HoopsHype.com Rumors

With the current collective bargaining agreement expiring in July and a standoff between the owners and players looming, a new topic may emerge in negotiations. While a new salary cap has dominated the headlines thus far, the National Basketball Players Association is also planning a proposal to remove the league's age limit. Multiple sources say that the union wants to remove the restriction, which has required all incoming players to be at least nineteen years old and one year removed from high school since 2005. With the owners trying to significantly reduce the rookie salary scale, the union will propose to do away with the age limit and allow players to decide for themselves when they want to enter the NBA. HoopsWorld

CBA, Salary Cap, Lockout, NBPA 

Also, the union feels that if the owners want to slash the rookie salary scale and eliminate guaranteed contracts, then the risk associated with drafting a potential bust is diminished. If a player is earning less and his contract isn't guaranteed, admitting a mistake and moving on becomes much easier. However, convincing the league to adopt these rules will still be difficult. They are in favor of the current age rule and any change in their mind involves raising the limit rather than removing it. But league sources insist that the union isn't backing down and they genuinely believe that they'll be able to reverse the rule. HoopsWorld

CBA, Salary Cap, Lockout, NBPA 

As proof of the Preserve Cap Space For Post-Lockout 2011 mission being pushed by Kings owners Joe and Gavin Maloof, we present the most recent and dramatic example: the Kings had a chance to basically steal Michael Beasley from Miami in July, absorbing his rookie- scale contract ($4.9 million this season, $6.2 million next season and restricted free agency in the summer of 2012) in their salary cap room in the process while raising their talent pool by adding the No. 2 pick in the 2008 draft. Instead, they watched that train go by and saw him go to Minnesota for a 2011 second-round pick and the rights to swap a first-round pick in the future. FanHouse.com

Sacramento Kings, Michael Beasley, Salary Cap 

The league, claiming losses in the hundreds of millions, is seeking a reduction in player salaries of up to 38 percent and a hard salary cap. The union opposes the rollback and wants to build on the current system. The players have offered to reduce their guaranteed cut of league revenues from the current 57 percent. Despite that gesture, Stern said the union’s proposal — which was detailed in news reports last week — would actually be more burdensome, because of other perks the union was seeking. “It would probably be more expensive than our current way we do things,” Stern said, commenting on the proposal for the first time. “It’s a continuation of the current economic system, but with additional exceptions that would probably allow us to spend more than we currently do.” New York Times

Salary Cap 

The National Basketball Players Association, in an address to its members last week, said it's willing and ready to negotiate with the NBA over a new collective bargaining agreement. But don't try to force players to accept a hard salary cap or salary rollbacks. NBPA executive director Billy Hunter made those points and more in a podcast sent to the entire union membership detailing the union stance, sources familiar with the proposal told NBA.com. NBA.com

CBA, Salary Cap, David Stern, Lockout, Billy Hunter, Owners 

The union agreed with the league that increased revenue sharing is needed among clubs, too. But the players are holding firm on certain tent-pole principles. "The union will not agree to a hard cap on the heels of the league generating record revenues year after year," Hunter told the players. Any insistence on a hard cap could well be the major sticking point in the negotiations, and could lead to a work stoppage next summer. Hunter recently said that he's "99 percent sure" a lockout is coming after the CBA expires. NBA.com

CBA, Salary Cap, David Stern, Lockout, Billy Hunter, Owners 

The union believes that the current system is fair, noting that player salary growth has been modest and the future salary commitments for current contracts has consistently gone down since 2004. The key element of the union proposal is an offer to negotiate a "ceiling" and a "floor" to the players' guaranteed percentage of BRI, while keeping the current escrow system and a soft cap in place. In essence, the union is asking for 57 percent to remain as a maximum for player salaries and benefits, but will allow for a lesser amount. NBA.com

CBA, Salary Cap, David Stern, Lockout, Billy Hunter, Owners 

The union also is asking for several changes designed to boost player movement, such as enhanced "trade and signing flexibility" and a mechanism to "promote more bidding on restricted free agents." Such adjustments would "loosen the rigid trade restrictions that prevent player movement more so than in any other team sport," Hunter said. The union also asked to shorten the period that teams have to match the offers to restricted free agents. It's currently one week, with the union believed to want 2-3 days. Hunter also proposed dropping the bi-annual exception in exchange for a second mid-level exception, and the proposal also called for reducing the length of mid-level contracts from five years to four. NBA.com

CBA, Salary Cap, David Stern, Lockout, Billy Hunter, Owners 

Ken Berger of CBSSports.com dropped a bomb's worth of knowledge Wednesday updating the current situation. Included in all of that information was a small nugget about other things the players are asking for in addition to all the salary and money stuff. They want the NBA's age-limit requirement returned to 18. Berger says the players suggested a few non-cap related things that would "improve the game" and "benefit both our players and the league." One of those is a re-examination of the age-limit rule that currently requires players to be at least 19 years old and one year removed from their senior year of high school before they're allowed to enter the draft. CBSSports.com

CBA, Salary Cap, David Stern, Lockout, Billy Hunter, Owners 

According to people familiar with the podcast and mailing, and those familiar with the proposal itself, the union's alternative to the owners' bid to impose a hard cap and slash salaries by $750 million to $800 million annually contained two key steps toward bridging the gap: a revamped revenue-sharing system and an offer to negotiate a reduction in the amount of revenues players are guaranteed to receive as salary and benefits. But rather than move the negotiations forward in a significant way, those olive branches have been brushed off by owners who seem increasingly entrenched in their desire to impose sweeping changes in the league's economic system and use a lockout, if necessary, to achieve their goals, according to sources on both sides of the debate. "I don't think it's so much about what the players propose," one management source told CBSSports.com this week, upon being informed of the details of the players' proposal. "It's about what they're willing to accept. How much pain are they willing to accept?" CBSSports.com

CBA, Salary Cap, David Stern, Lockout, Billy Hunter, Owners 

While sources say some members of the owners' labor relations committee were impressed with the players' willingness to address their concerns in this proposal, the comment above is a fair reflection of the hard-line owners' position: The league's problem isn't revenues, it's expenses, and those expenses need to be reduced -- even at the cost of losing a significant number of games to a work stoppage. CBSSports.com

CBA, Salary Cap, David Stern, Lockout, Billy Hunter, Owners 

But according to management sources familiar with the owners' bargaining position, league negotiators do not view these proposed changes as revenue-neutral or conducive to addressing their concerns about expenses. Owners are seeking to eliminate all cap exceptions by imposing a hard-cap system, but by far the exception they are targeting most aggressively is the mid-level, which often is the vehicle that gets teams in the most trouble. Despite their tendency to misuse it -- or maybe because of that -- the last thing owners want is two mid-level exceptions. As for enhancing player movement by increasing the 125 percent rule -- teams that are over the cap can trade players whose salaries are no farther apart than 125 percent plus $100,000 -- sources say league negotiators view that as a Band-Aid rather than a solution to their expense problem. In some cases, one management source said, such a change might actually perpetuate frivolous spending because teams know it will be easier to dump contracts. CBSSports.com

CBA, Salary Cap, David Stern, Lockout, Billy Hunter, Owners 

While the owners want to do away with the soft salary cap and guaranteed contracts, the players hope to end the age restriction that forbids players from entering the NBA directly out of high school. "We want to go back to the way it was," a source from the NBA Players Association said. "The players have always been philosophically opposed to it. The vast majority of players feel a player should have the right to make a living. If he has the talent and wants to make money to help his family, he should have that right. It's just a matter of principle." ESPN.com

CBA, Salary Cap, David Stern, Lockout, Billy Hunter, Owners 

In our just-completed NHL valuations, the league’s aggregate operating income was $160 million for the 2009-10 season. But without the combined operating income ($177 million) of the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens the league would have lost money. Thus Toronto is worth a league-high $505 million while 16 teams are valued under $200 million. In the NFL, the three most profitable teams (Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins, New England Patriots) earned an average of $105 million during the 2009 season, more than three times the league average. No surprise then that Dallas, Washington and New England are, on average, worth $1.6 billion, 60% more than the typical NFL team. The NBA had total operating income of $234 million during the 2008-09 season (our 2010 valuations and profits will be published in February). But three teams (Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Bulls, Detroit Pistons) accounted for 64% of the league’s profits and 12 teams lost money. So billionaire Michael Ilitch is reportedly pondering buying the Pistons for some $400 million while Michael Jordan snapped up the money-losing Charlotte Bobcats for just $175 million in March. Forbes

Salary Cap, Owners 

The conventional wisdom is that salary caps benefit poorer teams. But in reality they benefit richer teams more. The owners know this, of course. Which is why the real bare knuckles fighting in the current collective bargaining negotiations in these three sports is among owners. Forbes

Salary Cap, Owners 

Stern subsequently confirmed a CBSSports.com report that owners are considering contraction as one option to cut costs -- a threat that is viewed by most parties in the talks as a negotiating tactic -- and a person involved in bargaining told CBSSports.com that owners are seeking a rollback of existing contracts as part of a new CBA. The union has stridently rejected the owners' position on salary reductions, and a person with knowledge of the union's strategy has told CBSSports.com that the owners' bid for a hard salary cap is a "total deal breaker" for the players. CBSSports.com

Derek Fisher, CBA, Salary Cap, David Stern, Billy Hunter 

Jason Maxiell, the player representative for the Detroit Pistons, took a safer course of action Thursday afternoon when asked about a possible work stoppage next summer. "We can't talk about it," Maxiell said Thursday after practice. "There's nothing I can say. Not one bit." The NBA slapped the fine on Leonsis mere hours after he made a comment about the labor issue while speaking to northern Virginia business leaders. "In a salary- cap era -- and soon a hard salary cap in the NBA like it's in the NHL -- if everyone can pay the same amount to the same amount of players, it's the small nuanced differences that matter," said Leonsis, who also owns the Washington Capitals. Booth Newspapers

Detroit Pistons, Washington Wizards, Salary Cap 

Henry, the first-round pick out of Kansas, taken 12th overall by the Grizzlies, missed all of the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas because he hadn't yet signed his rookie deal, and still doesn't have his signature on a contract. And no one seems to know exactly when this is going to get done. The holdup concerns a little-known feature of first-round contracts; the 20 percent rule. After Glenn Robinson's $68 million rookie contract in 1994, owners got the Players' Association to agree to a rookie wage scale that severely cut back the amount of money new Draft picks could make. The new deal ended the astronomical salaries rookies were getting -- the very problem the NFL now faces -- and redistributed the money toward veterans, in the form of salary cap exceptions. One of the features of the new scale was a provision that allows teams to pay as much as 20 percent more or 20 percent less than the agreed-upon scale figure for the player in that Draft slot. If Player Jones is due $1 million next season, for example, his team could pay him as little as $800,000 or as much as $1.2 million. NBA.com

Memphis Grizzlies, Draft, Xavier Henry, Salary Cap, NBPA 

Most teams generally give the player the 20 percent as a sign of good faith, or at least make it easy for him to earn it through incentives like workout bonuses. But a few don't. Memphis has become one of those few. The Grizzlies are offering Henry the exact amount he's due under the CBA -- $1,683,500, according to the union's own numbers. And they're giving him a chance to earn the extra 20 percent --$333,700 -- by playing a certain number of minutes next season. NBA.com

Memphis Grizzlies, Draft, Xavier Henry, Salary Cap, NBPA 

That Henry's agent is the high-powered Arn Tellem only adds to the tension. Tellem is not one to be trifled with, and while the Grizzlies may win the battle by playing hardball, they risk losing much more by annoying one of the league's biggest players. NBA.com

Memphis Grizzlies, Draft, Xavier Henry, Salary Cap, NBPA, Arn Tellem