Your Morning Dump… Where Pierce challenged the owners

  Fisher pierce ray labor

Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics pushed the owners on their insistence that small-market teams couldn’t compete under the current system. Pierce raised the successes of the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder in making his case, one source said. Pierce conceded to owners that he was playing under the final significant contract of his career, but believed he owed to the players that will come after him not to submit to the league’s demands.

Yahoo: Wade, LeBron make stand in labor meeting

You can see in the photo that both Ray Allen and Paul Pierce were there.  And as the link headline says, Wade and LeBron… and Chris Paul… were the headliners in this act.  Wade in particular. 

If nothing else, the owners did see the star players’ resolve on Friday. Once the players entered the room with the owners, Wade reacted harshly to what he perceived as Stern’s condescending way of lecturing him on the issue.

In the exchange, Wade referred to Stern as “David” twice in the exchange, emphasizing the commissioner’s first name. The players had a 57-41 split on BRI in the previous collective bargaining agreement, but the owners want the players’ share to drop 46 percent in the new deal. When the owners refused to move off that 46-percent figure on Friday, several players had to be talked out of storming out of the meeting.

Here's one verson of that exchange:

All this just tells me all of this should have been happening sooner.  The stars showing up and showing solidarity… the owners who (aside from Rob Sarver of Phoenix) seem willing to start dealing… all of this should have happened two months ago.  

Yeah, I know, it takes some pressure sometimes to get stuff done.  But they spent months dicking around.  We could have been watching preseason games instead of this crap. 

On page 2: The "all or nothing" odds when it comes whether we'll have a season

How many games will be played by each team in the 2011-2012 NBA
Regualar Season?

82 Games                                             8/5

51-81 Games                                         4/1

1-50 Games                                          3/1

No 2011-2012 Regular Season                5/4

Via BoDog

So the odds favor no season at all… or a full season.  Not much in between.  

I still have a feeling we're going to be in that 51-81 range.  I keep thinking 70 game season for some reason.  Hey, they're the longest odds on the board.  Might be worth a few bucks. 

The rest of the links:

Globe:  labor meetings resume Saturday  |  Pierce, Allen participate in labor sessions  |  CBS: Wade becomes the man on fire  |  

Arrow to top