negotiating session.Community - CBSSports.com
Negotiations resume after the league made a slight but significant revision last week to its most recent proposal on how to divide the sport's approximately $4 billion in basketball-related income (BRI). Sources say the owners' latest economic proposal amounted to an average 46 percent of BRI for the players over the life of the deal, which the union deemed "unacceptable." But the revised proposal represented a 2 percent increase from the owners' June proposal of a flat $2.01 billion annual guarantee for the players in the first eight years of a 10-year deal. That proposal started at about a 50-50 split of BRI in the 2011-12 season, but with revenues projected to increase about 4 percent a year, the players' share would shrink over time -- to about 39 percent in the eighth year of the deal.Malcolm Gladwell on Bruce Ratner and the Barclays Center - Grantland
David Stern would have you believe the Brooklyn-bound franchise embodies everything wrong with the league's finances. It's not true.
And let's not forget Mikhail Prokhorov. How does he feel about buying into the financial sinkhole that is professional basketball? The blog NetsDaily4 recently dug up the following quotation from a 2010 interview Prokhorov did with the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti: "We have a team, we're building the arena, we've hired professional management, we have the option to buy into another large project, the building of an office center. For me, this is a project with explosive profit potential. The capitalization of the team will be $700 million after we move to Brooklyn. It will earn approximately 30 [million]. And the arena will be worth around $1 billion." Let us recap. At the very moment the commissioner of the NBA is holding up the New Jersey Nets as a case study of basketball's impoverishment, the former owner of the team is crowing about 10 percent returns and the new owner is boasting of "explosive" profits.
Here's a screenshot from NBA 2K12's John Stockton Greatest game against the Lakers
Nothing like being led out by Adam Keefe. I also appreciate how each team has the same look. Greg Foster just doesn't quite pull off that look like Shaq.
Operation Sports recapped a video preview of the game and listed the rankings for each of the players that were shown. For the Jazz, Millsap and Jefferson checked in with an 80 and 81 respectively.
Here's the full list from Real 2K Insider
2K12 rating - Player (2K11 Final Rating / 2K11 Default Rating)
JAZZ (Last Year/This Year)
POINT GUARD
78 - Devin Harris (80/78)
63 - Earl Watson (64/64)
N/A - Ronnie Price (63/63)
SHOOTING GUARD
68 - Raja Bell (70/70)
N/A - Kyle Weaver (59/59)
SMALL FORWARD
74 - Andrei Kirilenko (75/74)
68 - C.J. Miles (69/58)
63 - Gordon Hayward (64/64)
POWER FORWARD
80 - Paul Millsap (80/74)
70 - Derrick Favors (73/73)
N/A - Jeremy Evans (57/57)
CENTER
81 - Al Jefferson (83/80)
N/A - Mehmet Okur (75/75)
N/A - Francisco Elson (61/61)
N/A - Kyrylo Fesenko (49/49)
It seems like they were pretty harsh on rankings this season. Dirk only scored an 85? Kevin Love an 81?
It comes out next week.
It looks like Kanter will fit in nicely with the Jazz and with Jazz fans once the season gets going. Eurobasket spoke to him about playing overseas with the lockout still on,
Enes Kanter (208-C-92, college: Kentucky), whos drafted 3rd overall by Utah Jazz, a young player of Turkish National Basketball Team, said he had not been playing basketball for 2 years and in case the lockout in NBA took so long, gave signs of playing for a team in Europe.
Enes Kanter said he does not want to be a star player but a team player. Young player reminded he was away from the basketball for 2 years I havent spoken to my manager yet but I am very hungry for basketball. If the lockout takes too long, I want to sign with a team, there are some offers, I am reviewing them, I havent decided yet.
The part that I wanted to point out was about him wanting to be a team player, and not a star player. I would like him to be both; I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I'm glad to see him buying into the team concept though.
Obviously I would rather have the CBA done and be talking about the season coming up. But that's not happening right now, so I have to kind of change my mindset and look for some positives.
One of the things that could have be excited is the frenzy of signings and trades that could happen in the span of two weeks should the league and players come to an agreement. Your head would LITERALLY, have to be on a swivel.
Scott Schroeder from Ridiculous Upside takes a look back at what happened in 1999 and what could happen again.