Sides far apart as lockout looms in NBA

By John McMullen

Philadelphia,  PA  -  Here's  hoping  "Millionaires  versus Billionaires:  Part  Deux" doesn't  have the  shelf life  expected and the NBA learns a thing or two from its bigger cousin, the NFL.

With  the current  collective bargaining  agreement  between the  NBA and  its players  scheduled to end at midnight on Thursday, the league and its players, despite  meeting twice a  week for most of the past month, remain far apart on almost  every major  issue, including  salaries,  the salary  cap and  revenue sharing.

A last ditch effort scheduled for Thursday is set to include small groups from each  side but  a deal  seems  more than  unlikely, meaning  free agency  will not  start  on Friday. The  league, which has  already shuddered the Las Vegas Summer  League,  may try to avoid  locking out its players, however, since the
NFL  work stoppage this summer has turned that terminology into a toxic phrase that turns off fans in droves.

Commissioner  David Stern  has refused to speculate on what will happen if the clock strikes 12 with no deal done.

"We're  not going  to negotiate in the  media," he said earlier this week. "We haven't  before, we're not going to do it now. We're looking forward to having our discussion with the players."

The NBA has been steadfast through a process that has crept along for over a year, crying poverty at every turn despite certain economic indicators that point in the   other  direction.   Stern  claims  The  Association  is  losing in  the neighborhood  of $300  million dollars a year  and that 22 of his 30 teams are operating  in the  red despite  a  massive national  television contract,  and impressive  worldwide  growth that  has turned  the NBA  into an industry that grosses $4 billion dollars a year.

NBA  players have  likely never been described as middle class before but they certainly  have a  lot in  common  with Joe  the  Plumber these  days, a  deep distrust  of  management. NBPA chief Billy  Hunter thinks Stern is using fuzzy math in an attempt to rein in salaries and make other radical changes to a CBA
that has made his constituents rich.

Stern  often  cites slowing  ticket sales  in some  markets and  a hit in both television  ad sales and merchandising revenue during what has become a rather stubborn recession to back his claim. Hunter, on the other hand, points to the league's  overall increase  in ticket  sales and  a much  increased television audience for the NBA Playoffs to bolster his case.

Recent empirical evidence supports both.

The  leagues does  take in an obscene  amount of gross revenue but the players currently  get 57 percent of the bottom line, a number that dwarfs most normal businesses.

The  Golden State Warriors and Detroit Pistons, not exactly marquee franchises in  the  league over  recent years,  both sold for  record prices. The league, however, has to take over the financially troubled New Orleans Hornets.

As  both sides  prepare for the first work stoppage since the 1998-99 lockout, the rest of us are left digging for the truth.

Not the owners' truth that has a bunch of billionaires intent on carving out a new  system that guarantees profitability for each and every franchise. Or the players' truth that says that the owners should resolve any problems they have through  enhanced revenue-sharing  that  will enable  "small-market" teams  to
succeed.  That's funhouse  mirror type  stuff clouded  by the  perceptions and interpretations of biased individuals with a horse in the race.

We   are  digging   for  the   truth  that   Winston  Churchill   once  called "incontrovertible."

"Malice  may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is," Churchill,  the  British politician and  statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War, once said.

The  real truth  here understands  people who  spend hundreds  of millions  of dollars  to  purchase and run  an organization  probably shouldn't be asked to lose more money on an annual basis. It also understands that the talent is the engine that fuels the NBA's $4 billion dollar empire.

The real truth is draped in compromise, something very foreign in the world of millionaires versus billionaires.