Getting Pumped For the Finals

If this doesn't get you pumped, I don't know what will.

Dwight Howard Ruins Kobe v. LeBron

Did you see this coming?

Show L.O. Some Love

The guy has been playing with a jacked up back and all folks seem to do is rag on him. Show the man some love for that performance last night. 

Congrats to the 2009 NBA Defensive Player of the Year

Nike, Kobe and Jordan Pay Tribute to Losers Via Sneakers

Part of what makes Nike such a cultural icon is its ability to release shoes that pay tribute to moments in sports history. Recently they’ve release a few pairs of shoes that just ain’t right.

The first is a series of shoes released by Nike’s Jordan Brand line called the Six Rings. The Six Rings is a fushion shoe that combines elements of all of shoes Jordan wore during his six championship runs. That concept itself is cool, but recently Nike started releasing “tribute” packs in the colors of the opponents Jordan ripped the heart out of during his championship runs. A few years back, I wrote about how Jordan turned championship dreams into nightmares. The last thing fans of those teams want to see is Jordan selling “tribute” shoes in their favorite teams colors to commemorate the beating he gave all of them. As Charles Barkley would say: Magic Johnson, Clyde Drexler, Charles Barkley, Gary Payton, John Stockton and Karl Malone are all rollin’ over in their graves.

Nike has continued this “tribute” trend with their release of the Zoom Kobe IV in a Charlotte Hornets colorway with the 6.11.96 (the date they traded Kobe away) engraved on the back. I guess this is to pay tribute to the Charlotte Hornets making one of the biggest draft day bungles ever when they traded the draft rights to Kobe Bryant to the Lakers for Vlade Divac. Why you gotta do that to Nike? That’s just wrong.

(Via: kixandthecity)

Can the NBA Players Association Force the Owners to Negotiate Better Revenue Sharing Amongst Teams?

I am a firm believer that the NBA's real economic problem is not out of control player salaries, but a lack of revenue sharing amongst its teams. It's a fact that the NBA might have the worst team revenue sharing plan in American professional sports. That lack of revenue sharing has caused small market NBA teams to suffer tremendously over the last few years. And now that the economy has gone down the toilet, the situation for these small market teams has only gotten worse. Yet, instead of petitioning to get more revenue sharing amongst the teams, these small market teams have hopped on the "players make too much money, that's why we suffer" bandwagon. Now it's going to be up to the NBA Players Association to get figure out a way to get the owners to come up with a better team revenue sharing system. 

If the owners don't want to address the issue themselves, the Players Association might be able to force them to address the matter during the next round of collecting bargaining via the "mandatory subject" provision. Basically, the National Labor Relations Board has mandated that union and management must meet a reasonable number of times and discuss and bargain in good faith over mandatory subjects. Mandatory subjects include: Wages, hours and terms of employment; subjects that impact wages, hours and terms of employment; any proposed term that significantly effects/impacts above. The argument for revenue sharing amongst owners being a mandatory subject of CBA negotiations between the players and the owners is that team revenue sharing significantly effects/impacts wages, hours and terms of employment. I believe the Major League Baseball Players Union utilized this provision to promote negotiations of a better revenue sharing amongst Major League Baseball teams. The NBA Players Association should be looking to utilize the same tactic. 

Responding to Yahoo’s AAU Basketball Expose

I’m sure plenty of people felt sick to their stomachs after reading Yahoo! Sports’ Agents and AAU: Unrequited Love. Here are some of my thoughts after reading the piece:

First, it’s sad that many of the agents that dominate basketball do so because of how well they recruit, rather than what services they provide their clients. (Henry Abbott made this exact point last week). In almost every market, customers select businesses to purchase goods and services from based either on quality of the products and services combined, the price of the product and service relative to competing markets, or a combination of both. This is definitely not the case in the world of athlete representation. 

If an agent's success in recruiting was simply based on being able to show the quality of services he/she provides relative to the price charged, that would be one thing. But when agents are signing players based simply on quid pro quo deals, the game just gets slimier and slimier. Part of this has a lot to do with current NCAA rules. Players and agents are not allowed to interact before a player declares for the draft. But precisely because of this rule, we get guys like Pat Barrett who are allowed to carve a niche for themselves as blue chip talent brokers. And it’s not just Barrett and AAU coaches taking part in the transgressions. I’ve heard of college coaches (both assistants and head coaches), family members (including parents!), etc. that have brokered blue chip talent off to agents. As well, because of the rules, we punish the good agents that follow the rules and stay away from heavily recruiting violations and reward the bad agents that will do anything to sign a blue chip talent. 

I’m not going to weigh the pros and cons of allowing agents to have direct contact with players, but by blocking direct contact, you’re increasing incentives for agents to seek out and pay these brokers to deliver players to them, and for individuals with ties to blue chip talent to seek out agents to broker these players off to.

The sad part of this entire system is that players are the ones that end up getting screwed, by ending up with agents that are very good at recruiting and not much else. Here's what Henry Abbott had to say on the matter:

You'd think that all the competition to represent NBA players would make for extraordinary service. But in fact, players mostly choose their agents when they are too young to know much about such things, and instead often seem to choose the agent who does the best job of wooing new recruits.

As a result, service suffers. I have heard of players who haven't been able to get their agents on the phone for days and weeks. Many players have no one who is really thinking about long-term plans to maximize their unique talents to be more effective on and off the court. Or how about if a player has health trouble -- who's helping them get the best care? What if the player wants to be traded -- can the agent build the relationships to get that done?

The truth is that recruiting players -- the wooing of friends, family, AAU coaches and the like -- takes an agent's time and money. That's time and money they can't spend on existing clients.

Young players could fix all that, because they can choose any agent they want. They have the power.

I agree with Henry that players should be doing a better job selecting agents. However, one major issue that encourages the under ground market for blue chip talent is just be the lack of information available to players and their families about the potential agent pool. I'm not sure players and their families have the tools available to them to know which agents are right for them. Under those circumstances, it's easy to see why players would select agents based on gifts from agents and recommendations of brokers, and not on the merits of the actual agent. 

The players association may be underfunded, but I think the organization should try to create an objective means to measure the success of agents and the pros and cons of signing with each particular agent.  The data could then be made available to players and their families.  Perhaps this is just wishful thinking.  Notwithstanding, if there was a completely objective party printing information for players about agents, then future NBA players and their families would have a much easier time selecting an agent to meet the needs.

Maybe one aspect of objective measurement could be created through an anonymous agent evaluation system for players. SI polls players on a variety of subjects throughout the year. I’m sure if the players association gave its members a chance to anonymously evaluate their agents, you would get a good set of data. That type of evaluation system has worked pretty well for law schools in evaluating professors. Before I pick classes I look through evaluations. If a professor has bad evaluations, I’m likely to stay away from the guy. Could the NBPA come up with such an evaluation system for agents? I would love to hear your thoughts.