By: Pedro Heizer

The NBA and its players resolved a crippling labor crisis, paving the way to reopen their business in time for the holidays.

The resolution came on the 148th day of the lockout and now with a deal in hand, the NBA plans to start the season on Christmas Day and play a 66-game schedule.

We must remember, the deal is not done. It’s a tentative deal that still needs:

- The players to reconstitute their union and drop the antitrust lawsuit they filed against the league last week.

- Ratification requires a simple majority of the NBA’s 30 teams and a simple majority of the 430-plus players.

The deal features a 50-50 split of revenues — a $300 million salary cut for the players — along with shorter contracts, smaller raises and harsher penalties on the top-spending teams. The 10-year agreement is the longest in NBA history, although either side can opt out after the sixth year.

Friday’s session was the 25th since the lockout began.

The NBA has about four weeks to get the season started. It will take a week to 10 days to finish the collective bargaining agreement, which will be followed by a week of free agency and a week of training camp that are scheduled to start on December 9th.

A number of B-list items — including drug testing, the age limit and use of the Development League — still need to be negotiated.

Most of the critical issues, including the revenue split, were resolved weeks ago, leaving just a handful of thorny items to resolve.

The main question HEAT fans care about right now is if Miami will face the Dallas Mavericks in a 2011 re-match on Christmas Day.

I don’t think so. But if they do, the Mavericks will also be receiving their 2011 Championship Rings on that day and some HEAT fans say they don’t want to see it.

I say, BRING IT. Let LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the rest of the HEAT see what it feels like to have something close to you taken away in a heartbeat. Let this memory be engraved in the mind of the entire team as they move towards this 66 game season with one goal in mind “Bring The Rings Back To South Beach”. Let this be a reminder of “never again will we blow a 2-0 series lead”.

Let’s treat the Mavericks on Christmas day the same way the Chicago Bulls treated us when we received our rings. The Bulls treated us to a 108-66 loss, let’s do the same to Dallas.

If the Mavericks get their rings right in front of Miami, our very own Steven Rawnsley said it best, “Riley does not need to be the master of motivation this year. Stern would have taken care of that.”

Heat Fans, it’s back!

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By: Pedro Heizer

With the NBA Lockout reaching its fifth month, people still seem confused as to who is actually being affected by this lockout.

The NBA players keep insisting that they want to play, and that if a deal comes that they like, they will sign, but that looks less likely as the days become weeks.

With no end in sight, people tend to forget that the arena and team employees are the ones who truly are being affected by this lockout.

“It is extremely tough to know what I barely have enough money to pay for my cell phone bill and gas, let alone rent money” explained a source who asked to remain anonymous.

This is not the story of one, but many of the game operations, beer vendors, food vendors, and the cleaning companies that rely on a paycheck from an NBA team to meet ends meet.

“Right now, I am in a place of wanting and needing another job. It feels like the NBA and NBPA don’t understand that their argument is hurting many others” the source added, and it sure seems this way.

So what exactly is holding up the negotiations right now? The Basketball Related Income (BRI). In the previous CBA, the players received 57 percent of basketball related income, and now they are asking for 52 percent. The owners on the other hand are firm with their offer of a 50-50 split. There has been new talk among people that Commissioner David Stern has given the NBPA a new proposal, a 51-49 split on the BRI, but it seems as if the players really want that 52 percent. Players are calling Stern’s offer “unacceptable and unfair” according to ESPN basketball analyst Chris Broussard.

The players association rejected the 51-49 offer on November 9 and asked for another bargaining session. After two days of negotiation, the owners put forth a revised final offer and said that they were done bargaining. If accepted by the players, Stern hoped to start a 72-game season in mid December. On November 14, the union rejected the last offer and dissolved the union. The NBPA was converted into a trade association, enabling the players as individual employees to be represented by lawyers in a class action antitrust lawsuit against the league, calling the lockout an illegal group boycott.

It’s estimated that with the game cancellations that have already taken place until at least December 15, the NBA will lose $400 Million.

Times are tough for everyone, the source I spoke to told me he has sent over 300 applications to other jobs but as of today, he has received zero calls of interest.

How can we sit here and say, “The fans are the biggest losers in the lockout” when people out there don’t have a job?

“Owners have other businesses, they are entrepreneurs, and they have multiple fall backs. The players have an immense amount of endorsements, bookings, events, and other things going on to not even have time to ‘suffer’,” explained my source, “There are some players that make in one year, what I might not make in a lifetime. The workers, like me, are the ‘losers’ because we do not make executive six-figure salaries.”

Not only are team employees out of work, but the restaurants and bars around the arenas are also losing money because of the lockout. Let’s take Miami for example, more than 20,000 people pour into the American Airlines Arena per game. Between the regular season and playoffs, it can mean that as many as 57 times a year (including playoffs), the city of Miami can be booming simply because of Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and the rest of the Miami Heat.

“During the NBA season, our business is very good,” explained Andrei Quintan, manager of Botequin Carioca, a Brazilian restaurant across from the American Airlines Arena. “It’s thought knowing that a lot of the people that would come eat here after a game won’t come anymore because the NBA is locked out. I have a lot of people working here and I can’t keep paying all of them to just sit here every night.”

NBA fans are not the losers of the lockout, the employees are. Fans are disappointed that they can’t see their beloved team play, yes I understand. But our lives go on, we will find other things to do without time, other things to purchase, while the employees of arenas everywhere suffer without a job and no idea when they will be able to come back to work.

If owners think that fans will stick around, they will get a rude awakening soon enough. What owners and players need to remember that fans will do something else instead of watching basketball, eventually, fans will start to stick with that something else. The longer people are away from the NBA, the more they will realize they can live without it just fine.

The post The Real Losers in the NBA Lockout appeared first on The World Champion Crank Up The HEAT.

By: Steve Rawnsley

One phrase being thrown around by the owners during the lockout has been “competitive balance.”  While making the league more completive is great in theory, is there really a way to make it more competitive?  The answer is yes, and no.

Whether the owners like it or not, it is easier to build a dynasty in basketball than it is in the other major team sports.  One player in basketball can dominate the game more than any player in any other sport (although Peyton Manning is making me re-examine this idea).  In Baseball, there are nine starters and usually a player gets four at bats each game.  In football, there are twenty-two starters on offense and defense total.  In basketball there are five players on the court at once for a team.

This is why you see more dynasties in basketball.  Look at the previous teams that have won multiple championships since the start of the 90′s and you see an all-time great.  Jordan, to Olajuwan, to Duncan, to Shaq/Kobe, and you see why there are only four teams over the past twenty years that have only won one championship (Detroit, Miami, Boston, and Dallas).  You usually need an all-time top five player at a position to win a championship.

The way competitive balance is not fair is when teams like the Lakers can spend about $90 million year in and year out.  The luxury tax was around $70 million and that was high.  When it was introduced, the luxury tax level started at $52.9 million in 2002-03.  The Lakers team salary was at $62.7 million that season.  Compare that to last year and they were at $90.4 million in a $70 million dollar luxury tax threshold.  In the previous CBA, teams had to pay a dollar-for-dollar tax over the luxury tax that was divided among non-tax paying teams.

It is interesting how the NBA’s current proposal affects competitive balance.  The NBA wants stiffer penalties for teams that go over the luxury tax threshold four out of five seasons.  This is where the argument for competitive balance comes into play.  There are only four teams that did this according to the league under the previous collective bargaining agreement.  These teams are the Celtics, Lakers, Mavericks, and Knicks.  Three out of those four have won a championship.  This is the argument the owners have been using, and they do have a point.

The counter to this argument is the Spurs, who have won four championships since the last shortened season.  That is where the argument for one player being so dominant comes into play with the greatest power forward ever playing for the Spurs.  The Spurs are also a team that typically does not go over the luxury tax, and they are a small market team in San Antonio.

Would the league’s proposal of evening out salaries make the league so competitive that each team has a shot to go far in the playoffs?  No, because some teams know what they are doing, and some do not.  It really is amazing how teams like the Clippers are constantly bad, and the Jazz have not had back-to-back losing records since the 81-82 and 82-83 seasons.  However, history shows, the more money you spend the better your chances of winning, but trying to even out the money, does not solve it’s competitive balance problem.   There is a middle ground to this argument, just like there is a middle ground to the negotiations between the owners and players.

In short, competitive balance cannot ultimately be reached through stricter spending, there are multiple issues that cannot be dealt within the lines of a CBA contract.

Like this article?  Follow me on Twitter @therawns

The post Is Competitive Balance possible in the NBA? appeared first on The World Champion Crank Up The HEAT.

By: Steve Rawnsley

Is Jamal Crawford a good fit in Miami?  LeBron James thinks so illustrated by the fact that he went to his twitter account to recruit Jamal Crawford.  He said, “Would love to see @JCrossover in a Heat uni! What u guys say?”  Now, the question is this:  Is Jamal Crawford really a good fit for the Heat?  This guy is known as one of the best sixth men in the league, and the Heat could use some depth, but is he a piece the Heat could use towards their second franchise championship?  LeBron needs to be careful about what he wishes for.

Jamal Crawford is one of the most aggressive offensive players off of the bench in the league.  He has the skill to come off the bench right away and be in rhythm.  Most guys that come off the bench take a few minutes to get into the flow.  This is a skill you just have or you do not.  Problem is even after he is in rhythm he is still not that efficient.

Let us forget about the regular season.  The Heat will have a top two seed, and there is not much argument there.  (Especially with a more compacted schedule, that hurts the aging Celtics probably more than anybody, if we have a season.)  Next, Jamal Crawford is one of the new age combo guards.  Not really being a point guard does not hurt him all that much for the Heat when they have LeBron and Wade who can also play that, in the playoffs in crunch time.  So why is he not a great fit for Miami?

The problem is in the playoffs, do they really need another scorer?  Chris Bosh was getting 39.7 minutes in the playoffs and that was the least among the big three.  This means two of the three are on the floor virtually the whole game.  Outside of the two that are on the floor, there is not more need for for scoring.

Jamal Crawford is just another player who fits that mold.  His biggest strength is scoring. Another problem is many times, he is a black hole when it comes to ball movement.  As much as he likes to shoot the outside shot, he is best when he can drive.  Problem is that the Heat already have Wade and LeBron to do that.  They would really need him to be a spot up shooter, to help spread the floor.  Last season, Jamal shot 34% from beyond the arc.  Compare that to Mario Chalmers who shot about 28% from three point range in the playoffs.

Jamal Crawford also only shot 42% overall last year.  So now we see he is not a very efficient scorer.  What else does he bring to the table?  Well not much.  He could not even average 2 rebounds a game in 30 minutes.  He has about a 1.5/1 ast/to ratio, so that is not very good for a guard.  He was only getting .8 steals a game last year, which is bad for guard in 30 minutes.

The Heat have enough scorers as it is.  The big three took about 2/3 of the shots in the playoffs.  Crawford is much like former Heat player Antoine Walker, just in a smaller package.  Many times watching Walker, people cringe at his shot selection, and that is the same thing that Crawford does.  Wade and LeBron take enough bad looking shots, the difference is they can make what looks like the worst shot.  He is also thirty-two years old, so his athletic ability is decreasing.  He only averaged less than 17 points once between 2003-04 to 2009-2010.  Last year he dipped to 14.2 points.

The last thing the Heat need is an aging scorer, who will not get many shots anyways, and is inefficient.  (Mario Chalmers was fourth in shot attempts for the Heat at six shots a game in the playoffs)  LeBron James needs to recruit other types of players.  He needs to be careful what he wishes for.

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