I can see why the players would be opposed to giving back everything that they gained monetarily in the current agreement, that would be a huge step backwards. Hopefully reason and consensus will lead to a compromise but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Holy cow! All I expect from you is crazy songs and anti-LA talk, this is a welcome post. either you didn’t drink before you wrote that or you reached booze nirvana. I hope it’s the latter.

With the average career of an NFL player being only less than 4 years and their mortality rate (as reported recently by ESPN), only 54 years of age (significantly less than that of the average American male), and a lot of the NFL owners wealthy and arrogant (like Jerry Jones of Dallas and Dean Spanos of San Diego), I find it impossible to side with the NFL owners.

The NBA though is different, because I truly believe Stern when he says that close to half of the NBA franchises have been losing money, some at at a hemorrhaging rate. While the NBA owners have no one but themselves to blame for the last CBA that they agreed to, it doesn’t change the fact that they need to change the way that they are doing business or risk going out of business one small to mid-sized market team at a time.

The mere fact that kids still in their early 20′s can attain “max fully guaranteed contracts” in just their 3rd or 4th year in the league (when many of them are just starting to emerge as starters and/or potential stars), is ridiculous.

So an NBA team gambles on a former “one and doner” who’s mostly languished on the bench their first two years in the league just to make them into productive players have to give these guys guaranteed multi-million dollar fully guaranteed contracts or risk losing a potential star is financial suicide.

Take the example of fat, lazy party boy Eddie “Sloth” Curry who the Knicks gave a staggering guaranteed long term $12.5M/year contract in his early 20′s shouldn’t be allowed to happen.

The owners in essence need strong limitations on a new CBA if for no other reason than to protect them from themselves, because the talent pool of potential stars is now spread way too thin and colleges can’t fill the gap anymore because of the “one and doners” don’t give colleges the opportunity to grow and develop that talent before they bolt for the guaranteed millions offered by the NBA, most long before they are ready for that level of competition.

I also was totally turned off by the self anointed “Big 3 The Decision” that occurred last offseason too, as if most of the NBA stars and emerging stars now will only play for big market teams together, it will kill the competitive balance in the league as well as many small-mid market teams. Eventually if this isn’t put in check, we could see the NBA eventually contract back down to the original 9 plus the first big expansion team, the Chicago Bulls.

Do any of you NBA fans out there want to see more lazy slugs like Eddie Curry simply skate and party with their “posse’s” after receiving their big long term contracts? I sure don’t!

What I’d like to see is exactly what the NBA owners have proposed (although it’s highly unlikely it will happen this CBA contract negotiation go around), and that’s the same kind of “hard salary cap” that the NHL was willing to sacrifice an entire season to attain.

The NFL has it right; pay for play. If you can’t make the roster cut in any given season, your remaining contract isn’t guaranteed. Simple as that. I’m willing as a fan to give up a season to see that happen too. How about all of you?

And the two issues are related…….

Here’s hoping I’m wrong