NBA Players May Talk Themselves Into A Lockout

By Richard Nurse @blackirishpr on October 23, 2014

Adam Silver says that it is “premature” to speculate on there being another NBA lockout because the league is only in the fourth year of a 10-year collective bargaining agreement.

But public conversations from stars like Kevin Durant and LeBron James have pushed the public’s views towards thinking that it is inevitable that the Player’s Association will opt-out as soon as their six-year option allows.

If you are a potential angry fan, you can blame the league’s new $2.66 billion television deal for the discussion even coming up, especially when owners have been claiming years of money loss. But James crowing about splits is not the sole reason why future meetings could end up buried. Durant’s chatter about eliminating the maximum restriction on individual contracts could put the nail in the coffin.

On the surface, his idea sounds genius — at least for the superstar elite — but what happens when the top players take every penny and leave their teams with scraps to fill out the rest of the roster? And all of this has to be done under the protection of trying to fit under a salary cap.

In essence, the stars will get richer while NBA owners have the chance of actually losing cash because of being stuck with terrible teams. So Dallas Mavericks front man Mark Cuban came up with a brilliant trade-off: No more max contract ceilings if guaranteed deals can be eliminated.

Cuban comes off looking like a spiteful owner, but it would be a smart move that saves teams from emptying their wallets on injured former All-Stars who make a living collecting money to bathe in bathtubs of wine like Amare Stoudemire.

It may be hard for some to side with billionaires, but players cannot expect to have their cake and eat it too. Some already get top dollar to sit home injured, while some get overpaid $118 million — before endorsements — and no one can strip them of it for not producing.

The truth of the matter is that if stars want to earn $200 million with no max and all guarantees, they should learn how to hit a ball with a stick and venture to that league or risk another lockout.

Until then it’s nothing more than a case of rich people arguing with richer people about how to make more money.

Richard Nurse is a writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @blackirishpr or add him to your network on Google.