Because MLB is boring . . .

My two cents:

All reports are that the NBA will lockout the players on July 1, as soon as the current CBA expires. Unlike the NFL where all the teams turned a net profit last season, the NBA has opened it's books to show over half the teams lost money last year. David Stern has said that to correct the books, he needs a total player salary reduction of about $700-$800 million down from the approximately $2.2 billion it had last year. By my math, that means a reduction in players salaries by about 1/3. This is VERY different from the NFL, in which the owners want a bigger piece of the pie, but the salary cap is still slated to increase in absolute dollars over what it was in 2009.

Needless to say, the players aren't going to accept a 30% pay cut. That said, I think that we're not looking at the total loss of a season, but a partial loss I feel is nearly certain, for two reasons. 1.) While I doubt the 30% reduction in salaries is the owner's "best offer", they are going to want SOME decrease in players salaries. If more than half the teams lost money, there's no way you're going to get 3/4 of the owners (the number needed to ratify a new CBA) to agree to a new CBA, unless at least 3/4 of them stand to turn a profit. However, 2.) We learned from the last time the players went on strike in the NBA about 15 years ago, that a lot of NBA players remarkably live paycheck to paycheck. As soon as the paychecks stopped, the NBA players yielded to the owners demands quite quickly. That's why I say a total loss is unlikely (because the players will cave), but a partial loss is nearly certain (because the players won't cave until their pocketbooks are affected).

It is now expected that the NFL owners and players will reach a deal sometime in the next couple of weeks, which would allow free-agency to begin in mid-July, concurrently with the summer training camps, and would not cost any games. But I think that there were a lot of reasons that the NFL will get this worked out better than the NBA, apart from the $700 million reasons I already mentioned. It's a simply matter of timing. The NFL has a much longer offseason than the NBA. The NBA's offseason is pretty much July-September. The NFL's offseason is February-August. So three months versus six months. In order to be on track to start next season, the NBA will have to accomplish in the next month what the NFL accomplished in the last 4 months. When the first offer placed on the table is a 30% pay cut, I don't see a whole lot of progress there.

As for the Lakers trying to swing a deal for Howard, I can only assume you're asking rhetorically. Once the CBA expires there isn't going to be any player movement between teams. So I think it makes the most sense to expect a lot of the big name players to stay where they are until they play basketball again. Until we know if and when the season is going to start, it may be possible that the trade deadline runs nearly concurrently with free agency.

But what the hell... we'll do the mental exercise.

Howard makes $16M annually. He is signed through the 2012-13 season, but that final year is a player option, so he can opt out at the end of the coming year.

Bynum also makes $16M, and his contract is up at the end of this year.

Odom has an $8.9M salary, is signed through the 2012-13 season with a team option on the final year of the contract.

Here's a problem is see with getting a deal done. Assuming the new CBA resembles the current CBA, the contracts you receive back must equal 85%-115% of the contracts you're giving away. Since Howard and Bynum have equal contracts, the other player or players you'd need to get from Orlando would have to have a salary between $7.6M and $10.2M. I don't see a shooter on Orlando with that salary, which means you're going to need to bring a 3rd team in on the deal, and until we see who that would be, it gets complicated to guess how it would work out.

 

You're right with the contracts - even though Bynum and Howard are a wash, you still get that 15% wiggle room on the salary in terms of acquiring another guy. The other obstacle I see is whether they are willing to do sign and trades. There's no way Orlando trades Howard if they cannot get Bynum signed to a longer deal.

As for trading them before 7/1, that can't happen, because we are past the trade deadline. The new league year starts 7/1, and even though the season is over, you're still in the same league year through 6/30. That's why the NFL couldn't trade players between the end of the season and when the lockout began in mid-March, because they were past the trade deadline in the "old" league year.

 

My bad - I have to offer a retraction. The new NBA season starts today. So from now until July 1, you can trade guys.

 

I don't understand what all the rules are, but evidently some players cannot be traded until after July 1, and I think that's where I got confused. There is a small subset of players who are effectively untouchable. (Perhaps the ones still playing under their rookie contracts?)

 

...not if you are a Phillies fan.

BTW, since 2005, the player with the most HR's and RBI's? Ryan Howard. Believe it.

 

Though the topic is really Basketball if you read through the thread, I am still liking this guy....

 

Oh man - the NBA owners are trying to screw the players big time here. The owner's initial offer to the players is a reduction of revenue sharing from the current player's share of 57% down to 40%. This would also include a 39% decrease in EXISTING contracts. Oh, and they want to all future contracts to be not guaranteed.

Needless to say, that a really lousy deal for the players. While I agree that the league cannot survive with salaries where they currently are, no one made the owners sign those players to outrageous deals. And yeah, there are players who are being paid well in excess of what they're worth. But a lot of those players were playing below that level even before they signed that contract. The owners need to save themselves from themselves evidently.