Are you ready for our latest edition of Posture Wars, where the owners and union of a sport can't reach a deal on how much money they should each get? Good, me neither. The NBA's latest contention is that 22 NBA teams lost money last season, for a total of $300 million. Why would they say this as the Kings are airlifted from Sacramento to Anaheim, where they can be ignored by millions of Los Angeles fans? Hmm. I wonder.
Deputy commissioner Adam Silver spearheaded the efforts this time, launching into some very familiar rhetoric:
"If we continue to pay 57 percent off the top to the players association, it would require such an enormous amount of additional revenue to reduce losses beyond where we are we are only going to make very small, incremental changes," Silver said.
...
"We need a new system," Silver said. "The current system is broken and unsustainable."
As usual, let me be the pro-union shill to point out that A) the owners are the ones approving ridiculous contracts, not the players, b) most Americans are free to work wherever they want, something that I'm positive won't be lost on the NBA owners as they propose a franchise tag to make sure "The Decision" doesn't happen again, and c) if this is such a crippling business, why are people so desperate to be NBA owners in the first place?
The answer, of course, is two-to-three weeks of post-NBA Finals lockout talk, followed by the lockout itself, and then David Stern seeing his shadow on August 1st, meaning six more weeks of negotiating in bad faith. Enjoy it!