Say No to Compromise

I can’t tell you what has gone on behind closed doors in “negotiations” between NBA ownership and the players association. I haven’t done any interviews, I haven’t collected any quotes, nor am I in any way close to these labor talks. But like any other fan of professional basketball, I have a vested interest in the outcome. I want basketball, you want basketball, the players want basketball, and the owners want basketball…IF they get EXACTLY what they want.

We can talk until we’re blue in the face about the fundamental issues separating the two sides. I’ve written thousands and thousands of words about revenue sharing, the split of basketball related income, and every other dispute—small and large—that is at the heart of professional basketball’s financial operating system. But that doesn’t matter anymore. We know what’s wrong, what’s right, and how both sides could find the middle ground. Throw it all out of the window, because these so-called ‘negotiations’ have escaped rational thought or logic.

Bless my heart; I tried as hard as I could to defend the owners. I argued in favor of revenue sharing, and I even defended the owner’s hard stance. I wrote endlessly about parity, the divide between two factions of NBA owners, and how the NBA’s financial system needs to be fixed for the sake of the league’s future. I actually wrote that a brand new collective bargaining agreement was necessary because the NBA couldn’t continue its exponential growth thanks to a flawed financial system.

Unfortunately, I forgot one very, very, very important snippet of information: the owners are idiots. Morons. They’ve alienated the pro-basketball watching world, lost the public relations war in a more devastating manner than LeBron lost the love of sports fans everywhere, and have destroyed any semblance of understanding thanks to their perverted and asinine negotiating tactics. Losing the public relations battle, in particular, is unbelievable. The players are the ones that should struggle to gain the sympathy of the public; they’re the folks that are making millions upon millions of dollars to play basketball and are now not giving into the owners demands. Essentially, the players are preventing us from watching NBA basketball. The player's union could fold, bang out a new CBA with David Stern and the owners in a couple of days, and hoops would be back. I’m not saying I believe it, but it’s what you would expect the majority of the public following the lockout on the periphery to believe. Yet somehow, the owners managed to screw that up.

If you’ve been following the labor negotiations, at some point you probably realized this: both sides deserve to take the blame for this extended basketball-free period. There’s no ‘good guy’ here. But the owners are absolutely murdering themselves with their utter disdain for negotiation. Some of their demands are actually understandable; for instance, owners want no less than a 50-50 split of all basketball related income (BRI). The union, however, is unwilling to go below a 53-47 split in favor of the players. That even 50-50 split seems almost shockingly reasonable…especially considering the players enjoyed a 57-43 split under the last collective bargaining agreement. But last night, in the final hours of negotiation and federal mediation for the foreseeable future, the owners took a hardline stance and demanded the players agree to the 50-50 split or else there would be no need for further talks. Negotiation at its finest! Take a stand and refuse to back down from it! Say no to compromise (actually, I think that should be the owner’s new slogan)!!!

The owners destroyed any shred of understanding they still had the moment they declared, “my way, or the highway”. They took their enviable and logical position, smashed it up into little bits, and tossed it in the public’s face. The players, according to various reports, went into last night’s negotiations, to, uh, negotiate. The owners weren’t having it unless the players union immediately consented to the 50-50 split. Hold on, I need to tie my hands down lest I bludgeon myself to death with this David Stern voodoo doll.

I honestly don’t know what happens at this point. Both sides seemed to be making progress with three straight days of negotiations, but then the board of governors meeting happened, and the owners decided to give the middle finger to anyone who cares about professional basketball. Federal mediator George Cohen bailed out of the talks last night because, “no useful purpose would be served by requesting the parties to continue the mediation process at this time”. Hold on; allow me to bandage my hand after shoving it in a pot of boiling water.

So yeah, the time for understanding and logical discourse has passed. We have moved on to the he said, she said, finger pointing part of the process. Both sides will simmer and stew and rest on their laurels until the other side breaks. Let’s all give a round of applause to the owners for butchering their very rational demands and give a loud f#@& you! to the hardliners. At a time when compromise should be of the utmost importance, pugnacity, stubbornness, and greed are winning the day.