The NBA is going to make sure that its players have a fun All-Star weekend. According to this article, the league is going to seek a massive restructuring of its collective bargaining unit with the players' union, looking to reduce salaries significantly.
This bears watching. If you "Google" SportsProf, you'll see that over the years I've been on the NBA's case for weakening its brand, having too many teams, too many games, tickets that are too expensive and emphasizing merchandise and entertainment at the expense of the integrity of its core product. That weakening, in my opinion, must be affecting the franchises greatly -- and I would speculate that many are losing money. Reducing players' salaries is only part of the solution -- the league also should reduce the number of teams and the number of teams that can make the playoffs. Let's make the regular-season games more meaningful, and let's trim the fat from the league. That's a harsh thing to say, but the NBA is competing in a very difficult landscape for the marginal sports dollars that aren't spent on the NFL, college football, college basketball, baseball and even NASCAR. The league needs to do something to stay relevant, but it's more than just taking it out of the players' salaries.
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Brand dilution, I like that view of the NBA. The NBA is going to die because the only creative mind at the Ownership level is Mark Cuban.
Every d@mn rule about contracts and the such have diminished the quality of the NBA.
One of the things about the NFL, and I think that stands for its popularity is they don't go changing the rules after every controversy. The NBA is overreacting to the Arenas incident, what he & Critteron(sp) did was stupid, but they get suspended for the year. The same punishment the NFL's Stallworth got for killing a guy.
The actions of the NBA management fulfills the perception that their players are systematically out of control, where the NFL makes it look like a bad apple.
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