This season of the NBA finally managed to hit a three-pointer: highest merchandise sales, highest sport popularity, and highest ratings. Sadly, the key to the lockout seems to be tossing back and forth from the moist fingers of the players and the cold palms of the owners and the trouble rises when the key is dropped.
NBA Lockout: Whose court is the ball in?
It is no new news that NBA had always wrestled with the ball on-court, and for attention, off-court as the most popular sports have always been the NFL or the MLB. This season however, it was all the more sweatier, popular and hotter! Yet all of that may dribble down to flat if the lockout, which is a week old now, continues.
A restructuring of the cap system is called for as 23 out of the 30 teams are in losses this year even though NBA’s popularity as a whole, went up 35% from the last Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks finals. The bargain from both sides remains.
With the last collective bargaining, the players received 57 percent of the total profit that NBA received although this is to be changed from the current lockout. The ranked players however oppose to any change as part of their income goes to coaches, trainers, agents, attorneys and then keeping the rest for themselves. The owners are leaning on setting a more rigid salary cap with a current offer of $45 million. Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh of Miami reportedly make $47 million alone. Teams like the Celtics, Magic, Lakers and Mavericks have payrolls which exceed $72 million, $76 million, $91 million, and $63 million respectively. How intense the negotiations are running, can be imagined.
Advantages of the salary cap do include equivalence and balanced pays however teams with a good roster will be lost out. There seems to be only one option for the teams that have several star players, by having to manage by leaving out on a few brilliant players so that they pay cap stays within the limit.
Both the sides have their issues and bargaining may leave one of them upset. For now, there is no permanency on the pay cap as of yet however, the decision cannot be pending for too long as it might lose the popularity it gained from the last finals, this season, which would be even costlier that the salaries of major players combined.
Tags: Dallas Mavericks, Miami Heat, MLB, NBA, NBA Lockout, Players, Sports
