Tuesday and Wednesday were big days in the world of the NBA lockout. It seemed like the two sides were making progress in small meetings last week, but it was going to be the meetings with the larger negotiation groups that would tell us a lot. There seemed to be some progress as reported the split of basketball-related income is nearing a resolution.
The test though was getting everyone in the larger groups to agree. Both the players and the owners have professed their unity, but there are undoubtedly some cracks as each group has different interests — as there would be with any group.
Then some crazy news broke that shook the confidence of NBA fans and may have thrown a wrench into starting the season on time.
Dave McMenamin and Tim McMahon of ESPN were the first to report that Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and Suns owner Robert Sarver were leading a push from owners to continue insisting a hard salary cap, believed to be the biggest sticking point remaining in negotiations. Nobody knows what this reported exchange could mean, but it revealed what we all suspected — the owners have some house cleaning to do… hopefully they did it in the NBA board of governors meeting in Dallas on Thursday.
“Owners were seriously considering coming off of their demand for a salary freeze and would allow players’ future earnings to be tied into the league’s revenue growth, a critical point for players,” McMenamin and McMahon reported. “The owners also were willing to allow the players to maintain their current salaries, without rollbacks, sources said.
“But when the owners left the players to meet among themselves for around three hours, Cleveland’s Dan Gilbert and Phoenix’s Robert Sarver expressed their dissatisfaction with many of the points, sources said. The sources said that the Knicks’ James Dolan and the Lakers’ Jerry Buss were visibly annoyed by the hardline demands of Gilbert and Sarver.”
Why would Sarver and Gilbert be leading this push? What do they have to gain from insisting on a hard cap?
Cleveland and Phoenix are not generally thought of as small markets. The Suns and Cavaliers have access to relatively large markets and have solid fan bases. These are not the poster children for teams that need the relief that allegedly will come from instituting a hard salary cap.
So what are these two owners trying to protect themselves from?
For Gilbert, it makes sense that he wants some sort of cost assurance and a way to ensure superstars stay where they are drafted — or it is difficult for them to move. Gilbert lost LeBron James and he wants to make sure that never happens again. If a team gets a guy like James, Gilbert wants to make sure the team has every advantage to hold onto him.
One of those ways might be instituting a hard cap and eliminating the guaranteed contracts. A hard cap would seem to force the NBA to get rid of guaranteed contracts. And that is something many teams are in favor of so that they can get out of bad contracts.
This is where both Phoenix and Cleveland appear to lie.
Wages of Wins writes the Cavaliers are the third most reckless team in terms of taking on “bad contracts.” The Suns are ninth. Both teams, it would seem, would be in favor of both cost certainty and mobility. After all, the Cavaliers failed to put a championship roster around LeBron James.
“For seven years the Cavs had the best forward since Grant Hill and they could never seem to win it all. It turns out that despite being lucky in the draft they were terrible at signing other big names. Even leaving out Ben Wallace (he was injured and old) the Cavs still signed a mediocre Big Z [Zydrunas Ilgauskas] to long term extension and also traded for Antawn Jamison (who they are still stuck with). Larry Hughes had one good year but his career had been poor otherwise.”
Wages of Wins estimates the Cavaliers took on $165 million in reckless contracts. That rated behind only the Knicks (obviously) and the Wizards.
Phoenix had $93.3 million in reckless contracts and were especially penalized for taking on Hedo Turkoglu’s massive contract (don’t worry, the Magic were fourth for taking on Turkoglu and Gilbert Arenas in one fell swoop).
This tells part of the reason why Sarver and Gilbert may be among those pushing very hard for the mobility that comes from non-guaranteed contracts and a hard salary cap. And if they have support, they might be leading the push (along with apparently Abe Pollin of the Wizards) to lose the season to get what they want.
