The part I don’t understand is that if the teams that were purchased in the last decade are the hard liners because they are the most over-leveraged, wouldn’t those guys need the games the most as well?

Owners like Sterling [spit] have little to no debt because they have been bottom feeders for decades, pocketing the little revenue sharing money that the NBA distributes from teams actually trying to win without contributing anything to the viability of the NBA. To him it wouldn’t matter if no games are played he isn’t carrying the same amount of debt.

Owners like Dr. Buss need to churn the machine to feed the beast. He is trying to pre pay his death taxes to pass the team to his kids without having to cut in another partner. He needs to play the games because his business plan centers around playing late into the season which produces extra revenue to support going over the cap and the luxury tax his pays to Sterling [spit] and the other bottom feeders.

Players have made some modest concessions but pointed out that the NBA’s real problem is revenue sharing that that the owners need to settle that among themselves first. The players would take a reduction in Basketball related income and the financial situation is settled, and we have a season.

Essentially the owners want the players to save them from their own bad decisions and guarantee them a profit, socialist style, whether or not they make good business decisions.

A major aerospace company made that same argument to me last week in a pricing negotiation. They didn’t budget correctly so they want my company to take a $2 mil haircut off of our asking price so they can meet their profit goals. We told them to pound sand. They are now complaining to my boss and the government that we are not “working with them.”

I hate Stern as much as the next guy, though.

I have my issues with the players but when Stern is a tool and really its the owners fault we are at this point.