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I did put a disclaimer that this wasn't the perfect idea.Originally Posted by grittyman20
If I understand this right then top players could still leave a franchise, be designated as a 2nd tier player and only face a 5% pay cutOriginally Posted by CP1708
Originally Posted by PMatic
What about a salary based on percentages? Designated top player on team gets 30% of team's salary cap, second player gets 25%, third player gets 15%, and the rest is split amongst the rest of the roster. Not perfect either but just something to think about.
70% top 3 guys, so LO would make what? Know what would happen? Players would fight for numbers, leave a team to be the 2-3 etc.......could balance guys maybe. Bosh wouldn't sign for 15% I don't think. Downside?
President Clinton, the NBA needs you to save the season
The Honorable William Jefferson Clinton
c/o The William J. Clinton Foundation
55 West 125th Street
New York, N.Y. 10027
Dear President Clinton,
I hope this note finds you well. I see that the Secretary is in Myanmar and that NBC has just hired Chelsea as a correspondent. What on earth did you all do before Skype was invented?
I write both as a reporter who is out of suggestions and recommendations -- not that anyone heeded them -- and a frustrated NBA fan who sees the 2011-12 season in danger of never being played. Since February of 2011, when the league and the players' union first got together formally during All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles, the lockout has loomed, ominously, over this great game. We knew then that the likelihood of a delayed or canceled season was great, given the separation between the two sides. And like a formulaic television drama, the days and months of rhetorical flourishes and malaprops, feigned and real anger and endless meetings have played out, leaving us where we are now: in court, with 26 percent of the regular season gone, and more to follow.
The NBA needs you.
The NBA needs you to mediate between the players and the owners.
If there is to be a season, someone has to intervene. Someone whose credentials are above reproach, who can get everyone's attention and to whom both sides will listen. Trust is at a premium now. Individually, David Stern and Billy Hunter may still get along, and, if left to their own devices, I remain convinced they could get this done in a couple of hours. But they aren't negotiating this deal in a vacuum. Powerful forces on each side are forcing their hands -- small-market owners who think they have to have a radical restructuring of the game's finances to survive, and agents who see a severe reduction in their clients' paydays on the horizon (and, by extension, their own) and who genuinely believe that what the owners are asking for is inherently unfair and wrong.
You obviously have helped solve a thorny issue or two over the years. You are keenly aware of the need for discretion and quiet diplomacy at sensitive moments in delicate negotiations. This job wouldn't be a public one. At this point, back channels are the only way this is going to be solved, because each side's pride is getting in the way of making contact with the other and re-starting negotiations. You obviously know some of the parties in this, like your fellow Arkansasan Derek Fisher, the president of the players' union before it was recently dissolved. And I know how much you love sports and basketball in particular -- though you're more of a college guy. That's OK. The job doesn't involve coaching; it requires someone who can do more than cut through all the rhetoric and see where the solutions lie. The solutions have been obvious for weeks. What is needed is will, the ability to get one of these sides -- both, probably -- to do something that they don't want to do.
Anyway, this isn't about politics, even though Stern and Hunter are both strong Democrats like you, and so are most of the players, and many -- not all -- of the owners. If I thought either of the former Bush presidents was interested in doing this, I'd be writing them. But neither 41 nor 43 seemed much interested in the orange leather -- they were, and are, baseball guys.
Your work would be cut out for you. Having come this far, the owners that have been holding out for an even higher percentage of Basketball Related Income see no reason to stop now. They know that 45 to 47 percent of BRI for the players is in sight now, after the players turned down a deal that would have included a 50-50 BRI split if the league had agreed to loosen some of its system demands. Now, there's nothing to stop the NBA from imposing its "reset" offer at 47 percent--and Stern made it clear that 47 wasn't even, potentially, the bottom line. The owners also know that if the season is indeed lost, they'll be able to offer just about anything -- 45 percent, 43 percent -- next summer, and the players will almost certainly take it. (Of course, what used to be the union knows that as well. That's why, I think, it didn't allow a full vote of the rank and file on the league's last offer -- because it would have been approved.)
The league is also convinced it is right that shrinking the gap between what teams spend on salaries will improve competitive balance. It says it does not expect or want everyone to be .500 every season, and that there are many factors that affect competitive balance. But it believes limiting the means by which the league's biggest spenders can add and retain players will work. It is a matter of the numbers, but it is also a matter of faith -- we believe this because we believe this.
On the other side, many believe the union's longtime attorney, Jeff Kessler, has been chomping at the bit for years to see a sports antitrust case through to its legal conclusion. He doesn't have enough clout to hold off a settlement, but he has Hunter's ear and respect, and if he indeed wants to fight to the bitter end he will be someone who'll have to be convinced otherwise -- or be overcome. Players think they've come far enough; having agreed to $3 billion in salary cuts over 10 years, they are genuinely gobsmacked when the league says, Not Enough. The player reps, genuinely, think the league is being obstinate when there are so relatively few differences remaining between the sides. (Of course, the owners think the exact same thing, except they think the players are being stubborn in not moving just a little further when they've moved so far already. You've had to deal with this in negotiations, certainly: you go first. No, you go first.)
You no doubt know David Boies well and how good he is at his job. But he couldn't have been more clear last week that he really would like this case resolved before it ever gets to the point where his courtroom skills would be needed. The owners are confident that if the case were somehow to go forward, they would win somewhere -- with a district judge, an appelate court, the Supreme Court, somewhere. All they need is one, basically. So they're in no great hurry to give in, especially since the players really haven't missed a paycheck yet. Technically, their first missed check was Nov. 15, but many players were reimbursed for at least some of that money when they got their escrow refund checks from the league in early November. The owners still think the players will cave after they miss some stubs.
But there is some reason, still, for optimism.
There are so many people on both sides who want to make a deal. There are dozens of players who are ready to lay down their arms and get back to the basketball court, as long as the owners give them just a little more on the system side, and their agents have heard an earful from them this past week. There are agents who likewise want to stop the fighting and start the season, but they don't have many avenues to utilize. The big-name, big-time agents are ready to decertify at the drop of a hat, thinking it will keep the pressure on the owners, and they have the bigger megaphone. But, believe me -- if you were to reach out quietly, you'd get some positive feedback.
Same with more than a few of the owners. Right now, there doesn't seem to be a majority on any one position -- keep the players locked out, come back to the bargaining table. It's more of a plurality. I'd say a dozen teams, maybe a couple more, are willing to stick it out as long as it takes to get the deal they want, including scuttling the season if necessary. Another eight or 10 teams want to get back in business, and it's obvious who they are if you've been paying any attention. As in your line of work, the independents are the ones who can sway the election. It's equally clear to me that the Commish desperately wants this to be over and try and salvage what's left of the season, and his legacy. He was shocked, an ownership source says, that the union's rank-and-file didn't accept the league's offer last weekend and demand a vote to ratify the deal. Now, a start on Christmas Day , when many casual fans actually start paying attention anyway, is about as good as one could hope for now.
But time is wasting.
This week, Thanksgiving Week, would normally be unlikely to produce much progress, what with everyone getting their Tryptophan on and all. And there will need to be at least a month under ideal circumstances even after an agreement is reached to prepare the teams and players for the start of the regular season. So you'd have to get started in the next couple of days, I'm afraid. (I'm sure you've just been sitting by the phone with nothing pressing on your schedule.) But who wouldn't take your call, even on Thursday? Maybe especially on Thursday; even we in the media like to watch football and tolerate our families on Thanksgiving, so your old office in Harlem -- right down the street from where the union/trade association is headquartered -- should be free from snooping reporters. Or, your buddy Ron Burkle's place on the East Side could do. An ex-president has lots of places to hold secret negotiations, right?
I can't stress enough how important discretion will be in this endeavor. For each side to move, it has to be able to save face; to save face, it cannot be viewed as capitulating to the other side and picking up the phone. A breakthrough announced only after a few days of underground talks would be hard for anyone to shout down or tear apart. what would the argument be against a compromise settlement brokered by a former president of the United States? Sonia Sotomayor, now on the Supreme Court, gets a lot of credit for laying the groundwork for what became the settlement which finally ended the baseball players' strike in 1995. But the NBA doesn't have time for a court-ordered settlement. It will take weeks just to establish whether the players' joint lawsuits in California and Minnesota can remain there or in New York, where the league would prefer they be adjudicated. If weeks go by now, the season is toast.
Even your political opponents recognize your people skills. (The whole "feel your pain" thing.) You put people at ease and have shown an ability to master complex issues in a hurry. And this isn't all that complex. Well, maybe revenue sharing, but that's another story. Again, this is about getting these guys to see the big picture, to realize that there are more important things than getting, or saving, every possible dollar.
My guess is that your friend, the late diplomat and ambassador Richard Holbrooke, confided a few things about the great difficulties in bringing factions together when he and others put the Dayton Peace Accords together in 1995 that ended the fighting in Bosnia. Again and again, failure seemed inevitable, even as Holbrooke tried to convince all the sides to "leap for peace," as he put it in his book, To End a War. This is, decidedly, not war, and I invite calumny by even bringing it up. But difficult negotiations seem to always involve similar facets: headstrong personalities, intractable positions, a looming deadline. To solve difficult problems requires a special skill set, patience, working past the point of seeming impasse.
The NBA and its players are at an impasse. It will require someone uniquely qualified to save the season.
That is you, Mr. President.
Sincerelyhttp://,
David Aldridge
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