National Basketball Association

Here's how to end this NBA lockout

Published Jun. 29, 2011 10:52 p.m. ET

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After a banner season and some riveting playoff series and a Finals that drew record TV ratings, the NBA is now embarking on another disastrous lockout.

Well, they asked for it. Both sides can’t seem to agree on much of anything when it comes to the league’s finances. Thursday’s last negotiating session went nowhere as players and owners remain hundreds of millions of dollars apart, and can’t even agree on how to split the money.

A look at the major issues and our solutions for bringing peace to the NBA:

Salary cap

What the owners want: A hard cap, which they’re calling a “flex-cap,’’ set at $62 million over a 10-year deal. With the league claiming that 22 out of 30 teams lost money this past season, and losses exceeding $300 million again, owners are demanding more cost certainty and the end to their practice of overpaying non-productive players with long, expensive deals. In other words, they’re telling the players, please save us from ourselves.

What the players want: The current soft cap that has helped players enjoy tremendous prosperity since it became a part of the NBA landscape in the early 1980s. With the current cap set at around $58 million, they’re making $2 billion annually in salaries and benefits, with the average salary at nearly $5.9 million per season. For the past 18 months they’ve heard owners tell them that they’re losing their shirts, and they’re still not buying it.

Our solution: Stay with the soft cap, but make it harder. How? Make the so-called mid-level exception every other year, instead of an annual feature, shorten it and all other contract lengths and slash guaranteed raises.

Revenue split

What the owners want: A 50-50 split, if not something even more in their favor. They’re looking to slash players’ salaries by $800 million per season.

What the players want: A five-year deal with a split similar to the 57-43 one they enjoy now, which gives them around $2 billion annually in salaries and benefits. They’ve offered a cut of $100 million per season, but that was rejected by owners.

Our solution: Since we’re advocating a harder cap, but not an NFL-style rock-solid hard cap, the players should be prepared to accept a smaller slice of the pie. We’re no longer in 2005, when 57 percent of the basketball related income (BRI) was a reasonable deal pushed by the owners. Look at what’s happened to the nation since. The economy stinks and players need to accept that fact. They need to make do with less, as millions of Americans have had to do. They’ll hate doing it because it looks like they’re caving in. But by accepting a paycut that all Americans can relate to, and showing they’re in tune with the real world, it will do wonders for their image.

Lengths of contracts

What the owners want: No guaranteed deals, at all.

What the players want: Guaranteed contracts, similar to what they have now, with players able to re-sign with their own team for six seasons when they’re free, or to sign with another team for five seasons when they hit the open market.

Our solution: The NBA is never going to be the NFL, where guaranteed contracts are about as rare as teams that run the Wishbone offense. But the time is right for shorter deals. Those should now be reduced to five years when a player re-signs with his team, and to three years when he goes to a new team. By doing that, the "home team" still gets the advantage, as it should.

Guaranteed raises

What the owners want: Major reductions from the current automatic 10.5% for players who get new deals with their own teams, and 8% for players who go to new teams as free agents. When you see how many players get automatic raises and then don’t produce commensurate with those raises, you can see where the system is flawed and expensive.

What the players want: Close to the same percentages that are now given. It sounds great, except for teams that are stuck giving raises to the Eddy Currys of the world, who rarely play because they’re hurt or don’t merit playing time even when they're healthy.

Our solution: It goes back to the lousy economy and what players need to do. As much as they won’t like it, players need to accept drastic cuts -- 5% raises when they re-sign with their teams and 3% when they go to new teams. Maybe it's time for raises to be tied to statistics and how much players helped their teams. But there still needs to be a difference in guaranteed raises to help the "home team" keep their top players without resorting to a franchise tag.

Revenue sharing

What the owners want: Depends on what owner you’re talking about. The big-market owners (Knicks and Lakers) print money and don’t have to share local gate and broadcast revenues with other owners. In New York and L.A. those revenue streams are often bigger than all the money that the Memphis and New Orleans teams take in over a given season. The small-market teams want a bigger cut of the pie because they believe it will help them keep their top players and allow them to spend more money on their team, thus making them more competitive.

What the players want: Because they’re being asked to take big paycuts to help the league stop losing money, they want a say in how revenues are divided among teams.

Our solution: Let the owners’ accountants figure it out. This is not an issue for players, as much as their argument to be involved in the process has merit. We’re not saying it’s got to change to an NFL-style system, where the smallest teams, like Green Bay, and the major-market teams, like the New York Giants, share about 80 percent of all revenue from media deals, national sponsorships and merchandise sales. But as of now, NBA teams share money from national TV contracts and funds collected from teams that exceed the luxury tax. Compared to other major sports, that’s a pittance. To really work, there’s got to be more money changing hands.

Amnesty clause

What the owners want: A beefed-up clause from 2005, when they adopted the so-called "Allan Houston Rule." That was a one-time opportunity for teams to remove the worst contracts from their books so that they didn’t have to pay the penalty from the player’s contract on the luxury tax.

What the players want: The same clause from 2005.

Our solution: A stronger clause this time around. Teams should be able to remove one bad contract, entirely, from their overall salary-cap number, to help with their costs. Having the contract removed, only for luxury tax purposes, only goes so far.

How we see it playing out: It’ll be long and bloody. To which we say, a plague on both their mansions!

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