Riffing off of Neil’s idea here:
I don’t know how NBA contracts work. But I’m wondering if it would be possible for the players to organize themselves into teams outside the formal NBA organization and make money by playing games.
It seems to me like at least for this year, the player’s union could organize something. My ideal solution would be to find coaches or captains who were agreeable and figure out how many players are willing to play something like this:
Chose teams schoolyard style (or call it a universal draft, or something boring if you like). Everyone is eligible to go to any team and the coaches/captains pick their team. Then they play a short, short, short regular season. Just enough to fairly have seeding for a tournament. Most fans don’t really care about the regular season, but pro basketball players at the highest level playing meaningful games would attract fans and TV even without the NBA.
You can pay the players a percentage of the take based on how well they did in being selected for the team (the first player gets a higher percentage than the second, etc.) and how far their team got in the tournament.
I’m not sure how many players would join a league like this. It would mean less pay and more uncertainty about where they were for a season even than normally in professional sports. But it beats doing nothing.
A couple of months ago some columnist – I believe it was ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons, who’s verbose but frequently hilarious – broached this idea and even did a mock draft. (He gave Seattle a team and put Kevin Durant on it…) There’d be some formidable logistical problems – insurance (esp. against player injury), lining up buildings, finding people to handle the back end business like scheduling, TV contracts, corporate tie-ins, etc. that would inevitably follow. But it’s a fun idea to play with.
to hell with the NBA…hopefully the whold damn thing folds up and goes away forever…
Pete @ 1,
You mean Carl’s been scooped? I hate it when that happens!
People’s Basketball — I like it!
http://www.fotosearch.com/IST501/1151573/
Just kidding. I’m a fucking capitalist.
Since the cops everywhere seem so eager to bust the heads of non-violent Occupiers who support the right of the police to have unions and collective bargaining, maybe one of the OWS points would be for collective bargaining for everyone except the cops.
If the cops want to throw in with the 1%, it should be all the way.
@5
Indeed. Lots of problems with police in this country. WAY to paramilitarized, WAY to little civilian oversight/control, essentially a tool for enforcement of status quo – same as it ever was.
I’ve often thought that one of the biggest challenges to being a progressive mayor would be conflict with a too-independent, regressive, right-wing police force.
I’m ever suspicious about a profession that seems to attract people who like to carry weapons and tell people what to do.
We need “Peace Forces” or “Please Forces” – philosophically geared to the presumption that we’re all in this together, and violating someone’s liberty is a LAST resort. We’d also have a lot less crime if we had both a more egalitarian distribution of wealth, and universal access to mental health care, and closer knit communities that would make the perpetuation of abuse and violence – criminals tend to not have happy families – less common. Hillary was right – it really does take a village.
# 1: Yes, it’s a fun idea to play with, but as you mentioned, the logistics hurdles are incredibly high. Expect the owners to fight to make “unavailable” any reasonable venues, both in the back board rooms and the courts.
Also, from the player’s perspective, you have to wonder how many high-salary players would be willing to play in such a situation. Everyone knows the lock-out isn’t going to last forever, at some point the things going to get resolved. If a high-value player gets injured playing in this alternative league, then his career might be over, with little to show for it in the long run.
By the way, I knew one of the Seattle Storm players, and helped her set up a non-profit for her charity foundation. She retired several years back, I haven’t heard from her much since then (she went back to her home country). But I remember her explaining how most of the players enjoy playing in the U.S. the most, but they get triple their salaries by playing in Europe during the off-season. She said the playoffs in the U.S. are a difficult time for the WNBA players. If they get injured, they might lose a season of playing in Europe, which is financially devastating for them.
# 6: In other words, we need Sherrif Andy Taylor in in charge, and he should hand out the one bullet to Deputy Fife only when absolutely necessary. In a lot of police forces these days, it seems to be the other way around.