Sporting News: Dave D'Alessandro: Just the facts, and lots of them

["Witch Craft" <witchcraft1998@hotmail.com>]

Subject: Dave D'Alessandro: Just the facts, and lots of them
AUGUST 30, 1998

David Stern has graciously granted us exclusive permission to discuss 
the NBA again, so we emerge from our self-imposed summer state of addled 
ennui to ponder this meaty question: Has everyone gone loopy?

Everything we've heard and read lately with regard to the league is 
categorically slanted: The players are at fault, goes the common 
refrain. The predominant belief is that what Bill Clinton did to Monica 
Lewinsky, Patrick Ewing and his charges have done to the NBA.

The only scientific proof you need is a poll conducted last week by the 
(Salt Lake City) Deseret News, which asked its readers who is to blame 
for the NBA's labor impasse. The players (28 percent) and their agents 
(15 percent) were far more responsible than the owners (10 percent).

Say what you want about the good people of Salt Lake City, but when it 
comes to basketball, they are as hip as anyone else in the country. And 
this is how they regard the situation: The players and their depraved 
legal associates are four times more culpable for the present mess than 
the faction that actually created it.

Talk about wagging the dog. This poll result, we surmise, is a testament 
to the NBA's spin control, the public's infatuation with Stern's 
charisma and glibness, and the inability of most people to separate the 
salesman from the product. Most believe that the union's last proposal 
was so outrageous that Stern was justified in leaving in a snit. Ever 
since that August 6 session, the players have been universally assailed 
as the bad guys here.

But if the vox populi snaps out of its Bill and Monica trance long 
enough to consider the facts, it might actually learn something. To 
begin with, it's our sense that the players were trying to make some 
concessions during that last negotiation. It didn't go far enough, 
perhaps, to address the predominant issue of runaway top-end salaries as 
well as it could. But it wasn't a bad start, and it wasn't as insulting 
as the league made it out to be:

The first proposal limited the allowable increases per season on the 
standard contract. Under the old agreement, players were allowed to have 
annual 20-percent increases over the life of their deal. It was that 
kind of escalator that enabled Kevin Garnett to start out at $14 million 
for the first year of his new contract, and (with annual 20-percent 
increases) average $21 million over six years for a grand total of $126 
million.

This time, the union proposed that the standard increase be equal to the 
growth in league revenue. So if the league were to grow at 10 percent 
annually, so would the escalator in each contract signed that particular 
season. Players, therefore, wouldn't be able to receive increases that 
exceed the amount of the league's own growth in revenue.=20

Let's apply it: If Scottie Pippen can get the same $14-million starting 
figure from Phoenix or Houston this season, and the league's revenue 
grew at only 10 percent last year, he'd be limited to the same 
10-percent increase over the life of his deal. Unlike Garnett, he'd only 
average $17.5 million over six years for a grand total of $105 million.

Does this go far enough in putting a ceiling on the stratospheric 
salaries? Maybe, maybe not. The union suggested that 10 percent be the 
minimal increase, and didn't take into account that the league may only 
have single-digit growth in a particular season. But it's still a valid 
proposal.

With regard to the rookie salary cap, the union proposed that rookies 
remain locked into three-year contracts, but then be subject to 
restricted free agency in the fourth year. Not perfect, but it's a 
concession. It would have bought Glen Taylor some extra time to decide 
whether Garnett was worth it all. An additional year and the prospect 
for right-of-first-refusal would have made it ludicrously obvious that 
the Wolves weren't competing with anyone for KG's services.

Minimum salaries were to get a substantial boost, from $272,000 to 
$500,000 for players with five years or fewer, and to $750,000 for a vet 
with six-plus years. For most teams, that would amount to an additional 
$1 to $3 million on their payroll, the way we figure it.

Scrap the $1 million exception, and insert an average salary exception 
that's available to each team every year. For example, if a team is over 
the cap, it can sign one player to the amount that is equal to the 
average salary on its payroll. The small-market teams would have 
problems with this one, but nobody's forcing them to spend $2.7 million 
on a free agent.

The union also agreed that marijuana should be added to the=
list of banned substances. J.R. Rider immediately announced he was 
looking into offers overseas. 




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