in these, the waning days of stern: 2013-2014 NBA regular season thread (part 1)

Like if you want to say fuck the owners that's cool but you actually are limiting their ability to field a competitive team.

owner agreed to the deal too

It is amazing though that people are giving him shit when so many lesser players have received max money

that kobe tweet is awesome i don't care if he's almost a billionaire anyway

it's not that amazing. it's an unprecedented contract outside of michael's final years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RgDdk99m6c

It's almost as if he doesn't desperately need to get a sixth ring, or doesn't want to sacrifice so he can help ... like ... Carmelo Anthony get a ring?

http://www.latimes.com/sports/lakersnow/la-sp-ln-billy-hunter-kobe-bryant-meddled-20131121,0,987427.story#axzz2loxKBgcB

He should really sacrifice for one of the least deserving fanbases in the universe.

i don't think anyone is really arguing that kobe SHOULD be taking substantially less money. but it's certainly worth pointing out that he clearly stands out in recent history.

Plenty of people are arguing that. Not in this thread of course.

xp

Duncan and Garnett were selfless because they valued some things more than they valued X amount more money on top of the money they already had and were guaranteed to make. Kobe took the max amount he could get because he currently has nothing he values more than getting the max money he can get.

The fans criticize kobe and not Duncan or KG, because the fans value a winning team more than they value Kobe getting max money. This makes sense, because whatever amount of money kobe makes, he doesn't play any differently for them to watch. Kobe understands that and resents the fans for wanting him to be paid less.

Kobe's position is very defensible, but the fact remains that he's a jerk, no matter what he's paid.

kobe is selflessly saving us from another year of joe johnson being the highest payed dude out there

i don't even think that many people outside this thread are arguing that but i don't read LA press

I feel like even if Kobe took the vet minimum the Lakers are not sniffing the Finals.

i haven't read much idiot-response to the signing but i'd bet the average laker fan is thrilled, if anything they probably think he's underpaid

aimless seems pretty on point to me

i haven't read much idiot-response to the signing but i'd bet the average laker fan is thrilled, if anything they probably think he's underpaid

― k3vin k., Wednesday, November 27, 2013 5:39 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nah they're not this dumb. Maybe like 20%.

i mean in the end two years is not the end of the world. they will prob still be decent, could luck into something fun with not an extreme amount of trouble.

it's not like they're locked into joe johnson and deron williams for half a century

the nets are beyond screwed

c'mon, tonight kg scored in double figures for the second time this season

They were led by... Andray Blatche

Lol Rudy 3-12 never change boo

If you think about how much value Kobe has added to the franchise over his career why shouldn't he get a nice send off? They know they're not competitive, either they deal him to rebuild, which was never going to happen, or they pay him his dues.

wow who could tsrobodo be ?????

kobe has it wrong--players take less not to "help owners" but because the cap places very real restrictions on how much talent a team can bring in from the outside. and good lord do the lakers need some talent from the outside.

This was a smart move for management and an outstanding move for Kobe

Lakers are the second most valuable team in the league but are also gonna take the biggest hit in the next few years due to revenue sharing

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2013/01/23/billion-dollar-knicks-and-lakers-top-list-of-nbas-most-valuable-teams/

This allows them to keep their revenue up via jersey sales and sellout games etc.

The alternative is to try and build a championship contending team in the Lebron era

Haha yeah right, worked great last year

Or they could have blown it up and tried to rebuild?

But why do that when you can still make buckets of money off of Kobe for next two years

http://www.forbes.com/nba-valuations/

Also this is why we're going to see 15 more years of Dolan. Knicks are the most profitable team in the league and will continue to remain so

Former NBA players' union executive director Billy Hunter has claimed that Lakers star Kobe Bryant and agent Rob Pelinka, acting on behalf of union president Derek Fisher, meddled with his efforts to end the 2011 lockout.

In a Los Angeles Superior Court filing Thursday that is part of his wrongful-termination lawsuit, Hunter stated that he received a call from Bryant and Pelinka the night before he was scheduled to meet with league officials in October 2011. According to Hunter, the player and his agent told him to agree to a 50-50 split of basketball-related income.

"On the phone call, Bryant told me to agree to the new CBA [collective bargaining agreement] at a 50-50 share of BRI, saying, ‘I know that tomorrow is a big day. You can put this thing to bed. Do the deal,’ and also telling me, ‘I got your back,’ " Hunter said in the court filing. "What Bryant and Pelinka were telling me is that a 50-50 deal had already been completed behind my back.”

Hunter said he then confronted Fisher, who was then Bryant's teammate, about whether negotiations had circumvented Hunter.

“I asked him whether he had been secretly negotiating directly with the owners. ... Fisher did not deny the existence of the secret negotiations with NBA owners, but denied having had a role in them," Hunter said. "Fisher said that it was Bryant and Pelinka who had engaged in secret negotiations with NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver, adding that they had ‘thrown [Fisher] under the bus.’ ”

yeah i actually agree that it's not a terrible move from a business standpoint -- a bit myopic maybe, but the lakers were not just going to not re-sign him. again i'm glad that lots of people are writing about this angle because it's true: kobe is a business partner with the lakers, and to say he's team-first would be a lie

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=10024119

Terribly misleading headline

http://www.basketball-reference.com/contracts/LAL.html

Even with Kobe signed they're still gonna have tons of caproom in 2014-15 and 15-16

If LBJ exercises his ETO the Lakers would still be very competitive even with this contract on the books

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/83785/the-true-hollywood-story-of-kobes-crippling-contract

if kobe comes back and sucks which is pretty likely i dont think hes gonna help the lakers sell that many tickets or jerseys, all it does is push back their rebuilding

and as far the tons of cap room theyll have thats cause they dont have anyone signed, theyve got to field a whole team, theres no magic tons of cap room, overpaying a player by that much just creates big problems

i mean by that logic it would also make sense to have kobe be the highest paid player when hes 40 or 50 or 60

Even with a shitty team Lakers still brought in tons of money last year

I would wanna see how the franchise did in the lean years before Gasol. But I'm betting they probably were still very profitable

Lakers may have already resigned themselves to not being able to sign LBJ

But this puts them in a good position for the Durant sweepstakes

I mean there's no doubt in my mind that this represents a decision by the owners to not be competitive for the next two years and to make money off of the % of 13 million LA citizens who would still pay money to watch a cooked Bean play

You may think that your average Laker fan is not that stupid

But that's being generous

Even with a shitty team Lakers still brought in tons of money last year

― 乒乓, Wednesday, November 27, 2013 10:41 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they made the playoffs, and no doubt theyre also bringing in tons of money this year without kobe, the lakers will make tons of money, if the lakers win theyll make more money, this deal extends the no winning era in favor of a washed up former superstar era, not very wise imho

Nah man the fallback position for the Lakers is to be the West Coast Knicks, no winning + superstar to draw the crowds

non contending teams just do not draw crowds, watch what happens if the knicks continue to suck

the lakers for all we know may be an exception to that rule and always sell out no matter what, but that still doesnt make the kobe deal a good one

It's a terrible decision if your only metric is W/L

But I still think it's a savvy business decision

I think the numbers here are really interesting

http://www.forbes.com/nba-valuations/

Thunder brought in 127 mil in revenue

Other teams that broke the 120 mil mark: Suns, Magic, Cavs, Pistons, Warriors

Generally the 'elite' teams bring in 130 mil or more, e.g. the Heat brought in 150

Lakers and Knicks brought in 197 and 243, respectively

i wouldn't exactly say it's "savvy." the savvy business decision would be to figure out how to make tons of money and still put your team in a place to win games.

It's a terrible decision if your only metric is W/L

But I still think it's a savvy business decision

― 乒乓, Wednesday, November 27, 2013 10:52 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

its shitty from both points of view, which are highly correlated, quite obviously too

giving kobe a hilarious contract was kind of the default move right? i mean who really expected kobe to be playing for anyone besides LA next year?

they couldve paid him less and still retained him because no one was gonna give him nearly that much

i dunno i think kobe had the leverage actually

really tell me whos gonna sign kobe to that kind of money