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Rule #1

Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:

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Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.

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In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.

Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.

If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!

All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.

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If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:

http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star

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The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.

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NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

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  • #1

    NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

    Link:

    http://sheridanhoops.com/2011/09/05/...theyre-saying/



    NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying
    Posted on September 5, 2011
    By Chris Sheridan

    NEW YORK — Here’s the dirty little secret about the NBA lockout, despite what both sides — the owners and the players — would have you believe:

    They are a lot closer to a settlement than most people realize.

    I know this because I talk regularly with a bunch of important people who tell me important things, and I am going to explain why I believe a settlement will be reached that will not only save the season, but also enable the NBA to have an “all is forgiven” honeymoon period (similar to what the NFL just experienced following its labor settlement) in which the frenzy of free agents signings, trades, training camps and exhibition games will make everyone forget all of the doomsday talk they’ve been hearing all summer.

    First, some background. If you only listened to union director Billy Hunter, as NBA players were doing in late August while Hunter was touring the country giving status updates to his locked-out membership, you’d think the sides are currently $8 billion apart in their stagnant negotiations. That is the party line from the union.

    But it is not entirely true.

    Yes, under the 10-year collective bargaining agreement the owners have proposed, the gap is indeed somewhere in the area of $7-8 billion range.

    But if you look at the six-year deal the players have proposed, which includes $500 million less in annual revenue (than what they would have received under the old deal) over the six upcoming seasons, the simple math tells a different story:

    Over those six years, the difference in proposed revenues that would go to the players adds up to $2.97 billion.

    That is still a significant amount of money, but it is nowhere near as significant as what is being put out there publicly.

    Moreover, if you look at years 1, 2 and 3 of the proposals, the sides are a total of $870 million apart. (The players are asking for $2.17 billion in salaries and benefits in 2011-12, $2.33 billion in ’12-13, and $2.42 billion in ’13-14. The owners are offering a flat $2 billion per year.)

    Or to put it another way, in a business that brought in $4.2 billion in revenues last season, the sides are only $170 million apart for next season.

    Does that seem like an insurmountable difference that would justify the cancellation of the season? No — especially given the fact that neither side has said it has put its “last and best” offer on the table.

    The gap in what each side is seeking financially in Years 4, 5 and 6 is more significant, and what the owners are asking for in Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 is not completely germane to the equation right now because the players have not indicated they would be willing to do a deal for longer than six years, and history shows the sides traditionally have negotiated six-year labor agreements.

    Owners and players are scheduled to reconvene Wednesday or Thursday to set in motion a series of meetings that will determine whether the lockout is settled in time to save a full 82-game season. If the owners come to the table with an offer that promises more money than the flatlined $2 billion in Years 1-7 that they have been proposing, they’ll be getting somewhere. So that’s the first thing to watch for.

    Another major sticking point, for now, is the owner’s desire to transition from the current soft cap system to a hard cap system in Year 3 of the new CBA, which would necessitate an unprecedented giveback, perhaps through an unlimited escrow tax, perhaps from an across-the-board salary cut for every NBA player, that the players would simply not accept. (If Hunter put that proposal forward to his membership for a vote, it would be rejected, he would be out of a job, and the sides would go back to square one.)

    Also, a transition to a hard team cap in Year 3 would almost certainly necessitate the breakup of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami. You think the NBA really wants that?

    So the Year 3 transition that the league is seeking is actually a red herring. But if there were to be a transition to a hard cap (or a harder team cap through a more punitive luxury tax system) in Year 5 or Year 6, it would allow teams a half-decade of long-term financial planning to get ready for the new harder-cap system. This is one of the areas where it seems the owners have no choice but to soften their current stance.

    But here is the key thing, the two most important words to keep in mind as this lockout plays itself out: Aggregate dollars.

    Right now, the owners have offered the players slightly more than $12 billion in total compensation over the next six seasons. The players are seeking just under $15 billion.

    Somewhere in between $12 and $15 billion lies the settlement number, and they’ll get there one way or another. Once that happens, it’ll take only a few days to tweak other aspects of the CBA – pensions, the anti-drug policy, the draft, the age limit, group licensing — that have barely even been touched upon in negotiating sessions thus far. It would then take approximately two weeks to put the agreement into writing, and then the business would reopen.

    So what does that mean in terms of a deadline to save the current 82-game schedule?

    Here is a projected timeline that pushes things about as far as you can push them:

    Oct. 1: An agreement is reached on aggregate dollars.

    Oct. 4: All remaining issues are settled.

    Oct. 5-19: The agreement is put into writing.

    Oct. 20: Free agency opens and players already under contract are allowed to report to their teams.

    Oct. 21-31: Training camps are held, and each team plays two exhibition games.

    Nov. 1: The season opens on time, with three games: Bulls-Mavericks and Thunder-Lakers in a TNT doubleheader, along with Rockets-Jazz.

    I have been saying all along that there is too much to be lost by having a work stoppage that extends into the fall and forces the cancellation of games. And with the NBA coming off a fantastic season in which attendance, ratings and merchandise sales all skyrocketed, there is took much risk of punishing the product to go too far down the bumpy road the owners have chosen to take.

    At the end of the day, they have too much to gain by making a deal that gives them a significantly larger share of the pie that what they were getting under the old deal. And lastly, all of the principle players in the negotiations are reasonable and rational men. They are not interested in destroying what they’ve built up over the past several seasons, especially in 2010-11.

    So a settlement is coming, and I am here to tell you that it’ll likely come a lot sooner than most everyone else has been predicting. It’ll take a lot of back-and-forth over the remainder of September, but it can certainly get done when both sides can identify the middle ground and move there simultaneously.
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  • #2
    Re: NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

    Well, that certainly is an uplifting article.

    Comment

    • #3
      Re: NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

      i have no idea what i would do without nba especially when i'm this excited about our team. but if this lockout means a better system in the end i can live with that.

      Comment

      • #4
        Re: NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

        I've never understood why so many have been so quick to just assume the whole season will be lost.

        Comment

        • #5
          Re: NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

          I've said it before...I believe they'll work something out before the start of the season
          "So, which one of you guys is going to come in second?" - Larry Bird before the 3 point contest. He won.


          Comment

          • #6
            Re: NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

            So it comes down to a six year deal or longer. I would hate to be back in same spot 6 years from now but the team would probably have peaked before the 6 years were up anyway.

            Comment

            • #7
              Re: NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

              Originally posted by Unclebuck View Post
              I've never understood why so many have been so quick to just assume the whole season will be lost.
              Perhaps because '98 came down to the last day and this time the two sides are much further apart.
              Come to the Dark Side -- There's cookies!

              Comment

              • #8
                Re: NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

                It's still a huge IF. There are still a lot of things that need to be worked out, but they are running out of time, and both sides realize ratings are up, and more people are watching.It would hurt the NBA a great deal if a deal wasn't made. I won't believe that we will miss games until it actually happens. But this article is definitely uplifting about the situation!!
                Passion, Pride, Playoffs, Pacers

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                • #9
                  Re: NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

                  a side note...its this the same Chris Sheridan from ESPN?
                  "So, which one of you guys is going to come in second?" - Larry Bird before the 3 point contest. He won.


                  Comment

                  • #10
                    Re: NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

                    There are some good points in the article and it does a good job of cutting through the rhetoric in how far they are apart. I think the writer reaches too far in assuming how much the owners are going to be willing to cave in and he wants to structure something much closer to the players proposal which is basically working from the same broken system. If the owners truly are losing over $300 mil per year then they need to be able to project a profit in the overall agreement. That wouldn't happen in what he proposes in cutting the deal down to 5-6 years with and finding a happy median between the owners proposal for that time frame and the players proposal. The owners proposal has them most likely losing money during the first 5 years but they're able to make it up in the final 5. If you cut the length of the deal down, and add raises to this then they still lose a lot of money over the length of the contract. The shorter the contract length the more it has to impact the players current salaries if the owners want to show a profit. On top of this he assumes they'll soften their stance on the hard cap. I don't see them caving in this much overall.
                    I actually think the owners proposal of holding the players salaries flat at $2 billion until growth makes them profitable is very fair. They're saying that they're willing to continue operating at a loss for a while if they can show an overall profit in a 10 year span. If they worked from that proposal instead of the players proposal and kept the players pay at the current $2.17 billion for the first 4-5 years so no one would take a pay cut, and then lower this to $2 billion with the hard cap in the final 5 years then they might at least show a profit in the overall contract period.
                    Why do teams tank? Ask a Spurs fan.

                    Comment

                    • #11
                      Re: NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

                      Entirely possible this happens, also entirely possible it completely falls apart. I think its too optimistic and simplistic. I do think its a good sign for the long term resolution to save the season, though. Just not the entire season and on time.

                      Comment

                      • #12
                        Re: NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

                        Originally posted by Kegboy View Post
                        Perhaps because '98 came down to the last day and this time the two sides are much further apart.

                        I don't believe they are further apart (if you comnpare Labor Day 2011 with Labor Day 1998) and I don't believe there is nearly as much bad blood between the two sides as there was back in 1998.

                        Comment

                        • #13
                          Re: NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

                          Originally posted by Unclebuck View Post
                          I've never understood why so many have been so quick to just assume the whole season will be lost.
                          Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. I need the Pacer's to have a season.. More than I do the colts. But be damned if I'm gonna be all "oh it'll be fine.." then get burned. This cynical attitude has me prepared.
                          Reggie Miller is a God. Period.

                          Passion. Pride. Pacers.

                          It's ALWAYS Miller Time.
                          #31 & Only

                          Comment

                          • #14
                            Re: NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

                            I think Pacerized is right. This article assumes the owners will meet the players half way and I don't think thats the case at all.

                            Comment

                            • #15
                              Re: NBA Lockout Update: Sides are closer than they’re saying

                              Originally posted by MillerTime View Post
                              a side note...its this the same Chris Sheridan from ESPN?
                              Yes. Sheridan left ESPN and started his own site. But yeah, it is that Chris Sheridan.

                              Comment

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