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Bill Simmons responds to the idiots:
Last thing: In Wednesday's column, I finished a prolonged section about the NBA's big-picture economic problems (not the straight economic issues they're arguing about right now, but the deeper issues, namely, how they're going to reshape this league economically now that consumer behavior is working against them) by bringing up every big-picture issue that transcends this lockout and wondering, "Where's the big-picture leadership here? What's the right number of franchises? Where should those franchises play? What's worse, losing three franchises or losing an entire season of basketball? What's really important here? I don't trust the players' side to make the right choices, because they are saddled with limited intellectual capital. (Sorry, it's true.) The owners' side can't say the same; they should be ashamed. Same for the agents. And collectively, they should all be mortified that a 16-hour negotiating session, this late in the game, was cause for any celebration or optimism."
Look, I know how it works in the Twitter era: It's easy to tweet "Simmons thinks the NBA players have 'limited intellectual capital,'" have others retweet this, and eventually, you end up with (a) an actual NBA player (in this case, Anthony Tolliver) wondering, "Bill Simmons said that the @NBPA & NBA players have 'limited intellectual capital' …wow! Does he think that we cant read between the lines?", (b) some "scholar" playing the race card (just painful to read — I can't even link to it, I won't do that to you), and (c) a business blogger named Mary Adams lecturing me (did she even check to see what the context was?) about my ignorance with the phrase "intellectual capital."
So I'm ignorant because I don't think NBA players will be the ones creating a new economic model for the NBA? What are their qualifications to do such a thing? If they're so financially savvy, why do they need agents to negotiate their deals? Why have we made such a big fuss these past 10 years over how many athletes (not just NBA players) are going broke? Why should we expect them to have an advantage negotiating against a bunch of billionaires who have law degrees and MBAs and make big-picture deals all the time? As my friend Whitlock wrote earlier this week, "Stern has been balling in the basketball boardroom for three decades. The players look as out of place barging into meetings and negotiating with Stern and his lawyers as Stern and his lawyers would challenging Fisher, Wade, Garnett and Pierce on the court."
From day one, the players have approached this lockout like it's a competition — they don't want to be beaten, they're not rolling over, they're staying strong and all that macho *!+%@*%%. It's all small-picture stuff. When's the last time you heard someone from the players' side say, "Maybe the owners are right, maybe we should work with them to create a better system?" Where are the Bill Russells, the Bill Bradleys, the Oscar Robertsons, the Phil Jacksons, the Bob Cousys and Tommy Heinsohns — thoughtful stars pushing for real change instead of just pretending to be tough at a meeting? Where are the guys who stood up before the 1964 All-Star Game in Boston and basically said, "The current system is broken and needs to change NOW, or we're not playing?" Where is this generation's Larry Fleisher, a brilliant legal mind who can successfully look out for the players while also helping to shape the league's bigger picture? Seriously, where is he?
If we're relying on someone to create a new economic model to save the league, don't expect it to be the players; it's outside their means. That's what I wrote. I would have written the same thing about NHL players, NFL players or MLB players, and by the way, I wrote the same thing four years ago about the Writers Guild when they were dumb enough to give away four-plus months of paychecks because they were so obsessed with guaranteeing themselves a piece of Internet revenue going forward … only Internet revenue hadn't even come close to fully forming into anything yet. (That's why I compared the NBA players to the Hollywood writers over and over again these past few months.) If you remember, the larger point of Wednesday's column was this: The two sides should split the difference on every issue, come to a two-year détente, start playing basketball again, then spend those next two years building a better economic model that puts everyone in a better place … and if they don't, many fans will move on, and some of them might not come back.
If the players want to create that model, God bless 'em. I haven't seen any inkling from them these past few months that they're thinking that way — they're all about protecting their BRI, midlevel exception and contract lengths. Again, small-picture stuff. (It's unclear if they even realize that, by missing two months of paychecks, it's impossible for them to get that money back no matter what the deal is. And they're definitely being manipulated by agents with two sets of agendas — the ones who want salaries for stars to keep rising, and the ones who want to protect the salaries of the middle-class guys. There is no common ground. You can't have both. If we're cutting player revenue, one of those two groups will suffer.) Even during the most spirited round of talks between owners and players this week, by all accounts, it was the owners (Mark Cuban, James Dolan, Jerry Buss and Micky Arison, all of whom Billy Hunter mentioned positively in his press conference yesterday) coming up with ambitious ideas to blow things up and take the league in a different direction (including one owner who basically wanted to abolish the salary cap entirely) as well as Paul Allen and some of the small market owners who reportedly undermined that momentum before it had a chance to flourish.
We have heard little (if any) of that brainstorming coming from the players or Hunter. They're all about "holding the line" and "not bending" and "staying at 53" … meanwhile, they keep forgetting that they have no leverage whatsoever, nor can they take a hint that they're dealing with a bunch of ruthless rich dudes who will absolutely murder the 2011-12 season to get what they want. (The owners lied this whole time. They WANT to miss games. They always did. That was always the plan. The one time they nearly broke and caved the most — two weeks ago — the players blew that window with their ill-fated "we're gonna have KG, Paul and Kobe handle this" plan.) It's no different than the writers holding tough against Hollywood in 2008. And, eventually, losing. Those writers lacked the same intellectual capital to shape their business in a big-picture way that the NBA players lack right now, or that the NHL players will lack next year when they get locked out. Of course, here's how Mary Adams described the intellectual capital of players:
"Players bring all four kinds of knowledge to the table: their own knowledge and experience; their fans and relationships with teams; their contributions to playbooks and team operations plus their contributions on media like Twitter; their packaging as players and media figures."
Um, what does that have to do with creating a new economic model for the NBA again? Mary keeps going: "You could do the same analysis of owners and agents. In fact, when you look at things this way, you'll see that each group brings different pieces of the whole to the table. The reason that the players, agents and owners are all at the table together is that they need each other. And they do bring different knowledge to the table."
Totally agree. But how do those skills lead to players being the ones who actually create a better economic model? Allow me to twist Mary's words around and read between the lines like she did: "If these sides stop fighting over small-picture stuff and concentrate instead on blowing up the system and creating a better one, the players have to chip in by giving their input on fans, teams, playbooks, social media and brand packaging." You know, because the immortal "Let us play!" social media campaign was such a roaring success.
I stand by what I wrote on Wednesday: If there's legitimate big-picture progress to be made — sweeping, change-the-way-NBA-business-is-done stuff — it's going to come from the owners and agents, as well as David Stern and Billy Hunter. Yes, the four parties who put us in this mess in the first place.
(In other words, we're screwed.)
