I am getting pretty sick of hearing people talk about the players rights and how they should be free to choose where they go. It all leads to the small market teams, read undesirable locations, without the ability to attract or keep star players.
Imagine that the NBA is a corporation. The corporation decides that it needs the best salesman to move to Alaska to help the business. The salesman has the choice to quit, or go to Alaska. It is for the good of the company.
So players might all want to play and live in Miami, New York or LA, but for the good of the league, there needs to be good players everywhere.
The NBA is a business. The owners made money and created the opportunity for the players to be rich beyond their wildest dreams. People to to games to watch the players play, but it is because of the owners that it is a marquee event. You don't see thousands of people lined up around the playground paying money to watch.
Let the players try to start their own league. Watch them go bankrupt.
Showing posts with label lockout. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lockout. Show all posts
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
A Plan to Make NBA Players Happy
The upcoming negotiations between the players and owners will lead to a lockout. They are far apart on almost all the details. I have come up with a plan that should make the players ecstatic. Most owners would probably approve. A lot of fans will love it too. Well, not all of them. Here are my ideas.
1. Contract 5 teams. My plan requires only 25 teams. There will be more star players to spread around. It doesn't really matter what teams they are but they will be small market of course, because no one cares about them. TV matters, and big markets matter.
2. Move 5 teams to each of the following 5 cities. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Dallas. Let's face it, these are the only cities a superstar wants to play in. That is what matters most. If these guys aren't happy, they aren't going to play hard. Miami will have a hard time supporting 5 teams, but the schedule will make sure only one of the five is playing at home on any given day. South Beach and no state taxes are the real reason they make the cut.
3. Raise ticket prices across the board. Remove the upper deck seats in the arenas. This way only rich and famous people will be able to go to the actual games. NBA players get hyped up to play in front of these crowds. They don't care about families or little kids wearing their jerseys unless they are their own. Gorgeous groupies are allowed as well. Crowd noise can be pumped in.
4. Only former players can be coaches. The players need to be able to relate to their coach. They have a hard time listening anyway, so at least they would know the coach understands what they are going through.
5. Raise the salary cap. The players are the ones everyone comes to see. Their names are on the backs of the jersey's that kids beg their parents to buy. Families of players have to eat.
Why The NBA Needs a Lockout
Imagine if someone offered you several million bucks to do something you loved to do. Something you have done since you were a little kid. You wouldn’t need a degree to get it. Hell, you wouldn’t even have to be able to read very well or speak English much. But wait before you answer, it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There would be lots of travel on a chartered jet and you would have to stay in a luxury hotel wherever you went. A chef would prepare all your food during work and a staff would give you a massage whenever you wanted and take care of you if you got hurt. Gorgeous women would approach you all the time asking to have sex with you no matter how ugly you were. Kids and adults would idolize you and beg for a moment of your time. You would have to perform in front of a large crowd who hung on your every action and screamed your name. Now here is the really terrible part. You would have to live in a major city, not of your choosing for six months. The other six months you could live wherever you want. Hard to imagine isn’t it? Can you believe some people have to suffer through this kind of life?
Imagine the audacity of 30 guys, who mostly by their own actions became amazingly wealthy and successful. These fools went to places like University, and stayed 4 years. Some stayed even longer than that. They worked hard, and took risks. Sure, a few of them got their money from their Dads, but most of them didn’t. They became lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs and businessmen. After years of hard work they were rewarded with more money than they knew what to do with. Most of these fools paid hundreds of millions of their hard earned money to own an NBA franchise. These guys were stupid enough to believe that someone would be willing to live in some god forsaken places like Milwaukee, or Denver. Or get this. Canada? What state is that even in? It couldn’t be worse than Cleveland, right?
Don’t they realize that anybody with a high school degree would only want to live in New York or LA. Miami is good too, as long as you have buddies there. If you try to force someone to take millions of dollars to play a child’s game in a city that has snow, or taxes you must be crazy. Jesus, I hear this Toronto place uses the metric system. The metric system? Who the hell uses that?
I guess a lot of those places could probably get some suckers to take the millions, but certainly not the best players. They deserve to live and work where they choose. A man has to be free to do what’s best for him and his family, no matter how may kids he has.
Think about what you have just read. NBA players really believe this stuff. Well, the superstars do. A lot of those who follow the NBA do to. Well, the young people are just ignorant, and many of the writers don’t want to piss off the players they cover. To think for one second that the best basketball player in the world, LeBron James is actually deserving of $176,000 dollars per game is ridiculous. Think about that for a second. The President of the United States earns $400,000 dollars a year. LeBron gets that for a little more than two games of basketball. LeBron is the best player in the league, the one people want to watch. But he will get that money no matter if he plays all 82 games or not. He could decide he isn’t happy, or that he wants to save his legs for a game later in the week or year, so he’ll try hard next time. He doesn’t care that you spent a hundred bucks or more to come and see him play. He doesn’t care if you brought your kid, or if you planned a trip because your city or town is even worse than the worst cities that don’t have an NBA team. Do you think he was born 6’8’’ and 260 pounds? Or that his athletic ability and strength where just given to him?
Sure, fans come to watch the players. But the players wouldn’t have a league without the owners. The owners wouldn’t have a league without fans willing to buy tickets. Or fans willing to tune into their favorite team on television and watch the commercials that pay the bills. So they must pay to get the players to play in cities they don’t want to live in. And some of these rich guys are much richer than the others, so they are willing to lose a ton of money so they can say they have the best players and maybe a trophy or two. These rich guys think that they can just ship a player off to a crappy city and expect them to keep playing hard just for their huge paycheck.
Lock these ungrateful players out and don’t let them back in until they come crawling back and understand just how good they’ve got it. I love the NBA and will miss it dearly, but it can’t go on like this. It isn’t fair to anyone, but the players of course.
Imagine the audacity of 30 guys, who mostly by their own actions became amazingly wealthy and successful. These fools went to places like University, and stayed 4 years. Some stayed even longer than that. They worked hard, and took risks. Sure, a few of them got their money from their Dads, but most of them didn’t. They became lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs and businessmen. After years of hard work they were rewarded with more money than they knew what to do with. Most of these fools paid hundreds of millions of their hard earned money to own an NBA franchise. These guys were stupid enough to believe that someone would be willing to live in some god forsaken places like Milwaukee, or Denver. Or get this. Canada? What state is that even in? It couldn’t be worse than Cleveland, right?
Don’t they realize that anybody with a high school degree would only want to live in New York or LA. Miami is good too, as long as you have buddies there. If you try to force someone to take millions of dollars to play a child’s game in a city that has snow, or taxes you must be crazy. Jesus, I hear this Toronto place uses the metric system. The metric system? Who the hell uses that?
I guess a lot of those places could probably get some suckers to take the millions, but certainly not the best players. They deserve to live and work where they choose. A man has to be free to do what’s best for him and his family, no matter how may kids he has.
Think about what you have just read. NBA players really believe this stuff. Well, the superstars do. A lot of those who follow the NBA do to. Well, the young people are just ignorant, and many of the writers don’t want to piss off the players they cover. To think for one second that the best basketball player in the world, LeBron James is actually deserving of $176,000 dollars per game is ridiculous. Think about that for a second. The President of the United States earns $400,000 dollars a year. LeBron gets that for a little more than two games of basketball. LeBron is the best player in the league, the one people want to watch. But he will get that money no matter if he plays all 82 games or not. He could decide he isn’t happy, or that he wants to save his legs for a game later in the week or year, so he’ll try hard next time. He doesn’t care that you spent a hundred bucks or more to come and see him play. He doesn’t care if you brought your kid, or if you planned a trip because your city or town is even worse than the worst cities that don’t have an NBA team. Do you think he was born 6’8’’ and 260 pounds? Or that his athletic ability and strength where just given to him?
Sure, fans come to watch the players. But the players wouldn’t have a league without the owners. The owners wouldn’t have a league without fans willing to buy tickets. Or fans willing to tune into their favorite team on television and watch the commercials that pay the bills. So they must pay to get the players to play in cities they don’t want to live in. And some of these rich guys are much richer than the others, so they are willing to lose a ton of money so they can say they have the best players and maybe a trophy or two. These rich guys think that they can just ship a player off to a crappy city and expect them to keep playing hard just for their huge paycheck.
Lock these ungrateful players out and don’t let them back in until they come crawling back and understand just how good they’ve got it. I love the NBA and will miss it dearly, but it can’t go on like this. It isn’t fair to anyone, but the players of course.
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