The Two Towers and the Terrible Text

A story told by Tim Duncan (to Richard Jefferson)

Richard Jefferson: Hey, it's Tim Duncan! *Richard walks up behind him* Hey, Timbo Slice, my man!

Startled beyond reason, Tim Duncan drops his mango lassi.

Richard Jefferson: Uh... what the hell was that, Tim, are you alright?

Tim Duncan: I'm alright, Richard, but I was doing much better before you made me drop my mango lassi.

Richard Jefferson: I'm sorry about that. But why were you so startled you dropped it?

Tim Duncan: It's... it's a long story. I'm very rattled right now.

Richard Jefferson: Come on. I'll get you another, and you can tell me. You can talk to me, Tim.

Tim Duncan: Thanks, Richard.

• • •

They return to Tim's table, with fresh Lassi. Tim speaks.

Tim Duncan: So, Richard, have you ever known what it's like to be a good buddy?

Richard Jefferson: Yes.

Tim Duncan: Good. So I don't need to explain the simple intrinsic facts of human contact to you. That's good, this won't be like me talking with you about anything related to the game of basketball. We've got common ground here, as human beings. Have you ever met David Robinson?

Richard Jefferson: Uh... yeah, once, I think.

Tim Duncan: Good. When he wasn't blocking your shots at the rim to prevent you from ever achieving personal fulfillment, he and I were very good friends. And remain, to this day, good buddies. We try to talk on a bi-monthly basis, though I tend to talk about NBA 2k12 and D&D while he talks of church and charity. We have common ground on both subjects, but both of us tend to focus on different things. Do you have a friend like this, Richard?

Richard Jefferson: Yeah, Luke! Luke Walton. I focus on roller blades, he focuses on aviator glasses. We have... uh, what you said, you know. "Common ground on both subjects." But we've got, like, different stuff in our heads that lead us to emphasize one over the other.

Tim Duncan: It's good to have principles.

Richard Jefferson: Uh... yeah.

Tim Duncan: Good. So, neither me nor David are very big on this "texting" business. Me, I think it's sort of silly. Most of the things conveyed through text messages could more easily be conveyed through a short, 1 or 2 minute phone conversation. Talking with people is refreshing, whereas texts are aggravatingly short and whose meanings can be entirely misconstrued. You probably like texting, as you're from the younger breed, but I simply do not understand it.

Richard Jefferson: Tim, you're like... four years older than me.

Tim Duncan: Well, you know what Mark Twain always said.

Richard Jefferson: ... Nothing with any relevance to this situa --

Tim Duncan: Regardless. David Robinson IS an old man relative to me, so my point is still relevant to me. David Robinson doesn't usually like texting either. He's big on the so-called "chatty cathy" five minute phone call when a text message would've done fine. So, imagine my surprise when I received the following message from David a few nights back between the hours of eight and nine, PM.

Call when you are able. Cell only, tell Valerie nothing. ~ !! Corinthians 1:4-5 !! ~

Richard Jefferson: Uh... wow, that sounds kind of concerning. Why did he take the time to add a bible verse to the end, Tim?

Tim Duncan: Even though he never texts anyone, David sets a new bible verse as his "text signature" every day. I don't know how someone as tech-mystified as David actually figured out how to do that, but when David wants to do something for Jesus, he... how would you say it...

Richard Jefferson: He goes H.A.M.

Tim Duncan: ... yes, Richard, he goes H.A.M. Regardless. I was really, really worried! I called him, I texted him back, I pinged him on IRC... I did everything but call Valerie, given that he had explicitly ordered me not to do that. He'd never given me any directive like that before, so I felt like I had to honor it. My nerves were wracked, and he had clearly turned his phone off upon sending it. I was frantic, to say the least. So, I decided to do something drastic.

Richard Jefferson: What?

Tim Duncan: I decided I would run to his house, but sneak in such that Valerie was not alerted to my presence. It was an operation that was going to take every bit of my wit, guile, and intellect. I told Amy I needed to go out to serve as an emergency Dungeon Master for my friend Charles' weekly D&D game. She was dismissive of my concerns, but gave me the car keys anyway. I hoofed it to the local costume shop, where I bought their largest set of wizard robes, along with an Obama mask. I then went to a local Indian restaurant I very much enjoy and got a mango lassi to go, because I felt such an ambitious plan demanded it. I pulled up to the Robinson household at about ten past ten, and began to put my plan into motion. I put on my disguise, and snuck into a treehouse in his neighbor's yard. I then picked up my phone. It was time to call Dominoes.

Richard Jefferson: Wait, wouldn't ordering a pizza give you away?

Tim Duncan: *sigh* Richard, you have no imagination. I wasn't ordering the pizza for me. I was ordering it it for_ Mrs. Robinson_. Both as a distraction to allow me easy entry into their house, and as a karmic blessing to ensure I wouldn't harm my good standing with the fates too much by perpetrating this heinous, unjustified break-in. Anyway. I waited in the tree-house for a while, stirring when my blackberry told me that pizza artist Geraldo had finished my pizza, and that pizza delivery boy Waldorf was on his way to deliver it. I took out the grappling hook I'd carefully constructed using children's toys and a strong bit of rope, and prepared to rappel my way into the household.

Richard Jefferson: Wow, really?

Tim Duncan: Heh, no. Then I would clearly be breaking and entering, Richard, and that's definitely illegal. No, I simply exited the treehouse, hid behind a bush in their back yard, and got out the key to the house David had trusted me with long ago, for use only in emergencies and potlucks. I heard the car stop out front, approached the door, and entered as soon as I heard the tell-tale doorbell. I snuck into the den, where David's schedule-book sat in wait. I opened to today, hoping to find a clue as to where he was. Nothing. The day was blank, with the exception of his customary 8:00 AM attendance to daily services. Cursing my luck, I shuffled the papers on his desk looking for a sign. Then, out of a bundle of unfinished letters to charities, an itinerary dropped. Reading it quickly, I realized my error -- David wasn't in San Antonio at all, he was in Washington D.C.! I took a picture of the hotel's phone number with my blackberry, and after rearranging the desk, I snuck out of the house. I got in my car just as the Dominos deliveryman was leaving. My plan had worked to perfection, but I hadn't actually learned anything, and I felt pretty bad about breaking into David's house.

Richard Jefferson: Wait, were you still dressed as a wizard with an Obama mask?

Tim Duncan: Yes. Anyway. I called the hotel he was staying at, hoping they'd patch me through to his room and I could figure out what the hell was going on here. After the old run-around with the concierge, they finally patched me through to David. The phone rang a few times, before I heard a tired yet familiar voice on the other end.

"Hello? God?"

"No, David. It's me, Tim."

"Oh! Um, hi, Tim. Why are you calling so late? It's midnight, you're usually asleep right now."

"Different time zones. What's wrong, David? I got your text. Were you... kid-napped?"

"Oh, no! Uh, I have no idea why you'd think I was, but I am just fine."

"Uh... then what was that text about?"

"Hah! Oh, Tim. You always were a worrier. That text had nothing to do with a kidnapping! Or... anything even remotely resembling one, honestly. I was just texting you because I was really excited. Valerie was voted all-state Best Potluck Contributor from the local church's potlucks! I nominated her several months ago. She mocked me for it, but clearly it was the right call. The pastor and I know good potluck when we see it! Anyway, I wanted to tell you, because I wanted to make sure you came to the banquet in a few months, because you are a cherished family friend. I also wanted to make sure that even if you heard it through another source, you absolutely don't tell Valerie. It has to be a surprise. Her face when they announce the winner is going to be crucial. Anyway. Uh... sorry for worrying you, you shouldn't read so much into text messages. Also, you sound really hyper. Have you been drinking mango lassi again?"

"..."

"... Tim?"

"I... congratulations to Valerie. Amy and I will definitely be at the banquet. I, uh. Sorry for waking you up, David. I... yes, I have been drinking lassi. I... goodbye."

"Okay, Tim. Have a good evening, and fly with God."

"... Same to you."

Roughly one minute and forty six seconds of absolute silence.

Richard Jefferson: ... Tim, how did you remember that whole conversation?

Tim Duncan: When David Robinson tells you something, you best not forget it.

Richard Jefferson: So, wait. That was it?

Tim Duncan: Yes.

And that was it.

As one of our mainstay features, Aaron is writing posts highlighting every single player in the NBA. Role players, superstars, key cogs, or players who are barely as useful as ballboys -- none are exempt from the prying eyes of our readers. Check the index for a lowdown on order, intent, and all that jazz. Today's trio includes Ronny Turiaf, Trevor Booker, and Pooh Jeter.

• • •

[024] Turiaf, Ronny

Ronny Turiaf is pretty awesome. For a shiftless, wandering hobo of a player whose career season thus far has been averaging 7 points and 4 rebounds as a nonessential bit player for the 2008 Lakers, Turiaf can say one thing. He's memorable. From his generally solid one-on-one defensive presence to the greatest reactions in all of basketball (see: examples 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10), Turiaf is the kind of player everyone wants to have on their team. He's even got a really poignant story, having battled through heart problems and undergoing open heart surgery just to enter the league. Also? He's literally obsessed with anime. Which is rather rare for an NBA player, but then again, so is Turiaf. About as rare as you can get.

In terms of tangible value as a basketball player? Limited, but interesting. Turiaf's offense is extremely poor, based solely on being set up for dunks. But his defense? Fun to watch, and effective. He sets legal screens stronger than virtually anyone in the league, and has a far better sense of the floor on defense than anyone else currently on the Knicks roster. Extreme hustle guy, though he's not a lockdown rebounder (like many hustle guys). He's not a great shut-down-the-paint kind of player, but in terms of rotations he really makes the Knicks tick. When he's on the floor and healthy (admittedly an uncommon thing, with him) the Knicks are a halfway competent defensive team. Not a joke. Unfortunately for the Knicks, Turiaf gets injured a lot, and they don't really have the depth behind him to make up for it. Realistically, in whatever new CBA we get from the lockout, Turiaf is going to be a really important player for the Knicks. They need him to be healthy if they ever want the defense needed to make a serious championship run, because they're never really going to have the money to chase any other big guy that changes the scheme of their defense like Turiaf does. Perhaps they can just hire Phoenix's training staff. Then Turiaf will never, ever get injured. Anyway. Love Turiaf. Only former Laker I can say I love.

Great guy, decent player, fun to watch. What's not to like?

• • •

[025] Booker, Trevor

So, Trevor Booker. He was recently named one of the 25 best players ever to attend Clemson College. Which sounds good, until you realize Horace Grant, Tree Rollins, and Larry Nance are the top three. Which isn't exactly amazing company. Still, his name is one that NBA buffs would do well to remember. He's not going to be a star, but I'd say he was one of the 10 most effective rookies from the 2011 class, and he's got a fair amount of potential to be one of the elusive "glue guys" on a future champion, someday. He plays a confused position -- his size has him regrettably playing at a defensive disadvantage whenever he matches up at power forward or small forward, being too big to tamp down wings and too small to tamp down forwards. He puts in the good college try, though, and for my money was one of the hardest defenders on the Wizards last year. Not a great defender, for sure, but he played hardest on that end of anyone on the team outside of Hinrich. He was also for my money the only player on the 2011 Washington Wizards that knew how to set a proper screen. Skills!

On offense? Not a wing skillset befitting his wing size (he's 6'8" and 240 lbs), but a surprisingly effective post game. He's got a very good hook shot, and in general, he's relatively excellent at juking his man out and getting his when you feed him in the post. He shot 70% at the rim this season, and while that's partly an artifact of his low usage and his poor competition faced due to the fact that he only played 16 minutes per game (yet another casualty of Andray Blatche's game), it is reflective of the eye test -- solid post moves, and you get the sense he could be a real offensive weapon if used correctly. Overall? Probably needs to develop a jumper, but Booker is a solid rebounder for his size with a distinct talent for scoring if you dump to him down low. I don't know what his ceiling is -- an effective version of Sheldon Williams, perhaps -- but he was a relatively impressive rook given his low expectations and I'm expecting he takes a jump next season. Seems like a good guy, too. Trevor Booker's favorite Christmas gift ever? A big wheel. Who can hate someone who loves big wheels? If you remember one arbitrary fact about Trevor Booker, make it this one.

EDIT: A few additions, gleaned from a chance twitter mention from the great Adam McGinnis of Truth About It (for my money one of the best team blogs in the biz). I didn't know this , but Trevor Booker's main nickname is "Cook Book", coming from a monster game he had against the Grizzlies around midseason where he dropped a 21-12 night, prompting Cartier Martin to keep yelling at him to "marinate 'em, grill 'em, put 'em in the oven. Cook 'em Book." The nickname stuck. McGinnis himself tends to call him Booker T, which is beyond awesome, and also added that Booker's got monster bounce -- a truth I don't know how I neglected to mention, especially given the picture I chose to use for this one. Still. Along with his post moves, Booker T is definitely a player that can get up with the best of them. Which helps on entertainment value. I really hope he gets more playing time next season, Blatche isn't the future and Leonsis needs to stop thinking he ever will be.

• • •

[026] Jeter, Pooh

When I was one, I had just begun.
When I was two, I was nearly new.
When I was three, I was hardly me.
When I was four, I was not much more.
When I was five, I was just alive.
But now I am six, I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six now and forever.

-- A.A. Milne, Now I Am Six

Pooh Jeter was a member of the Cavs' summer league team back in 2010, a summer where my research assistant job gave me enough time to watch most of their summer league games. I remember him being really impressive, at least against lesser competition, and I really wanted us to sign him. We didn't, which was sad, but the Kings did and he fulfilled his dream of becoming an actual honest-to-god NBA player. I saw a few of his Kings games. Really, he wasn't bad -- for a third string guard, he was very solid. Despite his diminutive size he had some limited success on defense against larger points, and his lightning speed makes him valuable solely for his change-of-pace potential. He's a baller. And while his height makes him barely an NBA player, I have no doubt whatsoever that had fate intervened to give him an extra 3-4 inches and make him actual NBA size, he'd be a lifer in the league. May still be a lifer, due to his knock-em-out work ethic and his amazing name.

Alright, that's sort of rude. I'm not implying that his name is the reason he'll stick in this league. The real reason he'll stick in the league is because he's simply a good player, an Earl Boykins type who will refuse to back down and will continue to chomp at the bit for a role in the league as long as there's one for him to take. But let's take a minute to talk about his name, which is one of my favorites. One of the best names in the league. Eugene Jeter III (THERE WERE TWO EUGENE JETERS BEFORE HIM) is already a pretty awesome name, but it's the "Pooh" that really takes it over the top. Like, really... how the hell did he get that nickname? How does a baller like him take it in stride that his nickname comes from the same person who wrote the poem I started this capsule with? And what's more, what's up with the last name? Is he Derek Jeter's long lost lovechild? DOES HE HAVE A BROTHER... named Piglet?

All these questions and more will be answered on the next episode of "a show that only exists in my mind."

• • •

I liked writing these. Always good to get a light load of players every once in a while to break up the heavies. I know I said I MIGHT get to two capsule posts today, but the Walking Dead is almost on, and I have to go watch. I'm simply addicted to disappointment. After all, how the hell else could I be keeping close tabs on the lockout? Until next time, laddies.

As one of our mainstay features, Aaron is writing posts highlighting every si__ngle player in the NBA. Role players, superstars, key cogs, or players who are barely as useful as ballboys -- none are exempt from the prying eyes of our readers. Check the index for a lowdown on order, intent, and all that jazz. Today's trio includes Luis Scola, Corey Maggette, and Shane Battier.

• • •

[021] Scola, Luis

My opinions on Luis Scola are rather two-tiered. On one hand, I have a ton of respect for him -- offensively, he's one of the top tier bigs in the league in terms of giving your team an overall package of efficiency and consistency. With the exception of an injured spell near the end of last season, Scola was one of the few bright spots for a scrappy but overmatched Rockets team that would've easily been a top 5 seed in the east but barely sniffed the playoffs in a stacked west. Something that happens to the Rockets so often that the situation should be named after them. Maybe they can join the Astros and muddle up Houston sports entirely by transplanting to the eastern conference, I.E., the NBA's AL. This isn't very relevant to the post, though. Scola is often an offensive superstar, and of all the bigs in the league over the last few seasons, there are few I'd be more happy about having on my team. On the magical 2008 Rockets team that won 22 straight games, he was the cog that really made everything click. He's been the Rockets main star the last two years -- two quality, scrappy teams, even if they weren't playoff teams. And most importantly, he was essentially on god-mode during the FIBA World Championships in 2010, too -- my opinion of his offensive NBA game may actually be sort of biased due to how ridiculously impressed I was with his performance in that tournament. Kevin Durant was the best player in that tournament, but Scola was easily the second best and probably would've been considered the best if Argentina had gotten a bit farther. He's got an absolutely nasty offensive game and he dominated all comers.

The thing with Scola is that his success in FIBA in many ways exemplifies his flaws as a legitimate second option on a contender. Sure, he was amazing in FIBA play. But why was he so good? Mostly because nobody could guard him. And that's something you see with some regularity when you pay attention to Scola. When he's faced up with good NBA defenders, he's not nearly as consistently impressive -- he has his games where he dominates, of course, but he generally operates better the less defensive pressure he demands, or the worse his defenders. Which is a usual trait for ANY player, but for a player like Scola that relies so much on his footwork, defensive pressure can really That's a big part of why he was so good when Yao was in his prime -- if you have to choose between covering Yao or covering Scola, the defenders would more often than not sag onto Yao, giving Scola enough room to operate freely offensively. And all this talk about his offense getting worse against better competition ignores his defense, which is generally not incredibly positive. It isn't absolutely atrocious, mind you -- he's OK at bodying his man and he defends long-range shooting bigs passably -- but he's poor on help and generally puts in a relatively lacking performance. He bites on basically any fake you put in front of him -- he doesn't learn, really, and it hurts his value a lot. Because you really need to place him next to a strong defensive big who can put an entire team's defense on his back. For instance, Bogut, Howard, or Garnett/Duncan/Yao in their primes. Without that? He's not really being used effectively, and his defensive struggles are going to harm his value quite a lot.

LScola4 Luis Scola

At this point I believe that all the players should vote. not only the 30 reps. 7 minutes ago

Still. Doesn't mean I don't have regrets related to Scola. After all, he was actually drafted by the Spurs -- they just traded him on draft day for Ian Maihinmi. Had the Spurs not shanked that draft day trade? It's quite possible the Spurs would have gotten a title sometime in the last few years. Duncan has been slowly degrading on offense, but his defense is still very good, and he's still a top five big man defender in the Western Conference (with Aldridge, Bynum, Chandler, and Gasol rounding out the top five). Put an offensively talented big man like Scola next to 2008-2011 Duncan, and suddenly you have a roster that could easily push the Lakers and the Celtics in 2008, possibly make a conference finals in 2009, and have a fighting shot against the Suns in 2010. Don't think I haven't thought about this before. Like, two hundred times before. Also, Manu and Scola have amazing chemistry. Augh. I can't keep thinking about this. Beyond all this, he's a stand-up guy. Great sense of humor, loves the game, great personality. And -- of particular interest for me -- he's one of the players most aching to get back on the court. Which I respect, though the more that comes out about the disclaimer movement the less I believe that a vote would've ended in a season. Regardless, losing a season (which is essentially what the union chose to do) is the equivalent of losing 10 years of wages for many NBA players, as I noted in my last lockout article. Given that? They probably should've engaged their membership more before they went through with it, and Scola's tweet and general attitude towards the disclaimer reflects that, I think. Much respect, Scola. And condolences, too.

• • •

[022] Maggette, Corey

Hey, look. It's Corey Maggette. Mags redefines the general concept of a stats-first kind of player. His stats have an almost disturbingly inverse relationship to his teams' performances. If his team is crap, he'll have the stats of a minor star. If his team is good, he'll be playing rarely or poorly when he does. He's the epitome of a team-harming contributor, one whose defense is worse than it looks (which is especially bad given how bad his defense LOOKS) and who fights his teammates for stats. Like rebounds -- if you watch him on the defensive end, his rebounding is mostly notable in how surreptitiously he pulls the Javale/Blatche kinds of "Hey, screw you, teammate! Give me that rebound!" plays. Regardless. His stats are always better than his contributions. And he's consistently overpaid, making him the worst kind of players. Overpaid, harms your team, and lacks the personal charm/brand to make up for his flaws. Not to mention his offensive game is based primarily on drawing free throws (hence his efficiency), so you can't even enjoy him for his volume scoring.

One of the underrated results of the awful trade that brought John Salmons back to the Kings was that Maggette went to the Bobcats, thus ensuring that the Maggette-less Bucks will be a decent team next season (WHENEVER THAT ENDS UP BEING) and the Bobcats will be doomed from day one. Theoretically, the Bobcats got the better end of the deal, since Maggette is better by most statistical metrics to an aging wheels-falling-off Stephen Jackson. They didn't really, though, because even at his age Jackson is one of the top shooting guard defenders in the league and adding him to the Bogut/Mbah a Moute defensive tandem is going to make the Bucks even more absurdly good on the defensive side of the court. And while S-Jax's tendency to go it alone on offense is often bad news, the Bucks need someone who finishes possessions in a way that works within any competent offense. Mags isn't it. Maybe S-Jax will be. Not much else to say. I really don't like him much, as I venture is obvious. Bye, Mags.

• • •

[023] Battier, Shane

Let's start out with this -- Battier is hilarious. See: his twitter at the beginning of the lockout. Or his twitter feed from when he got trapped in an elevator before game 3 of the WCSF. Or his very old website from when he played at Duke, back from when being 'proficient with the Yahoo! search engine' was impressive to anyone outside of his grandmother. Battier is an intelligent, humorous man who is relatively good at the game of basketball. He's a cerebral player who is both a good defender and a disappointing one, depending on where you get your expectations from. He's a player known by most as one of the better defenders in the NBA, but that's not quite true. Battier is great at reading an offense and figuring out where to be on help. Absolutely one of the best in the league at it. But in one-on-one defense? This New York Times article essentially misses the point when it comes to Battier's defense (though, to be fair, it's spot on with basically everything else -- recommended read, especially for the biographical part). His real mastery of the defensive end comes in his incessant switches and his contagious knack for filling his team's defensive holes. One-on-one, Battier doesn't really do anything special -- he scouts the players he defends and he tries to work them out of rhythm, but that's essentially what any good defensive wing does. That isn't what makes Battier special.

What makes him special is his ability to do all this with lacking athleticism, so-so dribbling ability, and generally a lack of conventional basketball talent. Which isn't to say he's bad -- he's not, at all. He's a straight decent player, primarily because he's a good one-on-one defender and an excellent help defender, and the number of excellent help defenders that play the wing position in the NBA is essentially one. Battier. The vast majority of Battier's value comes in his ability to substantially impact your team defense through his switches, his reading the passing lanes, and his weakside blocks rather than his ability to act as a stopper. Andre Iguodala, Tony Allen, and Bruce Bowen all were far better at that than Battier, and Battier's athleticism will always be a limiting factor for him on one-on-one defense. Still, none of those three players have ever had quite the effect on a team's overall defense as Battier has had, due to none of them having quite the ability to read the overall opposing offense schemes like Battier can. He's a wing who, defensively, plays like a center. That's absurd. And it's a major part of why I consider him such a cerebral player -- Battier gets over his inability to contribute statistically by using his mental understanding of the game to contribute in a way nobody else in the game really does. On offense, he's relatively forgettable and essentially naught more than a finisher for the plays others create for him. But his defensive impact -- both in stifling the opposing team's offense and making more difficult an opposing team's rebounding -- is what really makes him who he is.

Now, I've gone over how he's a funny guy, but I'd like to finish this capsule with my absolute favorite Shane Battier story. It happened at Duke. In 2010, I was at Cameron Indoor Stadium to watch on the big screen as Duke played West Virginia in the final four. I didn't like that game much because of Da'Sean Butler's ACL tear, one of the saddest things I've watched in college basketball and one of the most despicable moments I witnessed while being a Duke student (not for our team, which was respectful about it -- it was the fans at Cameron indoor, which were generally boisterous and ecstatic about the terrible stroke of luck despite the fact that Butler's career was irreparably ruined by the injury). But there was a great moment, there. There was a commercial break, and the audience was talking amongst ourselves. Cue the drunk frat bro in front of me, talking to his respectively drunk polo-wearing friend.

"Man, look, there's Shane's jersey!"
"Oh, legit dude. He's my favorite player of all time."
"...wait what? What about Jordan?"
"He's literally inferior."
"Haha, dude, that's crazy."
"My bro Shane is mad underrated son, are you one of those fags who doesn't know the score?"
"Uh I guess so, I think he's pretty average overall."
"No dude, you're a fag. Shane Battier is a top ten player in the nba."
"...what?"
"The only players better are Deron Williams, Carlos Boozer, and Kobe Bryant."
"...what?"

The game came back on, and they stopped talking about it. They never returned to the subject, either because the guy thought he'd made his point or his friend thought there was no use continuing the discussion. They were both right. And it remains, to this day, one of the most absurd serious beliefs I've ever heard about the game of basketball. Right up there with "Corey Maggette is a passable basketball player."

• • •

Apologies for the relative lack of updates to the player capsules this week. I realize this is one of the more popular features on this site, I just felt the need to go in depth on the lockout stuff and quite frankly didn't feel like editing the capsule drafts into a finished product after the legal morass I had to sift through. And that CBA proposal. Hope you enjoyed this installment. I may try to post two of these tomorrow, as we have some pretty short players coming up.

After scoring the Suns' first 12 points, he ran by
Warrior Coach Don Nelson and asked him: "You gonna double me?"

Whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first call promising.

Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise

A lot of people remember Michael Jordan dropping 63 on the Boston Celtics in 1986, setting a playoff record that stands today. There are a lot of reasons that Jordan's feat was so impressive: the '86 Celtics are a GOAT-candidate team, featuring several players in the Hall of Fame (Dennis Johnson, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, and goddamn late-period Bill Walton). Many of these HOFers were all-world defenders, too. Furthermore, the Celtics that year lost one game at home all season, including the playoffs. The other Bulls didn't have enough offense that season to prevent the Celtics from really focusing completely on Jordan. And yet Jordan almost singlehandedly took the Bulls to the throats of the great Celtics at their Boston Garden, actually sending them to double-overtime. Jordan - or God in disguise, if Bird's famous postgame comment is to be taken literally - played about as well as it's possible to play. But that may not actually be the best playoff scoring performance in the modern record. What do I mean? Check it out after the jump.

It would be unbelievably vindictive and petty - not to mention intellectually dishonest - to say that Jordan was "cheating" in his 1986 masterpiece solely because he had 10 extra minutes, considering all of this. And (if anything) context only serves to enhance the greatness of Jordan's performance. On the other hand, consider the following humorous fact, and tell me that it's not worth it to be petty and vindictive: the luckless Charles Barkley could have shattered Jordan's record in a playoff game against the offensively brilliant and defensively hapless 1994 Warriors if Barkley had had those extra 10 minutes. That's right, Charles Barkley - known today mostly for his hilarious foibles and his equally many hilarious redeeming qualities - was actually a ballplayer back in the day. It's hard to believe, but it's true: Charles Barkley actually played professional basketball for many years before becoming a television analyst. In 1993 Barkley was actually the Most Valuable Player, and he made it to the Finals with the Phoenix Suns! Imagine that! Well, you don't have to imagine. It's all true and it won't stop being true if you don't imagine it.

Barkley went 23-31 for 56 points, which possibly understates his degree of dominance. See, not only did he go 11-11 in the first quarter (3 of them were relatively uncharacteristic 3s) with 2-2 free throw shooting to give him 27 first quarter points, but he immediately followed that perfect first quarter up with 2-5 shooting with 3 (baller, but not especially difficult) offensive rebounds. That's right, he rebounded the first 3 of his 8 misses for field goals. Shooting 71% and... Let's just recap: Charles Barkley - on the first 14 possessions that ended with him taking a shot - literally converted those 14 possessions into 31 points. The next time down the court (on a fast break) Barkley got an assist for a three-point play. In real time this happened. I cannot process this information fully. Things seem further away, somehow, and nothing is real. I feel like Charles is becoming one of my old Lovecraftian horrors... oh my... the snake, I see the slithering snake approach... I see life through the eyes of a basketball. All is clear.

...

You know what. Let's... let's just back up. In fact, let's start up.

• • •

The organizing concept of this piece is simply turrible, Alex.

Whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first call promising.

Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise

Charles Barkley - known for his dominating career as a power forward for the Sixers, Suns, and Rockets - had a wonderful game back in 1994 that I'd like to share with you. It's kind of funny, but Charles Barkley almost challenged Michael Jordan's 63-point playoff record against the '86 Celtics. I found a Youtube video after the jump, and I hope you will enjoy as much as I have! Sorry if this piece is a bit short, but... well, it's funny: I just plumb fell asleep at the computer and in the morning my original Barkley post was gone! I can't remember what all I was talking about, but I did have some weird dreams (The Light! The Terrible Light!). Anyway, Barkley was a great player. Now, it's kind of unfair to speculate about "who could have had rings if it weren't for Jordan", largely because Jordan exercised the causal equivalent of a supernova and a black hole combined on the NBA, drawing in and destroying (or at least changing) everything in his path. But Barkley - for a solid stretch in the 90s (including this game) - had a strong argument for second-best player in the entire league. And while his MVP might not be completely justifiable, in the long run, I can definitely live with Jordan getting 5 MVPs and Barkley, Hakeem, and David Robinson each getting one.

The Warriors - coached by defensively inept Don Nelson* lost despite fantastic offensive performances from Chris Mullin, Latrell Sprewell, and Chris Webber. Webber in the biggest game of his rookie season nearly got a triple-double (16-8-13-1-3 as a power forward and as the only defender long and competent enough to have any chance of stopping Barkley). Latrell Sprewell - despite his reputation as a choker (sorry!) - showed why he was actually one of the best second/third scoring options you could have on your team for a long time. Such a sweet shot, but overshadowed by Barkley and Mullin, who "never hit the rim" (as Doug Collins put it) with his own excellent shooting performance. Great shooting all around, really, especially for such a fast-paced game. Dan Majerle had a great night for the Suns, and Kevin Johnson was making simple, effective scoring opportunities for his offense.

*Seriously, dude gave up 53 to Tim Duncan (admittedly at Duncan's statisical peak as a scorer). Uh...when their second best offensive players are Dan Majerle/Kevin Johnson or 36yo David Robinson/rook Tony Parker, you double-up and live with the results, Nellie. Jeez!

Fun game, lot of points, bad defense, Charles Barkley breaking my mind into pieces with the radiance of the sun, and a cameo by the Little General, Avery Johnson. I enjoyed the game.

Other notes:
Apparently Barkley said (seriously) he would retire - a la Jordan in 1993 - after these 1994 playoffs. In retrospect the prospect sounds a bit silly, but it probably worked as a great motivational tool. We talk about what would have happened if Jordan had stayed in the league for Hakeem's runs, but what would've happened if Barkley had taken those next six years in the booth? Earth-shattering commentary, obviously.

Yes, the title references the Biblical paraphrase/Philip K. Dick novella "[Through] A Scanner, Darkly". Yes, this is also a basketball piece about Charles Barkley. _ I'm glad you asked._

So, despite this blog being around for less than a month, I've already written a heck of a lot of copy about this awful lockout. I wrote an angry rant about Jordan for his hypocrisy. I wrote a piece highlighting why my history with depression made me afraid to give up on the season. I wrote an excruciatingly long three part series (almost 9000 words, overall) analyzing the CBA proposal to try and cut through the spin from both sides. I did the research and tracked down an extensive list of lockout layoffs to try and shed some light on the front office impact of the lockout. I've done my time, in short. I would like the lockout to end. It won't, though, so I suppose I'll just need to keep writing furious rants.

On that note, today's furious rant!

If you didn't pick up the general tone of my CBA analysis (or didn't read it, which I can't blame you if you didn't), I'll state it outright: the players should have taken the deal. I say this selfishly , but also pragmatically. The cliffsnotes: not as bad for player movement as the spin suggests, the 6-year opt out is a huge get, the system stayed essentially exactly the same with different BRI and a stricter tax, and overall there was all the room in the world for the players to return to the old system the next time they had any leverage in a CBA negotiation. Despite this, the players DID have concessions even atop the BRI, enough so that I'm not surprised the players blew up the talks. BRI was a huge concession, and they weren't really comfortable with a 50-50 split in the first place. ANY concessions atop that were enough to make them liable to blow it up.

Despite that, I don't really think the union leadership thought this through particularly well, nor do I think (from the limited copy I've read from them discussing the decision to disclaim) the player reps had full comprehension of what they were getting into. See, I spent an unreasonable amount of time sifting through David Boies' suit against the NBA -- it's very well written. Lots of legalese, but the case is compelling. The general tenor of the suit, that the NBA simply never intended to negotiate in good faith, is something that's been on the lips of most every writer covering the league since this ordeal began. The problem is... there's no real way for the players to win this. The added leverage the players have is minimal, as it comes in concert with the owners gaining leverage by sitting back and doing nothing as NBA players miss paychecks and benefits. Like healthcare, which Delonte West and his 13 dependents are sorely lacking at the moment. It's been written in a million places, but the NBPA dropped the ball on timing something fierce.

And what's more, there's no particularly logical endgame for the players. Which is what scares me the most about this lawsuit. The general goal of the players in this suit is to be awarded treble damages, in which the owners would be on the hook for 3x the missed salary of all NBA players. That would, theoretically, be a "win" for the players. Would it, really? I'm not so sure. If the players were to actually win treble damages, the league would fight for as long as they needed to in order to have the ruling overturned in the higher courts. They'd take it as high as they possibly could. And the appeal process? Takes time, you know. Were the players to win treble damages, it would be unlikely that we'd see a season start until the appeal process was done -- after all, the owners aren't going to negotiate if they're fighting off the treble damages win, as that would undermine their case that the players won that suit illegitimately. Which would lead to an extremely circuitous legal path, one that has no real positive ending for the players. Several seasons lost, most likely. But, best case scenario, let's say they win out every appeal, it goes to the supreme court, and the court rules the NBA has to pay them. Then what? The NBA has an absurd amount of damages to pay out, but no money whatsoever from which to pay the damages. Because they STILL HAVEN'T NEGOTIATED A GODDAMN CBA!

They still would need to negotiate a new CBA, one that would be far harder to negotiate if the owners knew they would have to be using the vast majority of their money on repaying the damages. Because the owners would keep putting worse offers than the last one on the table trying to recoup losses, and failing miserably to get the players to accept them. I honestly don't see how that ends in any way other than the league declaring bankruptcy and dissolving, leaving the players with absolutely no market in which to play professional basketball and with minimal real return on the treble damages. Not to mention that rookies and free agents technically don't have contracts at the moment, meaning they wouldn't be eligible to receive treble damages. Whoops. Of course, that all is assuming they win, which I think is a silly assumption. There's very little precedent for the case that Boies is putting forth, but what little there is seems to indicate that the courts aren't going to look kindly on this suit. The most likely scenario is that even if Boies manages to win in the California courts, the NBA will overturn it in appeal. And then where are we?

Do you think the union explained all this to the players? It's nigh impossible to fathom how the union leadership could've endorsed this no-win-scenario kind of a tactic at this point, other than some absurdly rosy scenarios painted by their legal team. The agents are scratching their heads right now for that very reason. No legal expert I've talked to thinks this tactic has much of a chance of really improving things for the players, even with arguably the best lawyer on earth on their side. And the entire talk about how much money they're missing paycheck-to-paycheck ignores the most important part of an NBA player's salary, and the key reason that sports unions are way different from real life unions -- the career duration of an NBA player, despite the increased salary, is significantly less than virtually any other job on the planet. To demonstrate, let's say we have a player earning about $21 million over a 7 year career. Obviously less when he's a rookie, more after that. A relatively average player in every respect. That's $3 million a year, which is a hell of a lot of money all things considered. But it's only over 7 years. Assuming the income they receive for the rest of their life is relatively inconsequential, here's what their lifetime earnings are like compared to, say, a statistician making an average salary $70,000 a year (less when he starts out, more when he finishes) in a career that lasts 49 years. You may be surprised to know that the difference is only $18 million dollars in career earnings!

Wait, what?

Well, fuck, there goes my argument. Kind of. Consider that this random player is slated to make, say, $4 million dollars this season. Let's say he doesn't play this season, and while he stays in the league the same 7 years, his last year is a minimum deal instead of a $4 million dollar payday. Instead of earning $21 million, he earns $17 million. That's a big frigging difference. He just lost 20% of his career salary, the equivalent of the $70,000 a year statistician taking 10 whole years off his career. So my point still stands, even if my comparison was so silly I can't bear to take it out of this post. *

* Seriously. It's just adorable that I, in my sleep deprived ranting, even thought I could conceivably compare one of my peers' salaries to an NBA player. It is simply adorable.

Really, though. I'm exhausted and tired of writing about the lockout. This rant is awful, it isn't angry enough, and it's really restrained given how terribly mad this whole thing makes me. The point I'm trying to make is that for all but about 100 of the league's 450 players, losing a season is equivalent to losing 10 years off your career in a real job. That's an incredibly big deal. And when a NORMAL (ie, non sports) union decides to go on strike, or persevere through a lockout, the union is only talking a few months, or at most a year out of a 40-50 year career. A season-long lockout is the equivalent of the local teacher's union going on strike for 10 FUCKING YEARS, from the perspective of the players who actually have to deal with the financial ramifications of it. IE, not Hunter, or Boies, or Kessler. I really, really doubt that the union presented the threat of disclaimer to the players like this, which makes sense. They wanted to do it, and they knew the players were angry and raring to do SOMETHING. Channeling their energy towards something they wanted to do in the first place had to be nice. But it was an incredibly poor decision that will, no matter how it turns out, probably destroy the players. It can be a revolution (as Ziller says) without being a smart or reasonable decision. And when the union inevitably gets broken or the NBA collapses, I won't want to think back at how incredibly obvious it was that it was going to play out this way. I won't want to.

Unfortunately? I will.

Editor's note #1: This was going to be a furious rant. Then Aaron realized he's too sad to be furious and too meticulous to actually rant. Sorry!

Editor's note #2: I am the editor.

This post is part three of a three part series examining the final doomed CBA proposal pre-disclaim.

The other day, the NBA officially released the terms of the final CBA proposal sent to Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher in the latest CBA negotiations. The players rejected it, throwing negotiations into a death cycle and all but destroying our chances of seeing a 2012 champion crowned. Before the proposal was killed, I started a series examining it point-by-point to see how bad it actually was. Being someone who finishes what he starts, I decided to finish the job despite the irrelevance of the act. This is the final part of this series. Join us tomorrow for an angry summation rant on the subject of the lockout. Until then, bask in the glory of the CBA none of us will ever see applied.

• • •

12. Salary Cap Holds

• Salary Cap holds – i.e., amounts that are included in a team’s team salary in respect of the team’s free agents prior to signing, calculated based upon a multiple of the free agent’s prior salary – are as follows:

• First-round picks: Reduced from 300%/250% (if prior salary is below average salary / above average salary) to 250%/200%

• Bird: Reduced from 200%/150% to 190%/150%
• Early Bird: 130% (same as 2005 CBA)
• Non-Bird: 120% (same as 2005 CBA)

This part is a relatively inconsequential change to the CBA -- it helps player movement marginally by giving teams that haven't dealt with their bird rights players and rookies more room under the cap in which to sign players before they deal with those players, but in general, most teams deal with their hold space BEFORE they go trolling for free agents, not after. Not to mention the reduction in Bird won't be seen except on below-average salary free agents, so it'll be exactly the same for your Wade types and Bron types. And given the drop in salary by rookies, the difference in cap room will be marginal at best no matter how significant it looks percentage-wise.

13. Trade Rules

• Extension-and-trades prohibited. If a player signs a contract extension, then the team is prohibited from trading the player for a period of six months following the date of the extension. If a team acquires a player in a trade, then the team is prohibited from signing the player to a contract extension for a period of six months following the date of the trade.
• Cash paid or received by teams in trades is limited to an aggregate of $3M per team annually.
• Waiting period for trading team to re-sign traded player who is waived by recipient team is extended until the earlier of (i) one year from the date of the trade, or (ii) the July 1 following the last season of player’s contract.

Hey, look! It's the part of the CBA where player movement goes to die.

Alright. This is sort of a lie. Actually, a big lie. Sure, this clause does a lot of damage to any player movement caused by trading -- what this essentially means is that if you want to trade your superstar, you need to trade him preseason in his last year of his deal, or he won't get bird rights on an extension and the team will have no incentive to give any value for him, given that they'd just need to woo him in free agency anyway.

On the other hand, we return to the key point I've been making throughout this series. Player movement is difficult to define. Does this hurt player movement via trades? Certainly. You aren't going to see a trade like the Carmelo Anthony deal any time in the duration of a CBA with these rules -- the Knicks would've traded for him without actually gaining the advantages of bird rights or extension rights. There would've been no reason for Melo to sign with them before free agency, nor would there be any incentive for the Knicks to give the Nuggets anything. The point where this gets sticky is in the OTHER definition of player movement. That is, where the players have free choice as to where they play, no front office required. And, again -- this actually strengthens player movement in the "more free agency" side of the mobility coin.

Make no mistake. The Deron Williams deal is a type of deal that simply would happen less under these rules. That particular deal could've still happened, as Deron had over a year left on his contract. But that KIND of deal -- one where a star is traded without his consent (better examples: the Gerald Wallace trade as well as the Stephen Jackson trade in the offseason) -- is one that simply could not occur in the season during the last year of a star's contract. Is that a bad thing? Personally, I don't think so. While this harms player movement in the sense that top-15 players won't have quite as much leverage to pick their team and get traded there, it doesn't really harm player movement for the broader group of players in a tangible way.

It harms trades, a bit, but it strengthens free agency by simply ensuring more and more players get to make their pick there as opposed to having their team choice essentially made for them, with their front office throwing them to another team for picks and cash. Which, in the long run, improves player mobility and gives the players MORE choice as to where they want to go. For all the grumblings about how supposedly awful this CBA proposal was for player movement, I don't really think it is. It was mostly extremely poor PR by the NBA and a media machine that was never given adequate time to truly read and think about the proposal in front of them. Given that this hurts the Melo trade, and the proposed Dwight trades, and the proposed CP3 trades, it's natural to assume it hurts player movement in general. Natural, but wrong. Free agency does the opposite -- it makes sure players have a fair chance to make their own choices instead of letting a front office team make it for them. And that, regardless of what you think of the players, is a pretty good thing for the league.

The waiting period thing is more of a big deal than it looks, too. It essentially is a "you traded him, he's gone" clause -- if you trade a player under this CBA proposal, you can't sign him again for a whole year. So, if you lose a player in a deadline deal, you better not be expecting him back for two seasons. If I didn't know better, I'd think this clause is a direct reaction to the sideshow back in late 2010 when the Cavs traded Zydrunas Ilgauskas only to re-add him to the roster a month later after the Wizards waived him. Back then, I was really happy about it. In general I think it was the right move for all parties involved. But I can see why the owners would prefer to make that something that teams can't do, as charges that Gilbert and the Cavs gamed the system on that transaction are relatively true to life. Don't like it, but I see why it's in place and don't think it's altogether unnecessary. The cash is also a bit of a big deal -- it essentially means you can't buy your way into the draft unless you abstain from trades with any of the franchises that are in the red, given that every team that takes big losses demands cash when you trade with them. Perhaps that would change given the rule. Doubt it, though. It's a big shift in the way the NBA would do business, though I'd need to look up transaction details to try and determine how many teams actually used more than $3 million in cold hard cash for trades last year. I don't care to do so right now, though, so let's move forward.

14. Amnesty

• Each team permitted to waive 1 player prior to any season of the CBA (only for contracts in place at the inception of the CBA) and have 100% of the player’s salary removed from team salary for Cap and Tax purposes.
• Salary of amnestied players included for purposes of calculating players’ agreed-upon share of BRI.
• A modified waiver process would be utilized for players waived pursuant to the Amnesty rule, under which teams with Room under the Cap could submit competing offers to assume some but not all of the player’s remaining contract. If a player’s contract is claimed in this manner, the remaining portion of the player’s salary will continue to be paid by the team that waived him.

So, this was going to happen. It was going to be pretty awesome. There was a really weak free agent class entering the now defunct 2012 season, and this amnesty process would've made sure that every team would've had one waiver slot that they could use to remove a player from their docket and put him on the market. Essentially a giant jumpstart to 2012 free agency. There are a ton of cool (and a ton of not so cool) aspects to this codified version of the amnesty rule. If this ends up being the final one that's used whenever the hell we get our next season, there are going to be several extremely tricky parts to this proposal that would throw a huge wrench into a lot of the ink already spilled over possible amnesty targets and destination. I'll go over three of the big picture points.

1. Not everyone can bid for them. What do I mean? Look at the last bullet. The only teams allowed to bid for amnestied players are teams under the cap. Baron Davis to the Heat? Gilbert Arenas to the Knicks? Neither of them are happening if this incarnation of the amnesty provision is passed through to the next CBA, because you can't use your exceptions on amnesty players. They'd need to sign for absolute minimum salary. Also important: they don't get to double-draw salary, as the team that wins the bidding war for them (which, let's be honest, will end up with some of them being overpaid YET AGAIN) simply signs a contract with the team that waived him saying that they pay some portion of the player's salary rather than a new salary. This makes a lot of sense, but had never been released before, so nobody actually thought about it. In short, it means that ideas like Baron to the Heat aren't going to happen unless every single sub-cap team passes on him. And that's very unlikely.

2. One per season? This part confused me. The first bulletpoint, according to both my reading of it and Matt Moore's reading of it, essentially says you can waive one player prior to any season. Does this mean that you can only waive one player, but you can waive him whenever you'd like in the duration of the CBA? Does it mean that you can waive a single player per season? Can you waive traded players, but only if you waive them prior to the season's first game? I'd think the answer is that you can waive a single player, but whenever you'd like in the CBA. And there is absolutely no language that would preclude you from waiving a traded player, meaning that teams like Oklahoma City and Indiana that don't have any particularly awful contracts could use their trading leverage to extract an asset from a team that desperately could use two or three amnesty waivers and get rid of a player they don't like. In particular, I could see some kind of magical trade where the Thunder traded Westbrook and Collison for either Dwight, Gilbert, and Anderson or CP3 and one of the Hornets' awful contracts. It would fit with Presti's general competence as a GM to work the system like that, same with Buford in San Antonio.

3. BRI cracked down, possibly. If you combine the stretch exception with the amnesty clause, you could have some teams paying out amnesty salaries well into the late years of this CBA. That's bad news for current players, whose 50-50 BRI split would probably turn slightly negative as teams need to keep paying off these awful contracts to players no longer playing in the league. Much like the NBA's incomprehensibly stupid curse where they will forever have to pay a large percentage of TV revenue from all former ABA teams to the former owners of the ABA's St. Louis Spirit, the amnesty salary could have the unsavory effect of depressing the BRI share for players for years to come. Not fun, if you're a player already chafing under the awful BRI split.

Still. My guess is amnesty in the final CBA -- whenever the hell we arrive at it -- will be different, rendering much of this inaccurate or outdated. I'd still pay attention when the final CBA gets agreed to, though, because if they push through a similar amnesty clause these particular restrictions are going to make it a far different amnesty game than the one that Simmons talked about in his huge amnesty column.

15. Player Benefits

• New benefits pool to be funded with 1% of BRI for post-career player annuity and welfare benefits.

The players union wanted this put in place for their proposed "50% + 1" deal they offered the owners at a previous negotiating session. My question is where this 1% comes from -- my assumption is that it's simply taken off the top before they calculate the 50-50 for the owners and the players, meaning it's more like 49.5-49.5. But I'm not sure, and the language is ambiguous enough that I don't care to extrapolate.

16. Revenue Sharing

• _ The NBA will commit to maintaining during each year of the CBA the revenue sharing plan that the NBA has described to the Players Association._

Wow, this is truly a descriptive bulletpoint. I really feel the NBA has given me a lot to comment on with this incredibly detailed tour de force into the true guts of their strong, gravity-defying revenue sharing plan.

(Screw you, NBA.)

17. Term of Agreement

• _ 10 years, with mutual NBA and Players Association opt-outs after year 6._

I think, overall, the players probably should've taken this CBA. There are a ton of concessions they'd be making for not only BRI but the system itself, as I've excruciatingly outlined in this series of posts. That much is clear. But by making a year 6 opt-out? How can you not take this deal?

I get the general consensus among some that the owners win every CBA negotiation. I get that some think the players should argue for a CBA that lasts a ridiculously long time, just to get more leverage. I just think that's wrong and misguided. In 6 years, there are going to be a lot of differences in how the league is run. Stern probably won't be the commish. Hunter probably won't lead the NBPA. New owners will have gotten into the game, and the Decision fallout will be ancient history. All of these are of negligible impact to negotiations, and certainly don't give the players a ton more leverage. This, however, does: the NBA will be going to a new TV deal for the 2017 season. This will give the owners a taste of the revenues they'll get from having a sport with a good TV deal. And it will also give the players far, far more leverage than they have this time. Because the revenues on the line will be far greater, and a cancelled season will have the potential to destroy the league in a manner far more comprehensive than this lockout would have if it had ended this monday.

They would have the ability to disclaim or decertify a lot earlier if they realize the league is going to strongarm them. They have the time to restructure the union in a more organized, powerful way. They have the time to learn from the mistakes of this lockout and take advantage of the record growth the NBA has been on, uninterrupted by a lost season or a hefty lockout. They would be able to get a better sense beforehand which owners are hardliners and which owners are doves, and use that against the league in the same way the owners were using the players against the union. In short, they'd be able to do the myriad of things they could have done this time to make things a bit less bitter, but probably wouldn't have gotten a much better deal in the first place -- the NBA, as it stands, is not a very profitable enterprise. And the owners are currently reeling from losses. But with this proposed CBA, plus the new TV deal, the owners would enter the lockout on a record profits binge and the players would, unlike this time, have all the leverage and preparation on their side.

Had they taken the deal. They didn't. And, as I've outlined -- it's a bad deal. I can't blame them. But it was the right call to take it, and in my opinion, there's very little to excuse the union leadership for not taking off their blinders and seeing just how well-positioned they'd be in 6 years to make a run at an extremely player-friendly CBA. And for seeing just how few of the problems with this CBA that would apply for more than 3 or 4 years of its duration anyway -- for much of this CBA, the system would be virtually unchanged from the current system and some of the proposals simply wouldn't come into effect until year 5 or later.

But hey. They didn't take it. So rest in peace, CBA proposal.

And with it, the 2012 season. We knew ye well.

• • •

I've already gone almost 3000 words on this crap. No way I'm adding my rant to this behemoth of a post. Expect a nuclear bomb style take-no-prisoners lockout rant tomorrow, because I sure as hell don't feel like writing it today after reading through this doomed CBA proposal so thoroughly. More tomorrow.

Mike, I'm very happy for you, but this green sweater you gave me makes me look
like a goddamn Christmas tree at the Masters tournament. I'm really furious.

Hey, what's going on? Since Aaron has taken it upon himself to try solve the lockout singlehandedly with some fantastic (if not fatalistic) journalism, I thought I could share some quick thoughts on Duke-MSU last night.__ I actually only watched the first half, but Duke's win over MSU gave Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski his 903th D-I win, putting him ahead of Bob Knight for most wins all time. This is of course an historic occasion for college basketball, as Coach K - for better or for worse - has been at the center of the college landscape for the better part of three decades. 903 wins is also an incredible accomplishment, and Coach K has done it in a way that has gained the universal (if occasionally begrudging) respect of everyone in college basketball. And he's a great Olympic coach, too.

Commentators have already covered the "Knight as Krzyzewski's coach and mentor" angle extensively, and it's all well and good. But what was great about the ESPN broadcast is that they got Knight himself to commentate. Knight's infamous and enigmatic personality was on display*, but it wasn't the main attraction. No, the real attraction is that Knight brought a true coach's mind to the press box. It's nice to get the perspectives of Jeff Van Gundy, Doug Collins, and Hubie Brown: They're all great, enthusiastic commentators, sure, and they all had some success as coaches. But Knight is an uber-coach, and what's more, he was a great communicator that had a keen eye for the crucial little details of basketball.

_*Knight joked about fellow commentator Jay Bilas' shooting ability in college: "I'd have let you shot-fake, but then I wouldn't let you shoot" Haw haw haw. __Knight made this joke five separate times.___

In this game Knight gave us some of these crucial little details. Knight - along with the great Jay Bilas - showed how MSU would use down-screens on set plays to get open, how great shooters like Andre Dawkins would have "all ten toes pointed at the basket, and their shoulders naturally follow." Things like that. Things like how the move to create space in the post is far more impressive than the ensuing dunk. Things that you pick up from years of watching kids succeed and fail, simple things that might be invisible to the viewer at home. It was a basketball mini-lesson on whatever came up. When you didn't see what Knight saw, you had a new thing to look for. When you did see what Knight saw, you recognized his gift for putting it into words, no doubt the product of a thousand timeouts and film sessions. Yes, a lot of us know about the triple-threat position and the value of driving, but last night Bob Knight brought a clarity to even well-worn facets of the game.

When Knight was asked at one point about his former West Point "point guard" Mike Krzyzewski, he said, simply, "I didn't know what a point guard was back then. He was the guy who handled the ball. I never figured out what a point guard is. No, but he was a student of the game, and a very good wing defender." I think that's great, because it shows in a few short sentences how Knight thinks of players: in terms of their roles, contributions, and character, not their presumed position, potential, or convention. Knight worked with the personnel he had, instead of the players he should have, could have, or would have. It's the common thread that binds all successful leaders of the hardwood. Coach Knight innovated not from rigid theory but from his fluid cast of players and their skillsets - obsessively tweaking and rehauling his style every year to meet his era and his recruiting class. Coach Knight's 902 wins form a great accomplishment that will never be forgotten. But even more importantly, Knight inspired his protege Mike Krzyzewski to do the same for his program with as much success.*

*Or, statistically speaking, with one more success.

Hello, everyone. I was going to finish my CBA proposal analysis series with a post featuring a long angry rant about the disclaimer process and the general tenor of the negotiations. But I got roped into a discussion earlier with the imitable Mr. Swanson of Rufus on Fire (who, by the way, you should vote for here to get him a scholarship -- stand-up blogger, hilarious guy) in trying to determine how many people had been laid off by the lockout. Ever since May, I've been keeping a text file with references for the number of employees each team has been reported to have fired. I realized during that conversation that not everyone has been keeping close tabs on the labor situation, and there's a pretty good reason for that. Namely, nobody has actually posted a compilation of all collected sources on employees laid off team-by-team.

Consider this a compilation for that reason. After the jump, I've put together a table including every current source for layoffs on a team-by-team basis, along with our most recent update for the team in question, the number of layoffs reported for that team, and a few choice notes whenever applicable. I'll keep updating this throughout the lockout as we get wind of new layoffs, or as unreported layoffs get reported. Please don't hesitate to email us at staff@gothicginobili.com if you have any news of further layoffs that we don't have yet, any more reliable sources to back up our general hodgepodge of news sites, or any anonymous tips for the teams we have no sources for. Or if you just like emailing people, I guess...?

• • •

=========================================================
============ SOURCED LIST OF LOCKOUT LAYOFFS ============
=========================================================
           LAYOFFs  AS OF        NOTES
NBA HQ     >200     10.24.11     Approx 200 leaguewide layoffs OUTSIDE teams.
ATL           0     10.11.11     Confirmed zero.
BOS           ?        --        No source. Surrounding business layoffs, tho.
CHA           7     07.12.11     Includes their play by play guy.
CHI           0     10.31.11     Confirmed zero.
CLE           0     07.26.11     Confirmed zero.
DAL           0     11.02.11     Confirmed zero, with no plans for future layoffs.
DEN           ?        --        No source. Surrounding business layoffs, tho.
DET          15     07.12.11     Have laid off "at least" 15.
GSW           ?        --        No source.
HOU          13     11.21.11     Laid off a department of 13 sales execs last summer.
IND           3     08.09.11     Originally reported zero, then didn't re-up three key scouts.
LAC           1     11.18.11     Let go D.J. Foster, former Website Content Coordinator.
LAL          20     07.22.11     Includes assistant GM
MEM           7     09.21.11     Recently laid off 7.
MIA           0     10.05.11     Confirmed zero, however, all staff has taken a 25% pay cut.
MIL          20     08.20.11     Source says "close to" 20.
MIN         >11     11.25.11     Definitely more than 11, most likely >15. See 11/25 change log.
NJN           3     11.10.11     Source: anonymous former NJN employee I happen to know.
NYK           ?        --        No source.
NOH           ?        --        No source.
OKC           ?        --        No source.
ORL           ?        --        No source. Surrounding business layoffs, tho.
PHI           2     10.25.11     Only two scouts confirmed.
PHX           0     11.01.11     Confirmed zero.
POR           2     07.15.11     Only two confirmed.
SAC          11     05.14.11     Happened before the lockout in preparation for it.
SAS           ?        --        No source. Surrounding business layoffs, tho.
TOR           ?        --        No source.
UTA           0     07.18.11     Confirmed zero.
WAS           0     11.05.11     Confirmed zero.
=========================================================

A few housekeeping notes. First, in one of the more recent sources for the leaguewide layoffs, it mentions that the league has counted "almost 200" lost front office jobs among teams. This list accounts for 115 lost front office jobs. That means that, without question, most of the nine "no source" teams have probably laid off workers. And some of the teams with low layoff numbers most likely have laid off more than have been reported. Again, I appreciate any clarification anybody can offer as to sources for these team's labor dealings throughout the lockout and any updates that escape my view. Just drop me a line either through email or in the comments. The best way to get good data here is to crowdsource it. So, spread the link around, and don't hesitate to fix any faulty info here. Stay frosty, folks.

CHANGE LOG

11/15 - List initially published. Zoinks!

11/18 - Updated to add the Clippers letting D.J. Foster go.

11/21 - Updated to add Rovell's find that the Rockets laid off 13 sales executives.

11/25 - A bit hard to sift through, but a new article declares that a 12 person T-Wolves broadcasting department has been cut from 12 people to 4 people over the last few months. Since the majority of the previously reported 11 were in sales, it stands to reason that of the 8 new layoffs at least a few of them are new. I've updated the Timberwolves number to reflect that we know it's greater than 11. If I had to guess. I'd put the intersection of these two sources at 15 or 16 confirmed layoffs.

This post is part two of a three part series examining the final doomed CBA proposal pre-disclaim.

The other day, the NBA officially released the terms of the final CBA proposal sent to Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher in the latest CBA negotiations. I began, earlier today, a point-by-point analysis trying to determine what the players would do. The more I looked at the CBA, the more convinced I was that they'd take it based on the tenor of negotiations. I was wrong. They rejected it, disbanded the union, and plunged the NBA into nuclear winter. Not the players' fault, mind you. This is supposed to be a relatively neutral look at the CBA proposal and an honest delineation of its merits and demerits. Although it's now little more than a curiosity for the sake of itself, maybe by going through it I'll come to some epiphany about why the NBA is, for all intensive purposes, gone. I will continue to go through it, point by point. Though only God knows why.

• • •

3. Guarantees/Escrow

• NBA to guarantee players’ 50% share of BRI (or the applicable percentage between 49% and 51% if BRI Split “Option 2” is selected). If for any season aggregate player salaries and benefits fall short of the agreed-upon share of BRI, the difference would be paid by the NBA to the Players Association for distribution to all NBA players who were on a team roster in that season on such proportional basis as may be reasonably determined by the Players Association.
• 10% escrow withholding used in all seasons.
• If the 10% escrow is insufficient to reduce aggregate player salaries and benefits to the agreed-upon share of BRI, then the overage will be paid as follows: (i) first, from the new benefits pool to be funded with 1% of BRI (described in Section 15); and (ii) if an overage remains, from player salaries and benefits in a manner to be determined by the parties.
• Parties to agree on mechanisms to adjust Salary Cap and Tax levels as may be needed so as to ensure that the agreed-upon share of BRI is not exceeded

One word that was on the lips of most NBA players entering today's doomed discussions was escrow. So it may behoove me to stop here for a second and explain the concept of escrow to the uninitiated. Escrow is, essentially, the wiggle room that allows the BRI splitting system to work. When the owners send out paychecks to the players under their team's employ, a certain percentage of each paycheck is withheld and placed in an fund. This fund is the escrow withholding. At the end of the season, numbers are calculated to see what percentage of BRI the owners made and what percentage of BRI the players made -- in order to make those figures match the agreed upon BRI numbers, the escrow is divvied between the players and owners to match it. For instance, if the agreed upon split was 50-50 and the players made $2 billion to the owners $2 billion over a full season, all escrow salary would be returned to the players, as giving any of it to the owners would throw off the 50-50 balance. If, on the other hand, the players made, say, $2.2 billion and the owners made $1.8 billion, 100% of the escrow (0.2 billion) would be split among the owners to make the salaries even.

The actual calculations are quite a bit more complicated in the current CBA, as there's a 57-43 split, but the idea is generally the same. Escrow is the mechanism that allows the NBA's financial structure to hit certain BRI thresholds on a yearly basis. The percentage of each paycheck withheld in escrow has, in recent years, been slowly going down. While escrow was at a flat 10% after the last CBA, it went down to 9% in 2007 and was at a CBA-low 8% last year. Last year, due to a record high BRI figure, the players received 100% of their escrow funds for the first time in the new CBA -- normally, they received $20-30 million a season back from a figure that tended to be around $150 million. The NBPA also received a check for $21.6 million to fill the gap between the amount the players actually received and the amount they should've received.

The current escrow structure proposed isn't that much different than the current system. In fact, it really isn't different at all. Sure, if the owners spend more than 50%, under this system they would get to take money from the 1% of BRI designated for pension and player benefits (see: section #15) and keep all of the escrow, possibly dipping more into player salaries if they needed to. But that's, well, basically how escrow works. If the player salaries don't meet benchmarks, they get all their escrow and then get extra money from the league to split the difference. If there are any cap-heads reading this that have anything more to say on it, or have something to point out that I'm completely missing, I'd much appreciate the shout (especially Larry Coon, though I sincerely doubt he has time to read this). But under previous rules, any overage not covered by escrow would be taken from next year's escrow. Owners could overspend and then take 100% of the escrow in the previous system, with overage being taken from the NEXT year's escrow. This isn't new.

Ric Bucher's fearmongering about how the owners would never be disincentivized from spending so much that they take 100% of escrow seems to me rather silly and misguided -- that's an aspect that's present in the current CBA, and while it's not fun, it is what it is. What the players may be protesting is the imposition of a flat 10% escrow across all years of the new CBA -- a reasonable protest, but not really a game breaking one. If that's not it, they're essentially opposing the system of escrow itself. A reasonable battle, but not one that has any particular relevance given that the escrow system is far and away the most efficient way to reach the BRI targets that this and the old CBA demand they reach. The change in escrow is more an accounting change than anything else, and far from some kind of draconian salary death star that was going to bankrupt the league's players.

4. Maximum Length of Contracts

• Maximum contract length of 5 years for Bird players and 4 years for other free agents.
• Maximum of 4 new years for rookie extensions (except maximum of 5
  new years for a maximum-salary Designated Player rookie extension –
  team can have only 1 Designated Player on its roster at any time).
• Maximum of 4 total years for veteran extensions (e.g., 3 new years if
  extension signed during last year of player’s original contract).

For all the discussion about player movement being hurt (a discussion I'm in agreement with, this CBA proposal definitely hurt player movement with the tax issues and the exception cutbacks), this actually does help it. Even though it does so in a relatively shitty way for the players that they probably don't want to hear. Smaller contracts mean players will encounter free agency more often and ensure that there's more turnover for middle class guys, and more general fluidity around a few core players for each team. It also means bad contracts (the #1 source of wealth for many not-really-top-tier NBA players) will be shorter. Those players will be on the market more often, and going between teams more often.

You can make the relatively strong argument that this isn't the kind of movement players want, but you can also make the argument that players (at the end of the day) will encounter free agency more and have more control over their own landing spot with shorter contracts than they do in the current CBA. And you can make the argument that players will spend less time grossly underpaid. Well. Sort of. Until you get to the indefensible rookie clauses in this proposal. But lowering contract years in general is a good thing for player movement without the agency of teams.

5. Annual Increases

• _ Maximum annual increases of 6.5% for Bird and Early Bird players, and 3.5% for other players._

This is interesting, because while the numbers are less, the structure of raises changes marginally here. In the current CBA all raise calculations are based on the first year of a player's salary. For non-bird players, you get a yearly raise of up to 8% of your first year's salary -- for bird players, you get a yearly raise of 10.5% of your first year's salary. Under this, if I'm reading it correctly, the raises are compounded, meaning that your raise in year 3 is 6.5% of your salary in year 2, not year 1. I may be wrong, but that's how I read it.

Regardless, this is a no-frills concession demanded from the players based on the current CBA. A four percent decrease in Bird player raises and a five percent decrease in non-bird players is serious business. Essentially cuts your raises in half on all contracts going forward, and ensures that Joe Johnson (in the event of contracts not being voided) signed essentially the last full-max Bird right deal ever. Pretty grim. Lowering the years at least has the tertiary effect of giving players more free agency -- lowering the raises essentially hamstrings teams into giving smaller contracts and continuing the league maxim of underpaying superstars. Great success.

6. Minimum Salaries

• Minimum player salary scale reduced from amounts shown in 2005 CBA for 2011-12 in proportion to overall system reduction (i.e., approx. 12% lower than under the 2005 CBA). Scale grows by 3.5% in future seasons.

About the same, just scaled down for the BRI scaling. Scale grows by about the same amount it did before. This is status quo, although the pay decrease isn't great. It's a product of the BRI split -- with a 50-50 split, this is essentially a requirement.

7. Maximum Salaries

• Rules governing maximum individual salaries for new contracts are the same as under the 2005 CBA.

This could not possibly be more Status Quo-y.

8. Salary Guarantees

• _Salary guarantees remain the same as under the 2005 CBA; i.e., there will be no limitations on a player’s ability to receive 100% guaranteed salary in all seasons of a contract.
  _

Wait. Yes it could. It could be this one. This is more status quo-y.

9. Other Contract Rules

• __For new contracts, salary of waived players to be “stretched” for cash purposes such that the player’s remaining protected compensation would be paid over twice the number of remaining contract years plus 1 year.__In lieu of the usual Cap treatment, the waiving team may elect to have the waived player’s salary follow the stretched cash allocation, except that stretching a waived player’s salary for Cap purposes is not permitted where the portion of total team salary attributable to all waived players in any future season would exceed an agreed-upon percentage of the Salary Cap in effect during the season in which the player is waived.
• _ Team and player options are prohibited in new contracts with first-year salaries that exceed the average player salary. Team options in rookie scale contracts continue to be permitted. Non-minimum players with first-year salaries that exceed the average player salary may opt out of the last year of a contract if the contract contains zero salary protection for that last year._
• _ All salaries for 2011-12 to be prorated in proportion to the number of 2011-12 regular season games that are canceled
  _

A few things to unwrap here. First, the Eddy Curry stretch exception. Not really a big problem, given that this will be rarely applied and when applied will happen between that player's lawyer and the team, to ensure the salary paid is inflation adjusted and all that good stuff. Not really a big issue, especially since the player can sign somewhere else as well. Should make trades more interesting, if it is still there whenever the NBA comes back years from now. The second is essentially the Wes Matthews exception, making sure that undrafted rooks don't end up with crazy salaries of over $6 million dollars a year straight up. There was... well, virtually no danger of this happening, but I guess they wanted to protect from Kahn signing a D-League player to a max contract? Whatever. Lastly, pro-rating the current season's salary. Don't see an issue there, frankly -- you're paid to play the game, you play fewer games, you get less cash. I'd be shocked if this wasn't in here.

10. Rookies

• First-year salary amounts for first round picks are reduced from the amounts shown in the 2005 CBA for 2011-12 in proportion to the overall system reduction (i.e., approx. 12% lower than under the 2005 CBA). First-year salary amounts in future seasons’ rookie scales to increase by 3.5%. Year-to-year increases within each season’s rookie scale to increase by 3.5% in years 2 and 3 and by the percentages set forth in the 2005 CBA rookie scale for year 4.

Like minimum salaries, you knew the 50-50 BRI split would rear its ugly head at some point. This is where they chose to rear it. 12% decrease doesn't sound like much, but it's a pretty big gap, especially given the already gaping maw between what top tier rookies should be paid and what they are paid. 1980 Magic Johnson? 1999 Tim Duncan? 2011 Derrick Rose? All of them deserve pay cuts, apparently! Granted, so do rookie Darko, rookie Thabeet, and other such busts. So it cuts both ways. Still. The 50-50 split has to come somewhere, and scaling the system back to account for it certainly does it.

11. Free Agency

• Sign-and-Trades -- Taxpaying teams prohibited from acquiring a free agent in a sign-and-trade, except during the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons. The maximum contract length for a sign-and-trade is 4 years, and maximum annual increases are 3.5%.
• Offer Sheets -- Period for a player's prior team to match an offer sheet that a restricted free agent receives from a new team shortened from 7 to 3 days.
• Qualifying Offer-- Qualifying Offer amounts for first round picks 16-30 who are “starters” (criteria to be determined by the parties) increased to a range of 55-65% over 4th year Rookie Scale amounts; picks 1-15 and picks 16-30 who are “non-starters” are the same as under 2005 CBA. Qualifying Offer amounts for non-first round picks who are “starters” increased to 140% over prior year’s salary (vs. 125%).All Qualifying Offers fully guaranteed.

The clause that purportedly blew up talks is the first one, here -- the sign-and-trade for taxpayers. Which is patently absurd, given that it has been used 3 times in the last ten years and two of those were Eddy Curry and Kwame Brown. And due to it not kicking in until year 3, it'd only be active in 4 years of the CBA if the players decide to use their leverage in the next negotiation to get it back. Though I seriously doubt they'd think it's worth that, because frankly, it's not worth using leverage to change. It means nothing.

The offer sheet caveat is more of a front-office thing, essentially meant to make sure teams don't mess up other teams a la the Houston Rockets screwing the Cavs last summer in free agency when Kyle Lowry was signed by Gilbert to a great and slightly overpaid contract. The Rockets sat on it a week while agents were getting signed, then suddenly and unexpectedly picked up the option leaving the Cavs with literally nothing to show for the summer. Still, don't think it's a bad addition. I like the qualifying offer pitch, too -- it ensures teams can't lowball their players as much as they tend to do. It's a rather cosmetic change, though the fact that they fully guaranteed the qualifying offer is decent of them.

• • •

I'm really angry and frustrated about the season's demise. Therefore, the last post of this series will be part analysis, part nuclear rant. I'd say "be there or be square", but really, it's an awful thing that makes me mad. My writing will probably suck. Regardless. Be here for the stirring conclusion wherein I determine whether this deal is worth the disclaimer. Spoiler: it's an awful deal and it probably deserves it. Further spoiler: I don't really care.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today.

This post is part one of a three part series examining the final doomed CBA proposal pre-disclaim.

The other day, the NBA officially released the terms of the final CBA proposal sent to Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher in the latest CBA negotiations. Among the myriad terrible PR moves by both sides during this excruciating lockout, this is one of the more transparent and respectable things they've done. The majority of the lockout coverage has been through hearsay and anonymous sources. To actually release the proposal on the table publically both opens the NBA up to criticism and allows fans and media to actually take a look at the real proposal and figure out what they like, and what they don't. How bad of a deal is it, essentially? If the players blow up talks today and decide to decertify (edit: they did, making this more a retrospective curiosity than anything substantial -- not that I'm going to let that keep me from finishing the job), is it a reasonable response? Given that we now have the ability to do it, I'm going to put on my thinking cap and find out just how crummy the deal is. So let's go through it, point by point.

• • •

1. BRI SPLIT

Players to elect one of two system options:

• Option 1: BRI is split 50%/50% each season between the players and teams.

• Option 2: Same as Option 1, except in addition:

• Players receive a greater share of BRI to the extent BRI exceeds projections, and a smaller share of BRI to the extent BRI falls short of projections. Specifically, the players' share will be increased by 57% of incremental BRI in excess of projected BRI for each season, and will be reduced by 57% of the amount by which BRI falls short of projected BRI for each season.

• The players' resulting overall share of BRI in a season is no less than 49% and no greater than 51%.

So, here's the big pickle. Start the CBA proposal with the rat poison. The current BRI split is 57% for the players, 43% for the owners -- with, believe it or not, a flex exception that allows the player's component of BRI to increase if BRI goes over a certain threshhold (one that it never met, but came within 0.1 billion of happening last season and almost certainly would've happened this season). If it had, players would've gotten 57.5% of BRI, and they would've gotten 58% if BRI had ever gone above 4.8 billion (which probably would've never happened, but still). So, this is a really huge concession by the players. Enough so that you would expect some system levity going forward.

To wit -- full BRI was $3.81 billion last season. With a 57% cut, the players are cumulatively getting $2.16 billion. With a 50% cut? $1.91 billion. May not seem like a huge gap when calculated at the billions level, but that's $250,000,000 the players are giving up, straight off the top. That's huge. With the NBA's losses being reported as around $300,000,000 per year, this (plus revenue sharing, something that will be dealt with on the supply side) should essentially cover that. And that's if you believe the loss numbers. Personally, I don't, but that's a sticky issue we probably don't need to get into right now. Regardless. It's a huge concession. The owners getting the players to even consider agreeing to this level of BRI split is a measure of how thoroughly the players got flogged in these negotiations.

And, frankly, answers the question at the top of the post. If the players reject it based solely on BRI, I can't say I completely blame them.

2. System / Salary Cap

• System includes a Soft Salary Cap as under the 2005 CBA.
• Salary Cap and Tax levels set in relation to the projected escrow level (escrow level equals 50% of BRI, less Benefits, divided by 30) in same proportions as under the 2005 CBA. Salary Cap and Tax levels in years 1 and 2 to be no less than their 2010-11 levels.

Now, there's something relatively important here that isn't getting much play. Notice the last sentence of the second bulletpoint? The salary cap can't fall under 2011 levels for two years, and neither can the tax level. That's extremely important. Combined with some of the points I'll be getting into later, the fact that the cap can't fall from $58.1 million is a very player-positive development. The fact that the tax level can't drop below $70.3 million is a very player-positive development. And the fact that the players kept a soft cap -- even though the tax is on the edge of punitive -- is a good development both for the league and for player salaries going forward.

Let's go over the exceptions, starting with the new three-pronged midlevel.

• Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception: Set at $5M in years 1 and 2, growing 3% annually thereafter; maximum contract length alternates between 4 and 3 years; can be used every year.
• Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception: Set at $3M in year 1, growing 3% annually thereafter; maximum contract length of 3 years; can be used every year.
• Mid-Level Exception for Room Teams: A new Exception is available for teams that use Room under the Salary Cap (and therefore forfeit their Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level and Bi-Annual Exceptions). The exception allows a team using Room to thereafter sign one or more free agents to a contract with a total first year salary up to $2.5M and up to 2 years in length. Exception amount to grow 3% annually.

Really, not great for the players. Though the room exception is interesting, and new. And new exceptions are essentially always player-positive, since they usually will mean more players getting more money. The fact that they're cutting contract length will ensure better free agency periods for the fans, and keep owners from making bad mistakes (like, say, paying Ron Artest $6.7 million a year past his prime). So, they're reasonable changes. But not fun ones, and not easy ones to swallow. For reference, here's what the starting level of the contracts will be over the duration of this CBA. Numbers in millions:

.... 2012  2013  2014  2015  2016  2017 ..
TAX  3.00  3.09  3.18  3.28  3.38  3.48 ..
NON  5.00  5.00  5.15  5.30  5.46  5.62 ..
ROOM 2.50  2.57  2.65  2.73  2.81  2.90 ..

Not great, but looking at those contract numbers, they're not as awful as expected. The 3% annual growth ensures that these exceptions will both get relatively more palatable over the life of this CBA. It's a beefed up biannual for taxpayers and essentially the current midlevel adjusted for the overall lesser BRI share of the players. Not great. But not a shellacking, realistically.

The most interesting aspect of this is the "room" midlevel exception, a new feature that probably should be labeled the Miami Heat exception. Why? Essentially what it does is it allows teams that start free agency under the cap and fill all their cap room to sign one or two more non D-League players to small contracts. As a general rule, neither previous midlevel could be used by a team who used their room under the cap to sign contracts. This exception allows teams that fill their cap to fill in tertiary players on 1-2 year contracts valued at less than 2.5 million annually. Which isn't bad, if you're a ring chasing vet. This also has the 3% annual growth caveat, which should push the collected value of contracts signed with this exception up to striking distance of $3 million by the end of this CBA. Not bad. And a decent new exception that throws a bone to teams that try to build their own Heat level super-teams.

• _ Bi-Annual Exception can only be used by non-taxpayers. Amount set at $1.9M in year 1, growing 3% annually thereafter. Exception cannot be used in 2 consecutive years and has maximum contract length of 2 years (same as under 2005 CBA)_

This is actually a slight change from the current Bi-Annual exception -- it sets the value back from its current level of $2.08 million to $1.90 million, a difference of about $180,000 for players signed in the new Bi-Annual. Not a big concession, but a slight one that's worth calling out. All other terms of the exception remain the same.

• Disabled Player Exception set at lesser of (i) 50% of the disabled player’s salary, or (ii) the amount of the Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception. Maximum contract length of 1 year. Exception available to be used to replace player who suffers season-ending injury (same as under 2005 CBA).

This is also a slight rollback. Under the current CBA, the maximum exception value is the lesser of 50% of the disabled player's salary or the average NBA salary (last season: $5.7 million). Under this rule it'll be the lesser of 50% of the disabled player's salary and $5.0 million, a difference of roughly $700,000. Though I would caveat that average player salaries will certainly decrease under this CBA, meaning that long-term the $5.0 million mark might be better for the players, if only marginally so. Overall, a wash.

• Traded Player Exception increased for non-taxpayers such that the amount a non-taxpaying team has available to replace a traded player or players equals the lesser of (i) 150% of salaries of players being traded plus $100,000, or (ii) the salaries of players being traded plus $5M. (For purposes of this rule, team is a nontaxpayer if its post-trade team salary is below the Tax level.)Traded Player Exception for taxpayers equals 125% of the salaries of players being traded plus $100,000 (same as under 2005 CBA). Base Year Compensation (BYC) in connection with the Traded Player Exception is eliminated, except in sign-and-trade transactions. Trades of players who otherwise would be subject to BYC prohibited until January 15. Criteria for whether a player is subject to BYC same as under 2005 CBA.

I don't really feel like going over the complicated intricacies of BYC right now -- it's complicated, annoying, and altogether hard to explain. The best source I can give you to glean your own understanding is here, where Larry Coon gives his take on it. He's a salary cap God, basically. Nevertheless. This is a relatively neutral development for players as far as I can see, as it basically just means that non-taxpayers will have more friendly math for their own trades. It'll be easier for teams under the cap to take back more than they give away, salary-wise, in trades. From an economic perspective I don't see how this impacts players so much as player movement. I could be wrong, though, and feel free to school me on this if you read it differently.

We're done with the exceptions, by the way. Overall, not player-positive, but the overall picture isn't entirely negative due primarily to the addition of the room midlevel. The increased ability of below-cap teams to take back more than they give in trades should lead to a more interesting trading market, too, which is fan-positive. Otherwise, the owners are placing small rollbacks on a few exceptions, but nothing too exotic other than the taxpayer midlevel that changes the old taxpayer midlevel into a beefed up bi-annual. Let's move on.

• _ Minimum Team Salary increased to (i) 85% of Salary Cap in years 1 and 2, and (ii) 90% of Salary Cap starting in year 3. _In years 1 and 2, Tax rate for teams with team salary above Tax level is $1-for-$1 (same as 2005 CBA).

Alright. While this is nothing like the BRI concession the players made, this is actually a relatively meaningful middle class-positive concession, especially given the circumstances. There's been a lot of rhetoric about how this proposal could kill the NBA's middle class. This is the owners' first (and, frankly, only) real attempt to combat that. What this means is that teams like the Sacramento Kings and the Charlotte Bobcats can't continue to operate with payrolls significantly under the cap -- the current minimum salary is 75% of the cap, and the 85-90% level is definitely going to change the way teams like that (and the Nets, and the pre-LeBron Heat) operate.

If a team wants to enter a free agency period with a lot of cap room, they can't just keep hoarding it and paying virtually nobody to play basketball for them. They'll need to sign players. This is a good improvement for the NBA's middle class, although it may have the tertiary effect of curtailing player movement a touch (in that it'll be harder for teams to clear cap room for big time free agency periods, though nowhere near impossible if their team is well managed).

• Beginning in year 3, Tax rates for teams with team salary above Tax level are as follows:
  

  Tax Level     Tax Rate

  $0M - 5M $1.50-for-$1 $5M - 10M $1.75-for-$1 $10M - 15M $2.50-for-$1 $15M - 20M $3.25-for-$1

• Tax rates increase by $0.50 for each additional $5M above the Tax level (e.g., for team salary $20M-25M above the Tax level, the Tax rate is $3.75-for-$1).
• Tax rates for teams that are taxpayers in at least 4 out of any 5 seasons (starting in 2011-12) increase by $1 at each increment (e.g., for team salary $5M-$10M above the Tax level, the Tax rate for a repeat taxpayer is $2.75-for-$1 instead of $1.75-for-$1).

A few thoughts on this. This isn't good for the players. That much is obvious. It means that it's going to get a lot harder for teams to pull a Dallas and spend gobs and gobs of money year in and year out to try and get a championship. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I think a progressive tax depending on the level to which you're overspending isn't an awful thing. It does make it essentially prohibitive to spend $15m+ over the tax line (remember, tax line is still up for negotiation, though even at current levels it'll be a good 12-15 million above the cap line). But there were only three teams that spent that much over the tax line last season, and teams that are that far over the line are actually relatively rare, historically. For example, back in 2007, only one team was over that line (the Knicks, at a cool $45 million over the tax line). This may not be as big of an issue as one would think. In fact, in the 2010-2011 season, out of seven taxpaying teams, four of them would be at the minimum tax level. It will be a change, but not a huge one.

There's also been a lot of ink spilled about the repeater tax. But really? This current agreement makes it essentially worthless. Seasons counted for the repeater tax START at 2011-2012, which means that the repeater tax is not going to be at all calculated until the 2017 season. Which means there will only be two seasons before the inevitable opt-out where the repeater tax is assessed at all. Two seasons! And they need to be taxpayers in 4 out of 5 years -- if they're close to the line a few years, they can make a small trade to get under the line. Or possibly apply the stretch clause. It's unlikely the repeater tax is going to affect more than 1 or 2 teams at a maximum -- in the 2011 season, it would have applied to the Mavs and the Lakers, and that's it. With the disincentive of the repeater tax present as a disincentive, the Lakers could've most likely taken a few mil off their salary in 2008 and kept from paying it. The Mavs were screwed. But if the tax is being paid only by Cuban, it's hardly going to be a big deal on a league-wise scale.

The remaining clauses to section two are essentially housekeeping -- non-taxpaying teams cannot receive more than 50% of tax revenue to ensure the non-taxpayers don't rip off the tax-payers. A team that uses the non-taxpayer MLE cannot turn around and balloon their salary above the tax line later in the season -- though, they can go over the tax line by less than $5 million so long as they do transactions later in the season to get under the tax line. Nothing too impactful, so far as I understand it.

• • •

Due to the length of the CBA proposal, I'm going to split this post into three distinct parts. The next post will cover article #3 (Guarantees/Escrow) to article #11 (Free Agency). The post after that will cover the remainder of the CBA proposal, with some overall thoughts about it and the union's rejection. Perhaps Alex and I will do a small thing with our joint thoughts on the disclaimer, depending on how thoroughly I choose to address it in this series. Regardless. Second part drops later today, while the third part will probably drop Tuesday morning. See you then.